Terrorism and public relations
Abstract This paper asks what we can learn from the parallels between terrorism and PR, either for the understanding of terrorism or—of more direct concern here—for the understanding of PR and its place in contemporary society. The already poor public image of PR may suffer from insufficient clarity about these parallels. It is suggested that while analogising between the two is of value, the differences between terrorism and PR also need to be stressed. Public communications need to be differentiated in two ways, firstly in terms of the distinction between spectacular and participatory types of public sphere, and secondly in terms of the distinction between values-based and power-based modes of address. Combining these concepts generates a simple 2×2 matrix for c1assifying public communications. This can help both to identify terrorism and PR as different forms of public communication, and also to identify the practical PR challenges facing governments and civic society in the struggle against terrorism.
Communicating strategically in the face of terrorism: The Spanish government's response to the 2004 Madrid bombing attacks
With the re-emergence of insurgency tied to terrorism, governments need to strategically manage their communications. This paper analyzes the effect of the Spanish government’s messaging in the face of the Madrid bombing of March 11, 2004: unlike what happened with the 9/11 bombings in the USA and the 7/07 London attacks, the Spanish media did not support the government’s framing of the events. Taking framing as a strategic action in a discursive form (Pan & Kosicki, 2003), and in the context of the attribution theory of responsibilities, this research uses the “cascading activation” model (Entman, 2003, 2004) to explore how a framing contest was generated in the press. Analysis of the coverage shows that the intended government frame triggered a battle among the different major newspapers, leading editorials to shift their frame over the four days prior to the national elections. This research analyzes strategic contests in framing processes and contributes insight into the interactions among the different sides (government, parties, media, and citizens) to help bring about an understanding of the rebuttal effect of the government’s intended frame. It also helps to develop an understanding of the role of the media and the influence of citizens’ frames on media content.
AN ANALYSIS OF POLYMERIC THICK-FILM RESISTORS AS PRESSURE SENSORS
Abstract The strain-sensing characteristics of thick-film polymer-based resistors printed and cured on 96% alumina are presented. Two layout configurations have been analysed: planar and sandwich. Various strain-gauge characteristics have been studied, including the mechanical and temperature-dependent properties of the polymeric films. It has been shown that the planar polymer resistors exhibit low sensitivity, comparable to that of metal-foil gauges, whereas the MRM (metal-resistor-metal) configurations exhibit similar characteristics to those of cermet thick-film MRM gauges. It has also been observed that the mechanical properties of the polymeric films are significantly poorer than those of cermet-based gauges. This degradation in performance is attributed to the epoxy/pseudo-plastic structure of the polymeric thick-film resistor layer.