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I've been really happy with the positive responses I've received when asking public relations and strategic communications professionals to do interviews for my dissertation research. If you want to join them, let me know. #Comms4Good bsky.app/profile/boon...

1 thing today's world is showing is that the words/stories/narratives we put into the world matter. We must care as much about the people we are communicating to and about as the goals of our organizations. We must be responsible communicators—rather than merely strategic. #CritPR

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Now, I'm a PhD candidate at @uosojc.bsky.social who is seeking out #PublicRelations pros for interviews discussing how they think about language and professional responsibility. In doing so, I hope to show ways practitioners can exercise agency to create more responsible communications and orgs.

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The K-12 teachers who were my classmates told me just how much they disliked working with their schools' comm staffers, and, in doing so, they made me realize I was communicating issues, topics, stories that had real effects on real people—not just things that I could master communicating.

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So I enrolled in "Literacy & Race in the Schools," a class with K-12 teachers that I assumed would let me gain some knowledge to write a how-to for eliminating bias/misteps in #StrategicCommunication. I'd never guess that the class would change my idea of professional responsibility. #CritPR

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

FB memories are often superfluous, but sometimes, they show big things. I didn't know it, but receiving these textbooks as I prepared for the fall of the 2nd year of my professional strat comm MA was one. I knew I had questions that went past the strategies & tactics focus of my MA. #PR #StratComm

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Are you a public relations or strategic communication professional with 5+ years of experience? I'm doing interviews to discuss language & professional responsibility. $15 giftcard available. Interested? Message or email me #PublicRelations #StrategicCommunication #PR #StratComm #CriticalPR

Text stating:
Seeking interview participants for doctoral dissertation.

There are many assumptions and suspicions about what public relations practitioners think and do with language, but what is the truth?

Interviews occurring August-November:
55-minute Zoom interviews
In-person* or email options available

* In-person interviews can occur in Minnesota (Aug-Sept. ) or Oregon (Oct.-Nov.).

Text stating:
Eligibility requirements

To participate in this study, individuals must meet the following criteria:
Have 5+ years of experience working in public relations, strategic communication, or a related professional communication function
Have held at least one role with a substantial writing component (past or present)
Complete the majority their work in English (multilingual practitioners are welcome)
Reside in the U.S. and work primarily for U.S.-based organizations or clients
18 years of age or older

I am interested in the ways practitioners think about language and professional responsibility across all settings, work arrangements, sectors, and positions.

Text stating:

Who is doing this research?
This dissertation research is being done by Sandra Boone, a 4th-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oregon. I worked for 15 years as a professional communicator in higher education, nonprofit, and political settings.

This research comes from questions I had when working, so I’d love to
learn from you!

Plus, you can receive a $15 gift card as a thank you.

Email me at sboone5@uoregon.edu and include "PR language interviews" in the subject line. Learn more about me at boonesk.com.

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Oo! Thank you. I think I figured it out—other than a few items that refuse to be tagged no matter how many times I try.

Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

By the way, this also a good time to remind #PRProfs that we need to add accessibility to the curriculum. It never should have been, but it is officially not optional/extra work now. #PublicRelations

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

For the summer, I am back at the University of Minnesota’s Global Program and Strategy Alliance making PDF forms accessible. Does anyone have suggestions for training videos? An I am in thinking this project is made harder because of Adobe being frustrating? #Accessibility #A11y

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

For more on the CLA Collective and its summer salons, see the following. #PRProfs (and others), let me know if you’d be interested in a subgroup focused on PR or professional/workplace writing. As someone who tried, I’d love talk balance w/ being hired by a client. cla.middcreate.net/news-and-eve...

cla.middcreate.net

News and Events – CLA Collective

Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

As a practitioner who worked for 15 years before starting my PhD, I have been genuinely perplexed by the lack of attention to language in the mass communications fueled. #PR #CritPR

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Yesterday, I shared my dissertation plan with the Critical Language Awareness Collective convened by Dr. Shawna Shapiro. I hope more #PRProf will join me in considering PR ed beyond technical mastery, genre replication, & strategy maximization. #PublicRelations #StrategicCommunication #JPRE #PRProf

PowerPoint slide that states, “Examining public relations practitioners as a speech community of language workers. Generating critical reflection through attention to language, resulting in a more responsible field.” It also includes several book covers from business communication, technical and professional communications, education, PR, and sociolinguistics.

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Reposted by Sandra Boone

FWC Indivisible @fwcindivisible.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

How do you kidnap and deport millions of people? How do you meet a quota of 3,000 apprehensions a day? Racial profiling and indiscriminate abductions. Nobody is safe: #MAGAKidnappers

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Dr. Lee Edwards wrote about the same questions I’ve encountered in exploring language. How can we challenge students and practitioners to think more deeply about the words, language, rhetoric, and stories they put into the world? #PRProfs #CritPR

Screenshot stating: “Practitioners spend long hours framing ideas, composing messages, writing content, checking phrases and words, all to ensure the discourses that end up circulating across audiences are the ‘right’ kinds of discourse, communicating messages that align with their objectives. Yet the importance of language formulation as a form of public relations practice is underplayed in empirical research, which has tended to focus on practitioner experiences and power rather than technical practices such as writing. As a result, there are still many unanswered questions about how practitioners understand and use discourse as a tool of their trade. We know little about how they work with language, how they make choices about the ways they craft texts, the roles of text and visual language, particularly in multimedia environments, and the degree to which their use of language is instinctive rather than conscious, a form of practice that has been absorbed through the rules of the occupational ‘game’ they have bought into” (p. 46).

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I’d also love to connect with any other scholars interested in PR’s language use and writing practices. I have been confused by the lack of scholarship so am looking sociolinguistics and Tech & Pro Comm to import ideas. We use words but do we question them? #PRProfs #CriticalPR

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This means I am officially a PhD candidate and ABD (all-but-dissertation). I am also looking forward to connecting with other communicators to learn about how we use and think about language.

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

To conclude year three at @uosojc.bsky.social, I successfully defended my PhD prospectus, “What’s right in what we write? Exploring the metalinguistic norms, language ideologies, and writing practices of the public relations industry.” #PublicRelations #GradLife

A PowerPoint slide with the text "What’s right in what we write? Exploring the metalinguistic norms, language ideologies, and writing practices of the public relations industry; Sandra Boone, Dissertation Prospectus; June 2025." Next to it is a drawing of people working on laptops, shown from above.

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Attention #PRProfs. How are you talking about #PR's role in supporting DEI with your students? It should be thought of as a question of professional responsibility and ethics.

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Reposted by Sandra Boone

Ashlee 🤟🏻 @ashleemboyer.com · 23/01/2025

“But we have laws!” They don’t care

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Yeah. I've been hoping to find events like this.

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Reposted by Sandra Boone

Lilia @lilialetsch.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Hi Friends! We are hiring for a remote Public Relations Specialist. Movement Media is the best workplace I've ever experienced and this will be a great job for someone with some solid communications / PR experience. Please share! www.linkedin.com/posts/moveme...

linkedin.com

Movement Media on LinkedIn: Movement Media Public Relations Specialist

Movement Media is hiring for a remote Public Relations Specialist to join our dynamic team! Please see the attached job announcement for more details, and…

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

In @dukepress.bsky.social's Pedagogy, Chris Gallagher argued teachers should use ghostwriting to encourage students to develop Critical Language Awareness. #PRProfs, I'd argue that's most of what we teach. How can we encourage students to meet the challenge? doi.org/10.1215/1531...

doi.org

“This Weird Thing I'm Discovering”: Toward a Critical Pedagogical Approach to Ghostwriting

Abstract. This article addresses a pervasive but undertheorized literacy practice: ghostwriting. Drawing on a five-year interview study with undergraduate students, I describe the many ghostwriting ta...

Teresa Valerio Parrot @tvparrot.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Reposted by Sandra Boone

Please stop saying this woman works in crisis PR. I work in crisis PR— I help people/organizations tell the truth even and especially when it is hard. I abide by the PRSA Code of Ethics and our professional values. My profession and her job are quite different. www.prsa.org/about/prsa-c...

prsa.org

PRSA Code of Ethics

The PRSA Code of Ethics is central to the ethical practice of public relations.

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Winter Break goal: Now that I'm a 3rd year Ph.D. student who (in theory) has a better idea of my research, does anyone have suggestions for how to clean out my @zotero.org library of my road-not-traveled research? Particularly, identifying big files? #phdlife #phdchat #phdvoice #zotero

media.tenor.com

a cartoon of a lion and a meerkat with the words you gotta put your past behind ya on the bottom

Alt: Timon (the meerkat in the Lion King) is telling young Simba (the lion), "You gotta put your past behind ya."

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Will you use The Conscious Style Guide when teaching about writing/editing? I'm a Ph.D. student focused on language/writing in public relations, and I'm hoping #PRProfs (and others) will incorporate it in their lessons.

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

"The Conscious Style Guide neatly complements [existing style guides], because it doesn’t intend to compete with them. Instead, Yin recommends using a systemic, thoughtful approach to style questions in a time of rapidly evolving language and cultural change." - @andybechtel.bsky.social

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

Reposted by Sandra Boone

Kasey Bonifacio's 13 Days of Accessibility is a great way to dig into the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which are international standards used to measure accessibility. Kasey's resource makes WCAG more digestible. a11ycalendar.kaseybon.com

a11ycalendar.kaseybon.com

13 Days of Accessibility

Review the 13 WCAG 2.1 guidelines that web designers and developers can follow to create accessible websites.

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Reposted by Sandra Boone

J Suzanne Horsley @profhorsley.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

go.bsky.app/GG4maF3 #PRprofs let me know if you’d like to be added, and tag your colleagues. (Also let me know if you wish to be removed).

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

By the way, to all PR profs, we need web accessibility to be in our programs' basic requirements. There will not be a choice moving forward. #PRProfs #CritPR

Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Thank you @ashleemboyer.com for reminding where the focus needs to be for this story: Disabled students. They've done extra work for too long to either demand access or find workarounds for our failures. It is (and has been) the job of higher ed communicators/IT staff to fix this. #HigherEd

ashleemboyer.com

Colleges Must Fix Millions of Web Pages. It's About Damn Time. | Ashlee M Boyer

Think remediation is painful? May you never have to face daily accessibility barriers.

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Painful? Yes. Do we get to complain? Absolutely not. We knew websites were supposed to be accessible the entire time, but we focused on aesthetics, saving $/time, and “works for me.” We got a pass for too long. Accessibility should never have been a “we'll come back post-launch."

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Thank you. I have a couple articles of articles I’m working on submitting.

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The captions are surprisingly good, but make sure to check them! I had it once pick a word that was the opposite of what we said.

Krista J. @heyitskrista.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Reposted by Sandra Boone

Lots of new adds today on the #comms4good Starter Pack. Follow to bring the best folks doing communications at nonprofits and foundations (and our consultant friends) to your feed! And comment if you fit that vibe and would like to be added! go.bsky.app/PxcuT5T

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I’m in a PhD program currently, but my research is rooted in #Comms4Good -ness.

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Kate Fitch @katefitch.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

If you're open to including grad students, I would love to be included. I'm a 3rd-year student @uosojc.bsky.social examining equity/power concerns for PR professionals with a focus on the power in/of language.

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Reposted by Sandra Boone

here’s the #CriticalPR link go.bsky.app/ALfzHKL

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Sandra Boone @boonesk.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Thanks. I'm excited for the opportunity to dig deeper into the "I really should look into that someday" questions I had while working.