Managing Fearbola:

How and Why Did Canada Issue Temporary VISA Ban to Travelers from

Ebola Stricken Countries? An exploratory case study of the theoretical lenses

of political public relations employed by three Public Relations Professionals

working with the Public Health Agency of Canada, Red Cross, and

McMaster Health Forum

Case Study Final Report, Fall 2014

Submitted by: Melodie Yun-Ju Song

Email: songy42@mcmaster.ca

Phone: 289.237.3303

Submitted to: Professor Alexandre Sévigny, Ph.D., APR, MCIPR

Course: MCM 711 Organizational Public Relations

Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia

Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University

February 2, 2015

Managing Fearbola

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Abstract:

Objective: In 2014, Citizenship and Immigration Canada issued temporary VISA

bans to incoming travelers from Ebola stricken counties. Outcries from WHO and

the Canadian bioethics community deemed the decision xenophobic, unscientific,

and a violation of International Health Regulations (Belluz, 2014). This research

explores the paradigms and approach of public relations to managing crisis in a

global health context.

Approach: Using a multiple-case embedded design, we explored the existing

paradigms of public relations in contemporary practice in Canada. First, the

researcher used content analysis to explore Canada’s Ebola-related health policy

response in the media (i.e., social media, news, archival transcripts, etc). Second,

three in-depth interviews were carried out with PR practitioners working in a public

institution, a private institution specializing in health policy PR, and an

international non-profit organization (i.e., Public Health Ontario, Ward Health, Red

Cross Canada). Third, a one-page survey on paradigms of PR approaches were

handed out to practitioners working in the above organizations to gauge their

perceptions of PR’s function in the Ebola crisis.

Results: This research verified two propositions. First, by promoting a dialogical

communication between Canadians’ interests and that of the international global

health community, PR professionals in the global context have crucial roles in

public health diplomacy, in particular the management functions in relationship

building, reputation maintenance, and crisis response in public health. Second,

using three popular paradigms in public relations, namely modernism, post-

modernism, critical modernism, we identified that each paradigm has its unique

contribution to a trans-national and time-space compressed issue in the global agora.

Moreover, the case study research allows analytical generalizability of the results

to be used to critically appraise past responses towards SARS, H5N1, and other

infectious diseases in terms of its appropriateness to relationship management

following policy implementation such as a VISA ban. It also highlights PR’s

contribution to building better diplomatic relations in an increasingly collaborative

environment of global private-public partnerships.

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Conclusion: This exploratory case study research is the first empirical inquiry

that looks into a complex sociopolitical phenomena such as Canada’s response to

Ebola outbreak from a public relations perspective. Health policy makers are

encouraged to collaborate with public relations professionals to appraise and

evaluate Canada’s reputation and relationship in response to global public health

crises.

Background:

In response to preventing the deadliest Ebola pandemic since the 80’s,

the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) issued a temporary

VISA ban to all incoming travelers from three Ebola stricken countries (i.e. Sierra

Leone, Liberia, and Guinea) and a mandatory 21-day monitoring phase for all

travelers from outbreak regions in November 5th of 2014 (C. and I. C. Government

of Canada, 2014). International outcries against Canada’s decision were plenty, as

the decision was deemed to be xenophobic, unscientific, a violation of international

regulations, provoking retaliation responses, and overall counter-productive to

public health (Belluz, 2014). To date, of all 196 member states, only Australia and

Canada imposed VISA bans to travelers from West Africa. Not only did the World

Health Organization (WHO) demand justification for Canada’s actions, the

Canadian public health community and the Canadian bioethics community voiced

their concerns on the ban (Sharma, Upshur, & Orbinski, 2014; Taylor, 2014).

How does public relations (PR) play a role in policy-making processes

when the nature of decisions effect the lives and health of the global community as

with the case of Ebola outbreak? Distinctive features of public policy relations

(PPR) set itself apart from PR, it is ‘the management process by which an

organization or individual actor for political purposes, through purposeful

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communication and action, seeks to influence and to establish, build, maintain

beneficial relationships and reputations with its key publics to help support its

mission and achieve its goal’ (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2013). Unlike PR in the

corporate setting, where it is often prescriptive and focuses on finding win-win

solutions through relationship management between organization and the public,

PPR is non-normative, descriptive, and more inclusive than corporate PR insofar

as various organizations and individual actors (i.e. high proportion of volunteers),

Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Non-Profit-Organizations (NPO) and the

general population are active stakeholders of the communication process

(Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2013).

Infectious disease prevention poses unique challenges to PR because

endemics are not limited to national sovereignty, and its effects are unbound by

social, economic, and political contexts. In the case of Ebola, the global community

rely on timely reporting systems and seamless surveillance by member states to

thwart diseases in its wake. Under this principle, the International Health

Regulations (IHR) was established to reinforce transparency in communication

among member states (WHO, 2005). Recalling that the Canadian government

helped draft IHR and adamantly advocated to continue air travel during the 2003

SARS outbreak, to violate IHR during the Ebola outbreak has damaged Canada’s

international reputation - Canada is now a country perceived to have hypocritically

protected IHR during SARS for selfish gains (i.e. economic loss) (Hoffman, 2014).

Evidently, public health policy-making is characterized by a cyclic process

with competing institutions, ideas, and interests (Lavis, Robertson, Woodside,

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Mcleod, & Abelson, 2003). Political, social, economic incentives overlapping,

without public relations, can directly or indirectly damage relationships between or

within various organizations, institutions, and the public. Diplomacy in a globalized

world is thus ‘an issue of public communication’. Efforts have been made to

compare concepts of PR and public diplomacy, L’Etang wrote that PR amidst

globalization needs to gain a ‘critical self-awareness and reflexivity concerning the

possible assumptions, motivations, and language practices’, equally important is

the theoretical contributions PR can have on national branding and public

diplomacy (L’Etang, 2009; Szondi, 2008).

To illustrate, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was established

in 2006 to integrate public health units and laboratories across the country, it is

authoritative and is central to mobilizing efforts in preventing infectious diseases

(Public Health Agency of Canada Act, 2006). However, against PHAC’s advice,

the CIC decides to impose a VISA ban, breaching the trust and mutuality of control

between CIC and PHAC, not to mention a setback of humanitarian efforts

Canadians represent in the global community. On the other hand, the government

of Ontario donated 3 million dollars to Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières to

combat Ebola (Benzie, 2014). The above agencies’ separate action plans is

demonstrably a lack of communication between agencies and a tyrannical policy-

process in the name of the publics’ interest.

Given that PR has an intermediary position in relationship management in

the global context, what paradigms are dominant in Canadian PPR in response to

the Ebola outbreak, if any? What are the challenges in PR in the ever-changing

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issues under globalization? Three existing paradigms are often discussed in the field

of PR, they are modernism, post-modernism, and critical modernism (Pal & Dutta,

2008).

The modernist paradigm most prominently promoted by J.E. Grunig

promotes the notion that four models of PR (i.e. press agentry, public information,

two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical) uphold the values, goals and

behaviors organizations want to communicate with the public to create a win-win

situation. In this paradigm, PR serves a management function and a consistent,

operationalized set of goals to assist the dominant coalition to meet (Grunig &

Grunig, 2000; Pal & Dutta, 2008). As Gower notes, under this paradigm, cultural

differences are assumed - predominantly Western views of social, psychological,

and economic processes are imposed upon others, forcing organizations and publics

to become monolithic units (Gower, 2006, as cited in Pal & Dutta, 2008).

The post-modern paradigm scholars Mumby, Deetz, Best and Kellner,

Kincheloe and McLaren inherits Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault and other French

scholars view to challenge the modernist approach of PR as a management function,

stressing that language games in the organizational context can influence the

outcome more than what modernist believe (Pal & Dutta, 2008). Post-modernists

emphasize the fragmented nature of discourse and rejects rational choice or the two-

way symmetrical model – through asking how PR addresses the ‘dynamisms of

cultural implications in the global cultural economy’, postmodernists embraces

relativism of knowledge, time, culture, and space, allowing the development of

alternative discourses in PR theory-making (Holtzhausen, 2002).

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Critical modernist scholars are concerned with domination and resistance,

they contribute to the PR theory in an increasingly globalized context, serving to

ease tensions between the postmodernist and modernist paradigms by finding

alternative possibilities by inviting voices that are eliminated in the modernist

paradigm to engage in the PR process, they seek to ‘locate the discursive space in

discussions of power and structure’ and that PR’s role is to ‘maintain the

organizations’ position of power and control within social systems (Motion and

Weaver , 2005, as cited by Pal & Dutta, 2008).

Of the above three paradigms, the modernist paradigm promoted by

Grunig and his students that promotes PR as a management function is the most

prominent in the corporate culture. However, it is not clear what paradigms PR

experts occupying high-positions in public institutions (i.e. CIC, PHAC) and

NGO’s (i.e. Red Cross, MSF) use to tackle political public relations. Thus, it is

through this exploratory case study that I aim to understand Canada’s policy-

makers’ rationale behind their response to the Ebola outbreak.

Literature Review:

In the following section, I will attempt to illustrate the importance of

recognizing the need for distinguishing the practice and a need for developing

theories of political public relations from public relations in the corporate world,

the crossroads of public diplomacy and public relations, and the three competing

perceptions of PR in contemporary academic literature. These literature informed

my two research questions and underlying propositions that (1) PR can strategically

contribute to reputation management and relationship building in times of national

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crisis (i.e. Ebola outbreak) in a globalized context, and (2) PR professionals have

preconceived notions of PR in practice that can be traced to three paradigms

(modernism, postmodernism, critical modernism).

Political Public Relations (PPR):

In political science, politics is a form of activity that aggregates

communities to mobilize themselves for a common goal, it is a power competition

between different goals from different groups of people for resources (Stone, 2008).

In a trans-national and highly globalized context, the ‘global agora’, as Stone notes,

is a term that describes trans-national non-governmental public action that are

dominated by knowledge actors and networks that have greater influence in shaping

global public policies by implicit and explicit means. Trans-national institutions

such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations function based on

policy legacies that reinforce existing norms and values of Western cultures that

eventually diffuses to countries that have no pre-existing Western cultures (ibid).

For instance, the failing efforts to quarantine Ebola patients and provide foreign aid

to pandemics are criticized as lack of incentives from World Bank and the

International Monetary Fund (IMF) to treat foreign aid as a positive externality

(Martin-Moreno, 2014). In times of crisis, the politics of ‘who gets what, when, and

how’ (Lasswell, 1936, as cited in Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2013) in democratic

countries are based on authoritative decision-making for the benefit of a nation, but

oftentimes not for the benefit of controlling diseases in a global context. If so, to

whom does PR in a globalized context answer to?

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Political public relations is by definition ‘the management process by

which an organization or individual actor for political purposes, through purposeful

communication and action, seeks to influence and to establish, build, maintain

beneficial relationships and reputations with its key publics to help support its

mission and achieve its goal’ (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2013). According to

Stromback and Kiousis, it is distinctive from PR for four reasons. First, PPR is

oriented towards political purposes and thus including activities that have more

intricate definitions of who to mobilize (i.e. political parties, unions, commercial

businesses). Second, different from Grunig’s definition of ‘two-way symmetrical

communication’, PPR gives communication and action equal weight. Third,

reputation and relationship cultivation are paramount because PPR is not limited to

siding with dominant coalitions (i.e. stakeholders) but also with ‘the multiplicity of

publics’ (ibid, p. 3). Fourth, PPR embraces a wide array of models in PR because

of its realization of political climates’ dependency on a host of factors, values, and

players that process political action and mobilization that ‘moves on a continuum

ranging from total advocacy for an organization to total accommodation of a public’

(Cancel, Cameron, Sallot, & Mitrook, 1997). PPR is therefore non-normative and

descriptive, its features differ from corporate settings depending on whether

‘various organizations or individual actors engage in PR activities for political

purposes’ (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2013).

Public diplomacy:

Ever more relevant is the conceptual link between public diplomacy to

PR, as public diplomacy is ‘an activity conducted by nations, organizations, which

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operate globally, global organizations (e.g. Corporations, World Health

Organization, and the Catholic Church), and international political organizations

advocating change’. This includes interpersonal debate and negotiation between

professional diplomats like ‘international treaties, reparations, commercial and

trade agreements, economic and development aid, and ecological practices to

framework agreements for educational and cultural exchanges. All entail a range of

promotional and persuasive strategies and techniques in addition to media relations.’

(L’Etang, 2009). L’Etang further illustrate the representational, dialogic, advisory,

intelligence gathering (e.g. research and environmental scanning, issues

management), and intercultural communication as shared features of public

diplomacy and PR. Fundamentally, ‘PR in itself does not have an agency’, notes

L’Etang, and that the role of PR in political processes as well as governance is not

about public communication but about private circuits of power and

communication (Miller and Dinan, 2003, as cited by L’Etang, 2009). That is to say,

public diplomacy, as with PR, functions under the power of agencies and can help

construct shared social realities, though within the constraints of existing paradigms

of operation.

Under the confinement of several public agencies and their competing

interests, the decision to ban travel VISA created a generally negative national

image of Canada to other nations. However, to some extent the decision garnered

support from the public in the U.S. evident in social media (CTV News, 2014). If

according to Richards, the two dimensions of PR include values-based PR and

power-based PR, then public diplomacy in a post-modern world can benefit from

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PR’s introspectiveness about both its ‘value’ function (e.g. values and ethics) and

‘power’ function (e.g. economic and political incentives) in the global context. It is

critical that ‘PR and media practitioners, communities, and publics gain a critical

self-awareness and reflexivity concerning the possible assumptions, motivations,

and language practices of those practice communications’ in public diplomacy

(L’Etang, 2009, p.620).

Modernist paradigm in PR:

The dominant paradigm in PR is the modernist approach – it is the

notion that four models of PR (i.e. press agentry, public information, two-way

asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical) uphold the values, goals and behaviors

organizations want to communicate with the public to create a win-win situation.

Under this paradigm, PR serves a management function and a consistent,

operationalized set of goals to assist the dominant coalition to meet (Grunig &

Grunig, 2000; Pal & Dutta, 2008). Further delving into the modernist paradigm,

publics (aware, active, inactive, arouse, and non-publics) are formed in response to

an issue, the PR then conducts environment scanning to communicate the

organizational values, goals, and behaviors to the dominant coalition and the public.

The modernist view of PR adhere to the principle that people are rational

beings that sees social, psychological and economics characteristics as ‘static

properties rather than societal processes’ (Putnam, 1983, as cited by Pal & Dutta,

2008). Its advantages lies in being normative and allows PR to establish itself as a

professional not only to operate management function that can be measured in

terms of relationships, profit gains, and reputation of the organization to both the

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public and dominant coalitions, but PR in the modernist perspective have

contributed to the academic literature in finding its niche in management literatures

and continues to carve its path to absorbing theories from psychology, business,

economics, and communications. It has been criticized to have taken values of the

Western paradigm for granted and focuses too much on ‘power distance,

uncertainty avoidance, individual/collectivism, masculinity/ femininity’ that are

confined within the Western categorization of culture (Pal & Dutta, 2008, p. 169).

Post-modernist paradigm in PR:

Contrary to modernist paradigms of PR, post-modernists emphasize the

fragmented nature of discourse through asking how PR addresses the ‘dynamisms

of cultural implications in the global cultural economy’ (Pal & Dutta, 2008, p.172).

It recognizes the contextual, linguistic, and cultural factors contribute to developing

a global public that is fluid in definition and unconstrained by time-space

compression (Appadurai, 1990, as cited by (Pal & Dutta, 2008, p.161). It is under

this notion that the definition of public as well as the concept of universality is

perceived as context-dependent, relative, and differs from the traditional normative

notions of publics in modernist PR. Postmodernist scholars embrace not just the

relativism of knowledge, time, culture, and space; it also disrupts preexisting

managerial discourse by acknowledging the dialogical processes involved in the

continuous shaping of the meaning of PR, thus allowing the development of

alternative discourses in PR theory-making (Holtzhausen, 2002).

Although less operationalized compared to modernist PR, the

postmodernist view is relevant to PPR and relationship and reputation management

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in the advent of global health crisis such as the Ebola outbreak because of the

blurred boundaries between nations, the concept of ‘publics can no longer be

defined within the realm of nation-states, as the very notion of nation-states has

come under scrutiny’ in an ever-changing landscape of global-local, private-public

partnership (Chatterjeem 1986, as cited by (Pal & Dutta, 2008, p.163). Under this

paradigm, PR functions should be analyzed as an institutional process that allows

windows of opportunities for a multiplicity of voices, cultures, and interest to

emerge within the processes (Dutta-Bergman, 2005, as cited by Pal & Dutta, 2008,

p.170).

Critical modernist paradigm in PR:

Concerned with domination and resistance, critical modernism

contributes to PR theory in an increasingly globalized context, serving to ease

tensions between the postmodernist and modernist paradigms by finding alternative

possibilities by inviting voices that are eliminated in the modernist paradigm to

engage in the PR process, critical modernists seek to ‘locate the discursive space in

discussions of power and structure’ and that PR’s role is to ‘maintain the

organizations’ position of power and control within social systems (Motion and

Weaver , 2005, as cited by Pal & Dutta, 2008).

Furthermore, critical modernism is particularly useful in ‘the realm of

concepts of local-global relationships, time-space compression due to technological

advances (Pal & Dutta, 2008, p.173). It interrogate the dominant ideologies of PR

by asking questions such as ‘“Whose interests are represented by PR practitioners?”

and […] “Who is silenced?”’ to bring attention to PR theorists and practitioners

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that the concept of publics formation is itself a hierarchical and structural process

that seldom represents reality of all parties but dominated by the discourse of the

powered coalition – evaluating and functioning as a PR therefore is to understand

and critique the unequal representativeness of power, structure, skills, and

resources (ibid), serving as a third paradigm to inspect PR’s function during the

Ebola incidence.

Research Problem:

Public health policy-making in Canada in response to the Ebola outbreak

has been politically-driven more than evidence-based. The CIC and PHAC are

federal systems that have opposing views on policies, whereas the provincial

government of Ontario has donated money to NGO’s working in West Africa as a

response. In this research, I will use an exploratory multiple case study to explore

the discrepancies between each of the decisions made by the three organizations

(Yin, 2014), it is important to look at how these organizations communicate with

the public, and under what paradigm they operate under.

Using Political Public Relations theory, the three paradigms in PR

(modernist, postmodernist, critical modernist) will inform my research problem to

explore which paradigm dominates CIC, PHAC, the government of Ontario’s

approach communication with the public in a global context in times of disease

prevention as well as understand how and why CIC posed a VISA ban regardless

of how detrimental it is to Canada’s humanitarian national image.

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Research Questions:

RQ1: How does public relations (PR) play a role in policy-making processes when

the nature of decisions effect the lives and health of the global community as with

the case of Ebola outbreak?

Underlying proposition of RQ1: PR can strategically contribute to policy-making

process through its value-based and power-based functions such as reputation

management and relationship building in times of national crisis (i.e. Ebola

outbreak) in a globalized context.

This question guides the investigator to understand the various roles PR

professionals implemented during the outbreak. It is also a hypothetical question

for interviewees to elaborate the possibilities of PR’s functions when confronted

with a global health crisis.

1. Introduction to research background (i.e. Canada’s response to Ebola). What

was it like working as a PR in (Red Cross, Ward Health, and Public Health

Ontario) in times of crisis? What role did you play in the process? Were you

able to operate independently?

2. What was the dynamic between you, the public, and the institution you were

working with? Were there any values, ethical concerns, standards to adhere to

in your work?

3. What is your experience as a PR with public diplomacy (i.e. involving in

decision-making, reputation management, relationship building, etc)? How do

you think PR can contribute to global diplomacy for Canada?

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RQ2: Given that PR has an intermediary position in relationship management in

the global context, what paradigms are dominant in Canadian PPR in response to

the Ebola outbreak, if any?

Underlying proposition to RQ2: PR professionals have preconceived notions of

PR in practice that can be traced to three paradigms (modernism, postmodernism,

critical modernism).

1. Asks interviewees to fill out survey of PR perceptions on various functions of

PR based on modernist, post-modernist, and critical modernist paradigms. (See

appendix B). Of these three paradigms, which paradigm do you most identify

your practice as a PR professional with? Why?

2. Which view do you most identify with (going through each variable under

perspective paradigms)? How would you, as a PR professional working for

(Red Cross, Ward Health, and Public Health Ontario) respond to a crisis such

as the Ebola outbreak, given that the decisions may effect Canada’s reputation

in the global context?

Question Justification:

As part of the triangulation method, the above questions (and survey) are

constructed to be semi-open ended to probe the ‘how’ and ‘why’s of a multiple-

case embedded exploratory case study, allowing a holistic inspection of a

contemporary incident (i.e. PR’s role as well as the dominant paradigms used

during Canada’s response to Ebola outbreak) (Yin, 2014).

The rationale for posing the above questions are as follows. First, this is

an exploratory study to understand what paradigms PR professional operate under

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in times of global health crisis management. The subset of questions under RQ1 are

structured sequentially to allow interviewees to recall their role as a PR in their

perspective organizations, and in the absence of PR’s role in decision-making in

the Ebola crisis, interviewees may answer based on personal observation. The

subset of questions under RQ2 helps interviewees consider the wide ranges of

functions PR in three competing paradigms. Second, both RQ1 and RQ2 inform

each other, the former to explore existing roles of PR in global health decision-

making processes in Canada, the latter exploring the dominant paradigms used in

the process. The answers lie within a domain for the study’s results to be

analytically generalizable to PR’s role in global health crisis management in the

future.

Organizations studied:

Feasibility and sample variation are two factors form the rationale for

case selection in a case study design (Yin, 2014). Based on these two principles, I

have chosen to contact three PR professionals from three organizations, Dr. Andrew

Laing from Cormex Research, Mr. Steven Lott from McMaster Health Forum, and

Mrs. Gwendolen Eamer from the Canada Red Cross.

Dr. Alex Sevigny’s professional contact Dr. Andrew Laing holds a PhD

in communications from York University and is the founder and director of Cormex

Research, a private for-profit company specializing in media research and content

analysis for public, non-profit, and private sectors. Dr. Laing’s first-hand

experience in working with the Public Health Agency Canada (PHAC) will provide

invaluable insight into the decision-making processes in the public sector.

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Mr. Steven Lott has 8 years of experience working at Ward Health, a

private for-profit company that focuses on health and healthcare-related PR based

in Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. Its clients range from the public sector, private-

public partnerships, and non-profit organizations. His expertise and his recent

career transition to working for McMaster University’s Health Forum as

communications lead is helpful for me to understand the differences of PR

functions between a corporate setting and a publicly funded institution such as

McMaster Health Forum, which is partly funded by the government of Ontario and

WHO.

The third PR professional to interview is Mrs. Gwendolen Eamer

from Canada Red Cross. She is a personal contact of my colleague Mrs. Cristina

Mattison in global health and have been a medical adviser in refugee camps in

Africa and the Middle East for Canada Red Cross. Mrs. Gwendolen is a

communications delegate in Guinea during the Ebola. Her first-hand experience

working as a communications delegate and medical advisor at a large trans-national

organization in Africa will inform the research in PR’s functionality in a globalized

context.

Case study method:

Three defining characteristics of a case study research is that it (1) is

helpful for researches that seek to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, (2) allows

investigators who has little or no possibility of control over the incidence and/or

events of research, and (3) it is often a contemporary phenomenon of real-life

context to be studied (Yin, 2014, Chapter one). Using a multiple-case embedded

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design, this exploratory case study research is an empirical inquiry that looks into

a complex sociopolitical phenomena such as Canada’s response to Ebola outbreak

from a PR professional’s perspective.

Study design and data collection procedure:

Two propositions inform my research questions. First, using concepts

of PPR, it is proposed that PR professionals in the global context have a role to play

in public diplomacy; second, using three popular paradigms in PR (i.e. modernism,

post-modernism, critical modernism), it is proposed that each paradigm has its

contribution in terms of PR functions in an issue that is trans-national and time-

space compressed. These propositions helped me link documents and evidence

collected through triangulation to logically connect with theories presented in the

literature review, it also defined scope to suggest possible correlations between and

within cases in the different approaches to PPR during data collection and analysis.

To inform internal validity, triangulation is conducted using three

sources: documents (i.e. media, social media, news), archival records (i.e. Hansard

archive), and in-depth interviews with three PR and communications professionals

at Cormex Media Lab (private company), McMaster University Health Forum

(public sector), and Canada Red Cross (international non-profit organization) to

inform one another during the data collection and analysis process. All interviewees

have substantial experience in private-public partnerships in the global context

from a Canadian PR perspective.

Three steps in the collection phase include: collecting media

documentation on the processes and decisions of the Canadian government to

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expand my understanding of the who, what, when’s of the decision; second, using

archival records to understand that in response to global health crisis such as H1N1,

SARS, and Ebola outbreaks, what are the responses Canadian government carried

out; third, using in-depth semi-open ended interviews informed by a survey of pre-

existing paradigms of PR, to explore the dominant paradigms underlying the

varying PR functions of different organizations with differing interests and power-

relations. These three steps of data collection allowed me to verify the validity of

the news, the private conversations that happened before and after Canada’s

response to the Ebola outbreak in the PR community, and ultimately, using theories

underlying my two propositions to strengthen my understanding of PR’s

contribution, if any, to a crisis event as such in a globalized world.

Method of analysis:

As Yin notes, case study research can be both quantitative and

qualitative, however, an analytical generalizability is better suited over statistical

generalizability when criticism of external validity is brought up (Yin, 2014). Thus,

in this study, to ensure external validity, multiple sources of evidence as described

above are used to cross-confirm the validity and credibility of evidence collected.

For instance, surveying the different PR functions originated from three varying

paradigms before probing how PR professionals approach PR in times of crisis

assisted the interviewees to correctly trace back to their observations and actions

during the Ebola outbreak to avoid recall bias.

Adhering to the four principles of data analysis, I obtained

information from the beginning of Canada’s response to Ebola outbreak (March,

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2014) to Canada’s decision to ban travel VISA to West African countries (October,

2014), and the responses from the public and other relevant organizations after the

VISA ban to ensure a time-series of correlated events to be documented through

triangulation, verifying its external validity.

Second, the analysis drew upon the three competing and/or

complementary paradigms to flesh out the scope of the interview content, by taking

verbatim of the interviews from representative PR professionals in three different

organizations (public, private, non-profit), this research was able to maintain

objective and take all major rival interpretations (i.e. paradigms) into consideration.

Third, the analysis addressed the ‘most significant aspect’, that is the

‘potential role of PR in a globalized context in times of Ebola outbreak’ and

‘dominant paradigms in practice’ mentioned in the two propositions informing the

exploratory study. Last but not least, the investigator has more than 10 years’

experience with qualitative methods (i.e. phenomenology, grounded theory, etc),

quantitative methods, and mixed methods research in public health research in

global and local settings in the US, Canada, and Taiwan. My experience with in-

depth interviews, data collection, and data analysis with a neutral academic stance

strengthened the analytic phase of this case study research. The investigator also

has the support of experienced qualitative and quantitative in the field of

communications, political science, and global health to verify the questions and

methods with.

To conclude, by following the four principles of analysis, ‘theoretical

propositions, work your data from the ‘ground up’, develop a case description, and

Managing Fearbola

21

examine rival explanations’ (Yin, 2014) in addition to the four pointers mentioned

above, the research explored the potential roles of PR, or existing roles of PR in a

global context, and furthermore, explicate the existing dominant paradigms of PR

practice in Canada in times of Ebola outbreak.

Results and discussion:

The 2014 Ebola outbreak is the worst Ebola outbreak in history

recorded, resulting in a death toll of 9,019 deaths as of February 2nd, 2015 (CDC,

2015). Ninety-nine percent of infection and mortality occurred in Liberia, Sierra

Leone, and Guinea; other countries effected by Ebola include Mali, Nigeria,

Senegal, Spain, UK, and USA, with a total of 32 confirmed cases documented

through the outbreak (ibid). On October 14th, 2014, Australian government issued

a VISA (Whinnett Ellen, 2014); two weeks following, Canada also imposed a

temporary issue ban to three Ebola stricken countries in West Africa; hence facing

various backlashes from local and international communities, including the WHO

demanding an explanation of their decision (Belluz, 2014; Sharma et al., 2014).

Gregory Taylor, newly appointed Chief Public Health Officer of the

Public Health Agency of Canada supported the Department of Citizenship and

Immigration Canada (CIC) decision, stating in a correspondence by email through

his spokesperson that "The measures the government has taken strike a balance

between supporting Ebola-affected countries while ensuring Canadian citizens and

residents are protected from a possible spread of the disease to Canada.", In Ottawa

Citizen, global health specialist and postdoctoral researcher in disrupted health

systems Dr. Jason Nickerson was quoted as saying "It may actually backfire (…).

Managing Fearbola

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This is a political move; this isn't a public health move that's rooted in science."

(Dylan Robertson, 2014).

Tracing media reports of worldwide VISA bans towards Ebola on

LexisNexis, a clear path emerged, first, Germany, Netherlands, and Dubai, have

first breached diplomatic relations by requesting travelers to provide documents of

‘Ebola-free’ proof (BBC, 2014b) in September, and subsequently, the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs in Sri-Lanka, Taiwan, Belize issued statements to ban travel VISA

and on-arrival VISAs (BBC, 2014a, 2014c; Daily Mirror, 2014). The ban is no short

of supporters through traditional media, social media, and petition websites

(Change.org, 2014; We the People.com, 2014). It is unclear whether these

restrictions are imposed with empirical evidence to back up the decision at all, as it

is evident that current public health standards in developing countries makes it

unlikely for Ebola to spread (Bausch et al., 2007).

It is this silo between empirical evidence and public perceptions of

Ebola that creates a discrepancy between a fact-based policy and a power/value-

based policy. While the notion of the fact-value dichotomy is widely contested, it

is unlikely that in the eyes of a public diplomat, any decisions are ever made solely

on facts and/or values alone. NDP’s Libby Davies has cited WHO and World Bank

to question the ban, “Sending this announcement on a Friday afternoon only

worsens concerns that this policy is a public relations exercise, and irresponsibly

ignorant of what health experts have advised," (The Sunday Independent, 2014).

With criticisms abound, communications from the government to the public and to

other countries is thus paramount during the delivery of any highly sensitive policy

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decision. With an epidemiologists’ lens, the following three interviews helped me

conjure an image of how public relations professionals are able to assist in

communicating with various stakeholders to create a positive image in global

diplomacy when faced with public health crisis.

This multiple case study result is presented as two parts, first, in

response to RQ1, interviewees from three different organizations presented

differing views on a public relation professionals’ obligations in the Ebola outbreak.

The second part presents the interviewees’ response to RQ2 in table format.

Part I:

How does public relations (PR) play a role in policy-making processes when the

nature of decisions effect the lives and health of the global community as with

the case of Ebola outbreak?

Miss Gwendolen Eamer from Canada Red Cross (CRC) has served as the

organization’s national spokesperson from 2010-2012 based in Ottawa. She is

currently the expatriate communications delegate and medical advisor to CRC.

During the Ebola outbreak, Miss Eamer was dispatched to Guinea as a health

communications officer. Her major roles included health education, building

communications capacity on the ground with local Ministries of Health, and

coordinating crisis response efforts in all Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

When asked about the autonomy as a practitioner, she stated:

“[It’s] Neutrality and impartiality, and humanity. As long as I'm telling stories that

demonstrates the humanity of people who are effected by crisis and doing so in a

neutral and in an impartial way, most or less the world is my oyster.”

Managing Fearbola

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Pertaining to the function of public relations professionals as a Red Cross

employer in a globalized context, Eamer expressed that she has autonomy to

operate insofar as it is within the parameters of the values of CRC, where values of

Canada comes a close second. (Eamer, Skype interview, 2015).

“When it comes to representing Canada, the Red Cross is neutral, so I'm not there as

a Canada so much as I am a Red Crosser. […]If the government of Canada says all

expatriates must leave this country, we don't have to follow that because we work for

the Red Cross. So I'm a Red Crosser first and Canadian second when I'm on mission.”

Another interviewee Mr. Steven Lott who has worked in Ward Health, a

private public relations firm working closely with international for-profit and non-

profit companies in health both regionally and internationally, most notably Grand

Challenges Canada. He pointed out that representation of Canada and its contribution

to health dialogues are often less under the control of a public relations professional,

given that it is already shaped by the policies and subsequent perceptions following

these policies, in particular, the humanitarian efforts and international recognition

of the Canadian healthcare system (Lott. In person interview, 2015). He says,

“When people are looking for experts [...] on health-related issues, if you're

Canadian, if you're British, they're happy to hear from you. If you're American, not

really, they're definitely much more suspicious. […] because we've done a lot of

work internationally, whether it's trying to connect experts with policymakers,

whether it's right or wrong, it's just the perception.’

That is not to dismiss a public relations professional’s role in shaping

public perception on the Ebola outbreak. On the contrary, in support of the

government’s decision, Mr. Lott considered the Canadian government not fully

exercising its potential in framing the ban to the media. The government, relying

Managing Fearbola

25

on more traditional means of communication are more wary of the use of social

media, its form of communication is structured and rigid, to the extent that it invites

lots of questions but less on channels allowing timely response.

“Government stuff is very...I wouldn't say they don't value it (social media) and I think

they're finding better ways of using it, but traditionally they get a bit more scared about

their message out and how they communicate, so it's very structured and very formal.”

He puts emphasize on value-aspect in communications, noting that for every

decision the government makes, there will be controversies and adversaries to

overcome, and especially with policies that invokes emotions. He suggests that

public relations officer in the government has already expected controversies,

regardless of the initial reactions, the ongoing efforts to communicate on Twitter

by PHAC and on Health Canada websites demonstrated media relations’ role in

assuaging oppositions towards the ban.

“The first part (of communication) was obviously 'let's protect ourselves more, you

know, keep it (Ebola) out' and so to some degree it certainly came across as a bit

harsh. It was a pretty evolving situation. […]Ideally you would've put some of

[the positive] upfront, to say that 'we're putting a travel ban, however, we're also

doing this' to have a balance of communication, but I think long term they kind of

came back around to that.”

The third interviewee Dr. Andrew Laing, too, expressed support for

Canada’s decision on the travel ban. He focused on the government’s goal to protect

the Canadian public as a priority, and that a public relations officer representing the

government weighing the pros and cons have more than global diplomacy to think

about. He says,

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“What could be even more damaging than the brand of the country is Ebola cases

in the country. We saw that with SARS, […] it just took the wind out of tourism in

Canada as a result. […] They're looking at it from a communications crisis and

issues management (perspective), probably looking at the perspective of the public,

what's the upside of putting in these types of travel restrictions versus the downsides.

And there's not a lot of downsides. You know, criticism from UoT bioethicists is not

a downside.”

Ms. Eamer presented a different perspective from a communications

standpoint. As a dispatch in Guinea, she witnessed the stigma attached to Ebola, and

recognizes the potential drawbacks of stringent travel ban policies towards combating

stigmatization. She compared the Ebola outbreak to the early days of HIV/AIDS, when

people were afraid to disclose an infection, leading to a vicious cycle of more infections

and stigma.

“I think the stigma is disheartening both from the official level and on an

interpersonal, general public level. At the end of the day, part of the work that I

was trying to carry out is helping people to understand what the risk actually is,

which to Canadians is negligible. It's certainly also helping people understand that

stigma is killing people, not just there but also here.”

As of February, 2015, the CIC has not lifted the visa ban to workers,

student, and visitors of foreign nationals applying for temporary residence and/or

permanent residence who were in the outbreak countries within three months prior

to the application being received (H. C. and the P. H. A. of C. Government of

Canada, 2014). The only two developed countries who have imposed ban to date

are Australia and Canada (Belluz, 2014). This is not to say that the public opposes

the ban. On the contrary, all interviewees have expressed that Canada is serving the

best interest for Canadians, which is to ensure no Ebola cases occur in Canada.

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Supporting this claim, the Government of Canada launched a cross-

sectoral collaboration from the CIC, PHAC, Health Canada, Foreign Affairs, Trade

and Development of Canada to support to treatment, prevention, and crisis

management both abroad and at home (Foreign Affairs Trade and Development

Canada, 2015). Official Government of Canada websites have made large strides

to make information available to the public and journalists in terms of the

government’s various awareness campaigns, domestic preparedness, VSV-EBOV

clinical trials, technical contributions, and its financial contributions (ibid).

However, the media attention Canada’s subsequent efforts grasped were minimal,

announcements from official websites were not cited or reported, and the discussion

of aid appearing periodically in the academic sphere. The media hype during

October to November, 2014 has created salience for the global perception of the

Canadian effort to public health crisis prevention – one that is protective, but also

bearing the risk of being perceived as passive, which is certainly not the case. The

public is often highly influenced by framing and others’ opinions, says Dr. Laing:

“People believe media is a reflection of other people's views. I may not think Ebola

is important, but, Gosh, I think other people must think Ebola is important because

the amount of coverage. And that's what the government is concerned about is that

there's a perception of public opinion and they need to response to that.”

“It's certainly an example where an issue that drives, you know, something that

really comes into the media spotlight can drive action beyond what ordinary

circumstances might dictate, at the beginning of the year you'd never ever have

guessed we would be spending so much money on Ebola.” says Mr. Lott.

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To gauge the public’s opinions, under the Communications Policy of

the Government of Canada, Public Works and Government Services Canada

(PWGSC) has developed guidelines to promote best practices in public opinion

research (Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), 2014). The

government of Canada contracts roughly 81 number of public opinion research

projects to public and private companies to improve the government’s

understanding of three value areas: taking into account Canadians’ needs, serving

Canadians better, and informing Canadians (ibid. p.2). This effort is backed by 5

organizations within the government: PWGSC, Library and Archives Canada and

Library of Parliament (LAC), Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Privy Council

Office (ibid, p.6). In 2013-2014 alone, CIC and Health Canada (including PHAC)

has commissioned contract value of approximately $1 million to public opinion

research in related affairs (ibid, p.9). Some projects include tracking public-health

related media attention on social media and in the news.

The media contents the government might be interested in tracking may

include issues on cancer screening, vaccination such as flu shots and MMR to more

pressing issues like the Ebola outbreak (Laing. Phone Interview, 2015). With the

amount of research results in hand, public relations professionals (i.e. so called

media relations officer in the government) and diplomats have the ability to

proactively deliver value-neutral messages during a crisis to communicate with the

public in Canada and abroad (also known as the public as defined in foreign

diplomacy). The aim is to ensure both formal and informal communications are

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open to allow Canada’s efforts be known to strengthen political public relations in

a global context.

Despite negative outcries, the interviewees have praised the government

of Canada’s efforts in humanitarian aid as well as its commitment to

communication with all stakeholders involved. Since Ebola’s initial outbreak to

present, Canada’s aid effort committed to donating at least $123 million dollars to

20 international organizations from 2013-2015 to support health, humanitarian, and

security interventions in West Africa (H. C. and the P. H. A. of C. Government of

Canada, 2014). Some organizations include: the World Health Organization (WHO)

($20million), The World Food Programme (WFP) ($10.5 million), UNICEF ($10

million), CRC ($ 5 million), Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF) ($4.2 million), and

$23.5 million to support local provinces and territories to delivery infection control

training and equipment, etc.

To an extent, the Canadian government’s responses to Ebola has had

trivial presence in the media, never making it to headlines since November, 2014

(LexusNexus, 2015). Miss Eamer expressed her view about being a public relations

professional in crisis management like Ebola outbreak as reactive during, and

proactive before and after.

“In a disaster, it's very often answering the phone and answering questions and

you can spend your entire time doing that, because people are interested, because

it's sexy. Before and after a disaster, you actively pitch people. […] If we can

understand and foresee that it's coming and then respond early so that there isn't

a disaster. The challenge is that with the new system we have now, or they say 'if

it bleeds it bleeds', it's not a good story, it must be pictured really well unless you

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have a really compelling human angle to say, it's a hard story to say what

would've happened if you haven't been there.”

Echoing Miss Eamer’s view, Mr. Lott noted that there are risks involved

in communication because of competing values and beliefs, regardless of empirical

evidence. ‘There’s always room for improvement’ in communications, says Mr.

Lott, and it doesn’t and shouldn’t end when the event ends, especially when it

instills fear into the global public.

“In communications, there's always room for improvement, in some situations it’s a

case where it's good intentions (like the travel ban).Yes, there are things that can be

handled better, but are you ever going to totally eliminate controversy? No. […]

Obviously it's a serious issue effecting Africa, but if you're looking at the health burden,

it's small, it's scary, it spreads easily. Really, it's the idea of it that scares people.” says

Mr. Lott.

This session explored the roles public relations professionals can play in a

highly globalized crisis. In order to act in the best interest of Canada and maintain

a consistent global image in times of Ebola, a public relations professional in any

organization has the responsibility to recognize the interests of all stakeholders

involved in a public health crisis both at home and abroad, present the interest of

all Canadians as a priority, willingness to recognize and allow both formal and

informal channels of communication to collect feedback from stakeholders

(including the public) on behalf of each organization, consistency in delivering

humanitarian efforts on the ground, operate within the boundaries of the values and

missions of the organization, and to cultivate media relations before any outbreak

or public health crisis both at home and abroad.

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Part II:

Given that PR has an intermediary position in relationship management in the

global context, what paradigms are dominant in Canadian PPR in response to

the Ebola outbreak, if any?

Given that the three interviewees are working are three very different

companies as a communications professional, the researcher prompted them to

inspect communications experience involving Ebola. In the case that the

interviewees have not had any involvement working with issues on Ebola, they

were asked to hypothetically assume the best paradigm of practice for political

public relations (PPR) in the field in times of crisis.

The questionnaire identified three paradigms of public relations practice

and 12 functions that each paradigm would approach differently (see Table 1). Each

interviewee’s answers are labeled with an abbreviation.

In the context of Canada Red Cross, Miss Eamer considers

communication emergency responses a values-based operation, under the premise

that she is operating under the principles of neutrality and impartiality, putting

people who need help as a priority guides the messages CRC wants to deliver to its

target populations. Her experiences in Guinea is highly contextual, the CRC

expatriate community has connections with almost every hospital, prison, and

refugee camps around the world. Helping refugees, prisoners, infected individuals,

and communicating with donors (i.e. Government of Canada), the CRC public

relations professional needs to focus on celebrating humanity and not lose track of

the context sensitive environments they work in. In particular, striving to

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32

communicate the values and ethics of operation, accepting crisis as anticipated, and

proactively communicating with donors and people they work with and work for.

For example: taking a photo of a mother mourning the death of her son could mean

a few thousands of dollars of donation for the CRC, but that value is not

communicated with the mother, who would have no idea her picture would be on

the cover of a Red Cross magazine or website. The public relations approach that

Miss Eamer most identifies with in an emergency communications dispatch is more

contextual, more issue driven, and more dialogical – inviting a more post-modernist

interpretation to crisis management. Even the word management elicits critique, as

she considers crisis to be anticipated. This view is drastically different from the rest.

For Mr. Lott, his expertise working with small teams in Ward Health

has lead him to different practices when it comes to public relations diplomacy.

Considering the context he has worked in, he recognized that a model between a

modernist and critical modernist approach best fits the purpose of public relations

in his day-to-day work. Although he has never worked in crisis management before,

his experience working for Grand Challenges Canada, a spin-off of Grand

Challenges in Global Health – an initiative of not-for-profit Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation, has given him another perspective of global diplomacy in health

outreach programmes. He considers health communications highly power-driven

that is issue-dependent. At times, patient groups drive attention, such as the case of

Ebola in the USA, when infected cases within the USA drove media attention and

subsequent calls for actions to close down its borders. Secondly, Mr. Lott pointed

out that in public relations communications, a lot of values and ethics are implicit

Managing Fearbola

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and not spoken until requested. For instance, the CIC’s decision is based on the

interest of Canadians, regardless of what the International Health Regulation

imposed. The IHR does not have the legal aspects of the Canadian Charter of Rights

and Freedoms. Such prioritization of action based on national law is implicit, while

it is explicitly stated that the Canadians are helping fight Ebola globally in the

media. Therefore, to Mr. Lott, the attention that Canadians has paid to Ebola

outbreak, given that the risk of outbreaks are low in Canada, proves that the media

relations has had made strides to counter Fear-bola by deciding the close down

borders to West Africans traveling to Canada. In this sense, the power relations

sways between the public and the government, creating problems for the public

relations officer in the government, because it is hard to gauge the reactions of the

public (both locally and internationally).

Mr. Lott believes that PPR requires both a modernist lens and a critical

modernist lens, at the same time, he agrees that because media attention often drives

opinion, an issue-driven approach is also a post-modernist approach – that is to say,

the public relations professionals need to be firm about the goals of an organization

he/she represents, and treat crisis as a disruption, but at the same time, understand

that communications is a profession that always anticipate criticism, because

criticism is helpful for PPRs to refine its approaches to prevent disruption.

Cormex Research’s president Dr. Andrew Laing has had two decades

of experience in media analysis in health for the government, including Public

Health Ontario (PHO). He has had extensive research expertise in media content

analysis during the SARS outbreak, the H1N1 outbreak, and various other

Managing Fearbola

34

vaccination issues. A practicing communications specialist, he perceived the media

relations officers of the government employ both a modernist and critical modernist

paradigm to managing the Ebola crisis. In terms of power-relations, he considers

that within the government, the stakeholders, policymakers, and physicians are at

the core the decision-making process. Insofar as public relations professionals have

the benefit of weighing the different approaches each paradigm promote, public

relations professionals have to respond to the government’s interest, which is the

Canadians’ interest. However, this does not mean that the pubic have a voice in the

decision-making process (Laing, 2015). The feedback loop from the public to the

government is more reliant on what the public thinks in public opinion polls

commissioned by the government; what is best for the public, and the decisions

made for the public, however, does not represent a necessarily evidence-based

decision. In most cases, it is a cost-effective decision, and what is most efficient in

dealing with a crisis like Ebola.

All three interviewees agreed that the public relations professional has

autonomy to operate as long as it is in alignment with the organizational values and

ethics. An even better approach to tackle the Ebola outbreak in terms of

communication is to strive to achieve a common goal for all stakeholders (i.e. donor

organizations, countries effected, the government, etc.) to work on prevention. That

is to say, instead of letting the media drive public attention and opinion, it is better

for the organization to proactively respond to crisis and deliver the response

effectively to the public.

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Another agreement was on the values informal communication. All

three interviewees agreed that informal communications is highly valued, Miss

Eamer said that ‘We are able to do some of the important work that we do because

we don’t do it publicly.’ When referring to CRC’s prisoner rescue efforts in Syria

and surrounding countries. To which she meant a stakeholder connection with

major prisons in war-torn areas, as is the case with Ebola – the ability to connect

with local hospitals and Ministries of Health to dispatch foreign aid to. Mr. Lott

mentioned, too, that informal communication is increasing important to a public

relations professional. Case in point, he emphasized that social media is better

utilized in private industries and independent journalists than the government of

Canada. He says as social media is more and more understood, this type of informal

communication will become prominent. As for now, the government understands

that in order to gauge public opinion and act in the interest of Canada, whatever

that is, social media and informal channels of communication has to more

understood than ignored.

This case study illustrates the complexity of communication of

public relations in a globalized context. Depending on the organization one

represents, all three paradigms are being used based on the issue, values (whether

explicitly or implicitly stated), and the end goal that public relations professionals

aim to achieve. In essence, the Ebola crisis invites practitioners to participate in a

larger sphere of communication, insofar as they are operating within the parameters

of the organization they serve. As public health crisis continues to dominate media

front-page, we are expected to witness a plethora of functions, be it a modernist,

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post-modernist, or critical modernist paradigm, to contribute to the global dialogue

in outbreak prevention.

Table 1: Public relations functions according to different paradigms

PR

functions

Modernist Post-modernist Critical Modernist

Communication Symmetrical

(AL)

Context-based

(GE, SL)

Asymmetrical

Direction of

communication

Two-way, one-way

(SL*internally, AL)

Context-based, dialogical

(GE, SL*externally)

Power-related, most

likely one-way

Power-relation Equal

(GE)

Unequal (context,

language, culture-based)

(SL)

Unequal, hierarchical

(AL)

Definition of publics Issue-oriented (AL) Context, language,

culture-based

Both issue and context

based (GE, SL)

Autonomy of PR Yes (GE, SL, AL) Context, language,

culture-based

No

Value and ethics Implicit (SL) Contextual, strives to be

explicit (GE)

Power and construct-

related (AL)

Crisis is… A disruption

(SL, AL)

Anticipated (GE)

Initiation of

management

Proactive (SL) Proactive or Reactive (GE,

AL)

Proactive

Informal

communication

Not valued Valued (GE, SL, AL)

Reputation To be managed (SL,

AL)

To be understood (GE)

Relationship

building

Controlled Evolving, contextual (GE) Power-related (SL, AL)

Organizational

interest

Strived to be prioritized

(SL* if can be

achieved, AL)

Dynamic, relative based

on context, language, and

culture (GE, SL)

To be analyzed and

criticized based on

power and structure

End goal To achieve

organizational interest

(AL * to defend the

public interest)

To achieve common

interest

To balance between the

goal of the organization

and the common

interest (GE, SL)

GE: Miss Gwendolen Eamer, SL: Mr. Steven Lott, AL: Mr. Andrew Laing

Red highlights – commonly shared values by interviewees; Orange highlights – majority

values shared by interviewees; blue highlights – no shared values.

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Discussion and limitations:

This research verified two propositions. First, by promoting a dialogical

communication between Canadians’ interests and that of the international global

health community, PR professionals in the global context have crucial roles in

public health diplomacy, in particular the management functions in relationship

building, reputation maintenance, and crisis response in public health. Second,

using three popular paradigms in public relations, namely modernism, post-

modernism, critical modernism, we identified that each paradigm has its unique

contribution to a trans-national and time-space compressed issue in the global agora.

Moreover, the case study research allows analytical generalizability of the results

to be used to critically appraise past responses towards SARS, H5N1, and other

infectious diseases in terms of its appropriateness to relationship management

following policy implementation such as a VISA ban. It also highlights PR’s

contribution to building better diplomatic relations in an increasingly collaborative

environment of global private-public partnerships.

In order to act in the best interest of Canada and maintain a consistent

global image in times of Ebola, a public relations professional in any organization,

has the responsibility to (1) recognize the interests of all stakeholders involved in a

public health crisis both at home and abroad, (2) present the interest of all

Canadians as a priority, (3) willingness to recognize and allow both formal and

informal channels of communication to collect feedback from stakeholders

(including the public) on behalf of each organization, (4) consistency in delivering

humanitarian efforts on the ground, (5) operate within the boundaries of the values

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and missions of the organization, and (6) cultivate media relations before any

outbreak or public health crisis both at home and abroad.

Due to time-constraint, I was unable to obtain a second interview with

the interviewees as the Ebola crisis developed to ensure a public relations approach

to crisis management is needed. During the data collection phase, I attempted to

present a timeline of development from the VISA ban to the reactions towards the

ban. However, I have relied on archival records from LexisNexis and LAC for

documented records, it would be substantially helpful for further researchers to be

able to connect with the PHAC’s media relations office for an interview in order to

understand the operations within the PHAC office at the height of media attention

in November 2014, and also to understand PHAC and CIC’s subsequent public

relations response thereon after.

Conclusion:

This exploratory multiple case study is the first empirical inquiry that

looks into a complex sociopolitical phenomena such as Canada’s response to Ebola

outbreak from a public relations perspective. Health policy makers are encouraged

to collaborate with public relations professionals to appraise and evaluate Canada’s

reputation and relationship in response to global public health crises.

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Appendix A:

Interview Introduction and questions

Introduction: Hi, my name is Melodie Yun-Ju Song. I am a second-year Health

Policy PhD student from the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics,

my supervisor if Dr. Julia Abelson from the Center of Health Economics and Policy

Analysis (CHEPA) at McMaster University. As part of my research interest in

understanding the intricacies of policymaking processes in Canada, I am taking a

course in Organizational Public Relations with my dissertation committee member

Dr. Alex Sévigny to conduct a exploratory case study about PR’s perception and

practice paradigm in regards to Canada’s decision to impose travel VISA ban on

Ebola pandemic countries.

Ethics: This study is being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Alex Sévigny,

the course instructor and director of the McMaster Master of Communications

Program. This project is covered under the course's ethics review. As such your

participation and contributions are protected under those guidelines. Furthermore,

your participation is voluntary and you may end this interview or your participation

in this study at any time. Your information will be kept confidential and only be

reported should you give me permission for the purposes of this paper. In order for

me to effectively report your comments, I would like to record our discussions.

Once I have transcribed the recording and finished this project, I will securely erase

the recordings. Do I have your permission to proceed?

Interview questions:

1. Introduction to research background (i.e. Canada’s response to Ebola). What

was it like working as a PR in ( ) in times of crisis? What role did

you play in the process? Were you able to operate independently?

2. What was the dynamic between you, the public, and the institution you were

working with? Were there any values, ethical concerns, standards to adhere to

in your work?

3. What is your experience as a PR with public diplomacy (i.e. involving in

decision-making, reputation management, relationship building, etc)? How do

you think PR can contribute to global diplomacy for Canada?

4. Asks interviewees to fill out survey of PR perceptions on various functions of

PR based on modernist, post-modernist, and critical modernist paradigms.

(Please see page 2). Of these three paradigms, which paradigm do you most

identify your practice as a PR professional with? Why?

5. Which view do you most identify? How would you, as a PR professional

working for ( ) respond to a crisis such as the Ebola outbreak, given

that the decisions may effect Canada’s reputation in the global context?

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6. Is there anything you would like to add?

Thank you for taking the time to meet with me to today and for answering my

questions. Please contact me if anything else comes to mind after we have spoken.

May I also contact you if I have any further questions?

Appendix B:

Survey of PR functions according to different paradigms (page 2)

Based on your experience working as a PR professional in ______________,

Please circle the type of paradigm in each PR function (modernist, post-modernist,

or critical modernist) that describes your work the best.

PR functions Modernist Post-modernist Critical Modernist

Communication Symmetrical Context-based Asymmetrical

Direction of

communication

Two-way, one-way Context-based,

dialogical

Power-related, most

likely one-way

Power-relation Equal Unequal (context,

language, culture-

based)

Unequal, hierarchical

Definition of publics Issue-oriented Context, language,

culture-based

Both issue and

context based

Autonomy of PR Yes Context, language,

culture-based

No

Value and ethics Implicit Contextual, strives

to be explicit

Power and construct-

related

Crisis is… A disruption Anticipated Anticipated

Initiation of management Proactive Proactive or

Reactive

Proactive

Informal communication Not valued Valued Valued

Reputation To be managed To be understood To be understood

Relationship building

Organizational interest Strived to be

prioritized

Dynamic, relative

based on context,

language, and

culture

To be analyzed and

criticized based on

power and structure

End goal To achieve

organizational

interest

To achieve

common interest

To balance between

the goal of the

organization and the

common interest

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