Joy: Using strategic communication to improve well-being and organizational success

ABSTRACT

As I write the introduction to this latest book in the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) Congress series for Emerald, I cannot help but hold some sense of irony. Our excellent Congress in Zagreb - held during early October 2019 - was another annual celebration of international exchanges of research and new ideas in the scholarship of public relations and strategic communication. The theme of the congress was 'Joy'. And yet, as I compose these introductory thoughts and reflections for the book, my fellow editors and I are each sitting in our home offices as many of you will have done. All of us experiencing for the first time in our lives an extraordinary, enforced lockdown during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis in the spring of 2020. As such 'joy' may not be the first emotion academics and research students think of when reflecting on this challenging period of our lives, but it is perhaps poignant to recall the discussions and debates we held in Zagreb and the fascinating papers we shared during the Congress. Whilst many of the papers touched literally on the issue of joy, others explored related emotions and in some papers the flip or opposing sensations to positivity. In essence the theme of the 2019 Congress is perhaps never more appropriate than in times of stress, international emergency and genuine societal challenge. We need to be able to understand how and where we can sense happiness, well-being, social cohesion, togetherness, appreciation of others and, arguably, attributes of joy. Even before this exceptional year of 2020, it would have been possible to argue that we are living in an era of societal pessimism. That challenging viewpoint appears only to have been reinforced and heightened by the international experiences of the COVID-19 crisis. As we observe our everyday academic worlds, it is possible to see that everyone potentially has a voice, and in the contemporary climate it is very often used to criticize. Publics see problems and discuss them in multifarious ways and on a plethora of platforms and media outlets. And, in turn, academic research reflects this and often views the world through a negative lens and focuses on difficulties, issues and bad practices. With this meeting of the international public relations and strategic communication research community, it was the ambition of the Congress organizers from the University of Zagreb and the EUPRERA Board to encourage and promote some optimism in both the public discourse and academic research about the discipline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)