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Public relations for the bereaved: Online

interactions in a community for stillbirth
and neonatal death charity
ARTICLE in PUBLIC RELATIONS REVIEW JUNE 2015
Impact Factor: 0.73 DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.11.015

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Roxana D. Maiorescu
Emerson College
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Public Relations Review 41 (2015) 293295

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Public Relations Review

Research in Brief

Public relations for the bereaved: Online interactions in a

community for stillbirth and neonatal death charity
Roxana Maiorescu
Emerson College, Department of Marketing Communication, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 2 August 2014
Received in revised form
14 November 2014
Accepted 20 November 2014
Keywords:
Online communities
Public relations
Nonprot organizations
Social media
Stillbirth

a b s t r a c t
This paper uses the case of the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (SANDS) in the UK and
assesses its use of social media. The results reveal that SANDS engages in one-way communication and fails to take full advantage of the potential of the Web 2.0 to increase awareness,
raise funds, and break the taboo around stillbirth and neonatal death. The results can be
used to improve SANDS online communication and can be applied by similar nonprots in
the UK.
2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
According to SANDS website, UK is dealing with the highest rate of stillbirths and neonatal deaths from among the
developed countries in Europe and loses eleven babies daily. Nonprots like SANDS bear the responsibility to not only raise
funds, but to also engender dialog that will break the taboo and make stillbirth and neonatal death be perceived as less of
an anomaly. Social media provide a venue that nonprots can use to create online communities (Briones, Kuch, Fisher Liu, &
Jin, 2011; Warisse Turner, Grube, & Meyers, 2001; Waters & Jamal, 2011) where those affected by stillbirth can share similar
stories, nd comfort, and help to spread awareness and raise funds via the webs interactivity. Formed around a common
interest, (Tao, 2011) online communities are currently used by half of the internet users around the world (Tao, 2011, p.67)
and have the potential to trigger relationship building and maintaining, a primary function of the public relations practice.
In this study, I contend that SANDS can develop a strong online community if it communicates around emotional support. Therefore, the organizations online communication was assessed by determining the presence of two constructs drawn
from interpersonal communication theory, namely encouragement and respect (Burleson, 2013; Rogers, 1957). In addition,
the study assessed the close bonds among the members of SANDS online community by coding for the presence of intimacy (revealing intimate information), closeness (the display of familiarity with another user), and care (Burleson, 2013).
Therefore, based on the literature review on the nonprot use of social media, this study asked: (1) how often SANDS communicated encouragement and respect, and (2) how often the community members communication displayed intimacy,
closeness, and care.

Tel.: +1 540 267 5783.

E-mail address: roxana maiorescu@emerson.edu
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.11.015
0363-8111/ 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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R. Maiorescu / Public Relations Review 41 (2015) 293295

2. Method
This study used the case of SANDS, the major nonprot stillbirth and neonatal death charity in the UK and analyzed its
Facebook page which comprises over 43,000 members. SANDS Facebook posts (N = 121) and the userscomments (N = 1658)
were analyzed over six months, between July 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. The analysis ascertained the frequency with
which the organization communicated emotional support through the constructs of encouragement and respect and the
presence of the variables of intimacy, closeness, and care in the users posts.
Every 10th post from the sample that consisted of SANDS communication and every 10th post from the sample that
entailed the users comments were selected for the purpose of the interrated reliability. An additional coder was trained into
the coding procedure and was given a total of 181 posts. The interrated reliability was k = .79 using Cohens kappa.
3. Results
The rst question asked about the extent to which the constructs of encouragement and respect were present in the
organizations posts. The results showed a presence of 94.5% (N = 114, M = .11, SD = .556) for encouragement and 95.6 (N =
115, M = .12, SD = .701) for respect. The analysis looked into two types of encouragement: one directly related to emotional
support and, the other one known to trigger comfort indirectly. Hence, the coding process took into account any words
or phrases that encouraged the users to share their personal stories, to be strong, etc. all of which constituted direct
encouragement.
Further, coding for encouragement also included the number of times SANDS asked its users to get involved in stillbirthrelated activities such as running a marathon or liking/sharing a stillbirth-related event. It was considered that this type of
encouragement would lead to emotional support because it has the potential to empower the bereaved parents and increase
their self-efcacy all of which, in turn, helps to alleviate pain by partaking in a common cause. SANDS posts revolved around
the latter type of encouragement, namely that which asked for various types of participation and denoted an informative, oneway communication style. However, promoting encouragement at a personal level would help the organization strengthen
its relationship with its users and would trigger more intimacy, care, and closeness in its online community. Yet, this nding
is not surprising and is in line with past studies that showed other nonprot organizations use of one-way communication
on social media (Waters & Jamal, 2011).
Respect appeared in relation to events that allowed the bereaved parents to honor their lost children. However, SANDS did
not tackle respect in terms of the societal expectations, stillbirth/neonatal death as taboo, and/or similar topics that would
denote two-way communication and an attempt to establish relationships. The following post is illustrative of SANDS
attempt to engage users online:
Today is Baby Loss Awareness Day where we remember all the babies who have touched our liveshowever briey.
Please join us at 7pm in the global Wave of Light by lightening a candle in memory of our babies.
With regard to the userscomments, the construct of closeness had the highest presence and appeared in a proportion of
54.4% (M = .62, SD = .825). The posts revealed that the users were coming in contact ofine after having established rapport
via social media. Further, intimacy appeared in 46.1% of the comments (M = 1.42, SD = 1.679) and showed that the online
group was a venue for communicating about an experience hard to share ofine because of the discomfort it provoked. For
example, one parent wrote:
We lost our Sophie at 37.5 weeks, July 2002 born sleeping, but had made a very very [sic] tough decision to stop her
heart the day before as she may have not survived the birth, although if she had she would have lived a maximum of
8 weeks dying a slow painful and uncomfortable death.
Finally, the least present construct was care and appeared in 45.2% of the comments (M = .57, SD = .534). An example of
the care the users provided to one another is the following comment made by a bereaved parent:bless u all I feel and no
[sic] your pain:([sic].
4. Discussion/conclusion
The results showed that, although SANDS posts had a high presence of respect and encouragement, the users comments
did not reveal a close online community since care, intimacy, and closeness were present in less than half of the users
comments. To form a close online community SANDS should communicate respect and encouragement in relation to breaking
the taboo and coping with loss. This communication style leads to increased user involvement and more disclosure (intimacy)
and strengthens the relationship among the users while increasing interactivity. In turn, this interactivity will lead to more
awareness about stillbirth and will help the organization raise funds. Currently, SANDS communication encourages its users
to post, retweet, and/or volunteer. While this type of encouragement can alleviate pain by increasing self-efcacy, it fails to
provide a venue for increased interaction among the online community members.
The results are in line with past research on the nonprots use of social media and the failure of small to average nonprots
to take advantage of the Web 2.0. (Briones, Kuch, Fisher Liu, & Jin, 2011; Waters & Jamal, 2011). While this failure may stem

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from a lack of resources and trained staff, raising awareness and funds could be done by investing minimum amounts of
resources into online communities.
Further research is suggested to determine how similar nonprots communicate online about stillbirth. Studies could
consider enlarging the sample of analysis to make use of multiple regression and determine the impact of encouragement
and respect on the presence closeness, intimacy, and care in the users comments. In addition, studies can look into gender
discrepancies in providing and receiving emotional support as well as into the nonprots online communication in maledominated cultures where the society is inclined to blame women for a stillbirth or neonatal death.
The complete study can be requested from the author.
References
Briones, R. L., Kuch, B., Fisher Liu, B., & Jin, Y. (2011). Keeping up with the digital age: How the American Red Cross uses social media to build relationships.
Public Relations Review, 37, 3743.
Burleson, R. B. (2013). Comforting messages: Feature, functions, and outcomes. In J. A. Daily, & J. M. Wiemann (Eds.), Strategic interpersonal communication
(pp. 135161). New York, NY: Routledge.
Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufcient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 12, 279288.
Tao, Z. (2011). Understanding online community user participation: A social inuence perspective. Internet Research, 21(1), 6781.
Warisse Turner, J., Grube, J. A., & Meyers, J. (2001). Developing an optimal match within online communities: An exploration of CMC support communities
and traditional support. Journal of Communication, 51(2), 231251.
Waters, R. D., & Jamal, J. Y. (2011). Tweet, tweet, tweet: A content analysis of nonprot organizations Twitter updates. Public Relations Review, 37, 321324.