| The field of regenerative medicine remains highly controversial in public social and political debate. Due to the strong emotional responses to some of the subject matter, the role of communication and communicators in this debate is key. By examining the roles of public relations practitioners and communicators involved in stem cell research through in-depth interviews, this study, first, describes the communication landscape of this issue through communication concepts identified by those working in the field, and, second, illustrates how these concepts translate into successful communication and public relations approaches, techniques, and tactics used to reach communication goals. This study pursued these goals by applying a theoretical framework that first involved spiral of silence to illustrate the landscape, and then persuasion theories, and public relations theories to illustrate the specific successful approaches of communicators. Overall, conceptually the role of communication in this field is to educate publics and the role of the communicator is as educator. This education first approach was shown to overcome issues such as public opinion and misinformation. These concepts translated into three main successful strategies used by stem cell research communicators: targeted responses, web sites, and face-to-face outreach. |
