Sandra Boone

The racial and ethnic geography of the Twin Cities is important to why ICE actions are occurring throughout the metro area and beyond. Although the two core cities have a lot of non-white and immigrant populations, most of the non-white population lives in the suburbs.

The UW Center for an Informed Public is looking for postdocs (for 2026-2028) from across diverse disciplines whose research sheds light on the challenges of our modern information environment, promotes civic health, and/or helps people/communities navigate online spaces: apply.interfolio.com/177901

Frontiers | Critical language awareness as a future imperative: seeing the ‘water’ This position paper argues that critical language awareness (CLA) must be recognised as a core, future-oriented metacognitive competency. In our time marked ...

A position paper on critical language awareness by @linguadigitalis.bsky.social and others from Groningen and Cape Town

www.frontiersin.org/journals/com...

The Price of Nice: Why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck and 4 Actions for Real Change | Amira Barger This practical guide shows how to move past superficial workplace "niceness" to create real change through a proven four-step approach. Readers will learn how to transform toxic p

Workplace harmony is great—until it costs equity and justice. "The Price of Nice" by @amirabarger.bsky.social shows why “being nice” isn’t enough & what to do instead. amirabarger.com/books/the-pr...

Screenshot of the website for the Public Relations Journal, "New Code Needed for New Conversations: A Critical Textual Analysis of the PRSA Code of Ethics and Practitioners’ Responsibility to the Public Good.”

My first article as a Ph.D. candidate has been published in a peer-reviewed journal: “New Code Needed for New Conversations: A Critical Textual Analysis of the PRSA Code of Ethics and Practitioners’ Responsibility to the Public Good.” instituteforpr.org/prj-vol-18-i... #PR #PublicRelations

Writing in Good Company online this morning was a heartening start to the week.

To find an online academic co-writing option that works for you this fall, start with this list @allisonvandev.bsky.social and I collected: bridgecreekediting.com/a-call-to-ac...

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

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.

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.

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

A row of books fanned out on the ground. The first 5 books address language, race, and education. The others discuss policy and brand strategy.

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

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.

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

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.

Thank you!

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

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

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...

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

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.

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

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

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).

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

Thank you!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

“But we have laws!”

They don’t care

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