About

Lois Boynton joined the faculty of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media in 2001, where she teaches ethics and public relations classes. She is a fellow in the University’s Parr Center for Ethics and was named to the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars. In 2024, she received the university’s Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement. Her research focuses on ethical decision-making by public relations practitioners and journalists, as well as the topics of professionalism, social responsibility, and the need and impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Boynton’s work has been published in numerous academic journals, and she has authored or co-authored 11 book chapters, presenting her research at various professional conferences. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a reporter and features editor for the community newspaper Observer News Enterprise and as a public relations/advertising supervisor for Siecor Corp., now Corning Cable Systems. She continues her work in public relations by providing pro bono assistance to clients and events, and she is actively involved in professional organizations such as AEJMC, the International Communication Association, the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, and PRSA.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• History
• Engineering
• Philosophy
• Engineering ethics
• Law
• Gender studies
• Environmental ethics

Selected publications

• Ethical Relationships and Responsibilities Contribute to Social Good

  Routledge eBooks · 2024

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Environmental ethics

  Informing and persuading ethically requires PR practitioners to rationally apply professional values, particularly when facing dilemmas. They must balance competing loyalties, understand the influence of standpoints, and advise organization leaders about societal obligations. Corporate social responsibility has evolved to push companies outside their comfort zones; corporate social advocacy obliges companies to tackle controversial causes and risk ruffling feathers of some stakeholders and power elite. Organization and professional association ethics codes also provide guidance, and processes such as the Potter Box, Bok model, Navran model, and TARES test may lead practitioners to viable solutions to the ethical challenges they face. This chapter presents key ethical foundations for nonprofits, government agencies, and for-profit companies.

  PublisherDOI

• How Free and How Responsible?

  Routledge eBooks · 2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science

  More than 75 years since it was written, the Hutchins Commission Report continues to influence the practice of journalism in America. This chapter begins with an overview of the Commission’s report, and critiques from contemporaries. In the process, the chapter addresses various topics, including social responsibility of the press, the role of journalism in a democracy, economic/business models’ impact on news quality, and ongoing government–press tensions. Finally, the chapter addresses the report’s viability in today’s media landscape.

  PublisherDOI

• Woman’s Era : A Catalyst for Literary Activism and the Social Evolution of Nineteenth-Century Black Clubwomen

  Journal of women's history · 2023 · 1 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Gender studies

  Abstract: By the late nineteenth century, Black women used poetry, short stories, novels, and nonfiction to confront a white, patriarchal society and protest the lynchings of Black people and voting disenfranchisement of Black women. Woman’s Era became the first periodical written by and for Black women, which preserved a piece of intellectual strategy as elite Black clubwomen’s marketplace of ideas. This article explores the contributions of Woman’s Era , which also was the first to integrate into one journal various literary forms, thereby lending credence globally to many voices regularly overlooked by the white and male-dominated Black press. Their writings were a form of literary activism helping to legitimize Black women as change agents who fought socially and politically for their communities and collective rights as enfranchised citizens. This article complements the historical canon about Black clubwomen’s social and political contributions through literary interventions in their communities, states, nation, and the world.

  PublisherDOI

• Conceptualizing transparency: Propositions for the integration of situational factors and stakeholders’ perspectives

  Public Relations Inquiry · 2017-09-01 · 34 citations

  articleSenior author

  In communication research on transparency, information has been predominantly regarded as an objective and ascertainable construct – for example, evaluated by its amount – resulting in the neglect of highly subjective and intersubjective considerations of situational factors such as crises, organization types, and larger external environments that include laws, regulations, and social norms, in addition to stakeholders’ perspectives. In reviewing the relevant literature, we first find that transparency has developed from an instrumental to an intrinsic value, and then locate the current inquiry into transparency in an area of overlap between the two approaches – implicating objective certainty and subjective value, respectively. Based on this review, we present the significance of integrating the two additional parameters of situational factors and stakeholders’ perspectives by focusing more on normative, rather than instrumental, perspectives. For the purpose of creating a comprehensive theoretical framework of transparency, we propose an operational definition of transparency as a process, as well as a research framework.

  PublisherDOI

• Friend of the Victim : The Case of the Murdered Student

  CQ Press eBooks · 2017-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Driving Employee Engagement

  International Journal of Business Communication · 2014-03-23 · 372 citations

  article

  Increasingly, organizations and their public relations professionals are recognizing the importance of strengthening internal communication with employees. Internal communication is important for building a culture of transparency between management and employees, and it can engage employees in the organization’s priorities. This exploratory study uses findings from interviews with public relations executives to explore the growing role that internal communication plays in employee engagement. Executives employ a variety of communication methods, including face-to-face communication, to communicate with employees. The executives’ chosen communication strategies aim to build trust and engagement with employees. In doing so, public relations executives find themselves in an expanded role of fostering employee engagement.

  PublisherDOI

• Has Crisis Communication Been Studied Using an Interdisciplinary Approach? A 20-Year Content Analysis of Communication Journals

  International Journal of Strategic Communication · 2013-12-07 · 78 citations

  articleSenior author

  This study examines whether the status of crisis communication research is interdisciplinary by paying special attention to different perspectives from varying theories, methods, and authors. One hundred seventy-five articles published in major communication journals from 1991 to 2011 were extracted as crisis communication articles. The results of a quantitative content analysis revealed that, among theories applied to crisis research, most were from communication and public relations disciplines, which included framing, image restoration, situational crisis communication, and excellence theory. Although outside disciplines that have studied crisis communication research included psychology, economics, mathematics, and sociology, those disciplines made up less than one-third of the articles. Regarding the methodological approach, each portion of articles using two or more methods (e.g., experiment and survey) and a triangulation approach (e.g., qualitative and quantitative) was less than 10%. However, the frequency of the triangulation, or mixed-method, approach has dramatically increased since 2006, which indicates that interdisciplinary crisis communication research is evolving into an interdisciplinary field. Another indication of this trend can be found in the variety of authors, institutions, and departments dedicated to crisis communication. Although crisis articles are published primarily by communication, journalism, and public relations departments, other diverse disciplines are also widely contributing to crisis communication research.

  PublisherDOI

• Book Review: <i>The AMA Handbook of Public Relations: Leveraging PR in the Digital World</i> , by Robert L. Dilenschneider

  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · 2013-05-21 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Book Reviews

  Journalism History · 2011-07-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Commentary 1: This PR Firm Should Have Known Better

  Journal of Mass Media Ethics · 2007-06-18 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• H. Denis Wu

  Boston University

  2 shared

• Patricia A. Curtin

  2 shared

• Ryan M. Martin

  University of Calgary

  1 shared

• Cassandra Imfeld

  1 shared

• Jim DeBrosse

  Ohio University

  1 shared

• Aneil K. Mishra

  University of Pretoria

  1 shared

• Rachel Davis Mersey

  DePaul University

  1 shared

• Adam Rhew

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• University’s Parr Center for Ethics Fellow
• University’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars
• Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement (2024)
• Richard Cole Service Award (2018)
• Ed Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching (2014)