Suchergebnisse

Editors or senior journalists within a sample of 21 leading UK newspapers were questioned about their opinions of the quality of the information about foreign (especially Third World) catastrophes supplied to them by the major disaster relief charities (Oxfam, Save the Children, ActionAid, etc.). The study also examined the procedures employed by journalists when searching for information about disasters, the major sources of information other than disaster relief organisations to which they referred, and their perceptions of what makes a story about a foreign disaster "newsworthy". Additionally, the respondents discussed their reactions to the allegation that newspapers' portrayals of the victims of Third World disasters stereotype, demean and patronise the communities involved. Briefly compares journalistic perspectives on these matters with those of the fund‐raising managers in a sample of seven major disaster relief charities.

Relationships between a supplier's corporate reputation, trust in the supplier, co‐operation, buyer commitment, and willingness to undertake relationship‐specific investments were examined in the context of interactions between three UK seaports and a sample of 144 of their customer shipping firms. It emerged that the model proposed by the International Marketing and Purchasing Group performed well as a predictor of supplier/purchaser relationships within this sector. Seaports' corporate reputations (as measured by the Fortune reputation index) significantly affected shippers' desires for close relationships with particular ports, and acted as a quasi‐moderator of the impact of supplier trust on closeness. Reputation, moreover, constituted a pure moderator vis‐à‐vis the influences of trust on commitment and on relationship‐specific investments and adaptations of business systems. Additionally reputation modified the effects of experience (i.e. the period for which a shipper had been doing business with a specific port) on trust.

This study explored the processes and influences that helped determine the promotional imagery employed by a number of urban regeneration partnerships in London and New York. Although the degrees of ethnic and cultural diversity in the districts considered were broadly comparable, such diversity was given greater prominence in New York than in London. Partnerships that depended heavily on wider governmental economic development agencies selected promotional imagery that focused solely on attracting business investment, without mention of the ethnic/cultural heterogeneity of the area concerned. Marketing was seen as an important and valuable activity, but was generally regarded as an operational rather than a strategic function.

Two hundred members of the public were interviewed in high street and railway station locations in central London to ascertain the considerations that encourage them to donate generously to a disaster relief fund‐raising appeal. It emerged that the major fund‐raising triggers involved media representations of the indigency of aid recipients, portrayals of people helping themselves, and highly emotive advertising imagery. Although they were potentially patronising and demeaning to disaster victims, such depictions seemingly exerted powerful influences on donation decisions. Factors discouraging donations included media reports of unfair aid distributions, warfare or internal insurrection, and inefficiency in the relief operation. Combined fund‐raising efforts covering several organisations were viewed more favourably than individual charity initiatives. State endorsements of particular campaigns exerted little influence. Some but not all of the variables known to determine levels of donations to charity in general also explained the incidence of donations to disaster relief appeals. However, people with young children gave to disaster appeals more frequently than the rest of the sample, contradicting previous findings in the general (non‐disaster) charity fund‐raising area.