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Donnalyn Pompper

Professor, Endowed Chair in Public Relations
Phone: 541-346-2342
Office: 204 Allen Hall
City: Eugene

Biography

Donnalyn Pompper (Ph.D., Media & Communication, Temple University) teaches courses in and researches public relations, corporate social responsibility, and social identity. Overall, her research provides routes for enabling people, globally, to achieve their maximum potential at work, to embrace their intersecting social identity dimensions (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender), and to critically examine these issues across mass media representations.

Pompper is an internationally recognized scholar. In 2021, she and Eric Kwame Adae (UO '21) won the Doug Newsom Award of the AEJMC PR Division with their paper, "PR & Sustainability across the African Continent:  Using Afro-Centric Philosophies to Remember What’s Been ‘Forgotten or Lost’." Most recently, she wrote Community Building and Early Public Relations: Pioneer Women's Role on and after the Oregon Trail (2021) for Routledge, co-edited a special issue of Mass Communication & Society, published in a book called What IS News? (2021), and wrote "Public relations' role as diversity advocate: Avoiding microaggressions and nurturing microaffirmations in organizations" for Public Relations Journal, https://rb.gy/s8otqi. She edits the Global PR Insights series for Routledge and the Communicating Responsible Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion series for Emerald Publishing. Pompper also is a member of the editorial board for 10 peer-reviewed academic journals.

She has won two national book awards: the 2015 PRIDE Book Award for Innovation, Development, and Educational Achievement in Public Relations from the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association for Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, and Public Relations: Negotiating Multiple Complex Challenges (2015, Routledge); and the 2014 Top Book Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association for Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations (2014, Emerald Publishing). She also has published extensively in peer-reviewed academic journals including Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Mass Communication & SocietyJournal of Applied Communication ResearchJournal of Public Relations ResearchPublic Relations Review, and many others.

Pompper holds the Accredited Public Relations credential from Public Relations Society of America. Prior to joining the academy, she worked as a public relations manager and journalist who brings 25 years of practical experience to the classroom and her research. She worked in public affairs management at Campbell’s Soup Company, marketing public relations management at Tasty Baking Company where she created the public relations department, and as an account manager at Lewis, Gilman & Kynett (Philadelphia’s then-largest public relations/advertising firm). Pompper also worked as a daily newspaper freelance reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Courier-Post, as well as news editor at a weekly New Jersey newspaper chain.

Research

Pompper studies social justice, power, and social identity intersectionalities (e.g. age, ethnicity/“race,” gender) issues: 1) in organizations, and 2) in mass media representations. Her research is grounded in areas of public relations, corporate social responsibility/sustainability, femininity and masculinity studies, critical race studies, cultural studies, global justice and resistance, crisis/risk communication, and environmental journalism. 

Publications

  • Pompper, D. (2021). Community building and early public relations: Pioneer women's role on and after the Oregon Trail. New York: Routledge.

  • Pompper, D. (Ed.) (2021). Public relations for social responsibility: Affirming DEI commitment with action. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 

  • Pompper, D. (Ed.) (2022, in press). Rhetoric of masculinity: Male body image, media, and gender role stress/conflict. Washington, D.C.: Lexington Books (a division of Rowman & Littlefield).

  • Pompper, D., Place, K., & Weaver, C. K. (Eds.) (2023, in press). The Routledge public relations companion. New York: Routledge.

  • Pompper, D. (2023, in press). Discovering answers: Research methods for public relations. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

  • Pompper, D. (Ed.) (2018). Corporate social responsibility, sustainability, & ethical public relations: Strengthening synergies with human resources. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. The Changing Context of Managing People series.​
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  • Pompper, D. (2017). Rhetoric of femininity: Female body image, media, and gender role stress/conflict. Washington, D.C.: Lexington Books (a division of Rowman & Littlefield). Lexington Studies in Contemporary Rhetoric series.
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  • Pompper, D. (Ed.) (2017). Climate and sustainability communication. New York:  Routledge.