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The purpose of this paper is to explore how the health ministries of Turkey and Slovenia use Twitter as government agencies obliged to communicate with the public.

This study employed a content analysis methodology to examine how Turkish (TR) and Slovenian (SLO) health ministries use Twitter for informing and encouraging behavior change in the public. A total of 662 “tweets” were analyzed. Drawing on prior studies, a coding scheme was developed and employed, and χ² and t-tests were conducted for data analysis. Additionally, this study aimed at effecting a content analysis according to the “four models” method of Grunig and Hunt regarding efforts made to build communication with the public.

This study uncovered that the TR and SLO health ministries did not utilize two-way communication principles for Twitter communication, and their frequency of Twitter use is inadequate.

The sampled tweets were selected by using a scientific sampling method. However, this might not have been substantial enough to represent the entirety of tweets in the study timeframe. Analyzing tweets across a longer timeframe would be helpful in confirming this study's findings. This study was also limited to two countries and to publicly available tweets; the messages of health ministries' followers to the ministries themselves were not examined. The findings of this study may not be generalizable to other countries. Other potential studies, with a particular focus on this topic, may be able to measure individual perceptions of the credibility and usefulness of messages from health ministries and their willingness to engage in two-way communication.

This study is one of the first to evaluate how the health ministries of Turkey and Slovenia communicate on Twitter and to apply the four models of Grunig and Hunt with regard to Twitter. This study also identified that noncompeting government agencies were not minded to communicate with their publics.

The principle focus of the European Communication Professional Skills and Innovation (ECOPSI) Research project reported in this paper is to develop understanding of the competences held by senior communication practitioners and the contributing knowledge, skills and personal attributes that are relevant to their role. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper is based on 24 months of desk and empirical work by the research team in three core phases: the benchmarking report based on literature reviews in each country region; quantitative data collection from communication practitioners in 42 countries across Europe; qualitative data from 53 interviews across four senior practitioner roles in the six regions of the study’s focus.

The findings highlight the competencies needed by senior practitioners through the creation of the Communication Role Matrix with critical evaluation of the current contemporary issues faced by the sector.

The authors acknowledge a limitation of the study regarding the selection of the four studied professional roles. ECOPSI has proven a common understanding of theses four studied roles in Europe, but further research on the competencies of diverse roles performed in the profession would need to be explored for a more comprehensive appreciation of the full spectrum of public relations and strategic communication practice.

The paper draws together findings from across Europe and presents a practical interpretation of the project in the form of an online self-diagnostic tool based on an online portal for practitioners to self-complete.

The programme improves the professionalism of practitioners across Europe and their ability to work across borders in a European and wider international community of communication practitioners.

This study benchmarks the educational and practice landscape in six key regions of Europe to demonstrate that the elements focusing on skills, knowledge and personal attributes of European communication professionals can be synthesised using competences as the foundational element. The originality is also reflected in the self-diagnostic tool for the project based on an online portal.

The right of individuals to particular privileges or benefits is a natural expectation in any workplace. Yet, the concept and practice of “entitlement” is especially crucial in faculties of education where preservice teachers are being prepared to be fully-fledged teachers. In this context, academic administrators shoulder the responsibility of supporting the “well-being” of faculty members. The purpose of this study is to investigate faculty members' experiences of being exposed to excessive entitlement through the faculty well-being lens. The study group is composed of seven faculty members working in faculties of education at foundation universities (universities funded by philanthropies) in Turkey. Faculty members' narrative accounts related to their exposure to excessive entitlement were analyzed within the framework of three dimensions of faculty wellness: (1) thriving, (2) struggling and (3) suffering. The stories shared in this chapter provide unique insights for faculty members and academic administrators about work–life balance, which contributes to a culture of well-being among student teachers and faculty members.