Professor Waters Publishes Book and Receives Grant

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Congratulations to Dr. Richard Waters, Assistant Professor of Public Nonprofit Administration, for his many accomplishments over the last few months. Dr. Waters co-authored the book Coming Out of the Closet: Exploring LGBT Issues in Strategic Communication with Theory and Research, which is coming out this June. "The book examines of how the advertising, marketing, and public relations industries interact with the LGBT community," says Dr. Waters "The research discusses how these industries work with, exploit and even work against this community."

Dr. Waters co-authored the book with Dr. Natalie Tindall of Georgia State University. He says the book is the result of a panel discussion he moderated in 2009. "Several of the panelists expressed their frustration with running into difficulty publishing research on LGBT issues in strategic communication journals," he said. "Despite the talk about segmented audiences and niche marketing, there has been relatively little done looking at the LGBT community in relationship to strategic communication. This book begins conversations about LGBT marketing and will hopefully generate more research in this understudied area."

Recently, Professor Waters was also the recipient of a Page Legacy Scholar grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication of Pennsylvania State University for his work concerning communication of social responsibility by both nonprofits and corporations. Furthermore, he has published eight articles and research papers over the last six months, the most recent of which, concerning AIDS communication campaigns in Uganda, is forthcoming in the next Journal of Communication Management.

Dr. Waters's new book Coming Out of the Closet is coming out this June and can be found on his publisher's website.