Inoculation theory and public relations

Public Relations Review 47 (2021) 102116 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Public Relations Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pubrev Full Length Article Inoculation theory and public relations Josh Compton a, *, Shelley Wigley b, Sergei A. Samoilenko c a Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, Dartmouth College, 228, 37 Dewey Field Road, Hanover, NH 03755, United States Department of Communication, University of Texas at Arlington, Fine Arts Building, Room 118, 700 West Greek Row Dr., Arlington, TX 76019, United States c Department of Communication, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive MS 3D6, Fairfax, VA 22030, United States b A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: Inoculation theory Resistance to influence Persuasion Issues management Crisis communication Risk communication Reputation management Character assassination Inoculation theory explains how an existing state (an attitude, a belief, a position) can be made more resistant to future influence, in much the same way a medical inoculation can make an existing state (a healthy body) more resistant to future viral influence: through pre-exposure to weakened forms of challenges. The theory has established efficacy as an effective messaging strategy in a number of contexts, including politics and health. Another area that has received attention in inoculation theory scholarship is public relations. A comprehensive review of this work, however, is long overdue. We outline existing work in inoculation theory and public relations, and then show how inoculation theory and public relations research can bring new applications and theoretical development to the public relations areas of (1) issues management; (2) crisis and risk communication; and (3) character assassination. 1. Introduction The main idea of inoculation theory is that resistance to challenges to attitudes and beliefs can be induced much like resistance to viral challenges to health: A weakened dose of a future challenge is administered, in advance of the stronger challenge, to preemptively generate protective responses—to inoculate against future challenge (Compton, 2013; McGuire, 1964). In some ways, attitudinal inoculation is even more powerful than a viral inoculation—or at least, more efficient. A conventional medical inoculation protects against one threat, e.g., a flu shot protects against the flu, and only the flu, and only a particular strain or strains of the flu. An attitudinal inoculation does not have these limitations. One does not have to know the specific persuasive attack—the impending persuasive threat—or even the mode or form of the persuasive attack. Inoculating against some challenges confers resistance to challenges, in general (see Banas & Rains, 2010; Compton, 2013; McGuire, 1964). Decades of laboratory and field research support inoculation’s efficacy (Banas & Rains, 2010), especially in the contexts of politics (Compton & Ivanov, 2013) and health (Compton, Jackson, & Dimmock, 2016). Another context that has received concentrated attention is public relations, although a contemporary review of such work is lacking. This present work addresses this need. Such a focus also meets needs for public relations theory and practice. Scholars have called for a continuing focus on theory in public relations research (Pfau & Wan, 2006), and inoculation theory offers an innovative, powerful way to guide public relations campaigns, with established efficacy in crisis and risk communication (e.g., Dillingham & Ivanov, 2015, 2017; Einwiller & Johar, 2013; Kim, 2013; Wan & Pfau, 2004; Wigley & Pfau, 2010) and advocacy campaigns (e.g., Burgoon, Pfau, & Birk, 1995). Scholars have noted the wide range of attacks that inoculation could protect against, including attacks from news coverage, consumer groups, and competitors (see Easley, Bearden, & Teel, 1995). The purpose of this current review is not to introduce a new model for public relations informed campaigns built on the tenets of inoculation and related theories. Others have already offered such models and have done it well (e.g., Crowley & Hoyer, 1994; Ho, Shin, & Pang, 2016; Kim, 2013). Neither is it an attempt to offer empirical evidence for inoculation’s efficacy, in general. That, too, has already been done (e.g., Banas & Rains, 2010). Instead, we see this review as offering a smorgasbord of opportunities for inoculation and public relations research in particular, for its theory development and applications in public relations contexts. Our hope is that this work benefits a full range of public relations scholars and practitioners. For those already doing work or applied campaigns in the area of resistance, but perhaps not inoculation theory, we hope that this conceptual analysis offers a complementary framework for analysis, assessment, and future work. For those for which the idea of resistance is un- or under-studied, we suggest inoculation theory as a good starting place for resistance research. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: josh.compton@dartmouth.edu (J. Compton), shelley.wigley@uta.edu (S. Wigley), ssamoyle@gmu.edu (S.A. Samoilenko). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2021.102116 Received 5 August 2020; Received in revised form 9 September 2021; Accepted 13 September 2021 0363-8111/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. J. Compton et al. Public Relations Review 47 (2021) 102116 3. Inoculation theory and public relations To meet these aims, we first overview extant public relations and inoculation theory research, with particular emphases on areas of (in) consistencies. We then propose future research possibilities in three main areas of public relations (1) issues management; (2) crisis and risk communication; and (3) character assassination. Like the practice of public relations, inoculation theory models a type of dialogue. With inoculation, these communication exchanges bring up counter-perspectives and responses, counterarguments and responses to counterarguments. This dialogic feature of a conventional inoculation treatment message is part of the logic of post-inoculation talk, or the idea that inoculation messages model and motivate discussions about issues that include multiple perspectives (i.e., counterarguments and responses to counterarguments; see Compton & Pfau, 2009). Likewise, public relations scholars have outlined the dialogic features of public relations (e. g., Kent & Taylor, 2002), including Heath (2000) contention that dialogue pairs statement with counterstatement (or in inoculation theory terminology, counterarguments and refutations). Inoculation theory and public relations have another important area of similarity: Scholars working in both areas are acknowledging the importance of audiences making their own decisions and reaching their own conclusions. With the former, a major move in inoculation theory is to emphasize how inoculation theory can be used to guide campaigns that enhance critical thinking, not the mere memorization and repetition of specific refutations (e.g., Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017). With the latter, public relations scholars are articulating views of public relations as cocreational—that “the organization’s public is the partner in meaning making” (Taylor & Botan, 2006; and see Botan & Taylor, 2004). Even at fundamental levels, then, inoculation theory shares important similarities with contemporary public relations theorizing. Both are dialogic, both are relational, and both aim to enhance thoughtful decision-making. Some of the first considerations of inoculation theory and public relations began in the mid-1990s. Burgoon et al. (1995) studied Mobil Oil’s use of corporate issue/advocacy campaigns and concluded that, instead of conceptualizing these messaging efforts as persuasive advertising, their efforts are better understood as inoculation messages—campaigns designed to protect against future image attacks. During this same time period, Easley et al. (1995) found inoculation to be an effective strategy to protect against negative information. Their analysis offered some conditions, though. As they note: 2. Inoculation theory The crux of inoculation is that an attitudinal inoculation works much like a medical inoculation. Pre-exposure to a weak version of a challenge confers resistance to a stronger version of challenges that come later (Compton, 2013; McGuire, 1964). Two main components are thought to be at work in inoculation: threat, or a recognition that an existing position is vulnerable to future attacks (Banas & Richards, 2017; Compton, 2013; McGuire, 1964), and refutational preemption, or the raising and refuting of counterarguments (i.e., the weak version of a threat), which generates additional raising and refuting of counterarguments in the minds of those inoculated and in their actual conversations with others about the issues (see Compton & Pfau, 2009; Dillingham & Ivanov, 2016; Ivanov et al., 2012). One of the powerful results of inoculation messaging is that the resistance that is conferred extends well beyond the specific counterarguments included in the treatment message. Instead, inoculation messaging confers protection to both the same and to novel attacks (Banas & Rains, 2010), or counterarguments, that were specifically raised and refuted in the treatment message and other counterarguments that were not even mentioned. The prototypical inoculation message is a two-sided message that raises and refutes challenges to an advocated attitude or belief. For example, an inoculation message designed to protect children from peer pressure to try vaping might say something to the effect of: Some of your friends might try to convince you that vaping is harmless. But that’s just not true. Vaping involves the inhalation of harmful substances, and in some cases, people have died from vaping-related illnesses. In this example, the phrase “vaping is harmless” is a counterargument, and it is functioning like the viral component of a vaccination—something that triggers a response of protection. It is weakened by the lines that follow—the refutation of this counterargument. Thus, this two-sided message format functions as inoculation—presenting weakened, potentially dangerous content to trigger a resistance response to protect against stronger dangerous content later. This strategy could be applied to any issue, in any context, that has the potential to be challenged. In addition to this two-sided message format, inoculation messages often include a forewarning. A forewarning is a statement that alerts message recipients that an attitude or belief they currently hold will likely be challenged in the future (Compton, 2013; McGuire, 1964). To return to our vaping example: A forewarning statement could preface the two-sided message content and warn: The results suggest that an entity’s most effective strategy is to selfdisclose with refutations of the same information that is likely to be used in subsequent attacks; however, if an attack is not anticipated (or, alternatively, only a weak attack is anticipated), then selfdisclosure may not be advantageous. The effects could be detrimental. Consequently, and recognizing the need for additional research, refutational-same approaches, under anticipation of a strong attack, appear most plausible. (Easley et al., 1995, p. 102) This idea—that “inoculation damages beliefs” (Easley et al., 1995, p. 104)—has since been questioned by some findings (e.g., Wigley & Pfau, 2010), but not all findings (e.g., Wan & Pfau, 2004). Wan and Pfau (2004) found that inoculation worked to shore up public attitudes during a crisis—but no better than a bolstering approach, and they found some evidence that inoculation can hurt attitudes if a crisis does not actually occur, whereas Wigley and Pfau (2010) found little risk of using an inoculation message in the absence of an actual crisis. Inoculating against a risk that did not materialize did not harm the entity’s image. Additionally, Wigley and Pfau (2010) looked at a specific application of inoculation in public relations: pre-crisis communication. “Because it is impossible to anticipate and simulate every possible crisis situation an organization might encounter,” they sought “to explore several proactive communication strategies in order to preempt reputational loss in the event of a crisis” (Wigley & Pfau, 2010, p. 568), with specific attention to inoculation, bolstering, and corporate social responsibility messages. Their investigation of a pet food company crisis revealed inoculation to be a successful pre-crisis strategy, but no more so than You are determined to avoid vaping, and that’s the right choice. But you will face challenges to your decision—perhaps from your friends, from the media, or some other persuasive attempt. Forewarnings like this one boost reactions to an inoculation message. They elicit more threat, and this threat motivates the process of resistance to influence (Banas & Richards, 2017; Compton, 2013). This is how inoculation theory works in general. A message is crafted that raises challenges to a position and refutes them, eliciting threat in message recipients that motivates them to shore up their position in preparation for the impending challenges to it. But how does inoculation theory work in public relations contexts? We explore that specific focus next. 2 J. Compton et al. Public Relations Review 47 (2021) 102116 used by college sports programs to secure fan support during losing seasons, and they note that some of these attempts seem to incorporate inoculation theory principles (see Compton, 2016a). Compton and Compton (2016a) found evidence of reducing offensiveness and corrective action in the open letters of Commissioner Goodell regarding concussion prevention efforts in the National Football League, noting that at least one of Goodell’s letters seemed to parallel with inoculation messaging. A main takeaway from this overview of extant inoculation and public relations empirical work is that inoculation theory is mostly effective as a public relations messaging strategy. Because the central tenet of public relations is about establishing and maintaining positive relationships between an organization and its stakeholders, it stands to reason that the use of inoculation messaging would be an effective strategy for public relations professionals to employ. Additionally, there appears to be minimal, if any, downsides to inoculation messaging. If an attack does not actually occur, as forewarned, a good deal of research suggests—perhaps counterintuitively—no harm to the organization (e.g., Dillingham & Ivanov, 2017; Wigley & Pfau, 2010; and see Claeys, 2017; De Vocht, Claeys, Cauberghe, Uyttendaele, & Sas, 2016; but see Wan & Pfau, 2004). bolstering strategies. They also found little risk to using inoculation messages even if a crisis does not actually occur; indeed, inoculation messages “even appear to enhance [a company’s reputation] slightly” (Wigley & Pfau, 2010, p. 583) when a crisis does not actually occur. Einwiller and Johar (2013) found that inoculation messages had an effect on those without positive attitudes or identification with a company under attack but did not help those who already had positive attitudes or identified with a company. The identification they already had with the company seemed to be enough to confer resistance. These results could be seen as challenging some basic assumptions of inoculation, as the authors propose, or they could be seen as a therapeutic form of inoculation: inoculation messaging toward those who do not have the “right” position already in place, but instead, toward those who disagree with (or are apathetic toward) the advocated position of the inoculator (see Compton, 2020b). Dillingham and Ivanov (2015, 2017) extended inoculation into the realm of investing. They found that loss framing was a more effective strategy than gain framing in protecting “stay in the market” (SIM) beliefs of inexperienced investors during financial crises (Dillingham & Ivanov, 2015) and that inoculation works better as a pre-crisis strategy than a supportive message in protecting SIM beliefs of inexperienced investors during financial crises. Like Wigley and Pfau (2010), they did not find evidence of negative effects of employing an inoculation treatment if a crisis did not actually occur (Dillingham & Ivanov, 2017). In their field experiment, Mikolon, Quaiser, and Wieseke (2015) found that an inoculation strategy can combat customer dissatisfaction when it is employed prior to a service failure of a corporation (in their study, excessive wait times for baggage at the airport). If a service failure actually did not occur, inoculation did not seem to cause harm, which is consistent with the findings of Wigley and Pfau (2010) and Dillingham and Ivanov (2017). Haigh and Wigley (2015) examined whether a corporation could protect its image against negative user generated comments posted to Facebook by using inoculation. The researchers discovered that following exposure to negative Facebook posts, stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization – public relationship, corporate social responsibility, and reputation were significantly less positive. The use of inoculation messaging, however, or calling into question the credibility of those posting negative comments and warning stakeholders their attitudes could be threatened, indicated it might be possible to protect stakeholder attitudes against negative, user-generated attacks. The study found that participants exposed to an inoculation message felt slightly more positive after consuming negative, user-generated content. These findings support previous research that also found stakeholders’ attitudes could be protected against future attacks (Wan & Pfau, 2004; Wigley & Pfau, 2010). More recently, Boman and Schneider (2021) tested inoculation’s efficacy against a specific threat to a corporation’s positive image: astroturfing—propaganda messages designed to look like legitimate messages but containing false information. They found some success with inoculation protecting against these types of attacks; those inoculated were less likely to hold the corporation responsible for a crisis. Additionally, this study found that inoculation messages lowered the credibility of the image of the attacker. Scholars have also approached inoculation theory and public relations from rhetorical, theoretical, and case study perspectives. In their case study, Veil and Kent (2008) analyzed Johnson & Johnson’s use of inoculation strategies as part of its responsible dosing campaign in 2004. The researchers argue that the company used an inoculation strategy as a misuse of image management by implementing its dosing campaign in response to pending litigation. As Veil and Kent (2008) stated, “A key concern is if the true motivation for Johnson & Johnson’s campaign was not to protect consumers, but to change how consumers respond to over-dose litigation on juries and in the court of public opinion” (p. 401). Compton and Compton (2014) investigated image repair strategies 4. Future directions for inoculation theory and public relations Results of extant public relations and inoculation theory research make a convincing case that inoculation theory is well suited to explore the relational dimensions inherent in public relations. As research in these two areas continues to move forward, we see particular promise in three main areas: (1) issues management; (2) crisis and risk communication; and (3) character assassination. 5. Issues management Issues management, according to Coombs (2019), “means taking steps to prevent a problem from maturing into a crisis” (p. 11). Issues management involves scanning the environment, identifying problems, and trying to address the problems before they become full-blown crises. Issues management occurs during what Coombs (2019) describes as the precrisis stage of crisis management. The precrisis stage is also where crisis managers identify crises vulnerabilities by looking at which crises are most likely to occur and could have the most impact once they do occur. As part of this process, crisis managers could design precrisis inoculation messaging for stakeholders based on the most likely and impactful potential crises. For example, an organization could attempt to preempt harmful effects of predicted challenges (e.g., the impacts of a severe weather event on production) or could attempt to preempt calls for legislation (e.g., regulatory legislation that an organization believes unnecessary or even harmful). As another example, and as we discussed earlier, Veil and Kent (2008) examined how Johnson & Johnson used inoculation strategies to protect themselves against litigation. But inoculation could also be used as part of issues management to protect consumers, too. For example, Johnson & Johnson could have launched its responsible dosing campaign at the first sign of a problem that some consumers were overdosing on acetaminophen, which could have helped to protect consumers and potentially thwart a larger crisis. Because of its preemptive application, inoculation theory fits naturally into Coombs’ precrisis stage of crisis management, and future research should continue to explore how inoculation could guide other issue management opportunities. We note again, too, that most research shows little to no downside of using inoculation messaging (e.g., Wigley & Pfau, 2010). 6. Crisis and risk communication A crisis—an unpredictable, major threat that can hurt an 3 J. Compton et al. Public Relations Review 47 (2021) 102116 g., Lim & Ki, 2007). The studies that have explored inoculation’s efficacy in more public relations contexts have found mixed results (Haigh & Wigley, 2015; Ivanov, Dillingham et al., 2018). There remains a lot to explore. Just as public relations scholars have examined public relations issues surrounding such social media entities as Pinterest (e.g., Guidry, Zhang, Jin, & Parrish, 2016), Twitter (e.g., Einwiller & Steilen, 2015), Instagram (e.g., Guidry et al., 2016), and Youtube (Amir, Pennington-Gray, Barbe, & Hanafiah, 2018), inoculation theory and public relations research should assess inoculation’s efficacy with these channels—both as modes through which to inoculate, and as modes against which to inoculate. Furthermore, social media provides another avenue for exploring the dialogic concept of postinoculation talk and continuation of the work with inoculation theory as a means to confer resistance to attacks on social media (e.g., Haigh & Wigley, 2015). organization, industry, or stakeholders (Coombs, 2005)—is a serious moment for public relations practitioners. Crises threaten the existence of an organization; they can harm companies’ reputations, lead to lost revenue and damage corporate reputation beyond repair. Of course, entities have tools they can employ to try to recover from a crisis, including image repair strategies (Benoit, 2014) and guidance from crisis management theories, such as Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2007). But with inoculation theory, perhaps there are also opportunities for preempting some of the damage, much like Wigley and Pfau (2010) found in their study of inoculation-based preemptive crisis communication from a pet food company prior to news about dog food contamination. We can also turn to Ivanov et al.’ (2016) study of inoculation-based preemptive crisis communication. They were looking at preemptive actions that governmental protective agencies could take prior to terrorist attacks, but the same preemptive approach might also work for other entities against other types of crises. Crisis scholars could also examine the use of inoculation-informed strategies in risk communication—a practice that informs stakeholders how to protect themselves and take action to avoid potential harm, particularly when health and safety are concerned. For example, some people have vaccine hesitancy concerning the Covid-19 vaccine, but perhaps risk communication messaging that utilizes inoculation’s dynamic of co-creation through dialogue would be more effective than simply talking at stakeholders. Public relations scholarship can build on existing successes in extending inoculation theory into risk communication areas of climate change (e.g., Cook et al., 2017) and terrorism (e. g., Ivanov et al., 2016; Ivanov, Sellnow, Getchell, & Burns, 2018). Future work should also continue exploring paracrises—“a specific type of crisis warning sign” (Coombs, 2015, p. 45; and see Coombs & Holladay, 2012). A paracrisis is not a traditional operational crisis because it is unlikely to disrupt operations. However, it warrants attention because it threatens the organization’s reputation and related assets. If handled improperly, this type of crisis can escalate into a reputational crisis (Coombs & Holladay, 2015; Sohn & Lariscy, 2014). An accusation against a corporate CEO of corruption or abuse of human rights in other countries is an example of paracrisis (Seiffert-Brockmann, Einwiller, & Stranzl, 2018). In paracrises, inoculation approaches could be combined with other preventive strategies. For example, inoculation could be paired with stealing thunder, or releasing information about a potential crisis before it becomes known to many people. In media environments, stealing thunder can reduce critical news coverage overall and increase the flow of positive stories (Wigley, 2011). Future work should also make an effort to delineate similar proactive or preemptive approaches, like inoculation and stealing thunder, noting similarities, differences, boundary conditions, and—as we are proposing here—options for the two approaches to work in tandem. Social media warrants special attention as research in public relations and inoculation theory moves forward to address issues of risk and crisis communication. Numerous iconic crises have developed on social media (e.g., video of security forcibly removing a passenger from a United Airlines flight). Future research should examine the most effective strategies for using inoculation in these dialogic platforms. Should organizations inoculate stakeholders offline? Or would inoculating stakeholders through social media platforms be more effective? Such research can continue to untangle how the dialogic, co-creational (see Botan, 2017) qualities of social media that make it so compatible with the dialogic features of inoculation theory also contribute to the problems of the spread of misinformation and fake news via social media (Chiluwa & Samoilenko, 2019). The same active, dialogic engagement that makes inoculation theory and public relations so powerful also raises vulnerabilities, as individuals contribute directly to the distribution of false information by sharing it themselves both knowingly and unknowingly (Barthel, Mitchell, & Holcomb, 2016). Inoculation has been identified as a potent method of conferring resistance to attacks on social media, but to date, most of this work has focused on the contexts of science (e.g., Cook et al., 2017) and politics (e. 7. Reputation management and character assassination Another area of public relations that we think holds particular promise is reputation management—particularly against character assassination (see Coombs & Holladay, 2020; Icks & Shiraev, 2014; Samoilenko, Icks, Shiraev, & Keohane, 2020; Shiraev, Keohane, Icks, & Samoilenko, 2021). In the age of social media, for a company to be highly regarded and credible, its CEO needs to have a visible public profile (Weber Shandwick, 2015). At the same time, higher visibility is associated with increased public scrutiny and, therefore, the potential for additional reputational risks. When an organization is open about possible shortcomings and criticisms, inoculation strategies can build trust and credibility with stakeholders, thereby minimizing the impact of character assassination attempts. Effective crisis managers can identify threats and then try to inoculate their target audiences against such threats. Compton (2020a) has articulated a theoretical case for inoculation as a potential antidote to character assassination attempts, noting that inoculation-informed campaigns offer a preemptive, protective reputational management strategy. We also have some empirical evidence for inoculation’s efficacy against specific strategies of character assassination, like online astroturfing (coordinated attacks from paid pollsters, trolls, or social bots; Boman & Schneider, 2021) and attacks on source credibility (Pfau & Burgoon, 1988). By identifying common strategies used to make character attacks (see Samoilenko, 2020), inoculation messages can be designed to teach the identification and refutation using logic-based inoculation treatment messages—messages that help to identify fallacies and respond with logic (see Compton, 2005; Cook et al., 2017). With these efforts, image prepare, a formulation of Compton (2016b; and see Compton & Compton, 2018; Compton, 2020a), seems particularly promising as a conceptual model for studying (and protecting against) character assassination attempts and other reputational challenges. The idea of image prepare builds from the work in image repair (Benoit, 2014) and inoculation theory (Compton, 2013; McGuire, 1964)—outlining how many (if not all) of the rhetorical strategies used in image repair (repairing one’s image after it has been attacked) can be used preemptively (see Benoit, 2014), following an inoculation theory-based messaging approach. Consider, for example, the tactic of provocation, which falls under the broader strategy of evading responsibility in image repair theory (Benoit, 2014). Provocation occurs when an entity seeks to explain behavior that is seen in an unflattering light by justifying the behavior as an understandable response to someone else’s attack—that they were, as the name implies, provoked (Benoit, 2014). In image repair, rhetoric of provocation would occur after the perceived offense. But in an image prepare approach—which, like inoculation messaging, is a preemptive strategy—a rhetor could attempt preemptive provocation. 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CSR as crisis risk: expanding how we conceptualize the relationship. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 20(2), 144–162. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-10-2013-0078. Coombs, T. W. (2019). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, J. S. (2012). The paracrisis: The challenges created by publicly managing crisis prevention. Public Relations Review, 38(3), 408–415. Coombs, T., & Holladay, S. (2020). Corporate character assassination and crisis communication. In S. A. Samoilenko, M. Icks, J. Keohane, & E. Shiraev (Eds.), Inoculation theory has established itself as a particularly powerful messaging strategy, with application across contexts and issue domains. While its utility has been extensively studied and synthesized in the contexts of health and politics, this same attention has not been paid to public relations—despite having a significant amount of scholarship and increasingly nuanced theoretical depth. In this review, we sought to bring the extant scholarship of inoculation theory and public relations into conversation with one another—creating the most comprehensive, up-to-date discussion of inoculation theory and public relations. In doing so, we reveal a body of work that spans issues and entities, from health contexts, to investor relations, to college athletics, to corporate communication. We also begin to see some emerging consensus about inoculation theory as an applied messaging strategy in public relations, including that there seems to be little risk in using inoculation-based messaging strategies (but see Wan & Pfau, 2004) and a lot to gain. But there is, of course, more work to do. Perhaps one of the most critical areas for future inoculation theory and public relations work is how to deal with inoculation strategies when they are being used against one’s efforts. Companies and other entities are attacked from multiple sources and/or stakeholders (see Charlebois & Van Acker, 2016). It is possible that competitors or other entities will use inoculation-based strategies to attack public relations campaigns—especially when inoculation-informed campaigns become more common. And as Djedidi and Hani (2016) point out, the mere act of competing messages can inoculate—which would include competing public relations efforts. What would be the best options for deflecting an inoculation-based attack? From another perspective: What if public relations campaigns advocated something harmful in an inoculation-informed campaign—an unethical or misuse of inoculation theory? What would be the best options for consumers to protect against such uses of inoculation theory? We can also consider instances in which entities use inoculation-based strategies in a more manipulative way (e.g., Veil & Kent, 2008). Scholars are also beginning to consider potential iatrogenic effects of inoculation treatments (see Compton, 2013). What if, for example, an inoculation message designed to protect “stay in the market” (SIM) beliefs led to people staying in the market when they should not (Dillingham & Ivanov, 2017)? We know much more about how to best inoculate against “bad” persuasion than we do how to protect against “bad” inoculation. But we do have some guidance. Banas and Miller (2013) studied the efficacy of metainoculation—inoculating against an inoculation message—and they found success, with inoculation dampening the effects of the inoculation messages. Pfau, Haigh, Sims, and Wigley (2007) found that inoculation can be used to dampen the persuasive efficacy of a front-group stealth campaign, and exposure can damage perceptions of the stealth sponsor. There is some limited evidence, then, that inoculation-based messaging can help consumers be more thoughtful, more involved participants in the dialogic features of public relations (see Kent & Taylor, 2002). Continued research should explore these and other issues related to public relations and inoculation theory. We know from this review and commentary that inoculation theory is a powerful public relations strategy, but there is much more to learn. Considering that public relations in general, and inoculation theoryinformed communication campaigns in particular, often address critical issues—climate change, social justice, health, democracy, domestic terrorism, political participation, and more—the stakes—for corporations, for organizations, for consumers, for all of us—are high. Declaration of Competing Interest The authors do not declare any conflicts of interest. 5 J. Compton et al. Public Relations Review 47 (2021) 102116 motivated acts of violence. 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