A Postmodern Turn for Social Media Research: Theory and Research Directions for Public Relations Scholarship

The public relations literature on social media has focused primarily on how social media platforms can be leveraged to the advantage of organizations for relationship building and so-called dialogue with publics. Yet most research has positioned relationships in social media merely as opportunities for information exchange, perpetuating models of public relations grounded in systems theory that ignore power imbalances. Consequently, this article offers insights from postmodernist theories to first deconstruct existing research and then offer suggestions for future social media scholarship. The article argues that social media scholars have privileged dominant rational models of social engagement. Dissensus and disorder, according to Lyotard, may be as legitimate and more liberatory states of discourse for marginalized publics. Postmodern theories of language games and differential consciousness are also positioned as ways in which social media theory and practice may be advanced. The article thus complicates how relationships are theorized in contemporary scholarship and challenges both scholars and practitioners to rethink approaches to social media practice through a postmodern lens.     

An exploratory study of transformed media relations dimensions after the implementation of an anti-graft law in Korea

The Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, which went into effect on September 28, 2016, strictly prohibits gift giving to journalists, thereby making a traditional media relations practice in Korea illegal. A survey of 342 public relations practitioners revealed that providing monetary gifts, performing formal responsibility, building informal relationships, receiving paid media coverage, and giving and accepting informal support were found to be significant subdimensions of media relations. After implementation of the anti-graft law, public relations practitioners expressed a belief that the practice of providing monetary gifts would shrink the most and that performing formal responsibility would experience the most growth. The formal responsibility factor was significantly positively related to support for the new law and public relations ethics, while giving and accepting informal support was negatively linked to public relations ethics. Paid media coverage showed a positive relationship with public relations practitioners’ perceptions about difficulties of increasing outputs of media relations. Finally, this empirical study shows how new external regulations arising from implementation of the anti-graft law can affect the personal influence model of media relations in Korea.     

Korean practitioners and journalists: Relational influences in news selection

This study investigates how source–media relationships influence perceptions toward news selection from the public relations practitioners’ viewpoint in Korea. The results show that Korean public relations practitioners who perform formal media relations believed that journalists would select news stories based on journalists’ media routine principles, such as using government sources. In contrast, Korean public relations practitioners who perform informal or monetary media relations believed that journalists would select news stories based on journalists’ extra-media factors, such as personal relationships with public relations practitioners.     

Demonstrating Effectiveness in Public Relations: Goals,Objectives, and Evaluation

Public relations planning and evaluation were explored among 32 practitioners and 10 top executives. Practitioners said their goals reflect the priorities of their institution. The CEOs believed public relations' ultimate aim is communicating the image of the organization. Responses showed many practitioners conduct informal evaluation, whereas only a few conduct formal evaluation. This research suggests public relations planning and evaluation are becoming more systematic but are still constrained by lack of resources and difficulty.     

Values of Public Relations: Effects on Organization-Public Relationships Mediating Conflict Resolution

This article identified two important measures of public relations effects i.e., organization-public relationships and conflict resolution, and investigated how they functionally related to public relations strategies. The research hypothesis posited that the effect of public relations strategies on conflict resolution was mediated by organization-public relationships. Two survey data sets were used and incorporated to derive possible answers for the proposed research hypothesis and research question. The 1st data set (n = 301) was used as a starting point for investigating the complex relationships among variables. The 2nd data set (n = 235) was tested, and replication procedures were adopted to further cross-validate the results obtained from the 1st study. The results supported the research hypothesis positing that the effect of public relations on conflict resolution is mediated by organization-public relationships. Theoretically, this study makes evident the values of public relations in terms of relationship management and conflict resolution. On a pragmatic level, the results of this study may serve to benefit public relations practitioners interested in generating favorable relationships and resolving conflict with their publics in general, and conducting international business in Far Eastern countries in particular.     

Social relationships in locality and livelihood: The embeddedness of rural economic restructuring

In this paper, we apply an embeddedness perspective to data collected from group interviews in four rural Wisconsin communities. The interviews focused on interpretations of local economic conditions and changes and on the consequences of these changes for family well-being and activities. We analyze our participants' relationships to locality, their interpretations of local economic changes, and their formal and informal work arrangements. Just as restructuring is not occurring on the ‘head of a pin’, neither are the social relations that influence people's interpretations of, and responses to, restructuring. The restructuring of places leads to and is defined by the restructuring of social relationships in places. Family and marital relations are central to the kinds of actions and understandings we studied. In addition, we noted the importance of neighboring and class relationships. Some of these relationships were primarily based on a competition of interests, others were based on mutual accommodation and cooperation. All these relationships are embedded in place, occurring in and helping to define locality. We conclude with a discussion of localities as continuously constructed, not only by macro-economic forces, but by the history of social relations that provide tolerance and resistance.     

Diversity Issues and Public Relations

Perceptions of diversity issues and implications for public relations were explored within the theoretical framework of organizational culture and requisite variety. Qualitative interviews with 28 practitioners and 5 executives revealed a continuum that ranged from organizations with no commitment to those with a fully integrated diversity strategy. Examples of effective diversity management illustrated the connection between diversity and the strategic management of public relations. We discuss the findings in relation to diversity integration and propose that a final stage not mentioned by participants--diversity as social responsibility--may represent the juncture where public relations and diversity are linked most meaningfully.     

Public Relations Roles and Media Choice

A national survey of Public Relations Society of America members (n = 267) was conducted to examine the relationship between public relations roles and media choice based on the integration of public relations theory and media richness theory. Respondents were identified as either public relations managers or technicians using confirmatory factor analysis, corroborating previous research. Managers reported spending more time in oral communication than technicians, whereas technicians spend more time using written communication. E-mail use in public relations and related communities is discussed, and areas for future research on new media and media choices in public relations are explored.     

Keeping up with the digital age: How the American Red Cross uses social media to build relationships

Forty individuals from the American Red Cross were interviewed to explore the use of social media in communicating with key publics. Results show that practicing public relations through social media is effective and necessary in the emerging digital age, as shown through the Red Cross’ development of a two-way dialogue with younger constituents, the media, and the community. This two-way dialogue has been accomplished primarily through Twitter and Facebook, with barriers such as lack of staff and time, and opportunities to improve National Headquarters and local chapter relations. The insights shared by the American Red Cross are useful for both public relations scholars and professionals to help them understand and apply social media practices to build strong, lasting relationships.     

Echo chambers and social mediators in public advocacy issue networks

The growing trend of politically motivated consumer boycotts and buycotts on social media not only impacts a company’s financial bottom line, but more fundamentally disrupts relationships between the firm and its publics, the cornerstone of public relations (Ferguson, 1984; Sommerfeldt, & Kent, 2015). On a broader level, such politically motivated advocacy is a critical facet of civil society with important implications on the societal role of public relations (Taylor, 2010). In light of the significance of politically motivated consumer advocacy to public relations, a multi-phase, exploratory study was conducted. Study 1 applies content analysis and social network analysis to examine how different interactive mechanisms on social media—retweet, mention, and reply—may affect communication within and between communities of different ideological views surrounding the boycott and buycott issues. Study 2 further explores the challenges and opportunities of fostering exchange of diverse viewpoints by identifying new social mediators—the “echoers” who propel information flow among in-group members, and the “bridgers” who initiate communication with political out-group members—and assess the key network characteristics of these social mediators. The findings of these two studies advance public relations theories on networks, intergroup communication, and civil society by illustrating how social media structure and social mediators shape the networked public discourse to facilitate or inhibit conversations between publics of different ideological orientations.     

Revisiting the SMCC model: How Chinese public relations practitioners handle social-mediated crises

As social media are used widely by Chinese organizations, this study comprehensively examines how Chinese public relations practitioners cope with social mediated crisis and how culture interacts with social mediated crisis response. An in-depth interview was conducted to collect data from 23 Chinese public relations practitioners who had experience in dealing with crises and issues via social media. The results showed that Chinese public relations practitioners use diverse social media platforms to satisfy the publics’ needs and social media usage preferences. In addition, the results also showed the importance of matching information platform and information sources in response to social-mediated crises. Furthermore, we revealed how the uniqueness of Chinese culture moderated information platforms and information sources, such as face-saving strategies, collaborating with opinion leaders and influencers to shape the publics’ opinions, using no response, apologizing, and self-mockery, and emphasizing the importance of media relations.     

Social media and the doping of sport surveillance

Reviewing literatures from sociology of sport, surveillance, and internet studies, we consider the processes by which social media regulate the behavior of athletes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current regulation of anti‐doping in elite sport where athletes' social media postings have been highly critical of fellow competitors. As social media becomes increasingly blended into everyday routines, this form of surveillance extends the gaze of those who watch and increases the pressure for online disclosure while making traditional distinctions between formal and informal social control less meaningful. Contemporary social media acts as a form of social control that has become more preemptive and grassroots. When athletes internalize surveillance and disclosure as consistent with their professional norms, the power relationships that surround sport performance become increasingly difficult to discern. This article helps to illuminate the ways in which surveillance through social media have become a part of everyday routines, extends and amplifies the power of more traditional agents of surveillance, and calls for continued research into the role of contemporary social media as a surveillance practice.     

A Bibliometric Analysis of Public Relations Research

From time to time, scholars in an academic or professional discipline need to assess the quality and stature of their field. Studies of citation patterns in journals—of who cites whom and of the nature of the citations—offer a method for taking stock of a discipline. This article reports the results of the first citation study of public relations. The results show that public relations has matured greatly as a discipline over the 15-year period studied. In articles published early in the period, most citations were to other fields, especially to the social sciences. In more recent articles, public relations scholars cite each other more often—showing that the discipline is coalescing around its own body of knowledge. We conclude that public relations developed a literature that is not only voluminous but also relevant during this period. The study also shows that public relations has become a scholarly discipline as well as a professional one. There was a dramatic increase in the relative number of educator-authors, and a relative decrease in the number of practitioners, contributing to the scholarly public relations literature over the 15-year period examined in this study.     

Public Relations and Symbolic Politics

In German-speaking countries public relations scholars emphasize the role of public relations (PR) in society in their theorizing. These scholars seek to understand PR as a macro-level, or sociological, phenomenon in contrast to the micro-level, or management, emphasis of scholars in the United States. This article builds a sociological theory of PR by comparing it with the practice of symbolic politics as conceptualized in political science. The theory states that both PR and symbolic politics develop and use symbols—signs that influence and guide conceptions—to achieve their purposes. They also rely heavily on journalistic media. Media reality, however, frequently departs from extramedia reality. The difference between these two types of reality makes it possible for symbolic politics and PR to influence the gap and perhaps to separate the symbolic world from the external world. On the other hand, attention is a scarce resource, and increased activity in PR and symbolic politics eventually will have a declining marginal social utility.     

Public relations and customer service: Employer perspectives of social media proficiency

Social media has enhanced integration between marketing and public relations. As such, public relations professionals have had to adapt and grow their knowledge and skillsets to stay relevant and current throughout the evolution of the digital landscape (Gesualdi, 2019). One of the growing areas of focus for public relations professionals has been customer service skills online. This specialization, often referred to as social care or social customer service, has been promoted and discussed heavily in industry circles and publications, but not in academic research. This study focuses on the survey results from 396 employers exploring the social media skills they most prefer university graduates to possess when entering the workforce. The results indicate that public relations and customer service are the social media skills most sought after by employers of university graduates ahead of proficiency in areas such as social media content production, strategy development and analytics. The potential implications of these findings to the public relations profession are examined and future research is also discussed.     

You Are What You Eat: Slow Food USA's Constitutive Public Relations

This article employs a constitutive, or meaning-generating, approach to investigate how the Slow Food USA social movement employs public relations to counter commercial food industry messages. It argues that Slow Food successfully employs the rhetorical public relations techniques of definition, identification through narrative building, and enactment to build relationships and attract broader support of the sustainable food movement, to translate its somewhat lofty messages to mainstream audiences, and to encourage supporters to live the Slow Food lifestyle. Examining Slow Food's public relations through a rhetorical approach expands theory and practice by answering the call to explore how noncorporate entities successfully use public relations techniques.     

When non-CSR-themed social media influencers endorse corporate CSR initiatives: Effects of publics’ perceived influencer characteristics and leadership

Over the most recent decade, non-CSR-themed social media influencers (SMIs) have played an important role in driving positive outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns on social media, a practice primarily contributed by public relations. Responding to the call to fully exploit SMIs for achieving public relations objectives, the research aimed to search for systematically identifying the most suitable SMIs with whom to collaborate for CSR endorsements. Grounded in social learning theory and the influence framework, this study examined the effects of characteristics and leadership of an SMI who endorses CSR initiatives on generating the supportive behavior towards the initiatives among the corporation’s most influential public on social media, its consumers. Results from a survey of 967 U.S. consumers showed that non-CSR-themed SMI endorsers trigger target consumers’ supportive behavior towards the CSR initiative which they have endorsed when the consumers perceive them as opinion and taste leaders. The SMI endorsers’ trustworthiness, expertise, uniqueness, and (consumer-SMI) congruity constituted their opinion leadership perceived by the consumers while expertise, uniqueness and congruity formed their taste leadership. Opinion and taste leadership fully mediated the effects of trustworthiness, expertise, and uniqueness on consumers’ CSR supportive behavior while partially mediating the impact of congruity on the CSR supportive behavior. The findings shed light on how to select effective SMIs in non-CSR domains to generate consumers’ behavior to support the CSR initiatives.     

Neighborhood Outsiders, Field Insiders: Latino Immigrant Men and the Control of Public Space

This paper examines how a group of primarily Latino immigrant men claim and control a sought-after and contested public soccer field in a West Los Angeles public park. In contrast to previous studies that took the stability, viability, and visibility of groups, and their claims, as given, this study examines how group boundaries become constructed and taken-for-granted in working out the use and control of public space. As this study reveals, control is premised on creating and sustaining meaningful distinctions between insiders and outsiders, which are far from self-evident in open gatherings. Control is also constructed through the enforcement of informal authority, which is inherently uncertain in public space, especially for stigmatized groups with no formal association to the area. By studying how social organization is repeatedly challenged and reconstructed on the playing field, this paper sheds new light onto how informal claims on public space are made and remade in the contemporary city.     

Exploding the Myth of the Symmetrical/Asymmetrical Dichotomy: Public Relations Models in the New South Africa

An empirical study of practitioners in the newSouth Africa found no evidence that respondents grouped public relations practices according to principles of symmetry or asymmetry, thus rejecting the notion of symmetry as a normative public relations approach in international settings. Instead, South African practitioners developed their ownculture-specific models of practice basedonthe economic, social, and political realities of their country. These included the conflict-based Western Dialogic model rooted in dissensus, the Activist model promoting change in organizations, theUbuntu model favoring harmony and reconciliation in theworkplace, and the Oral Communication model focusing on the use of oral media in the communication process. Practitioners' demographic characteristics did not influence their use of public relations models, most probably because of the similarity of their public relations education, which seemed to emphasize a focus on the characteristics of an organization's publics in the communication process rather than on practitioners' individual propensities.     

Comparing the Decision Structures of Public Relations Agencies and Clients

In this study, I use K. R. Hammond's version of social judgment theory (Hammond, Stewart, Brehmer, & Steinmann, 1975) to examine the conscious and covert judgment patterns of a group of public relations agency consultants and their clients. Respondents assessed 30 hypothetical public relations proposals that combined different mixtures of five decision factors: cost effectiveness, measurability, image support, marketing support, and feasibility. Analysis based on the lens model equation revealed that both groups emphasized bottom-line considerations over less quantifiable ones; that clients, more than agency professionals, understood how they valued the decision factors and acted on that knowledge; that the two groups' subjectively specified judgment weights showed closer agreement than their actual decisions about public relations plans; and that flawed self-understanding and inconsistent decision making, particularly among agency professionals, accounted for most disagreement in practice.