Dangerous liaison or perfect match?: Public relations and social marketing

This paper considers a possible match between public relations and social marketing. It positions interchanges between the two as the strongest and most desirable partnership possibility for public relations with any aspect of the overall field of marketing. Working from definitions of social marketing as a profession and academic discipline, it reviews approaches, including textbooks, from the two disciplines in order to compare and contrast their strengths and weaknesses, to examine their perceptions of each other, and to identify the opportunities and challenges that social marketing represents for public relations. The paper also looks at what social marketing might learn from public relations. It concludes that public relations should look at improving the relationship as a matter of urgency in order to augment professional practices; to open up employment opportunities in an expanding market for social marketing expertise; and to improve the social reputation of public relations.     

Chinese online fiction: taste publics,entertainment, and Candle in the Tomb

This paper examines the growing cultural trend of Chinese online fiction. Using Gans's twin concepts of taste culture and taste public, it looks at online fiction as a product of two taste cultures evident on the Chinese Web. The paper then explores the growing appeal of online fiction for consumers and producers (or readers and authors) in relation to two key issues: are there important differences between online fiction and print fiction? Is the participatory nature of online fiction leading to a reinvigoration of literary creativity in the Chinese-speaking world? The relationship between the consumer and the producer of Chinese online fiction can also be explored in terms of an attention economy, and the evolving market for this type of fiction provides an excellent example of how such an economy functions. The attention economy encourages competition for the attention of readers and consequently ensures that the values of the taste public consuming this fiction strongly dictate its content and its continued improvement as a form of literary production.     

The definition,dimensions, and domain of public relations

By not developing a widely accepted definition and a central organizing principle or paradigm, the field of public relations has left itself vulnerable (1) to other fields that are making inroads into public relations' traditional domain, and (2) to critics who are filling in their own definitions of public relations. While opportunities abound, public relations is unlikely to fulfill its promise until it is willing and able to identify its fundamental nature and scope. This article proposes a definition (“managing strategic relationships”), along with a three-dimensional framework, with which to compare competing philosophies of public relations and from which to build a paradigm for the field.Dr. James G. Hutton teaches marketing and public relations at Fairleigh Dickinson University in northern New Jersey, just outside New York City.     

Revisiting the relationship between public relations and marketing: Encroachment and social media

Although public relations and marketing trade presses regularly discuss the conflict between the functions (e.g., Ecker, 2013; Havartin, 2013), academic researchers focused on the issue primarily in the 1980s and 1990s. The drop in public relations and marketing encroachment research does not parallel a drop in encroachment in practice, especially in light of today’s social media environment. In fact, historic tension between public relations and marketing intensified with the incorporation of social media into communication efforts. This paper updates the study of encroachment by reviewing the historical views of the topic, proposes ways that social media use has intensified issues related to role encroachment between public relations and marketing professionals, and outlines questions to guide future study of these topics.     

Public Relations Roles,Intraorganizational Power,and Encroachment

Encroachment occurs in public relations when professionals with expertise in such fields as marketing, law, human resources, or engineering occupy the senior public relations position in an organization. When encroachment occurs, public relations frequently becomes little more than a technical support function servicing other units of the organization—rather than a central management function in itself. I explored the idea that encroachment does not result so much from outsiders grabbing the turf of public relations as from weaknesses of public relations practitioners themselves. I used a systematic sample of 166 public relations practitioners in the United States to test the idea that public relations manager role aspirations and competencies and the schema held regarding the public relations function explains the extent to which encroachment takes place. Results suggest that managerial aspirations and competencies and the belief that public relations is a powerful organizational function decrease the likelihood of encroachment.     

Anthony Giddens and public relations: A third way perspective

In the article, the main theories of Anthony Giddens (structuration and late modernity theory) are presented and applied upon public relations. A review shows that there have been few attempts to use these theories in public relations. The analysis states that using Giddens leads to a questioning of the dichotomy between instrumental agency-oriented theories that neglects power structures as well as critical theories that only views public relations as hidden strategic action used by elites to dominate the public sphere. The conclusion is that there are two major arguments for applying Giddens to public relations: (1) the theory of late modernity may enhance our understanding of public relations as an evolving practice in socio-historical and spatial terms; (2) the structuration theory enhances the holistic understanding of how public relations communication, interpreted as a process, may be used both as a reproductive and a transforming social instrument. Giddens theory may in other words be used as a “third way public relations theory”.     

Power-sharing and political public relations: Government-press relationships in Northern Ireland's developing democratic institutions

Northern Ireland's democratic governance is consociational (i.e. power-sharing is mandatory) and therefore substantially different from the majoritarian electoral system which characterizes most Western democratic societies. Consociationalism has been advocated as a form of democracy which can reconcile post-conflict societies fragmented along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines. Political public relations within mandatory coalitions have received little attention from scholars to date. Drawing on data from elite interviews with Government Information Officers (GIOs), Ministerial Special Advisers (SpAds) and journalists in Northern Ireland, this paper analyses their perspectives on political public relations in Northern Ireland's evolving democratic institutions. Our findings suggest Northern Ireland's public sphere is characterized not just by the usual contest between government communicators and journalists over political stories, but also by competition across government departments and within departments between GIOs and SpAds. Our research investigates the role of public relations in Northern Ireland's developing democratic institutions and more generally identifies important issues surrounding government communication in post-conflict power-sharing democracies.     

Evaluating the effect of a campus-wide social norms marketing intervention on alcohol-use perceptions,consumption, and blackouts

Objective: To evaluate the effect of a campus-wide social norms marketing intervention on alcohol-use perceptions, consumption, and blackouts at a large, urban, public university. Participants: 4,172 college students (1,208 freshmen, 1,159 sophomores, 953 juniors, and 852 seniors) who completed surveys in Spring 2015 for the Spit for Science Study, a longitudinal study of students' substance use and emotional health. Methods: Participants were e-mailed an online survey that queried campaign readership, perception of peer alcohol use, alcohol consumption, frequency of consumption, and frequency of blackouts. Associations between variables were evaluated using path analysis. Results: We found that campaign readership was associated with more accurate perceptions of peer alcohol use, which, in turn, was associated with self-reported lower number of drinks per sitting and experiencing fewer blackouts. Conclusions: This evaluation supports the use of social norms marketing as a population-level intervention to correct alcohol-use misperceptions and reduce blackouts.     

Online strategic communication: A cross-cultural analysis of U.S. and Chinese corporate websites

This study applied a cultural divergence approach to examine online marketing interactivity and corporate public image on corporate websites. It analyzed different online strategic communication of corporate websites from two different nations—the United States and China. Results indicated that U.S. corporations were more likely to highlight online marketing interactivity and social responsibility, which integrated marketing and public relations as their online communication strategy. Chinese corporations provided more online spaces for the consumer–consumer interactions and emphasized corporation-oriented information.     

Guerrilla communication,visual consumption,and consumer public relations

Guerrilla communication has grown into an increasingly prominent strategy adopted by large corporations such as American Express, BP Amoco, Chrysler, Hershey Foods, and Pepsi. In its attention-grabbing instantiations, guerrilla communication points to the convergence of advertising, marketing, and public relations in consumer communication practices. This essay also considers guerrilla communication's place in the circuit of culture.     

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.     

The public relations contribution to IMC: Deriving opportunities from threats and solidifying public relations’ future

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has been regarded primarily as a marketing concept. However, as an ever more dominant context for communication management, IMC presents opportunities for public relations scholarship's contributions to the discipline, in spite of IMC's recognized threats. This article, which outlines the state of the fields of IMC and public relations literature, proposes the way public relations roles in relationship cultivation and organizational behavior uniquely contribute to IMC, and, at the same time, establish management roles for public relations. This article also addresses three challenges facing public relations research in integration by providing a better definition of IMC, establishing relationship cultivation as a critical point in the theoretical convergence of public relations and IMC, and providing a framework through which to conceptualize communication structures.     

Marketing,public relations,and how Web 2.0 is changing their relationship: A qualitative assessment of PR consultancies operating in Spain

In communication between organisations and consumers, the dividing lines amongst marketing, advertising and public relations are sometimes blurred. The confusion and overlap is more marked with the advent of the Web 2.0 and the proliferation of online campaigns, and associated initiatives. This article presents the results of ten in-depth interviews held with senior managers of PR consultancies operating in Spain in order to study and evaluate how these changes are being tackled from within the sector itself. It concludes that the sector perceives the current context as a great opportunity for growing and consolidating the strategic conception of public relations.     

The World Wide Web as a public relations medium: the use of research, planning, and evaluation in web site development

The World Wide Web is viewed as a desirable medium for public relations by many organizations. Given the evolving nature of the Web and the mixed findings about commercial successes of Web sites, little is known about the managerial aspects of Web site research, planning, and evaluation. This study found that, in many cases, Web site planning is done by trial and error based on subjective knowledge and intuition, with little or no formal research and evaluation.Interviews with persons responsible for making Web site decisions for organizations revealed that competition and the desire to establish an Internet presence were the driving forces in deciding to develop a Web site. Very little research about present effectiveness is done, but there is a strong belief that Web site communication will be increasingly important in the future.Candace White is assistant professor of public relations in the School of Journalism at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Niranjan Raman works for The Burke Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio.     

Social Capital,Interpersonal Trust,and Public Housing

Abstract

Addressing the relationship between housing tenure and social disadvantage, this research examines social capital among public tenants in Australia, concentrating on their level of interpersonal trust and confidence in a range of public institutions. Through multivariate analyses of national survey data it also profiles the social and political background of public housing tenants. As expected, public tenants tend to have lower incomes, lower levels of education, and working-class backgrounds, or do not identify with any class location at all. They are less likely to be married or in de facto relationships than people in other housing tenures, but are more likely to identify with the Australian Labor Party than with the Coalition parties. Although public housing tenants have access to secure and affordable housing, they appear to be generally less trusting than private renters or homeowners and exhibit less confidence in government institutions such as the Australian parliament. Public housing tenants express lower levels of interpersonal trust even controlling for a range of social background factors, suggesting that as a form of tenure, public housing in some ways exacerbates the disadvantage of tenants.     

Images and Strategic Corporate and Marketing Planning

This article reviews the concept of images in marketing. The marketing literature identifies two levels of images: brand images and corporate images. At the brand level, corporations address the extent to which each marketing instrument contributes to the brand image and the extent to which that image enhances desired economic behavior of markets. Corporate images include brand images, but they also consist of factors such as the quality of management, corporate leadership, and employee orientation. Corporations must harmonize their brand and corporate images. They also must bring their perceived self-images into harmony with those of all relevant publics. To harmonize these images, the planning of marketing and public relations should be integrated at the level of strategic management. Corporate leadership can detect the overlapping requirements of the market and society only by combining marketing and public relations under the common roof of strategic corporate planning and by making them equal instruments of management.     

What's behind public trust in news media: A comparative study of America and China

The study first examines the media identification logic that the prime evaluating indicator for news media is public trust. Perceptions of trust are not only important from a marketing perspective, but also form a vital component of audiences' aesthetic criticism of news and news sources. Comparing people's attitudes towards media in America and China, this study finds media credibility ratings in China are much higher than those in America. Does this suggest that Chinese media are more credible, or are survey reports of public trust influenced by other factors? This study considers three perspectives for considering differences in reports of public trust – operation dynamics, imaged power, and national identity. We consider to what degree, and under what conditions, could the survey reports of perceived public trust in media be related to media system differences, both among countries and over time. The study also examines the role played by structural dialectics such as profit orientation or propaganda orientation; professionalism orientation or authority orientation; and imagined community or heterogeneity construction. Finally, given the limits of survey methods and wording, the study brings forward an evaluation framework for the availability of transnational comparisons of media credibility, based on five evaluating dimensions of identity mechanism: professionalism identity, antagonism identity, heterogeneity identity, public sphere identity, and the “Other” identity.     

The new PR of states: How nation branding practices affect the security function of public diplomacy

This paper investigates how the role of public relations practice in public diplomacy is undergoing a transformation as a consequence of the influence from nation branding. A case study of the Danish government's response to the so-called Cartoon Crisis illustrates how the threat from international terrorism to national security initially served as a catalyst for new public diplomacy initiatives. But as the initiatives were implemented within a framework of nation branding the focus on risk reduction became subjected to a marketing logic and a new focus on economic objectives took over. The paper points to a possible future status of public diplomacy under the influence of nation branding: Public diplomacy may maintain a function pertinent to national security but as this function is incapable of managing real risks it will only serve as auto-communication that legitimizes security policy towards a domestic audience. In the public diplomacy efforts towards transnational publics the link to national security will completely disappear whereby the public relations of states is transformed to the marketing of states.     

Public relations identity and the stakeholder–organization relationship: A revised theoretical position for public relations scholarship

This paper addresses the challenge to differentiate public relations scholarship from other related communication disciplines (i.e., marketing, advertising, communication studies) by examining the concept of the stakeholder–organization relationship and public relations’ unique contributions therein. This paper proposes that public relations scholars move beyond discussing relationship attitudes and examine the central concept of a relationship, which comprises mutual orientation around a common interest point and the multiplicity of stakes and stakeholders. Research imperatives in the integration of relationship stakes and the value of social media in relationship analysis stand to further differentiate public relations from marketing.     

Open information system and crisis communication in China

This paper discusses the role of media and communication at times of public crisis and contends that a modern, open information system is a precondition for good crisis management. It traces evolving policy discourse in Mainland China with a special focus on the relationship between the authorities and media. An overview is provided to contextualize and historicize the contemporary development. By examining a series of critical news events triggered by public crises, especially the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003, it provides a broad assessment of the issues involved in the creation of China's open information system, with regard to both institutional policy‐making as well as everyday journalistic practices in reporting the emergent events. Finally, the paper discusses pertinent legislative and regulatory measures in recent years that hold particular importance to state‐media relationship during public crises, especially the Emergency Response Law promulgated in June 2007.