Experience of female public relations practitioners in Bahrain

The research addressed the gap in the literature about the experience of public relations practitioners in the non-Western society of Bahrain. The research aims to contribute to public relations scholarship by using a qualitative approach to study the experience of Bahraini women working in public relations. It used open interviews with Bahraini PR practitioners who offered rich insights on their “experiences” as women working in PR in Bahrain. The interviewees talked about various types of challenges when working in public relations such as cultural marginalization, relationship with colleagues, social domination, and marginalization of PR function. The research suggests combined liberal and radical feminist strategies to improve the role of Bahraini women in public relations. It recommends social and organizational reforms, in addition to empowering women to utilize their personality traits, communication behaviors and management styles.     

User involvement during information systems development: a comparison of analyst and user perceptions of system acceptance

A sample of 150 users and analysts from multiple organizations and many system projects provided field questionnaire data to test hypotheses about the differences in their perceptions of user involvement (UI) and system acceptance. The Franz and Robey [Franz, C.R., Robey, D., 1986. Organizational context, user involvement, and the usefulness of information systems. Decision Sciences, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 329–356.] instrument was used for data collection and factor analyzed, resulting in more focused and specific measures. Analysis of the data showed that users and analysts did not agree on the user's involvement nor did they agree on their perceptions of the acceptability of the system to the user. Relationships of self-ratings of UI with system usage and system acceptance by the user demonstrated high correlations, which were attributed to the narrow focus of the UI and system acceptance measures rather than the original more global measure. Analyst perceptions of UI showed no correlation with a user's perceptions of system acceptance.     

Further Thoughts on the Utility of Risk Matrices

Risk matrices are commonly encountered devices for rating hazards in numerous areas of risk management. Part of their popularity is predicated on their apparent simplicity and transparency. Recent research, however, has identified serious mathematical defects and inconsistencies. This article further examines the reliability and utility of risk matrices for ranking hazards, specifically in the context of public leisure activities including travel. We find that (1) different risk assessors may assign vastly different ratings to the same hazard, (2) even following lengthy reflection and learning scatter remains high, and (3) the underlying drivers of disparate ratings relate to fundamentally different worldviews, beliefs, and a panoply of psychosocial factors that are seldom explicitly acknowledged. It appears that risk matrices when used in this context may be creating no more than an artificial and even untrustworthy picture of the relative importance of hazards, which may be of little or no benefit to those trying to manage risk effectively and rationally.     

Professional competition and cooperation in the digital age: A pilot study of New Zealand practitioners

From early on, competition between professions has been identified as a major factor in the process of developing public relations as a profession. This paper updates consideration of the influence of inter-profession disputes by examining the interplay between public relations and advertising in the digital age. It attempts to assess how new technologies, especially social media, affect the relationships between them, with particular reference to two aspects: whether social media increases, or decreases, professional cooperation (or competition); and who takes charge in the new communication environment. In researching these issues, which form an important part of the professionalization process of public relations, the paper examined documents and online publications, and undertook interviews and a survey of public relations practitioners in New Zealand. The findings suggest that the responding public relations practitioners were not able to take advantage of the social technology in order to leverage their professional status and improve their position within the organization. In addition, it seems that while advertising and public relations are still looking for ways to benefit from social media, both are still in a process of adaptation.     

The press and public relations through the lens of the periodicals, 1890–1930

This paper explores and analyzes the intellectual debate and discussion about the slow reveal of public relations and both the perceived threat to journalism and the corruption of public opinion in American life as it appeared in the periodicals in the early twentieth century. Despite Edward L. Bernays complaint that a “conspiracy of silence” prevailed in the mass media about the growing field of public relations prior to 1930, this review found more than a hundred essays and articles about public relations. The topics ran the gamut from historical explanations and explorations of what were essentially the early beginnings of our contemporary information society to discussions, debates, and warnings about the ramifications of public relations in the commercial, governmental, political, and social areas of life.     

Transforming into the new era: public relations industry in Hong Kong and China

The public relations industry as one of the key industries in Hong Kong has metamorphosed into a new phase after the resumption of sovereignty to China. Based on in-depth interviews with eight experienced corporate communication practitioners from multi-national and sizeable local corporations in Hong Kong and China, the study traces the recent development of public relations and/or corporate communication (hereafter PR/CC) highlighting issues of role and function, language and communication strategy, and ethics and professionalism.     

公民评价政府绩效的抽样调查设计与可靠性分析——以北京市为例

通过对1995-2007年的北京市抽样调查数据的分析与论证,发现公民能够从宏观层面对政府的公共服务效果进行评价,而且其评价结果可靠,说明抽样调查是实现公民评价政府绩效操作化的一个重要工具.     

The original bailout of US corporations: The public relations bailout

More than a trillion of taxpayer dollars are currently being used to bail out the US banking, mortgage and car industries. This invokes an interesting connection to public relations the last time drastic US government involvement with corporations was contemplated. This pre-First World War crisis of the free enterprise system involved a deficit not of money but of favourable public opinion. The requirement was for vast amounts of public opinion and public policy work by a reported at least 1200 – what were at that time called – press agents. This was the period when public relations emerged as a fundamental plank of US and ultimately of global culture. The thesis of this article is that many aspects of the world we live in cannot be properly understood without a better analysis of the first bailout of US corporations—the public relations bailout.     

空间定位抽样技术:民意调查中的新方法

在我国进行的民意调查中,研究者们无论采取哪种具体抽样方法,均需要以居委会提供的户口登记信息为抽样基础。随着我国流动人口数量的不断增大,依靠户籍信息抽样容易导致抽样覆盖范围存在偏差。在此背景下,空间定位抽样技术应运而生,该方法作为一种崭新的调查技术,使被调查对象的人口特征更具有代表性,对较为敏感的民意研究具有开创性地意义。本文阐述了传统抽样技术的弊端,介绍了空间定位抽样技术的兴起过程,并对该技术的具体实施步骤及难点进行了解析,最后提出了该法的两大适用条件。     

世界各国预期寿命差异及影响因素定量分析

目前世界各国平均预期寿命的地区差异显著,不仅平均预期寿命高低悬殊,而且两性差正负不同,并呈"富国寿长、穷国命短"两极分布。通过因子分析发现,医疗文卫因素、政府投入因素和伤害归因因素是造成平均预期寿命地区差异显著的主要原因。通过聚类分析将世界各国分成了三大类地区,验证了上述因子对三类地区影响是显著的。最后指出,大力发展经济、加快城市化进程、改善医疗卫生条件、降低婴儿死亡率和传染性疾病死亡率是缩小世界各国平均预期寿命地区差异的有效路径。