Institute for Public Relations

June 2012 – More and more organizations need to measure their media coverage globally, but how can they do this cost effectively? This paper takes a very granular approach to helping the reader define business goals and objectives; determine suitable measures; analyze media content needs; evaluate dashboard systems; determine language and analysis processes; develop measurement scorecards; select provider services; sell the solutions internally; and, evaluate their success. Clear pros and cons to every option are provided, enabling the reader to balance the three competing essentials: quality, speed and cost.

Besides the local and overseas PR markets, the difference or gap between Chinese and foreign PR companies is reflected in a trend called “glocalization”. Some 10 years ago, I borrowed the concept of compulsory and voluntary routines in gymnastics as a metaphor to evaluate Chinese and foreign companies: On the whole, “foreign PR companies” are good at ‘compulsory routines’ and pay attention to standardized routines and procedures, while most Chinese PR companies are strong with ‘voluntary routines’. Without standardized procedures as guarantee, ‘voluntary routines’ can hardly get any quality assurance. Mere pursuit of standardization can easily result in lack of ...

This paper provides a case study of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a six-year national initiative intended to shed light on human rights abuses and bridge the deep divides caused by decades of Apartheid, as an example of symmetrical public relations. Although many scholars, professionals, media and the general public view the role of public relations as persuasion, of convincing someone what to think, believe, or do, many observers have been proposing and exploring a relationship-based, “symmetrical” type of public relations for more than 20 years. The paper argues that the work of the TRC was an ...

Bribery of the news media in too many countries robs citizens of credible information they need to make personal and collective decisions. This comprehensive research for the first time gives us an index that ranks 66 of the world’s nations for the likelihood that print journalists will seek or accept cash for news coverage from government officials, businesses, or other news sources. The index was developed to provide a useful quantitative measure by which countries can track their progress over time and compared to other nations. Whether a country ranks high or low, many ...

Organizational relationships are almost exclusively analyzed using the data that captures the perceptions of the parties in the relationships. While useful for describing the state of a focal organizational relationship at a single point in time, or over a short period, this approach has limited utility for research involving multiple relationships over an extended timeframe. The perspective that organization-public relationships can be described and studied as objective phenomena, separate from the subjective experiences of individual participants with properties other than the perceptions of those involved, underpins the framework for tracking organization-public ...

This paper starts with an overview of the development of Polish media and public relations that established a ground for current practice. The paper then reports the results of a study conducted among the Polish communication leaders on credibility and media bribery practices of Polish media. The total of 287 communication leaders (99 journalists, 90 marketing specialists, and 98 PR practitioners) were asked to provide their opinions and perceptions on the number of issues related to media bribery. The results of the study showed that the Polish communication leaders, especially PR practitioners, often ...

The purpose of this study is to identify and content analyze the stream of trade and academic publications on international public relations or related materials published by selected U.S. and U.K. academic journals, the Institute for Public Relations’ online publications and international association publications (i.e., IABC-IPRA) from 1990 to 2005. Because of the constant expansion of the body of knowledge all over the world, this report is part of a long-term documentation project that will be updated over time to capture trends and advancements. Future research would include the body of knowledge ...

This report documents the findings of the Private Sector Summit on Public Diplomacy, held January 10, 2007, at the US Department of State. Participants identified 11 actions that would have the greatest impact on private sector public diplomacy efforts, actions which are fully described in this report. The Public Relations Coalition is an alliance of more than 20 industry-related organizations, including the Institute for Public Relations.

A large majority of journalists and public relations practitioners around the world say it is not professional for media to accept payments from news sources in return for coverage. Nevertheless, more than one in three practitioners and one in five journalists say it is generally considered okay in their countries for national media to accept such payments. Only 60 percent say that paid-for material is always or often identified as advertising in national daily newspapers. These findings come from a survey conducted by Dr. Katerina Tsetsura, University of Oklahoma. The research was done in ...

This paper takes the circuit of culture model as the basis for a discussion of the public relations practitioner as cultural intermediary, transcending national and geographic boundaries by drawing on the cultural values of diverse audiences. It discusses the public relations strategies used by NATO in its successful campaign in Kosovo in 1999, with particular attention on the role of the NATO spokesman in the execution of public relations strategies, in terms of the “moments” of production and representation during the campaign. In analysing NATO’s communication strategies during the Kosovo Campaign, the ...