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Political Public Relations: Defining and Mapping an Emergent Field
Abstract
This chapter reflects on political public relations. It first characterizes political public relations as a central component of political communication by political actors. Moreover, the chapter argues that political public relations are not only about communication and involve a wider group of stakeholders such as lobby groups, think tanks, and party donors. The chapter then gives an overview of the literature on political public relations and defines it by suggesting a continuum of stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, several domains of political public relations are discussed in detail, i.e. news management and agenda building, issues management, event management, crisis management, assessment in political public relations, and digital communication. Finally, the authors call for a more systematic application of public relations theories and concepts that have seldom or never been applied in the context of political public relations.
... Despite being over a decade old, the subfield of political public relations, a term coined by Strömbäck and Kiousis (2011), remains under-explored. Studies in the subfield have primarily focused on electoral campaigns (Fountaine, 2017), government communication (Sanders & Canel, 2015), and public diplomacy (Arceneaux, 2022). ...
... As defined by Strömbäck and Kiousis (2011), political public relations is the management process through which an organization or individual actor for political purposes, through purposeful communication and action, seeks to influence and to establish, build, and maintain beneficial relationships and reputations with its key publics to help support its mission and achieve its goal. (p. ...
Responding to calls for more visual rhetorical studies in public relations, in this research, we extend Symbolic Convergence Theory to analyze the photographs posted on Facebook by the President of Ghana, H. E. Nana Akufo-Addo, during the 2021 presidential inauguration and explore how users engaged with them. The study first explains why presidential inaugurations are important to public relations, then explores fantasy themes and their implications. We argue that the visual rhetoric employed by the Ghanaian President constructed national images reinforcing Ghana’s COVID-19 management status, the united branches of government, international support for and recognition of the President, and Ghana’s religious tolerance. We also posit that the visual rhetoric impacted the fantasy themes and discuss the implications of our findings.
... Despite these arguments "research on the role of communication and language used during political election campaigns and promotion remains a rather disjointed field" (Esser & Strömbäck, 2012). In addition, "most research focuses on how campaigns communicate with voters, either directly or through the news media, or on the overall mode of political campaigning and communication" (Amenyeawu, 2021;Stier, Bleier, Lietz & Strohmaier, 2018;Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). However, other methods of communication, such as "internal communication to organize volunteers", and the use of indigenous languages during political campaigns are typically neglected. ...
... The study has been underpinned by the theory of communication in political campaigns. This theory so far has been dominated by the seminal works and research of Petrocik (1996), Riker (1996), Stromberg (2008), Denter (2014), Strömbäck and Kiousis (2011). Communication in political campaigns is the process in which political organisations "spend time or money through television, and radio adverts, public speeches, and posters in an effort to influence voters' decision at the ballot" (Denter, 2014: 1). ...
This study sought to explore how the Fourth Industrial Revolution tools or platforms such as digital media technology, social media, and the internet are employed to publicise indigenous language posters for political election campaigns in South Africa. The study was underpinned by a theory of communication in political campaigns to ascertain the importance of communication or linguistic features in political campaign posters. A phenomenological qualitative research method and exploratory research design were employed to address the research problem and objectives of the study. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was used to collect data from 10 purposively selected respondents. The collected data were thematically analysed to identify, describe, and explain the major themes and sub-themes that emerged. The study established that the previously disadvantaged and marginalised South African indigenous languages were seriously underutilised for political election campaign posters on social media platforms by various South African political organisations. Therefore, the article recommends that, in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, for political parties to participate in the development, preservation, digitalisation, and promotion of these indigenous languages, they should strive to use and post on social media accounts political election campaign posters that are written in the various South African indigenous languages.
... Cutlip (1976) made one of the earliest efforts to define the role of GPR as information offered in an interlocking public informational system with media and other social institutions to "inform the public of constructive, the complex subject matter" in democratic societies (Cutlip, 1976, p. 6), which emphasizes the inextricable interconnection between GPR and news media. Taking a step away from the press agentry model of public relations, Strömbäck and Kiousis (2011) offered a relational perspective to understand GPR in the context of political public relations, which is defined as. ...
... Taken together, despite researchers recognizing the value of public relations research in understanding government communication and political public relations (Canel & Sanders, 2013;Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011;Strömbäck and Kiousis, 2019), there is a lack of a unified definition of GPR, and the present research lacks a systematic knowledge of how GPR is understood under multidisciplinary influences when situated in public relations contexts. We must dig deeper to understand current conceptualizations of GPR along with the methodological approaches employed in GPR scholarship to understand how research trends inform what we know, how we know, and-if needed-what to adjust in our approach to research GPR to update the trajectory. ...
... Listening to what stakeholders have to say is thus a fundamental premise baked into effective organization-public communication. Although a short interaction with corporate chatbots might not necessarily cultivate high-quality long-term relationships, an intimate, one-on-one interaction with such organizational representatives could be instrumental in starting and maintaining a positive, experiential relationship (cf., Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). After all, relationships are built upon "interactions with strategic constituencies" (Grunig, 2006, p. 158). ...
... An experimental approach can also provide more specific practical implications regarding how organizations should imbue social presence and conversational human voice in the chatbot messages by testing the manipulated social cues. In addition, a longitudinal design could better capture the process of "experiential" vs. "reputational" relationship (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011) formulation via chatbot conversation and listening. ...
This study presents one of the earliest empirical investigations on how to harness the power of chatbots for improving key public relations outcomes. Specifically, this study integrates the construct of social presence that has been widely studied in the computer-mediated communication literature with the concept of conversational human voice in public relations to conceptualize chatbots’ social conversation. We evaluate chatbots’ social conversation as an important antecedent driving user perception, not only of chatbots’ listening capability, but also of the organizations’ listening efforts, which, in turn, enhance the essential perceptual outcomes of organizational transparency and organization-public relationships. Our theoretical model was tested through an online survey of 778 adult Facebook users in the US, who were directed to have a 5-minute conversation with a real chatbot. The study results advance the organizational listening literature and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on artificial intelligence in public relations.
... These three components of supremacy, i.e, level centrality, eigenvector centrality, and centrality classify hypercritical in a network after the network's grid is made". Hussain et al. (2020) used the same framing theory with different frames of Jesper Strömbäck and Spiro Kiousis (2011) and "Nature, Sources, and Effects of News Framing," (2009) framing framework and another equalization theory of social media. Shafi, 2017) used the Issue ownership theory and Framing Theory with the Framework of ("Nature, Sources, and Effects of News Framing," 2009). ...
Online media let politicians speak with their crowd straightforwardly, especially during political proceedings. This study examined the media frames Pakistani politicians used while covering a Twitter political campaign in the Kashmir election. The study contained content analysis. This study mainly examined the three political parties, Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), and Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and political representatives Imran Khan, Bilawal Zardari, and Mariam Nawaz’s political tweets. Tweets were collected from 25th June to 25th July 2021 and revealed eight frames (Word choice, Metaphors, Exemplars, Descriptions, Arguments, Visual Images, Depict, and Catchphrases) with different percentages in the relevant tweets. Results further indicated that Politicians use the hashtag in their official tweets. PPP used more metaphors than PMLN and PTI. PPP used more Catchphrases than PMLN and PTI. PTI used more word choices than PMLN and PPP. PMLN comparatively used more frames than PTI and PPP. PTI used more visual images than PMLN and PPP. Maryam Nawaz used more metaphors in comparison to Imran Khan and Bilawal Zardari. Imran Khan used more word choices than Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Zardari. Maryam Nawaz used more Visual Images while tweeting than Bilawal Zardari and Imran Khan. Additionally, there were similarities between political leaders’ tweets and their official party page tweets. The frames that political representative’s emphasis is different from their party tweets’ frame strategy. Thus, this study concluded that the research findings specify that the choosing Twitter was a significant framing tool for campaigning and was resourcefully used to disseminate campaign apprises, endorse political accomplishments, and staying connected with the potential followers.
... These activities take different forms, including nonprofit organizational advocacy (Mosley, Suárez, & Hwang, 2022), corporate lobbying (Tian, Gao, & Cone, 2008), political corporate social responsibility (Scherer, Rasche, Palazzo, & Spicer, 2016), corporate political activity (Hillman, Keim, & Schuler, 2004), and corporate political advocacy (Wettstein & Baur, 2016). Political public relations resembles this phenomenon where politically active organizations seek to establish relationships with their key publics through purposeful actions to achieve political goals (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). Political public relations scholarship has pointed agenda building as a major force in fulfilling an organization's political purposes (Kim & Kiousis, 2012;Miller, 2010). ...
Organizational political ideology has recently received research attention, as more organizations engage in political activities to influence public policy and political regulation. However, there lacks a focus on interor-ganizational relationships as part of an organization's political agenda. This study investigates political ideology as a mechanism of interorganizational relationship-building through politically active organizations' agenda-building efforts. The study measures organizational political ideology through political donations, and investigates how it affects organizational relationship-building through press releases. We adopt a social network approach to examine interorganizational relationships predicted by the political ideology of the organization and the CEO at both the nodal and structural levels. After a computational analysis of 174,118 press releases by top political organizational donors, the findings show that an organization's political ideology affected the mentions it received (i.e., in-degree), whereas its CEO's political ideology affected its mentions of other organizations (i.e., out-degree). Value homophily did not significantly influence interorganizational representational networks, but mutuality and transitivity affected distinct patterns of connections among politically active organizations.
... Por el contrario, la exposición a desinformación y bulos y su propagación en las redes sociales disminuyen la confianza en los medios (Guess et al., 2019;Lazer et al., 2018;Tandoc et al., 2018;Park et al., 2020). Por último, se ha demostrado que los medios de comunicación percibidos como cercanos a los intereses de la audiencia tienen mayores niveles de confianza (Delli Carpini;Keeter, 1996;Kiousis, 2011). ...
La confianza en los medios de comunicación informativos ha sido un objeto de investigación recurrente en las últimas décadas. Este trabajo repasa algunas aportaciones destacadas, deteniéndose en la relación entre la confianza y los medios que se elige para informarse; en los factores que influyen en ella, y en las implicaciones políticas y sociales de la pérdida de confianza. También presenta resultados de la encuesta Digital News Report, que muestran que en España el interés en las noticias ha decrecido de 2015 a 2022, y los medios periodísticos, tanto tradicionales como digitales, se han visto sustituidos por las redes sociales para el consumo informativo entre muchos adultos jóvenes. Además, las plataformas propiedad de empresas tecnológicas (redes sociales, buscadores y agregadores) compiten con éxito frente a los medios como vías de acceso a las noticias. En este contexto, los adultos españoles que desconfían de las noticias se han ido equiparando a quienes confían en ellas hasta superarlos, salvo en las franjas de población de mayor edad. Esto plantea retos para la defensa de la función democrática de los medios de comunicación periodísticos.
... In addition to measuring the quality of relationships, scholars also proposed to measure the status of relationships via two indicators: exchange relationship (both parties provide benefit to each other in the hope of return of benefits) and communal relationship (both parties benefit each other without expecting anything in return) (Hung, 2005). Later, Strömbäck and Kiousis (2011) proposed another categorization of relationships, noting that relationships exist along a continuum; one anchor of the spectrum is called reputational relationships built on publics' vicarious, indirect interaction with organizations, and the other end is experiential relationships based on direct interactions among parties involved. The traditional OPR model falls under experiential relationships because it assumes publics' first-hand engagement with organizations (cf. ...
... Dolayısıyla siyaset, halkla ilişkiler yöntemlerinin uygulanması için ideal bir alandır çünkü halkla ilişkilerin temel işlevi bir ideolojinin tanıtılmasını ve kabul edilmesini sağlamaktır. Bunun dışında seçim kampanyaları halkla ilişkilerden özellikle aşağıdaki alanlarda faydalanır: 1) yönlendirme, 2) medyayla ilişkiler, 3) ilişki kurma (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). Yönlendirme: Siyasi halkla ilişkilerde yönlendirilecek bir bilgi her zaman mevcuttur. ...
... Political public relations is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses political communication, political marketing, public affairs and persuasion (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). Typically, political communication scholars understand public relations primarily in terms of media and image management (Moloney, 2006). ...
... Beyond excluding social media influencers, OPR scholarship is also limited by its primary focus on corporate public relations. A growing body of scholarship on political public relations applies the OPR paradigm to political actors (Labarca et al., 2020;Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011;Sweetser, 2015;Sweetser & Browning, 2017). However, many organizational actors, including religious organizations, have not received much attention from scholars (Waters & Bortree, 2012a). ...
The current study investigates how Church communicators perceive the role of social media platforms and influencers in their overall stakeholder engagement strategy. Building upon the Organization-Public Relationship (OPR) body of literature, we conducted 13 in-depth interviews with public relations professionals at megachurches throughout the United States. Findings reveal a reliance on one-way communication strategies to build relationships that shifted two-way communication as congregations prioritized digital connections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also found that Church communicators understand the concept of social media influencers differently than their corporate communicator peers to also include influence on another’s spiritual beliefs and well-being.
... This means that unlike corporate public relations, the effectiveness of political public relations can be best considered on a goal-attainment basis. Moreover, this definition, like other previous definitions of political public relations, has two traits with ethical implications: first, the definitions by Zipfel (2008) and McNair (2017), as well as the one cited above (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011), defines political public relations in connection to a purpose, an aim, or an interest. The use of the proposition "by which" in the above-cited definition may have hinted that political public relations can be utilized. ...
... Ovdje možemo otkriti korijene strategija i taktika suvremenih odnosa s javnošću kao što su upravljanje odnosom, ciljanje i pozicioniranje, istraživanje oporbe, retorika i uvjeravanje. 64 O važnosti javne volje su, prema Glenu M. Broomu, pisali i starogrčki teoretičari, premda nisu rabili izraz "javno mnijenje". Stari su Rimljani pak rabili izraz vox populi, vox Dei (glas naroda glas je Boga). ...
Odnosi s javnošću i knjižno nakladništvo imaju vrlo aktivan i dugovječan odnos. Praksa obaju polja vrlo je dugovječna, živa i razgranata, a odnosi s javnošću i nakladništvo znanstvene su discipline srodnih tema. Knjižno nakladništvo djelatnost je na području kulture, ali istovremeno i ona koja će morati vratiti uloženi kapital. U tom pogledu ima mnogo sličnosti s ostalim “kulturnim industrijama”, ali je istovremeno i najjača takva industrija, tj. ona koja ima najveći obrt kapitala, najveći komunikacijski potencijal i najjači intelektualni utjecaj. Ova knjiga govori o knjižnom nakladništvom koje, za razliku od ostalih grana nakladničke djelatnosti (novinsko nakladništvo, nakladništvo zvuka, slike...), ima svoje posebne komunikacijske i tržišne standarde, svoje ciljane javnosti i postulate komunikacije.
Siyasal iletişim süreçlerinin en yoğun yaşandığı dönemlerin başında seçimler gelmekte ve siyasal aktörlerin yürüttükleri siyasal pazarlama faaliyetlerinin görünür taraflarından birini seçim kampanyaları oluşturmaktadır. Siyasi aktörler siyasal pazarlama stratejileri ve reklam, halkla ilişkiler gibi tutundurma faaliyetleri ile kendilerini seçmenin gözünde bir marka olarak konumlandırmayı ve seçmen memnuniyetini yaratarak, seçmen desteğini kazanmayı ve oylarını artırmayı hedeflemektedirler. Dinamik ve süreklilik arz eden bir süreç olan siyasal pazarlama, iletişim teknolojilerinde görülen yeniliklerle birlikte gelişmiş ve dönüşüme uğramıştır. Profesyonel siyasal iletişim faaliyetlerinin uygulandığı ilk ülke Amerika Birleşik Devletleri (ABD)’dir ve değişen iletişim teknolojilerine bağlı olarak yürütülen seçim kampanyalarında farklı siyasal pazarlama stratejileri izlenmiştir. Başlarda gazete, dergi, broşür, el ilanı gibi yazılı mecralar ve radyo üzerinden kampanyalarını yürüten siyasi aktörler; teknolojinin gelişmesiyle birlikte önce televizyonu daha sonra ise internet ve onun bir uzantısı olarak sosyal medyayı kampanya süreçlerine dahil etmişlerdir. İletişim teknolojilerindeki gelişmeler; siyasi aktörler arasındaki rekabetin artması ve seçmene müşteri gözüyle bakılması, dolayısıyla da seçmen memnuniyetinin öncelenmesine ilişkin pazarlama yaklaşımlarının benimsenmesiyle birlikte seçim kampanyalarının daha bütünsel ve profesyonel anlamda yürütülmesi ihtiyacı gündeme gelmiştir. Çalışmanın literatür kısmında ilk olarak teknolojik yenilikler bağlamında seçim kampanyalarının tarihsel gelişimi, siyasal pazarlamanın evrimi ve siyasal reklam türleri ele alınmış; ardından sosyal medyanın kampanya ve pazarlama faaliyetlerinde siyasi aktörlere sunduğu avantajlara değinilmiştir. Çalışmanın uygulama kısmında ise 2023 cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimlerinin birinci ve ikinci turunda yarışan adayların yürüttükleri kampanyalarda izledikleri siyasal pazarlama stratejileri içerik analizi ve metin madenciliği yöntemleriyle incelenmiştir. Kullanılan analiz yöntemleriyle birlikte çalışmada, adayların kampanya stratejilerinin neler olduğunun, hangi konuları seçim gündemlerine taşıdıklarının ve söylemlerini hangi kavramlar üzerinden kurduklarının yatay düzlemde adaylar ve dikey düzlemde turlar bağlamında karşılaştırmalı olarak analiz edilmesi amaçlanmıştır.
What are the factors that give NGOs influence in political processes? As a result of a deductive-inductive process, nine distinct capital forms have been identified that may influence how successful an NGO is in influencing Norwegian positions and policies. Informants in senior government and political positions have been interviewed to identify the relative importance of these capital forms. Key findings are that several capital forms have a higher importance than organizational size, such as competence, expertise, field operations and results. We also find indications that government officials and politicians value capital forms somewhat differently.
Political public relations remain an indispensable topi in the hands of political parties and candidates. In Nigeria, public relations strategies are often adopted by different political parties and candidates to win the support of voters. However, whether these strategies actually influence voting decisions of the electorates remains relatively unknown. It is in light of the above that the paper examines influences of political public relations on voting patterns among youths in Imo State, Nigeria in the 2015 general elections. The survey research design was adopted and questionnaire was used as instrument of data collection. A sample size of 400 was selected through the multi-stage and purposive sampling techniques. It was found that: public relations strategies had positive influence on 2015 general elections; political participation is dependent on the personal relationships between politicians and the electorates; and that public relations strategies enhanced high voter turnout, especially among youths in Imo State during the 2015 general election in Nigeria. The paper recommends increased uses of public relations by political parties as well as candidates to enhance meaningful relationships before, during and after periods of electoral campaigns.
This article explores the communication strategies used by Vietnam’s communist government during the earlier phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. What makes this case worth studying is the examination of Vietnam’s hybridised use of Western public relations strategies with communist propaganda and the fluctuating, emphasis on one or the other depending on the outbreak’s implications. While Vietnam was praised as a pandemic hero in 2020, thanks in part to some academic and news media representations of the Vietnam government as an effective communicator, this perception changed when the Delta variant hit the country. What happened? Which communication strategies changed? Which remained? To answer these questions, we used a mixed qualitative method consisting of a case study and manual and computational thematic analyses of government and news media and social media texts to identify the strategies and themes that were dominant during the first COVID-19 outbreaks. This study helps to throw light on the effectiveness but also the problems that may arise from a mixed use of public relations and propaganda strategies during a global pandemic; it also raises questions about the need to build a country-specific pandemic communication framework as well as to rethink theories and uses of propaganda vis-à-vis PR today.
Although the use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots in public organizations has increased in recent years, three crucial gaps remain unresolved. First, little empirical evidence has been produced to examine the deployment of chatbots in government contexts. Second, existing research does not distinguish clearly between the drivers of adoption and the determinants of success and, therefore, between the stages of adoption and implementation. Third, most current research does not use a multidimensional perspective to understand the adoption and implementation of AI in government organizations. Our study addresses these gaps by exploring the following question: what determinants facilitate or impede the adoption and implementation of chatbots in the public sector? We answer this question by analyzing 22 state agencies across the U.S.A. that use chatbots. Our analysis identifies ease of use and relative advantage of chatbots, leadership and innovative culture, external shock, and individual past experiences as the main drivers of the decisions to adopt chatbots. Further, it shows that different types of determinants (such as knowledge-base creation and maintenance, technology skills and system crashes, human and financial resources, cross-agency interaction and communication, confidentiality and safety rules and regulations, and citizens’ expectations, and the COVID-19 crisis) impact differently the deployment and implementation processes and, therefore, determine the success of chatbots in a different manner. Future research could focus on the interaction among different types of determinants for both adoption and implementation, as well as on the role of specific stakeholders, such as IT vendors.
Going beyond the practical obstacles and facilitators for inclusive government communication, this study stresses the underlying tension between democratic and bureaucratic values in administrative structures and its implication for inclusive communication. The clash between on the one hand efficiency, market-driven patterns, and impartiality and on the other hand individual rights, advocating equal rights and social justice, shows that in coming to terms with the reality of superdiverse societies governments need to reconcile these values on the level of actual decision-making and behavior by public communication practitioners.
“Government communication” in this entry refers to the aims, role, and practice of communication implemented by executive politicians and officials of public institutions in the service of a political rationale, and that are themselves constituted on the basis of the people's indirect or direct consent, and are charged to enact the people's will. This executive communication is contrasted with the deliberative communication legislatures use to decide public policy through determining the law, and with the judiciary, whose function is to make judgments in relation to disputes about the application of the law (→ Strategic Communication).
The article aimed to reveal the communicative reality of public diplomacy according to the public relations models and the theory of an excellence. It adopted the descriptive approach that based on opinion survey, using the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to an “available” sample of (43) "Iraqi diplomats" who are still working in the diplomatic corps. The article reached several results, including that the most effective communicative models of public relations in public diplomacy practices is the press agent model, followed by information model, then the two-way asymmetric model, and then the two-way symmetrical model. It was clear the great convergence between the two sides, in the means, methods, and knowledge that should be available in the diplomatic mission as a communicative process corresponding to public relations that requires a cultural and cognitive repertoire about the public and the institution, in addition to the performing, written, diction, and training skills.
Since the research questions of the present research are concerned with national image and crisis response, this chapter elaborates on PR research in terms of these two concepts and then advances an integrated approach combining political public relations and critical discourse analysis.
Dieser Beitrag diskutiert zunächst die Definition von politischer Werbung und politischer Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und thematisiert die Abgrenzungsproblematik zwischen beiden Begriffen. Der folgende Teil sichtet den Forschungsstand zu politischer Werbung, anschließend zu politischer PR. Das Fazit konstatiert, dass für politische Öffentlichkeitsarbeit Nachholbedarf hinsichtlich weiterer Forschung besteht.
Political communication is a very wide-ranging, complex, and fluid subfield. Within this field, this chapter focuses on the self-presentational side of politics, more specifically the self-presentation of political actors. The chapter discusses the use of content analysis in research on how political actors communicate on various channels and platforms, and elaborates a selection of analytical constructs that are commonly analyzed with regard to the content, style, and the rhetoric of political actors’ self-presentation.
Press releases disseminate selected information and promote particular issues. Although several courts regularly publish press releases on decisions, it is unclear which policy issues are more likely to be promoted by courts. This study argues that courts publish press releases to increase transparency and promote politically contested issues strategically. Using original data on the German Federal Constitutional Court, it assesses the role of press releases for judicial agenda-setting. Policy issues in 7114 court decisions between 1998 and 2019 were coded through supervised text classification. The results show that the press releases cover a greater range of policy issues than the Court’s decisions. They are more likely to be published for decisions that deal with politically contested issues. This study contributes to the policy agenda literature by adding a new case, the German Federal Constitutional Court, and court press releases as a new perspective.
Communication professionals are increasingly found within government ministries. Based on classic work on bureaucracy and recent literature on mediatisation and personalization, this article develops two ideal types: the government information provider and government spin doctor. These ideals are constituted by six dimensions: recruitment criteria, values, loyalties, reputational concerns, interactions and tasks. A study of nonpartisan communication professionals in Norwegian ministries is used to illustrate the empirical relevance of the ideal types. The analysis shows that for loyalties and reputational concerns, Norwegian communication professionals resemble the government information provider. Regarding interactions and tasks, they resemble the government spin doctor. For recruitment criteria and values the picture is mixed. The empirical application thereby illustrates a fruitful aspect of the framework as certain configurations will bring forth inbuilt tension in communication professionals’ role. The framework allows a fine‐grained approach to extend ongoing debates of appropriate and inappropriate practices of communication professionals in ministries. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This study was carried out to determine the influence of Ego Integrity and Health Status
on Death Anxiety among Adults in Ekiti State using a cross-sectional approach. Three
cohorts of Adults; Early (18-34yrs), Middle (35-60yrs) and Late (60yrs and above) were
used in the study. A total of 468 Adults (male = 230, female =238) were drawn from among
Nigerian adults resident in Ekiti State using a multi – stage random sampling technique.
The Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) developed by Templer (1970) was used to measure the
criterion variable; Death Anxiety while Ego Integrity was measured by Life Satisfaction
Scale-Z (LIS-Z) developed by Neugarten, Havighurst and Tobin (1961) and Health Status
was determined by an item in the questionnaire. Two hypotheses were tested and data
were analyzed using the Independent t-test. Results indicated that here is a significant
difference between the Sick and Healthy Adults on Death Anxiety, and that there is no
significant difference between attainment of Ego Integrity and non-attainment of Ego
Integrity in late Adults age group on Death Anxiety. It was concluded that Health Status
significantly influence Death Anxiety while Ego Integrity does not significantly influence
death anxiety. The results were discussed in line with the theoretical framework of this
study. Recommendations were made in line with the findings that the society should
encourage an engagement of the adult group in more rewarding roles and activities into
old age so as to promote good health and reduce death anxiety.
Recent years have witnessed a flourishing development in the field of Public Relations (hereinafter as PR), which adjusts its scholarly attention from the quantitatively inclined studies on behavioral effectiveness to more of a critical discussion about social power and ideological influence within PR practice, consequently in favor of an interpretivist approach with a qualitative methodology toward a holistic analysis of a series of PR performances. Driven by the rise of this critical perspective in qualitative PR research, this paper aims to argue for a critical PR approach, tentatively by integrating a linguistic perspective from Critical Discourse Studies to discuss crisis communication as a social practice. Technically drawing on the theories of Political Public Relations (PPR in short) and Critical Discourse Studies, the proposed framework attaches equal importance to ideology, power, and identity instead of merely management function. It is illustrated that a critical investigation of PR performances approaches both media and institutional discourses, which are constructed by different social actors to frame a crisis and issue immediate responses, exercise its power control and maintain stakeholder relationships, and ultimately restore media and institutional images. On the one hand, the embedded ideologies enacted by the institutional control the media power and construct positive image representations. On the other hand, in order to exercise its administrative control, the institution must emphasize the need for all the stakeholders and the affected group to devote to resolving the crisis. The paper then concludes that the integrated framework together with the qualitative method of linguistic analysis offers PR scholars insights into the relationship between discourse, ideology, and crisis communication, as well as proposes implications on the interdisciplinary research from which general qualitative researchers could benefit. Hopefully, this integrated approach to crisis communication will contribute to broadening the research scope of analyzing communication as a social practice toward a comprehensive model.
Political, social and demographic change has resulted in a search for new techniques for building public trust and reconciling relationships between the Muslim community and others in society. In this study, extremism and social cohesion have been chosen as potential new aims for the PR industry. This study assesses whether political PR can be diverted from its role in spin doctoring towards new cultural and social functions. My argument is that political PR can be used as a tool for social integration with particular reference to the Muslim community in the UK. This research distinguishes between two issues. The first connects with political PR within a political communication background, which relates to politicians, election campaigns, news management and their relationship with the media. The second issue is that political PR can be reconsidered from a corporate perspective, one that endorses the use of PR in challenging political environments. My study places emphasis on the second issue. A sample of seven UK PR academics, therefore, evaluated the current communication policies for their effectiveness, explained how political PR could help and gave their recommendations. Seven NGOs in Britain also described their work, the problems they encountered and their concerns. A lack of social integration and the rise of extremism were explained in terms of stereotyping, marginalisation and counterproductive techniques. The results suggest that a change in political PR is possible and should be encouraged to intervene in countering radicalization and enhancing social cohesion. They also show a lack of PR support for NGOs. The findings broadly move the field of inclusivity forward by working on a bottom-up approach instead of a top-down model of communication. The best answer for sustaining long-term community relationships was improved communication and engagement, inclusive messages and campaigns, and the Muslim community remaining open to others in society.
This study offers a rare ethnographic lens into a political training program’s efforts to develop women’s leadership communication as a public relations process. Drawing from participant observation, interviews, and documents, findings indicate the importance of developing a leadership mind-set and authentic leadership communication rooted in intersecting identities, tensions surrounding authentic relational communication and the importance of building cohort-based supportive communities for women leaders. By broadening the umbrella of who counts as women leaders in public relations, the study opens additional contexts (political training programs) and concepts (vulnerability) for the field.
In February 2012, the Spanish Government approved an aggressive labor reform. Many political agents committed to emphasis framing, highlighting certain aspects of the topic to persuade their publics with their definitions of the situation. Some generic frames suggested an individualistic approach to the labor market, while some others called for collective action. Following the cascading activation model, this research attempted to identify the flows of frames from the elites to the media outfits. A content analysis was conducted with the materials disseminated in February 2012 by the government, the two main Spanish unions, the confederation of employers, and four print media. Differences and similarities were found through bivariate analyses between the categories of the codebook. Although clear cascades emerged from the unions to the online daily Público.es, and from the government to Larazón.es, generally the media frame building processes did not limit to just depicting the frames of an elite.
Focusing on Hong Kong’s news media, this study uses the concepts of news paradigms and information subsidies to examine how a shift in political power centers can affect the production of political news and its reportage. A quantitative content analysis of the sourcing patterns of press reports on interpretations of the Basic Law by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong indicated a rising trend in the use of news sources from the Chinese government and the pro-China camp. Furthermore, in-depth interviews with Hong Kong political journalists revealed that the influence of the Chinese government on the media exceeded that of the Hong Kong government. The currently asymmetrical dual-power structure, which is characterized by the Chinese central government’s supersession of the Hong Kong government, has provoked dramatic changes in news sources and sourcing practices, reflecting a shift in Hong Kong’s news paradigm. Media outlets and journalists face resistance to their news reporting and threats to the professionalism of their journalistic work.
Bir siyasal partinin devlet yönetimini yani siyasal iktidarı elde etme amaçlı eylem ve etkinliklerine yön veren siyasal iletişim uzun dönemli bir süreçtir. Siyasal sistemin temel aktörleri olan siyasal partiler, yönetime talip olduklarında, iktidara geldiklerinde hangi konuları öne çıkaracaklarına ve bu konularda neler yapacaklarına dair bilgileri hükümet programları ile halka duyururlar. Geleceğe yönelik bir söz ya da vaat olarak hükümet programları aynı zamanda resmi birer belgedir. Ülkenin iç ve dış politikasını etkileyen ekonomik, toplumsal, kültürel, hukuksal ya da siyasal konular programların yön ve içeriğini etkiler. Bu bakımdan dış politik konular hükümet programlarının da başlıca gündem maddeleri arasında yer almaktadır. Bu çalışma, ülkemizde çok partili hayata geçilen 1950’den Cumhurbaşkanlığı Hükümet Sistemine geçilen 2018 yılına kadarki hükümet programlarında öne çıkan bir başlık olarak dış politika konularına nasıl yer verildiğini ortaya koymayı hedeflemektedir. Bu amaçla çalışmada, 1950-2018 yılları arasında kurulan toplam 31 hükümet programı, dış politikaya dair ifadeler yönünden içerik analizine tabi tutulmuştur. Analiz neticesinde ülke içinde ve dünya genelinde değişen konjonktürün hükümet programlarında ağırlık verilen konulara da yansıdığı görülmüştür. En fazla mesaj verilen alt başlık dünya ile ilişkiler, en az mesaj verilen alt başlık ise tarımdır.
Političko komuniciranje kao fenomen prisutno je kroz povijest civilizacije od najranijih dana organiziranoga kolektivnog čovjekova života kao
zoon politicona. Mijenjali su se ciljevi, modusi, izražajna sredstva, kontekst
i tehnički background te komunikacije, ali bit je ostala uvijek vezana za ontogenezu, odnosno bit/suštinu politike kao takve; autoritarni pojedinac,
elitna manjina, politička stranka/stranke (na vrhu piramide) upravljaju
neelitnom, prostorno disperziranom većinom žitelja unutar svoga djelokru�ga vladanja. To mogu biti plemena, plemenski savezi, lokalne zajednice, op�ćine, županije, savezi država, svjetske asocijacije, sve do onoga što je danas denominirano pojmom međunarodna zajednica.
Ni jedan subjekt koji rukovodi, zapovijeda, upravlja građanstvom/pu�čanstvom ne može, a da kroz najšarolikiji spektar modusa stalno ne komu�nicira s onima koje vodi. Ta komunikacija može biti personificirana u sili,
tiraniji, represivnim mjerama, a može biti i s manjim ili većim interaktivnim
sudjelovanjem altera pars. Tako od fikcije/ideala demos (narod) – cratos
(vlast) – democratia (vladavina naroda) možemo govoriti samo o manjem
ili većem stupnju sudjelovanja šire populacije u političkom životu; od mo�gućnosti izbora funkcionira d’en bas (odozdo) do vrha, donošenja političkih
i drugih odluka, makar u mikromiljeu lokalne zajednice.
Političko komuniciranje nije imanentno samo spomenutim političkim
subjektima, a još manje samo (manifestno) političkim strankama. Politikom
kao oružjem upravljanja i vladanja, odnosno zadržavanja monopolnog po�ložaja vlasti i moći, sekundarno (racionalno neočito) bave se i mnoge druge
organizacije i subjekti; najraznorodnija tajna - ezoterična društva, institu�cionalizirane religije, gospodarski subjekti, bastioni financijske moći/kapi-
12 |
Prof. dr. sc. Zoran Tomić
tala itd. Politički se ciljevi i u raspodjeli svjetske političke moći oduvijek
ostvaruju i izvan granica svoje države, odnosno administrativno-upravne
jedinice. I tu je potrebna komunikacija; kako kao afirmacija koncepta poličtike koja se vodi, tako i kao mentalni racionalizator posljedica provođenih
mjera/poteza/akcija i sl.
Politička komunikacija, danas u najvidljivijoj formi operacionalizirana
posredstvom medija masovne komunikacije, nikada nije bila božica razuma
ni primarno objektivno/istinito/izravno priopćavanje pozadine postavljenih
političkih ciljeva, odnosno razotkrivanje prikrivenih mehanizama tajnih po�litičkih dogovora. Ma što bila pozadina politike i motivacije za određenim
akcijama, iza kojih su se uvijek prikrivali, konac-konca, ekonomski interesi,
puku je to trebalo objasniti/uvjeriti ga/pridobiti ga i sl. na njemu jedino razu�mljiv i prihvatljiv način, čak i kada su se politički procesi odvijali na njegovu
štetu. Po načelu stare latinske izreke Cosi e se vi pare (Samo je ono što se po�javi) i Ne može se reći više nego što se vidi (B. Abott) ljude, osim psihagoških
iznuđivanja prihvaćanja makar minimuma političkih dogmi ili interiorizacije
semiološki/simboliči i aksiološki podastrtog pojmovnog aparata (sustava de�nominacije i dekodiranja) političkog koncepta (ideologije, pokreta i sl.), treba
uvjeriti da sve što (im) se događa na određenom području, jednostavno tako
mora biti; ako je za puk (ili on samo misli da je) dobro, onda smo zaslužni MI;
ako je slabo, krivi su ONI - drugi....
Političkom komunikacijom, dakle, puk, ljude, sljedbenike pridobiva
se pro domo sua (kao političke stranke u predizbornom marketingu) i već
tu leži kamen spoticanja za objektivnu, istinitu, interaktivnu, ravnopravnu
komunikaciju. Riječ je, dakle, o promidžbi, o (u zapadnom svijetu svjesno
izbjegavanoj upotrebi pojma, a ne prakse) političkoj promidžbi, uvjera�vanju, nadmudrivanju kada su politički suparnici/protivnici u pitanju, pa
zašto ne i političkoj reklami. Represivne i vidljive forme Goebbelsovih pro�pagandnih orkestracija (potkrijepljenih konclogorima i strahom za golu
egzistenciju) i Staljinova političkog odgoja (zasnovana na strahu od gulaga i
likvidacije) zamijenjene su blažim i prihvatljivijim formama političkih odnosa s javnostima.
Kada je političko komuniciranje u pitanju, velika je još dvojba je li tzv.
demokratsko (interno, za razliku od eksternog i geografski ciljanog) političko komuniciranje u razvijenim zemljama Zapada zapravo samo još jedna
dekoracija privida o demokraciji?!
| 13
POLITIČKO KOMUNICIRANJE
Red. prof. dr. sc. Zoran Tomić je u BiH i u Hrvatskoj, te u širem ex Yu
prostoru jedan od rijetkih autora koji je kao doktor komunikacijske znano�sti svoje interesiranje od usko shvaćenoga predizbornog i političkog marke�tinga u mikrorazmjerima proširio na daleko širi aspekt shvaćanja političkog
komuniciranja. U vrijednoj knjizi, koja je pred nama, on nas iz općeg teo�rijskog okvira komunikacije uvodi u ontogenezu političkog komuniciranja,
sa svim svojim aspektima iskazivanja, metodologiji djelovanja, izražajnim
sredstvima, medijima, te kanalima komuniciranja. Tek nakon ovakvoga
utemeljenja dr. Tomić nas u knjizi vodi do izbornih kampanja, do konkret�nih primjera i analize izbora u Bosni i Hercegovini, a posebno empirijski
istražuje značajno područje, od strane političara (najčešće linijom manjeg
otpora samoljubivo izabranih, za razliku od strane puka željenih), kanala
komuniciranja.
Knjiga zapravo predstavlja treće izdanje (prvo izdanje: Ziral Mostar,
1996.), podobro dopunjeno i korigirano najnovijim teorijskim i praktičnim
iskustvima političkog komuniciranja na našim prostorima, upravo u vrije�me predizbornih kampanja, posebno u postdaytonskom razdoblju.
Znajući da su u sveukupnom marketing promocijskom miksu prediz�bornih kampanja, osim kanala, važni i oblici komuniciranja, Tomić u svojoj
knjizi, između ostaloga, izvodi kapitalan zaključak, ukazujući na nužnu po�trebu svekolike edukacije svih sudionika političke komunikacije; i stranačkih
vodstava/izbornih stožera, i državnih službenika, i čelnika od lokalne do
državne razine, i kreatora komunikacijskih/promidžbenih sadržaja, ali po�sebno i samih GRAĐANA/birača. Kako to pravilno zaključuje autor, riječ je
o neznanju nužnosti primjene MARKETINGA (permanentnog) ISTRAŽI�VANJA BIRAČKOG TIJELA (Political Party Membership/Citizenship Mar�keting) i IMIDŽA.
Dr. Tomić nas u izvanredno dobro koncipiranoj strukturi knjige, svojim
ocjenama i procjenama, upozorava na još nekoliko bitnih činjenica. Većina
političkih stranaka i koalicija uglavnom potenciraju, kao osnovna sredstva/
oblike (Overline/Upline) medije masovne komunikacije (TV, tisak, radio),
dok malo rade na vlastitim (Underline) oblicima i kanalima interpersonalne
i grupne (Live) komunikacije, odnosno još uvijek premalo kreativno razvi�jaju vlastite medije kao što su newsletteri, leci, web-stranice i sl., što im je
mogla i ubuduće može (ili bi morala) biti osnova izgradnje pozitivnog imidža stranke, programa i lidera, kroz vlastiti (differentia specifica i sui generis)
komunikacijski stil stranke, a kasnije i dugoročnu strategiju komuniciranja,
kroz PR/FR, kao osnovni (dvosmjerni/interaktivni) oblik komuniciranja.
Dr. Tomić je, kao dobar poznavatelj izborne problematike s njezina
komunikacijskog aspekta, dokazao da su (za razliku od prethodnih) prvi
samostalni poslijeratni izbori znatno unaprijedili razinu shvaćanja o važ�nosti kvalitetne i profesionalne političke komunikacije i vođenja prediz�bornih kampanja, ali samo sa stajališta kvantitete (uloženih sredstava, više
propagandnih outdoor materijala, TV nastupa i stranačkih propagandnih
sredstava), dok su sa stajališta kvalitete kreacije, sui generis različitosti u
stilovima, načinima i kanalima komunikacije (kvalitativno) kampanje naših
(čak 57 stranaka i 6 koalicija) stranaka ostale na diletantskoj razini.
Osim naprijed navedenog, Tomićev čisti doprinos znanosti jesu i njego�va osobna poimanja kategorija političke komunikacije, izbornih kampanja
i izbornog marketinga. Korištenjem široke literature na domaćim i stranim
jezicima, Tomić nedvojbeno mlađim kolegama, koji će se znanstveno ili
praktično baviti stranačkom predizbornom djelatnosti, nudi bogatu riznicu
bibliografskih izvora i web-stranica, na koje se mogu osloniti. Istaknuo bih
da Tomić među prvim bh. autorima uvodi u svijetu najkorišteniju Bi/tri/
kvadri konkavnu, tzv. Conjoint analizu. I praktičare i teoretičare predizbor�nog marketinga uči kako djelovati, odnosno istraživati, a posebno novinare
KAKO VRJEDNOVATI predizborne kampanje i njihove rezultate. Tomićev
doprinos jesu i njegova empirijska istraživanja kanala komuniciranja, gdje
i teoretičarima i praktičarima ukazuje na propuste zbog kojih su uz znatno
veća utrošena sredstva imali slabije rezultate nego što bi ih imali da su istra�živali komunikacijske preferencije svojih birača, odnosno građana.
I na kraju, prije pet godina, u predgovoru četvrtom izdanju napisao
sam da je knjiga dr. Zorana Tomića najsigurniji vodič u obrazovanju i prak�tičnom oblikovanju političke komunikacije, političkih odnosa s javnošću
i izbornih kampanja i jako je važno da i ovo izdanje bude dostupno široj
znanstvenoj i stručnoj javnosti, a posebno vodstvima stranaka i građanima,
pa i novinarima i medijima, kao putokaz prevladavanja vlastitih slabosti
i uzdizanja sveopće kulture političke predizborne komunikacije. Danas,
završavajući ovaj predgovor, sa sigurnošću mogu reći da je knjiga Politič�ko komuniciranje, V. izdanje (više od 60 novih, suvremenih izvora/knjiga)
cjelovit udžbenik i da je red. prof. dr. Zoran Tomić njome zaokružio jednu
važnu znanstvenu disciplinu, koju je, istina, on prvi započeo istraživati i te�orijski tretirati na širem području Jugoistočne Europe. Ovime je dr. Tomić
još jedanput potvrdio svoje veliko značenje kao znanstvenik i kao profesor,
a slobodno se može reći da je i lider u području političke komunikacije.
U Sarajevu, 15. 10. 2019.
Dr. sc. Besim Spahić, red. prof.
Care is not a word generally associated with political crises. However, following the mosques massacre in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was found to have used care and a feminist approach to political communication that served to unite rather than divide her country following this racially motivated terrorist attack. There is much literature on corporate crises, but this paper adds to the dearth of literature on political crises in a public interest context. Grounded in a consideration of care and agenda building theories, it reveals that a caring approach to political communication (both verbal and nonverbal) following an act of terrorism can influence the media agenda and by extension public opinion.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a model to measure government reputation applicable to municipal governments. The methodology used was in a first step Analytical Hierarchy Process (Saaty’s Algorithm), based on the literature review, interviews, and focus groups in Mexico; in a second step, Partial Least Squares was used to examine the effect of¦ the independent variables and their dimensions on the dependent variable and to make predictions. Through an evaluation in a Mexican Local Government, Uruapan, Michoacán, and the use of PLS-SEM, the dependency relationship between government reputation and government performance, ethical commitment and government communication were verified, it should be stated that the leadership of the authorities was not statistically significant through PLS-SEM. The findings of the research provide practical guidelines for local governments and authorities to improve their reputation and strength investment, tourism and social values such as legitimacy, citizen’s participation, and social capital.
This article extends the conceptualization of silence in public relations beyond strategic communication. It develops a new theoretical framework to explain the mechanisms through which suffering and pain felt inside the body translate into silence, exclusion from public debate, and communication gaps in health communication. This happens through intermediate steps that involve, among others, the role of the media in the narrative construction of the body and the self. This framework advances an understanding of public relations oriented towards civil society and is based on the empirical case study of involuntary childlessness (i.e. not having children not by choice): even in the age of ubiquitous communication, despite affecting about 25% of the adult population of virtually all developed countries, this issue is shrouded in taboo and seldom heard of. The analysis makes the case for a more material, indeed embodied, approach to conceptualizing silence in public relations.
Bu çalışma, anlayış, sempati ve destek kazanmak amacıyla yürütülen siyasal halkla ilişkiler alanını ve bu alan bağlamında dilin siyasi aktörlerce kullanımını konu edinmektedir. Dilin bir eylem olduğu gerçeğinden hareket ederek, siyasi liderlerin ifadelerini, edimsöz edimlerindeki ulamlar ve kelime yoğunlukluları üzerinden incelemeye tabi tutmaktadır. Bu incelemesini TBMM’de grubu bulunan siyasi parti liderlerinin 01.01.2020-31.12.2020 tarihleri arasında Twitter hesaplarından paylaştıkları tweetler üzerinden yapmaktadır. Karma yöntemin benimsendiği çalışmada, veriler NodeXL Pro programı ile toplanmış MAXQDA veri analiz programları yardımıyla analiz edilerek yorumlanmıştır. Liderlerin hesaplarındaki tweetler, alanyazında var olan kesinleyici, yönlendirici, söz verici, anlatımsal ve bildirgen edimsöz ulamları üzerinden tematik kodlamaya tabi tutularak sayısal verilere dönüştürülmüştür. Bu kapsamda ulaşılan bulgulara göre yapılan analizde, Erdoğan’ın bildirgen, Kılıçdaroğlu’nun anlatımsal Bahçeli, Akşener, Sancar ve Buldan’ın ise kesinleyici ulam içerisinde değerlendirilecek sözleri daha fazla tercih ettikleri gözlenmiştir. İş bu görece daha fazla tercih ettikleri ulamlar içerisinde Erdoğan’ın buyurgan, ilan edici ifadeleri; Kılıçdaroğlu’nun ise teşekkür eden, kutlayan ve anma içerikli ifadeleri dikkat çekmektedir. Diğer siyasi liderlerin ise doğrulayıcı, savlayıcı, saptayıcı ve iddia edici ifadeleri ön plana çıkmaktadır.
Vojska spada med ustanove državnega pomena, ki morajo komunicirati s svojimi številnimi javnostmi. Vojaški odnosi z javnostmi so del neoperativne aktivnosti oboroženih sil, njihov namen je vzpostavljanje ali ohranjanje dobrih odnosov in ustvarjanje sprejemljive podobe v javnosti, kar je življenjskega pomena za vsako vojsko. Vojaški odnosi z javnostmi se ne razlikujejo veliko od odnosov z javnostmi v zasebnem sektorju; uporabljajo enake strateške pristope in enaka orodja, le izdelek je drugačen. Ker delujejo v okolju javnega sektorja, so pogosto predmet kritične presoje medijev ter strokovne in tudi laične javnosti. Zato se, tako kot drugod, tudi na področju vojaških odnosov z javnostmi pričakuje visoka stopnja etičnosti in profesionalnosti. Komunikacijski primeri iz prakse državnih ustanov, pa tudi s področja obrambno- -vojaške prakse odnosov z javnostmi so v strokovni literaturi redko predstavljeni, v Sloveniji jih skoraj ni najti. V prispevku je prvič predstavljen študijski primer komu- nikacijskega programa in referendumske kampanje v podporo včlanitvi Slovenije v Nato. Primer je zanimiv za bralce, ne le zaradi celovite predstavitve kampanje, kritik in vprašanj, ki jih je kampanja sprožila, temveč tudi zaradi izjemnih izkušenj, ki so jih komunikatorji pridobili. Pokaže pa tudi na zapletenost in zahtevnost sodobnih političnih in vojaških odnosov z javnostmi, kar utrjuje potrebo po dosledni uporabi strateških pristopov h komuniciranju. Armed forces rank among the institutions of national interest and as such have to communicate with its numerous publics. Military public relations form a part of the armed forces’ non-operational activities, aimed at establishing or maintaining good relations with different stakeholders and creating an acceptable public image, which is vital to any army. Military public relations do not differ much from the public relations in the private sector. They both use the same strategic approaches and the same tools, but differ in the product. Since they operate in the public sector enviro- nment, they are often subject to critical judgement by the media, as well as of the professional and lay publics. It is thus expected that in military public affairs, the same as elsewhere, they demonstrate a high level of ethics and professionalism. Examples of communication practice of national institutions as well as of the defence and military sector are rarely presented in the literature and can hardly be found in Slovenia. This paper presents a case study of communication programme and the re- ferendum campaign led in support of Slovenia’s accession to NATO. The case study is also interesting for the readers not only because of the comprehensive presenta- tion of the campaign, criticism and questions raised by the campaign, but also due to the useful lessons learned by the communicators. Moreover, the case also points to the complexity and demanding nature of modern political and military public relations and thus reinforces the need for a consistent use of strategic approaches to communication.
As a social network, Twitter has generated a new way of consuming electoral debates; through the double screen phenomenon, spectators watch the debate while they pay attention to the comments. Consequently, the credibility attributed to candidates gets influenced by the context created on Twitter during the campaign. Credibility, appeal and power constitute the three image factors in political communication; equally, credibility is made of three subfactors: Expert knowledge, ethical trustworthiness and social efficacy. This research describes the credibility contexts which the four main candidates to the presidency of the Spanish Government tried to implement in Twitter, when heading to the 2015 and 2016 general elections. The evolution of the credibility factors is also analyzed, taking two events as references: The debate between Mariano Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez in December 2015; and the June 2016 debate among all four contenders. Equally, the perception frames for the credibility of the candidates among the young public was also analyzed. The context of perception has been defined after studying the polls, organizing focus groups and conducting content analyses of the Twitter profiles of the candidates. In addition, those content analyses registered the variables that candidates applied in order to look credible. While everybody tried to transmit social efficacy, this subfactor received almost no recognition from audiences. The debates did not change the practices on social media, but the spontaneity of Mariano Rajoy was revealed as more credible than the artificial efforts of his adversaries.
Most research on mediatization focuses on media-related actions and structural adaptations that aim to increase media attention. However, social actors may also opt for defensive strategies and try to avoid media publicity. In this article, we conceptualize defensive and offensive mediatization strategies as complementary methods that social actors use to deal with media publicity and public attention as well as to proactively shape mediatization processes. We employ an exploratory approach to identify and systematize defensive mediatization strategies. Consequently, we contribute to a more complete understanding of mediatization and provide starting points for further empirical analyses of media-related strategies used by social actors. A secondary analysis of the data from previous research projects suggests establishing three categories of defensive mediatization strategies—persistence, shielding, and immunization—with regard to the levels of individual actors, organizations, and social systems’ routines and norms.
The article is available Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaa011
This article uses Northern Ireland as a research context to explore how elite discourse (from political and media actors/institutions) influences how Non-Profit Leaders (NPLs) assess the trustworthiness of government. We provide emergent themes which should aid theory development and practice in the area of political public relations by showing: (1) the value NPLs place on ‘soft’ trust qualities in trust assessments of government, namely benevolence; (2) the importance NPLs place on communicative acts which model trust (e.g. dialogue, compromise, mediation); and (3) the destructive role of divisive political elite discourse within a defective political system, amplified via the media, in NPLs’ distrust of government. The study thereby emphasises the crucial and constitutive role trust perceptions play in (in)effective political public relations, arguing that ‘trust’ must be defined by the perceiver and critically unpacked if public relations research is to fully appreciate its function. We propose that the nature of Northern Ireland’s post-conflict divided society, and political discourse in specific, makes certain trust antecedents most desirable to cross-community stakeholders. The findings contribute to further refining the concept of trust in public relations and they may also be instructive for other contexts.
Este trabajo describe los contextos de percepción de los dos principales debates electorales para las elecciones generales de 2015 y 2016, así como las tácticas de los candidatos para ganar credibilidad y negociar con éxito sus marcos comunicativos. Se revisaron encuestas electorales, practicándose análisis descriptivos de publicidad política y de los propios debates. Para explorar las atribuciones de credibilidad, se organizaron dos grupos de discusión con actuantes jóvenes. Finalmente, se practicaron análisis de contenido sobre los tuits de los candidatos. Sus marcos de conflicto fatigaron a los votantes, aunque Mariano Rajoy resultaba más creíble entre los jovenes por su naturalidad.
This is a classic textbook in public relations, which emphasizes a theoretical, managerial approach to public relations.
Public Affairs and particularly government relations/lobbying, have evolved in recent years from a tactic adopted by organizations to amend occasional legislation to become a managerial strategy to achieve competitive advantage. At the fore-front of research and practice in Public Affairs, this Handbook draws upon the expertise of leading figures in the field to provide a comprehensive overview of a huge growth area in organisations’ strategic thinking. Articles evoke pan-national experience and are organised into four sections to help readers navigate issues and draw comparisons. Sections cover: Investigation into the development and meaning of Public Affairs; the management and practice of Public Affairs within organisations; global case studies; an overview of scholarly developments.
This chapter reviewed research published on the models of public relations as a part of the review of theories for the project on Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management published in 1992. It also specified new directions for research on the symmetrical model of public relations
Republication of a chapter in the Handbook of Administrative Communication, which is included as a full-text copy.
The power of political blogs in American politics is now evident to anyone who follows it. In Typing Politics, Richard Davis provides a comprehensive yet concise assessment of the growing role played by political blogs and their relationship with the mainstream media. Through a detailed content analysis of the most popular political blogs--Daily Kos, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Wonkette--he shows the degree to which blogs influence the traditional news media. Specifically, he compares the content of these blogs to four leading newspapers noted for their political coverage: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Times. He explains how political journalists at these papers use blogs to inform their reportage and analyzes general attitudes about the role of blogs in journalism. Drawing on a national survey of political blog readers, Davis concludes with a novel assessment of the blog audience. Compact, accessible, and well-researched, Typing Politics will be an invaluable contribution to the literature on a phenomenon that has reshaped the landscape of political communication.
This book is one in a series (Comparative Politics) for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. It examines political parties in contemporary democracies, asking how relevant and vital they are, whether they fulfill the functions that any stable and effective democracy might expect of them, or whether they are little more than moribund anachronisms, relics of a past age of political life, now superseded by other mechanisms of linkage between state and society. The book addresses these questions through a rigorous comparative analysis of political parties operating in the world's advanced industrial democracies. Drawing on the expertise of a team of internationally known specialists, the book engages systematically with the evidence to show that, while a degree of popular cynicism towards them is often chronic, though rarely acute, parties have adapted and survived as organizations, remodelling themselves to the needs of an era in which patterns of linkage and communication with social groups have been transformed. This has enabled them, on the one hand, to remain central to democratic systems, especially in respect of the political functions of governance, recruitment and, albeit more problematically, interest aggregation. On the other hand, the challenges they face in respect of interest articulation, communication, and participation have pushed parties into more marginal roles within Western political systems. The implications of these findings for democracy depend on the observer's normative and theoretical perspectives. Those who understand democracy primarily in terms of popular choice and control in public affairs will probably see parties as continuing to play a central role, while those who place greater store by the more demanding criteria of optimizing interests and instilling civic orientations among citizens are far more likely to be fundamentally critical. After an introductory chapter the book has 13 chapters devoted to case studies of political parties in different countries/regions (Britain, Italy, Germany, France, the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands), Scandinavia (Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden), Ireland, Spain, Europe (parties at the European level), the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; these are followed by a concluding chapter.
This book is one in a series (Comparative Politics) for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. After an introduction, it has 11 contributions from leading scholars in the field, which present a critical overview of much of the recent literature on political parties, and systematically assess the capacity of existing concepts, typologies, and methodological approaches to deal with contemporary parties. The book critically analyses the ‘decline of parties’ literature, both from a conceptual perspective and—with regard to antiparty attitudes among citizens—on the basis of empirical analyses of survey data. It systematically re‐examines the underpinnings of rational‐choice analyses of electoral competition, as well as the misapplication of standard party models as the ‘catch‐all party’. Several chapters re‐examine existing models of parties and party typologies, particularly with regard to the capacity of commonly used concepts to capture the wide variation among parties that exists in old and new democracies today, and with regard to their ability to deal adequately with the new challenges that parties are facing in rapidly changing political, social, and technological environments. In particular, two detailed case studies (from France and Spain) demonstrate how party models are significant not only as frameworks for scholarly research but also insofar as they can affect party performance. Other chapters also examine in detail how corruption and party patronage have contributed to party decline, as well as public attitudes towards parties in several countries. In the aggregate, the various contributions to the book reject the notion that a ‘decline of party’ has progressed to such an extent as to threaten the survival of parties as the crucial intermediary actors in modern democracies. The contributing authors argue, however, that parties are facing a new set of sometimes demanding challenges, and that not only have they differed significantly in their ability to successfully meet these challenges but also the core concepts, typologies, party models, and methodological approaches that have guided research in this area over the past 40 years have met with only mixed success in adequately capturing these recent developments and serving as fruitful frameworks for analysis; the book is intended to remedy some of these shortcomings. It is arranged in three parts: I. Reconceptualizing Parties and Party Competition; II. Re‐examining Party Organization and Party Models; and III. Revisiting Party Linkages and Attitudes Toward Parties.
The use of the Web in U.S. political campaigns has developed dramatically over the course of the last several election seasons. In Web Campaigning, Kirsten Foot and Steven Schneider examine the evolution of campaigns' Web practices, based on hundreds of campaign Web sites produced by a range of political actors during the U.S. elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004. Their developmental analyses of how and why campaign organizations create specific online structures illuminates the reciprocal relationship between these production practices and the structures of both the campaign organization and the electoral arena. This practice-based approach and the focus on campaigns as Web producers make the book a significant methodological and theoretical contribution to both science and technology studies and political communication scholarship.
Foot and Schneider explore the inherent tension between the desire of campaigns to maintain control over messages and resources and the generally decentralizing dynamic of Web-based communication. They analyze specific strategies by which campaigns mitigate this, examining the ways that the production techniques, coproducing Web content, online-offline convergence, and linking to other Web sites mediate the practices of informing, involving, connecting, and mobilizing supporters. Their conclusions about the past decade's trajectory of Web campaigning point the way to a political theory of technology and a technologically grounded theory of electoral politics.
A digital installation available on the web illustrates core concepts discussed in the text of the book with examples drawn from archived campaign Web sites. Users have the opportunity to search these concepts in the context of fully operational campaign sites, recreating the Web experience of users during the election periods covered in the book.
Stephen Medvic's Campaigns and Elections is a comprehensive yet compactcore text that addresses two distinct but related aspects of American electoral democracy-both the processes that constitute campaigns and elections and the players who are involved. In addition to balanced coverage of process and actors, it also gives equal billing to both campaigns and elections, and covers contests for legislative and executive positions at the national and state and local levels, including issue-oriented campaigns of note. The book opens by providing students with the conceptual distinctions between what happens in an election and the campaigning that precedes it. Significant attention is devoted to setting up the context for these campaigns and elections by covering the rules of the game in the American electoral system as well as aspects of election administration and the funding of elections. Then the book systematically covers the actors at every level-candidates and their organizations, parties, interest groups, the media, and voters-and the macro level aspects of campaigns such as campaign strategy and determinants of election outcomes. The book concludes with a big picture assessment of campaign ethics and implications of the "permanent campaign".
An innovative approach, entitled “Relationship Management”, to the study, teaching and practice of PR.
Unfortunately, I do not have an electronic file for Setting the Agenda.
Best wishes for your research,
Max McCombs
The Labour Party has been using marketing longer than is commonly realised. Leading figures like Morrison, Snowden, Webb, Gaitskell, Benn and Wilson were among those who recognized the importance of imagery and symbolic communication long before the time of Kinnock, Mandelson and Blair. Politics of Marketing the Labour Party traces how the party's political campaigning has developed since its birth and how the increasing use of marketing contributed to the radical restructuring of both the organization and its policies.
Building on a survey of media institutions in eighteen West European and North American democracies, Hallin and Mancini identify the principal dimensions of variation in media systems and the political variables which have shaped their evolution. They go on to identify three major models of media system development (the Polarized Pluralist, Democratic Corporatist and Liberal models) to explain why the media have played a different role in politics in each of these systems, and to explore the forces of change that are currently transforming them. It provides a key theoretical statement about the relation between media and political systems, a key statement about the methodology of comparative analysis in political communication and a clear overview of the variety of media institutions that have developed in the West, understood within their political and historical context.
Juan Albarracín examines the range of political parties in Brazil. In this article, he discusses the most important and sometimes contradictory findings about Brazilian political parties, the party system itself and its development since 1985. First, he presents a portrait of the fragmentation, polarization, and institutionalization of the party system and then turns to the legal framework and the new developments since 2002. Albarracín questions the assumptions made about the deficient role of political parties in the Brazilian Congress as well as the stabilization of the party system for they were based on analyses that had been solely centered on the defects. He concludes that Brazilian parties have a different purpose and meaning within the political system than they do in Western Europe—but this does not mean that they are automatically deficient. This is clearly demonstrated by the stabilization of the party system and the position of the parties in Congress.
The SAGE Handbook of Political Advertising provides a comprehensive view of the role political advertising plays in democracies around the world. Editors Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, along with an international group of contributors, examine the differences as well as the similarities of political advertising in established and evolving democratic governments.
Political scientists are rarely able to study presidents from inside the White House while presidents are governing, campaigning, and delivering thousands of speeches. It's even rarer to find one who manages to get officials such as political adviser Karl Rove or presidential counselor Dan Bartlett to discuss their strategies while those strategies are under construction. But that is exactly what Martha Joynt Kumar pulls off in her fascinating new book, which draws on her first-hand reporting, interviewing, and original scholarship to produce analyses of the media and communications operations of the past four administrations, including chapters on George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Kumar describes how today's White House communications and media operations can be at once in flux and remarkably stable over time. She describes how the presidential Press Office that was once manned by a single presidential advisor evolved into a multilayered communications machine that employs hundreds of people, what modern presidents seek to accomplish through their operations, and how presidents measure what they get for their considerable efforts. Laced throughout with in-depth statistics, historical insights, and you-are-there interviews with key White House staffers and journalists, this indispensable and comprehensive dissection of presidential communications operations will be key reading for scholars of the White House researching the presidency, political communications, journalism, and any other discipline where how and when one speaks is at least as important as what one says. © 2007 The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved.
Religion has always been a part of American politics, but something profound has changed in recent decades. This book demonstrates that, beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, US politicians have employed religion as a partisan weapon, using it in a no-holds-barred calculus designed to attract voters, identify enemies, and solidify power. The book reveals this political approach by identifying four crucial religious signals used by leading Republicans and Democrats, from Reagan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to the front-running candidates for the 2008 presidential election. In their emphasis on God and faith in public addresses, commemorations of tragedies and requests for divine blessing for the nation, the issue agendas pursued, and even the audiences addressed and the nature of Christmas celebrations, today's political leaders use religion for partisan gain in a manner distinct from those who came before. These signals become apparent through analysis of thousands of public communications by American politicians over the past seventy-five years, the tracking of public sentiment on several topics during the same period, and the perspectives of interest groups and political strategists. The result of these developments is an environment in the United States in which religion and politics have become almost inseparably intertwined - an outcome which benefits savvy politicians but endangers the vitality of church, state, and the entire American experiment in democracy.
Substantially revised throughout, Political Marketing second edition continues to offer students the most comprehensive introduction to this rapidly growing field. It provides an accessible but in-depth guide to what political marketing is and how it is used in practice, and encourages reflection on how it should be used in the future. Features and benefits of the second edition: New chapters on political branding and delivery marketing; Expanded discussion of political public relations, crisis management, marketing in the lower levels of government and volunteer-friendly organizations; Examination of the new research on emerging practices in the field, such as interactive and responsive leadership communication, mobile marketing, co-creation market research, experimental and analytic marketing, celebrity marketing and integrated marketing communications; and Extensive pedagogical features, including 21 detailed case studies from around the world, practitioner profiles, best practice guides, class discussion points, an online resource site and both applied and traditional assessment questions Written by a leading expert in the field, this textbook is essential reading for all students of political marketing, parties and elections and comparative politics.