This study attempted to examine the public relations activities of sports information departments of universities within the Mid-American conference. The activities were categorized according to James E. Grunig and Todd Hunt's four public relations models.The researcher provided ten sports information directors with thirty-six statements regarding various public relations activities which a public relations department would perform. Each respondent was asked to sort the responses according to how they perceived public relations activities were carried out within their respective departments.The Q-method program was used to determine two factor groups from the ten responses received. Factor I consisted of nine sports information directors and Factor II consisted of one sports information director.While sports information directors in both groups agreed that truth is important in a public relations program (a public information model), the two groups differed significantly in the types of public relations activities they carried out. Factor I respondents perceived their departments as performing a more press agentry/publicity style of public relations (model 1). The Factor II respondent perceived his department more along the lines of two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric public relations (models 3 and 4). Neither of the two groups practiced each of these models exclusively but rather practiced one dominant form of public relations while using the other models to a lesser extent. / Department of Journalism

This research is about Swedish cultural institutions’ digital public relations work, with the purpose of investigating what the digital coordinators at the institutions consider to be essential skills in their work and how they define and implement effective and successful communication online. Communicating about culture and cultural heritage is essential and a key priority in order to ensure that the public is educated about the past as well as the present. Through analysing data from interviews conducted with professionals working within communications at Swedish cultural institutions, the study investigates what the main difficulties, similarities and dissimilarities are in digital public relations today and why. The results show that the professionals’ main areas of difficulty lay within conciseness and correctness, these could be attributed to lesser constraints in the digital setting, inattention, the faster pace of working online as well as a higher tolerance for errors. The interviewees showed a dependence on adding links to their digital content, expressing different opinions regarding what purpose linking serves. There is a common trend within the professionals’ work in favour of democratisation of the dynamics between the institution and the public – two-way communication through adapted and personalised dialogue (community management) and valorisation of feedback. The study provides first-hand insight into the strengths and weaknesses of digital public relations actors working within Swedish cultural institutions.