<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: An industry with a lacking trust – PR-consultants about their own responsibility and how they can contribute to an increased trust for their profession (En bransch med bristande förtroende – PR-konsulter om sitt eget ansvar och hur de själva kan bidra till ökat branschförtroende)</p><p>Number of pages: 68 (79 including enclosures)</p><p>Author: Ebba Göranzon</p><p>Tutor: Göran Svensson</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies D</p><p>Period: Spring 2008</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Aim: The aim of this essay is to study the Swedish PR-industry and the distrust that is directed towards it. The starting point is different PR-consultants opinion about their profession and industry. What do they think needs to be done to increase the trust for the industry and what kind of responsibility do they think they have?</p><p>Method/Material: Together with literature studies, a qualitative method has been used and five in-depth interviews with PR-consultants have been conducted. The persons interviewed all worked with questions concerning lobbying and influencing the public opinion, within Swedish PR-firms.</p><p>Main Results: The main results show that the PR-consultants pay different attention to the factors of the model, in terms of what can be done for the trust for the industry and profession. They all think they have a responsibility in the trust question and name all sorts of things they could do to improve it.</p><p>Keywords: Public Relations (PR), lobbying, influencing public opinion, trust</p>

Abstract Title: An industry with a lacking trust – PR-consultants about their own responsibility and how they can contribute to an increased trust for their profession (En bransch med bristande förtroende – PR-konsulter om sitt eget ansvar och hur de själva kan bidra till ökat branschförtroende) Number of pages: 68 (79 including enclosures) Author: Ebba Göranzon Tutor: Göran Svensson Course: Media and Communication Studies D Period: Spring 2008 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Aim: The aim of this essay is to study the Swedish PR-industry and the distrust that is directed towards it. The starting point is different PR-consultants opinion about their profession and industry. What do they think needs to be done to increase the trust for the industry and what kind of responsibility do they think they have? Method/Material: Together with literature studies, a qualitative method has been used and five in-depth interviews with PR-consultants have been conducted. The persons interviewed all worked with questions concerning lobbying and influencing the public opinion, within Swedish PR-firms. Main Results: The main results show that the PR-consultants pay different attention to the factors of the model, in terms of what can be done for the trust for the industry and profession. They all think they have a responsibility in the trust question and name all sorts of things they could do to improve it. Keywords: Public Relations (PR), lobbying, influencing public opinion, trust

The Diploma thesis concerns itself with the possibilities of election campaigns and their impacts on public opinion on the occasion of the first direct election of the president of the Czech republic. Influencing of the public opinion takes place in a system of public - politics - media, which is described in this thesis. Utilising this system I am going to answer the following question - how effective are election campaigns in influencing election decisions of voters? The witnessed election campaigns were unique in many aspects - they triggered an unprecedented response from the public and the media, which came close to resemble election behaviour in the United States of America, whose presidential election campaigns are considered a classic example. The theoretical background serves the purpose of analysing the election campaign of Karel Schwarzenberg, who, using an online campaign, achieved a result, which surprised a number of agencies examining voters' preferences, and proved, what a good campaign team is capable of given their candidate has strong public support. Next I am going to present assessments of the campaign by political scientists, social scientists and others. Key words: Public, public opinion, possibilities of influencing public opinion, massmedia, election campaigns, american...