Ph.D. (Communication Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

In the last decades of the twentieth century, women have advanced into the business world, not only as employees but as managers, corporate officers, board directors and CEO’s. Many political, environmental and structural changes have made this possible. Yet even with these numerous changes, women are still battling to push themselves through the pipeline and into top management positions. Furthermore, if women do reach the higher rungs of the corporate ladder, they are more likely to receive less professional recognition than their male counterparts. Statistics show that this phenomenon is also occurring in the field of public relations around the globe. According to a study conducted by O’Neil (2003:168), female practitioners have significantly less formal structural power (employee support, organisational roles, hierarchical position and gender ratios of work groups) than male practitioners. As a result, many academics believe that the glass ceiling in public relations still exists and that the feminisation of the field is increasing this disparity. Public relations is still a relatively new discipline in South Africa and although there have been an increasing number of research studies specifically focusing on South African public relations practice, there is virtually no studies focusing on the contribution and position of female practitioners in the field. This study, therefore, investigates the professional recognition of female public relations practitioners in South Africa. This was achieved by meeting the main objectives namely, to gather data on the factors that influence the professional recognition of female public relations practitioners in South African organisations as well as South African public relations practice. Originally, the study aimed at being a replication of an American research project by Toth and Cline called ‘Public relations Practitioner Attitudes Toward Gender Issues: A Benchmark Study. Unfortunately, the survey instrument was not available due to the deteriorating health of Dr. Cline over the last seven years, and since this study is largely exploratory in nature, it became a pilot study. The methodology used for this study was triangulation, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, and the research instrument was a questionnaire. Once the data was collected from respondents, the findings were contrasted against the findings of similar studies in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. The key findings of this study shows that female public relations practitioners in South Africa appear to be more positive about the recognition they receive than their U.S and U.K counterparts. A majority of respondents believe that female public relations practitioners are equal to their male counterparts in terms of status, power and respect. Yet, there are strong indications that the glass ceiling does exist in South African public relations. One such indication is a low salary average. Another is that gender discrimination seems to be pervasive throughout the field, especially in the case of sexual harassment and gender stereotypes. Female practitioners still have to battle the stereotypes of mother, sex object and iron maiden. Corporate culture and structure also continues to pose a barrier to the advancement of female practitioners in the form of out-dated company policies regarding programs such as part-time and flexi-time work options, job-sharing and telecommuting. Balancing family and work responsibilities continues to hinder female practitioners although they are said to be more efficient than their male counterparts at the balancing act. The most surprising data finding of the study, however, was that practitioners believe that a lack of mentorship is not a barrier to the advancement of female practitioners. Mentorship plays an important role in the promotion process, and Lahtinen and Wilson (1994) go as far to say that mentors could be key to the advancement of women. It is clear that a majority of practitioners are obviously unaware of its importance. This study will not only contribute to the body of knowledge about public relations practitioners in general but will also provide great insight into the position of female practitioners and the issues they face in public relations practice and in South African organisations. As there are so few research studies on this topic, it will help encourage and create a foundation for other such studies that will hopefully investigate deeper into the topic. It was also important to the value of the study that it was not created in a vacuum and that it could be contrasted against statistics in other countries providing a more meaningful, global perspective. This has allowed correlations and comparisons to be made which has presented some expected similarities as well as some marked differences. However, the true value of the study lies in creating a much needed awareness of how far female practitioners have come and how far they still need to go in terms of receiving professional recognition in their field. / Professor Sonja Verwey

This study examines political PR in Systembolaget's film-commercials. This study aims at investigating how and when Systembolaget expresses their public service mission in their film-commercials. We have done this by means of a qualitative content analysis, with the help from semiotics connotation and denotation the study was able to extract messages from the film-commercials. As Systembolaget is a non-profit-driven organisation we became curious to see that they act on the commercial market. We analyse the commercials through different PR perspectives aimed at identifying messages. The result shows that only some of the messages correspond with Systembolaget's public service mission. Preventing alcohol dealing, selling responsibly and informing the risks of alcohol, are the messages that are consistent with Systembolaget's public service mission. The result also shows that Systembolaget partly compromises from its public service mission.

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Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / William J. Adams / The study found, based on a focus group with professionals and secondary research conducted in 2007, that public relations (PR) graduates are not prepared for the job market and that nothing has changed in 15 years to improve this situation. Why? Because there has been no feedback from the professionals, PR students who are hired in PR positions, and PR Students who are not hired in PR positions, to the educators and universities on what is working and what is not working for PR graduates to obtain a position in the PR field. Basically, there is no follow-up after students graduate. This study did preliminary research and developed a survey of PR professionals, PR students and educators so that they can provide feedback. This study made recommendations based on the main points from the focus group, which centered on educational programs, PR students' curriculum, the importance of developing good writing skills, taking business courses, taking several PR internships, being involved in extracurricular activities, and the importance of learning how to prepare a resume. In turn, the follow up survey should help provide security for the PR industry to keep PR alive, by increasing the number of graduates due to their success as a PR professional based on their education.

M.Ed. (Education Management) / Research has undoubtedly shown that negative perceptions exist among a broad spectrum of the population concerning the provision of meaningful education by the Department of Education and Training (DET). This is largely due to boycott actions on the part of teachers and students/pupils as well as vandalism of school property and disruption of schools which started in 1976 and reached a climax in the mid eighties. It is imperative that this view of the so-called "gutter education" which the DET provides, be rectified. The Directorate of Liaison Services of the DET is directly responsible for the establishment of a positive image and therefore should be responsible for resolving issues which pertain to this negative image of the DET. The purpose of this study is to investigate the management skills of the Directorate Liaison Services of the DET in order to devise a structurally justified system of management for the optimal use and development of the existing human and financial resources of the Directorate. Through sound management profound images of one of the largest Departments of Education in the RSA can be established. This should ultimately encourage students to adopt a more positive view towards education and establish a pedagogic climate in schools. Although it might not be apparent (at present) what the long term effect of educated youths will be, serving as a catalyst for political, social and economic stability in the RSA, every possible means should be investigated to equip the youth for the challenges of the future. From the study it is clear that: * Liaison Services of the play in the establishment the broad public of the provides. DET has an important role to of positive perceptions among type of education which it provides. * A great variety of media are at the disposal of the DET to convey a more acceptable image. * I Liaison Services of the DET should have as its first priority the abolition of negative perceptions and the establishment of positive ones. * The DET receives the largest portion of the annual educational budget and is thus in a favourable position to provide more educational resources to pupils under its jursidiction. * All the necessary structures for effective management have already been established within the Directorate : Liaison Services in the DET. These structures have merely to be streamlined and used optimally in formulating the correct messages for the public which indicate the DET's positive commitment towards education. * Strategies for the advancement of communication skills have been suggested. It is evident that an approach concentrating on continuous contact and feedback with the emphasis on pro-active rather than reactive action is essential for effective communication.

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This study explored the guidelines advocated by selected media content analysis with the aim of identifying effective approaches to evaluate audience responses to promotional messages. Drawing from literature and documented deliberations by industry professionals, content-specific analysis protocols were applied and tested using a case study representing topic-specific responses to the Two Oceans Quay 5 product launch. In doing so, a logical observation of the communication in unpaid media placements and relevant discussions distributed in public media channels was completed. It is in this sense that this research enriches the study of public relations with a particular focus on output-driven evaluation. It provides insights into qualitative and quantitative publicity measurement and suggests how these methods can be useful to explicate the impact of media coverage as a public relations element. While it largely focused on discovering improved media content analysis solutions, this study revealed that content-driven analysis can only be useful when its protocols are aligned with the context of the data and if communication practitioners remain aware and transparent of its subjectivity. In this regard, this study helps to generate an understanding of the subjective dynamic of public relations and the importance of in-depth and adaptable publicity assessments to help distinguish public relations as a purposeful branding function next to advertising and marketing.

This is the report of four social work students engaged in the process of developing a longitudinal study. The original concerns guiding the enquiry involved two general concepts: (I) non-utilization of agency services and (II) lack of awareness re such services. It was felt that a large risk population are not aware of the services available to them and thus they were unable to utilize community resources. The public relations program has also felt to be a factor which should be examined. In order to study this problem in an actual setting, the Family and Children's Service's Fernwood-GIadstone neighbourhood team was chosen as the vehicle for the research project. This study is an attempt to design a data collection instrument which will measure the level of awareness about a particular agency team and Its program in a specific community. The instrument developed was a questionnaire designed to elicit responses concerning: (I) what people know about a particular agency team and its program. (II) what people know about the general services of an agency. (III) what people think of the method of publicity used by the agency. The questionnaire was administered to a population selected through utilizing the multiple phase sampling of the random sampling techniques. The responses to the questionnaire are precoded to facilitate the use of the MVTAB computer program in the analysis of the data obtained. The material obtained from the pretest sample indicates that the instrument will obtain the desired Information. The highly tentative findings (due to the small sample size) suggest that the members of the community studied have a general knowledge about the Family and Children's Service agency but are not as aware of the agency team operating out of an office in their community. The respondents stated a general willingness to utilize the services of this team when needed. This suggests that advertising is important that methods utilized thus far have not been too successful. Based on the findings of the pretest it is recommended that the data collection instrument be refined and a full study be conducted. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / [co-authors, John Farr, Robert Leach, George Phillon] / Graduate