Previous research has shown that although women outnumber men in public relations, women hold inferior positions, are paid less, and possess less credibility in their organization.Gender and roles in public relations has become a common focus of research for the public relations scholar; however, very few studies have used Q-methodology to gauge attitudes on this subject.Using Q-methodology, 21 public relations practitioners from a variety of organizations in 3 states were asked to sort 48 statements concerning attitudes about gender and roles in the field. Two factors emerged from the results and were labeled: Initiators and Generalists.Results indicated gender was no longer a factor in what roles the practitioner played and roles in public relations were blurring. It suggests further research should focus on differences between generalists and specialists rather than managers and technicians. / Department of Journalism

This study attempted to determine typical perceptions of public relations and news-editorial students of accepted ethical conduct in public relations and journalism. The researcher provided 32 students, half public relations majors and half news-editorial majors, with 51 individual statements. Each statement either supported or opposed a specific action that a public relations practitioner or journalist may take in an ethical dilemma, or a belief that professionals in those fields may hold. Each student was asked to indicate how strongly the student agreed or disagreed with each statement.A computer program developed for Q Methodology studies was used to extract two factors from the students' answers, resulting in the formation of two hypothetical groups, Type I and Type II. Type I consisted of 14 public relations majors and six news-editorial majors. Type II consisted of 10 news-editorial majors and two public relations majors.Most students in both groups agreed that they would not be asked to lie as professionals, that they would always produce original work, that professionals in their future fields believe they serve the public interest, and that professionals in their future fields believe their professions serve society. However, Type I students expected to function as channels of communication for their employers, while Type II students disagreed with that job description of themselves. Type I students strongly disagreed that practitioners in their fields do not care about public feedback; Type II students marginally agreed with that statement. Type I students seemed to believe it was normal for practitioners in their fields to maintain two codes of ethics, one for professional use and another for personal use. Type II students marginally disagreed with that concept. This finding appears to contradict those studies which suggest that practitioners are only as ethical professionally as they are personally. / Department of Journalism

This study attempted to determine what specific course criteria pubic relations educators believed to be most important in an international public relations course. The researcher provided fifty-seven public relations educators with fifty statements covering potential areas an international public relations course could include. The statements covered the areas of business, media, culture, government and miscellaneous. Each public relations educators was asked to sort the statements according to how much he or she agreed or disagreed with them.The QMETHOD program was used to determine two factor groups from the nineteen responses received. The factor groups, Type I and Type II. Type I consisted of twelve public relations educators and Type II consisted of seven public relations educators.Public relations educators in both groups agreed that an international public relations course should teach students to follow global current events and public relations issues, should cover various countries and their cultural taboos, and teach students to identify social trends abroad.The researcher expected public relations educators to support an international public relations course structure which favored the study of a broad range of international public relations at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and to achieve a consensus on statements relating to cultural sensitivity training. For the most part, the researcher's expectations were met. However, more technical skills issues (i.e., fundamental, pragmatic public relations knowledge needed to execute public relations plans) were raised than expected, and educators' views on the level at which international public relations should be taught differed from what the researcher had anticipated. / Department of Journalism

There have been a number of studies that examine how public relations professionals respond during a crisis including use of traditional legal response and traditional public relations response strategies. The degree of use of either can be influenced by the relationship between legal and public relations professionals. Thus, a pre-crisis relationship between the two groups is important for successful crisis communications. The purpose of this study was to examine media coverage of the Missouri drug dilution case to determine how many of Eli Lilly and Company's public relations messages were carried by the three major media outlets covering the crisis, if there was a difference among the outlets, and whether there was a significant difference in response strategy messages were reported.A content analysis of articles during the crisis period from the Indianapolis Star, the Kansas City Star, and The Associated Press were obtained through a Factiva search and were used to gather responses made by spokespersons. The search yielded 64 usable articles and 254 sentences from company spokespersons.Coders were trained to identify the response strategies defined as traditional public relations strategy, traditional legal strategy, mixed strategy and diversionary strategy. A chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses.The first hypothesis which stated "the number of sentences attributed to Lilly spokespersons in The Indianapolis Star, The Kansas City Star, and the Associated Press in the Missouri drug dilution case will differ significantly" was supported. The second hypothesis which stated "there will be a significant difference in response strategy sentences as defined by Fitzpatrick and Rubin and attributed to Lilly spokespersons in The Indianapolis Star, The Kansas City Star, and the Associated Press during different time periods of the case" was also supported. / Department of Journalism

This study is an in-depth investigation of game and excellence theory's linkage within the discipline of public relations during the period of market entry.The literature review defines and analyzes both game and excellence theory and the value of each within public relations. The literature also examines the impact of new businesses within U.S. economy and the importance of strategic decision making during the period of market entry. Decisions made during this time period, of which public relations professionals are often involved, can forecast the success or failure of a new business. The researcher argued that excellence theory's domination over the mindshare of public relations professionals has overshadowed other theories (such as game theory) which can be of value during the time of market entry.In order to quantify any educated opinions held by the researcher, a content analysis was conducted. The researcher identified specific game and excellence theory keywords to be examined and coded. The keywords were derived from a random sample of 384 public relations-based articles from 1997 to 2007 in Entrepreneur's online magazine, the leading magazine for entrepreneurs for over thirty years. The years of 1997 through 2007 were chosen due to a growth in new business births that have occurred over this time frame.The results of the content analysis showed that there were significantly more game theory keywords than excellence theory keywords referenced in Entrepreneur's online magazine in the aforementioned articles and timeframe. From this evidence, the researcher deducted that while excellence theory is still the paradigm for public relations professionals, game theory is being fused within public relations in some areas of the industry, specifically within new market entry strategy. / Department of Journalism

Currently, there are questions over which role, communication manager or communication technician, public relations practitioners at institutions of higher education should perform to best meet the needs of their institutions. To understand the reasonings behind these questions, a better understanding of practitioners in this area of the profession was needed. This study focused on public relations practitioners at institutions of higher education in Indiana. The objectives of this study were to create a demographic profile of these practitioners, determine which role was more prevalent among these practitioners, identify significant variables related to these practitioners' roles, and determine if the findings of previous roles research could be applied to this targeted population.Practitioners at 43 institutions of higher education in Indiana were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning their role and demographic information. Thirty-nine practitioners from this population completed and returned the questionnaires. The typical practitioner among this population was: A Caucasian male, at least 40 years old, making over $60,000 a year.Respondents were divided into two role groups, communication managers and communication technicians, based on their responses to 14 role-related questions on the questionnaire. A t-test analysis found significant differences between the mean role scores of these two groups, meaning that practitioners in this population can fit into one of the two dominant practitioner roles.Further analysis identified significant differences between four of seven variables tested on the two role groups. Significant differences were found between the two groups concerning the variables of size of institution, years of experience, use of formal research, and decision-making responsibility. No significant differences were found between the two groups concerning the variables of gender, level of education, and age.Finally, the dependent variables of use of formal research and decision-making responsibility were each tested through crosstab analyses with the independent, demographic variables of gender, age, size of institution, level of education, and years of experience. These analyses found that only years of experience was significantly related to use of formal research. Meanwhile, gender, age, size of institution, and years of experience were all significantly related to decision-making responsibility. No significant interactions were found between the variables of use of formal research and decision-making responsibility. / Department of Journalism

This thesis created a profile of Indiana's association public relations practitioners to see what type of roles they performed and how involved they were in the decision-making processes of their association.Because of the lack of research done on associations and their public relations practitioners, this descriptive study attempted to draw a profile of association public relations practitioners in Indiana that could be applied to different parts of the country or nationwide. The study also provided a foundation on which future research concerning associations can be based.Of the 129 associations in the population, 83 practitioners responded (64.3 response rate) to the phone survey. Information was gathered concerning the practitioner's job roles, their involvement in the decision-making process as well as demographic information about the associations and themselves.Broom and Smith's four public relations roles (expert prescriber, problem-solving process facilitator, communication facilitator and communication technician) were used to see if the practitioners primarily played any specific role in their association.The findings of the study indicated that public relations practitioners in associations don't play any one of the roles primarily but perform all four to varying degrees. All of the practitioners, both men and women, were equally involved in the decision-making processes of their associations. Previous studies in these topic areas indicated that men would primarily perform the role of expert prescriber and women would primarily perform the role of communication technician. Previous research also showed men would also be more involved in the decision-making process instead of women because they performed the necessary roles that allowed for that involvement. The results from the association survey show that association public relations practitioners are quite different from the norm. These differences can be attributed to several reasons. The lack of departmentalization and smaller staff sizes cause association public relations practitioners to wear more than one hat or perform various roles to varying degrees. It is because of the multiplicity of roles they perform that public relations practitioners are allowed to be more involved in the decision-making process as opposed to other practitioners who perform a certain role a majority of the time. / Department of Journalism

The fields of public relations and marketing are experiencing interdisciplinary assimilation, especially in the health care industry and specifically in hospitals. With the recognition of this basic trend many questions have been raised by public relations practitioners, marketers, and health care administrators dealing with present and anticipated functions of these public relations/marketing departments.To survey the status of public relations and marketing in Indiana hospitals the study's research question became: What is the status of the functions of public relations and marketing in Indiana hospitals?A questionnaire was the basic research tool in this study of the status of hospital marketing and public relations. The questionnaire included three sections: 1) hospital demographics; 2) identification of public relations and marketing functions performed; and 3) professional staff demographics. This study's universe was defined as healthcare marketing/public relations professionals in the State of Indiana and therefore drew its sample from the Indiana Society for Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing membership list, 1993.The researcher's survey findings led her to the conclusion that because marketing is such a new and powerful force in Indiana's hospital industry, it is swiftly integrating its functions into traditional hospital public relations programs and even rising to a position of primacy over traditional public relations programs. / Department of Journalism

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

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on October 5, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Shelly Rodgers, Includes bibliographical references.