An ongoing concern within the young field of public relations is the profession's lack of acceptance. In general, the literature agrees that public relations practitioners should have a "seat at the table" within top management though many scholars and professionals feel this has not yet occurred, especially within higher education. This would tend to suggest that practitioners are not yet in the managerial role or not following the two-way models of public relations. However, public relations roles and models within education have not been researched as heavily, especially in institutions of higher education or Christian higher education.This study attempts to gauge the readiness of public relations practitioners within Christian higher education for a seat at the decision table, through the use of role theory and the application of Grunig's four public relations models. Twenty-seven senior public relations practitioners from member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universitiesformed the sample for this study. Q methodology was used to elicit practitioner perceptions of Grunig's four models of public relations. A survey was employed to determine which of Broom and Smith's four public relations roles they perform. Correlation was used to compare model perceptions with role performance.Two factors, the Cooperators and the Protectors, emerged from this study's Q sort, indicating general agreement with Grunig's two-way models of public relations. Additionally, the sample of senior CCCU public relations practitioners indicated performing tasks most related to the expert prescriber and communications technician roles. However, there was no significant relationship between the Q factors and role performance. / Department of Journalism
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/188320 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Kittleman, Shaw E. |
| Contributors | Popovich, Mark N. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | v, 60 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n------ |
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