The power of public relations in media relations: A national survey of health PR practitioners

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 83, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 563-580

  Cho, Sooyoung ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HEALTH WORKER; MASS MEDIA; MEDIA ROLE; NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION; TYPOLOGY;

EID: 33846049625     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900608300306     Document Type: Article

References (58)

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24. Cameron, Sallot, and Curtin, "Public Relations and the Production of News."
25. Nicolai and Riley, "The Gatekeeping Function from the Point of View of the PR Man";
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30. Tanner, "Agenda Building, Source Selection, and Health News at Local TV Stations."
31. Sharon Dunwoody, "The Science Writing Inner Club: A Communication Link Between Science and the Lay Public," in Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News, ed. Sharon M. Friedman, Sharon Dunwoody, and Carol L. Rogers (NY: Free Press, 1986), 155-69.
32. Cancel et al., "It Depends";
33. Cancel, Mitrook, and Cameron, "Testing the Contingency Theory of Accommodation in Public Relations";
34. Glen T. Cameron, Fritz Cropp, and Bryan H. Reber, "Getting Past Platitudes: Factors Limiting Accommodation in Public Relations," Journal of Communication Management 5 (February 2001): 242-61;
35. Bryan H. Reber and Glen T. Cameron, "Measuring Contingencies: Using Scales to Measure Public Relations Practitioner Limits to Accommodation," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 80 (summer 2003): 431-46.
36. Reber and Cameron, "Measuring Contingencies."
37. Reber and Cameron, "Measuring Contingencies."
38. Cameron, Sallot, and Curtin, "Public Relations and the Production of News."
39. Pilot Test: In the first recruitment, 331 were undeliverable; 123 replied, including 40 practitioners who have worked in the healthcare PR field and who were willing to participate in the survey. In the follow-up recruitment, 276 were undeliverable and 56 replied, including 11 qualified practitioners.
40. Main Test: The first recruitment yielded 1,410 undeliverable and 651 responses, including 214 qualified participants. The follow-up recruitment yielded 1,358 undeliverable and 232 responses, including 51 qualified participants.
41. Reber and Cameron, "Measuring Contingencies."
42. Demographic questions include gender, age, organizational type, business type, job level, years of experience in PR, years of experience in health PR, academic degree in health, and educational level.
43. The majority of participants were between the ages of 30 and 49 (N = 102). About half had a bachelor's degree (82), and 43% had a master's degree (69). More than half (86) reported working for a healthcare service, while only 9% (15) reported working for marketing/ product-focused organizations and 8% (13) for science/medical information-focused organizations. Two-thirds (107) were in managerial-level positions, while only a fifth (31) held staff positions. About a third (50) had worked in PR twenty years or more. Nearly a third (46) had worked in health/medical PR for five to nine years and 27% (43) had worked in the field one to four years.
44. Factor 1 includes RFM 1, RFM 2, RFM 3, (RFM stands for items intended to measure referent power), EM 1, EM 2, EM 3, EM 4, and EM 5 (EM stands for items intended to measure expert power).
45. Factor 2 includes RWM 3, RWM 4, RWM 5, RWM 6, (RWM stands for reward power), LM 3, LM 4, LM 5, and LM 6 (LM stands for legitimate power and these four items were from legitimate power measurement related to reward power).
46. Factor 3 includes RWM 1, RWM 2, LM 1, and LM 2 (legitimate power measurement related to reward power).
47. Factor 4 includes CM 3, CM 4, (CM stands for coercive power) LM 9, and LM 10 (legitimate power related to coercive power).
48. Factor 5 includes CM 5, CM 6, LM 11, and LM 12 (legitimate power related to coercive power).
49. Male practitioners tended to have slightly higher mean scores than females in Information Reward (Male: M = 3.95, Female: M = 3.79, p = 479), Information Coercive (Male: M = 1.92, Female: M = 1.84, p = .681), and Influence Powers (Male: M = 3.51, Female: M = 3.36, p =.495), but the differences were not significant. Male and female practitioners have similar mean scores in Expert (Male: M = 4.73, Female: M = 4.78, p =.717) and Advertising Reward Powers (Male: M = 2.80, Female: M = 2.80, p =.988).
50. Mean values: Information Reward (Staff: M = 3.88, Manager: M = 3.74, p =.606), Advertising Reward (Staff: M = 3.00, Manager: M = 2.69, p = .289), Information Coercive (Staff: M = 2.07, Manager: M = 1.77, p = .216), and Influence Powers (Staff: M = 3.52, Manager: M = 3.36, p = .549).
51. Mean values: Expert (Health degree: M = 5.15, No degree: M = 4.74, p = .160), Information Reward (Health degree: M = 4.04, No degree: M = 3.82, p = .602), Advertising Reward (Health degree: M = 3.57, No degree: M= 2.75, p = .072), Information Coercive (Health degree: M = 2.31, No degree: M = 1.83, p = .261), and Influence Powers (Health degree: M = 3.32, No degree: M = 3.41, p = .835).
52. Mean values: Expert (College: M = 4.73, Master's or above: M = 4.80, p =.638), Information Reward (College: M = 3.89, Master's or above: M = 3.78, p = .587), Advertising Reward (College: M = 2.75, Master's or above: M = 2.85, p = .680), Information Coercive (College: M = 1.78, Master's or above: M = 1.95, p =.381), and Influence Powers (College: M = 3.38, Master's or above: M = 3.43, p = .796).
53. Cameron, Sallot, and Curtin, "Public Relations and the Production of News."
54. Tanner, "Agenda Building, Source Selection, and Health News at Local TV Stations."
55. Dunwoody, "The Science Writing Inner Club: A Communication Link Between Science and the Lay Public."
56. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time (New York: Vintage, 1979).
57. Donohue, Tichenor, and Olien, "Mass Media Functions, Knowledge, and Social Control."
58. Jeffers, "Performance Expectations as a Measure of Relative Status of News and PR People."