Jae-Hwa Shin

Different Sides of the Same Coin: Mixed Views of Public Relations Practitioners and Journalists for Strategic Conflict Management

A Web survey of 641 public relations practitioners and journalists showed that the source-reporter relationship is conflictual, involving stratagems on both sides. Coorientational analysis simultaneously showed the “mixed views” of the two professions on two dimensions of “conflict” and “strategy.” Both professions disagreed and inaccurately predicted responses of the other. Their inaccurate projection about the views of the other profession was greater than their disagreement, resulting in false dissensus. Nevertheless, the perceived conflict between the two professions appeared to be a strategic choice. Practitioners have a tendency to be accommodative or cooperative, whereas journalists are oriented to conflict as part of their strategic approach to dealing with sources.

A Contingency Explanation of Public Relations Practitioner Leadership Styles: Situation and Culture

Public relations practitioners from the U.S. and South Korea identified preferred leadership styles in routine and non-routine situations. Results of discriminant function analysis suggested that U.S. professionals place greater importance on strategic communication or problem-solving activities than do Korean practitioners. Public relations practitioners prefer leadership characteristics and functions associated with practical and resourceful capabilities in non-routine situations. This preference is most obvious among Korean public relations practitioners. Findings are best explained by cultural and situational contingency perspective of public relations leadership.

The Potential of Online Media: A Coorientational Analysis of Conflict Between PR Professionals and Journalists in South Korea

A total of 225 public relations practitioners and journalists in South Korea were surveyed regarding eleven types of offline source-reporter interaction (i.e., telephone contact, fax/mail/wire/courier press releases, interviews, press conferences, private meetings, etc.), and nine types of online source-reporter interaction (i.e., e-mail news releases, multimedia press kits, streaming audio/video clips, organizational homepages, Web site pressrooms, online discussion group/forum, etc.). In all types of source-reporter relationships, both parties disagree and inaccurately predict the others view. However, respondents expect that online media relations offer promise, with both groups predicting less conflict in online source-reporter relationships.

Elite Sources, Context, and News Topics: How Two Korean Newspapers Covered a Public Health Crisis

A content analysis of the coverage of a public health crisis in Korea from September 1999 to December 2000 explored six hypotheses about news reporting and topic selection mostly derived from qualitatively based literature. The findings suggest that two Korean daily newspapers (Chosun Ilbo andHankyoreh) emphasized governmental officials and physicians as news sources, underemphasized other news sources, and limited in-depth reporting. The study’s findings appear to support prior assertions in the international literature that critique news media performance. However,Chosun Ilbo andHankyoreh used a range of sources and provided some multidimensional news coverage during the public health crisis. While both newspapers depended on governmental officials and physicians as news sources and tended to provide less in-depth coverage, the overall findings do not reveal a pattern of journalistic neglect.

Perceptual dynamics of pluralistic ignorance and social distance: public relations practitioners and journalists in South Korea

This study examines the social and professional distance characterizing the source–reporter relationship and provides an opportunity to develop a theoretical and methodological model integrating coorientation measures with third-person perceptions. A web survey of 206 public relations practitioners and journalists in South Korea showed both false dissensus and social distance among each professional group as enacted through the source–reporter relationship. Public relations professionals and journalists disagreed with each other and inaccurately predicted responses of the other. Their inaccurate projection of the views of the other profession was greater than their disagreement on two dimensions of conflict and strategy. This study illuminates dimensions of the third-person perception of public relations professionals and journalists, insofar as both journalists and public relations professionals suggested social distance from the other profession similar to the distance they perceived from the general public.

Prevailing Impressions of Social Actors in Korean News Coverage of a Public Health Crisis

A content analysis of coverage of a Korean public health crisis from September 1999 to December 2000 explored four hypotheses regarding how major social actors were depicted within two national newspapers,Chosun Ilbo, a conservative daily, andHankyoreh, a more liberal, youthoriented daily. The findings failed to support any of the four hypotheses. The coverage of major actors tended to range from unfavorable inHankyoreh to equivocal inChosun Ilbo. The study suggests that (1) the depiction of social actors was different between leading Korean news organizations and (2) a one-dimensional, broad characterization of the Korean news media’s alleged biases over time was difficult to validate. The study also implies that a tendency to uniformly characterize the depiction of social actors by all national news organizations is difficult inKorea and, perhaps, in similar cultural contexts.