Piet Verhoeven

A public relations identity for the 2010s

New voices are being heard and new questions are being asked within the field of public relations. However, in its present multifaceted state, public relations research is still struggling with recurring questions regarding academic and practical contributions. This position article presents some common starting points for a public relations identity for the 2010s aiming to preserve both consistency and multiplicity. We argue that public relations should be studied as a social activity in its own right and that it must be understood in relation to its societal context. Furthermore, we point to some concepts (trust, legitimacy, understanding and reflection) that are crucial to understanding public relations practice. We also argue that issues of power, behavior, and language have to be dealt with if public relations is to be taken seriously as an academic field. Building on these ideas we make some suggestions for empirical research. Finally, we propose, on a philosophical level, to develop a critical realist framework in order to study public relations scientifically.

Institutionalizing strategic communication in Europe - an ideal home or a mad house? Evidence from a survey in 37 countries

Is strategic communication becoming an established discipline of practice across Europe? Is it in turn becoming institutionalized? And do we mean establishing a renowned practice at the heart of organizational operation? This article aims to address these questions while paying attention to the negative implications some of the terminology has in the English language. Institution is also the label given to prisons, hospitals and other physical structures that are used in society to organize and control groups of people. The article finds evidence that communication managers are not frustrated “inmates” but rather liberated and respected practitioners who are establishing themselves as permanent and necessary fixtures within the organizational infrastructure. As a consequence these practitioners and departments are becoming entwined parts of the organization and therefore institutionalized. Evidence is presented from data collected from 37 European countries from a sample of over 1,500 communication managers.

Strategic Orientation of Communication Professionals in Europe

The strategic orientation of European communication professionals was one of the focal points of the European Communication Monitor (ECM) 2010, an annual survey among European communication professionals. In the context of the European way of doing business with the typical dialogical stakeholder approach, strategic versus instrumental action and the reflective dimension of communication that has been found in Europe, the strategic orientation of European professionals is assessed. A so-called strategic orientation index was constructed consisting of the professional role enactment of communication managers, the use of inbound strategic activities, the use of strategies and plans and the use of evaluation and controlling tools in the organization. The results show that there is a considerable strategic orientation of communication professionals in Europe. Professionals in Northern and Eastern Europe score highest on the strategic orientation index. Western European professionals score significantly lower than their colleagues in the North and in the East.

Who's in and who's out? Studying the effects of communication management on social cohesion

Purpose – This paper aims at providing a theoretical perspective to study the effects of the communication management/public relations of organizations on the social cohesion of individuals, groups and societies.Design/methodology/approach – The possible connections between communication management and social cohesion, social integration and diversity are explored by looking at the concept of social capital. After discussing aspects of the hypothesis of decreasing social capital and of the hypothesis of increasing contingency of Western societies, questions are raised about the societal role of communication management as a profession that is usually described as being concerned with building relations. To study questions like these empirically, the actor network theory (ANT) is suggested as an analytical perspective and a methodological approach to elaborate the position of reflective communication management.Findings – ANT or the sociology of associations seems a suitable theoretical perspective for stu...

Sound-Bite Science: On the Brevity of Science and Scientific Experts in Western European Television News:

Science forms an integral part of our daily lives and plays an important role in democratic deliberation and decision making. One would expect this omnipresence of science to be reflected in television news programs in public broadcasting because of its responsibility to preserve the diversity and openness of the media. For this study, a representative sample of six Western European news programs was analyzed. The results show that science has a marginal presence and that “science news” is about technology or the natural sciences. In national, foreign, or economic news items, “embedded” scientists rarely comment on the issue at hand.

Where has the doctor gone? The mediazation of medicine on Dutch television, 1961-2000

Health issues and medical science receive a lot of attention on television. Of all the sciences, the European public is most interested in medicine, and the public uses television as their main source of information on science. There has been hardly any empirical research, however, into the historical development of the representation of medical science on television. The development of medical television was explored by carrying out a content analysis of Dutch non-fiction medical television programs spanning a period of 40 years. The speaking time allotted to experts has decreased over the years, while that allotted to laypeople has increased. We are seeing fewer references to sources and science and more expression of emotion and tension. The results suggest three periods of medical television: a scientific, a journalistic and a lay period. Medical television in 2000 shows a personified picture of patients against an instrumentalized and symbolized medical backdrop.

Doing the Right Things or Doing Things Right? : Paradoxes and Swedish Communication Professionals’ Roles and Challenges

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the prevailing form of rationality that governs the challenges, goals and roles of communication professionals. The authors will also explore alternative forms of rationality and discuss what these would imply. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on survey results from The European Communication Monitor (ECM) and qualitative interviews with communication managers in Sweden. First, the authors present the ECM data and the Swedish interview material, i.e. the authors depict the practitioners’ perceptions of what they understand as important work tasks and roles. The interviews focus on the actual practices of linking communication goals to business goals. Second, the results are challenged from a reflexive perspective, using theories from the paradox turn and questioning the “taken-for-granted thinking” in corporate communications. Findings – The ECM data show that the main challenge in practice is “linking business strategy and communication.” The Swedish respondents stand out when it comes to “building and maintaining trust” since this is considered to be almost as important. The qualitative interview study strengthens the results in the ECM. The interviewees seem to do their work according to the traditional management agenda – i.e. they break down overall business goals and translate these to measurable communication goals. The results are reflected upon using paradox theory. Two paradoxes are discussed: between managerialism and professionalism, and strategic generalists and operational specialists. Research limitations/implications – The study is based on survey data that have been collected through a convenience sample, and the interview study is a pilot study. Practical implications – The paper focuses conflicts between normative practitioner ideals and reality, and helps practitioners to reflect upon mainstream thinking. Originality/value – Based on the empirical findings in the ECM, the interviews and the theoretical framework, the authors conclude that if the idea of The Communicative Organization is to be fruitfully realized, it is necessary to depart from a multi-dimensional rationality and question ideas that are taken for granted. The use of paradox theory and concepts such as functional stupidity is rather original in corporate communication research. Additional research could further explore paradoxes in order to spark dialogue, which may undermine one-dimensional thinking and functional stupidity.

Key issues of public relations of Europe: Findings from the European Communication Monitor 2007-2014

European Communication Monitor is the largest longitudinal research project in public relations practice in the world. Data collected annually from 2007 to 2014 show that practitioners perceive five issues as the most important for their work: linking business strategy and communication, coping with the digital evolution and social web, building and maintaining trust, dealing with the demand for more transparency and active audiences, and dealing with the speed and volume of information flow. Perception of the importance of various issues for the practice of public relations is largely dependent on the gender, geography (division between Northern and Western vs. Southern and Eastern Europe), and sector in which a practitioner works (corporate, government, NGO or agency). While gender and sectorial differences studied in academic public relations literature, divisions in public relations practice between North-Western and South-Eastern Europe are largely ignored. Temas clave de las relaciones publicas en Europa: Resultados del European Communication Monitor 2007-2014. El European Communication Monitor es el mayor proyecto de investigacion longitudinal sobre la profesion de relaciones publicas en el mundo. Los datos recolectados anualmente entre 2007 y 2014 muestran que los profesionales perciben cinco temas como los mas importantes para su trabajo: conectar las estrategias empresariales con las de comunicacion, lidiar con la evolucion digital y la web social, construir y mantener la confianza, lidiar con la demanda de una mayor transparencia y unas audiencias cada vez mas activas y arreglarselas con la velocidad y el volumen del flujo de informacion. La percepcion de la importancia de los diversos issues o temas clave para la practica de las relaciones publicas esta relacionada con el genero, la procedencia geografica (division entre paises de Europa del norte, oeste, sur y este), y el sector en el que trabajen los profesionales (empresas privadas, sector publico, ONGs o agencias). Mientras que las diferencias por genero y sectores se han estudiado en la literatura academica de las relaciones publicas, las divisiones en la practica de las relaciones publicas entre norte-oeste y sur-este de Europa han sido ampliamente ignoradas.

Intraday News Trading: The Reciprocal Relationships Between the Stock Market and Economic News

This study investigates the interdependent relationships between the stock market and economic news in the U.S. context. 2,440 economic tweets from Reuters and Bloomberg published in September 2015 were analyzed within short-term intervals (5 minutes, 20 minutes, and 1 hour) as well as 50 influential Bloomberg market coverage stories distributed via their terminals for the same period of time. Using Vector Auto Regression analyses, it was found that news volume, news relevance, and expert opinion in tweets seem to influence the fluctuation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) positively, while economic news appears to respond to market fluctuation with less coverage, including fewer retweets, favorites, updates, or expert opinions conveyed. Inspecting the influential market stories by Bloomberg, the results imply that while Bloomberg terminals provide firsthand information on the market to professionals, tweets rather seem to offer follow-up reporting to the public. Furthermore, given that the effect of economic tweets on the DJI fluctuations was found to be strongest within longer time intervals (i.e., 1 hour), the findings imply that public traders need more time to evaluate information and to make a trading decision than professional investors.

More or less diverse: An assessment of the effect of attention to media salient company types on media agenda diversity in Dutch newspaper coverage between 2007 and 2013

This study on news coverage of highly visible company types in a Dutch daily quality newspaper (NRC Handelsblad; N = 14,363), during the economic crisis (2007–2013), shows that attention to banks (and to a lesser extent also to the automobile and components industry) had a structural negative influence on media agenda diversity. The majority of the other salient company types had a significant positive impact on diversity. These results suggest that banks attracted attention at the expense of more varied, diverse coverage during the crisis. Our findings extend knowledge of agenda-building dynamics in relation to organizational news by considering characteristics of the broader media agenda. We discuss our findings in light of causes and consequences of media coverage of salient businesses.