Week 11

This weeks reading is chapter 6, 'Research and evaluation' from the course text book 'Public Relations - Theory and Practice', by Jane Johnston and Clara Zawawi. This is the final reading for this course this year which is exciting. This reading is critical to the understanding of the importance of evaluation and research in a pr campaign, a factor that I think is extremely important to not only measuring the effectiveness of a campaign but also a useful tool to recognise effective implementation of tactics in the future. The points that I found most interesting and important from the reading include:

• Before a campaign, research provides "...input into the planning of a communication program." Research during the development and implementation stages of a strategy contributes to more effective outputs." At the end of a campaign research provides information about the outcomes of the entire campaign effort.


• The researcher has a choice of different methodologies of research, including making the choice between taking a qualitatice or quantitative approach. From these choices, the researcher must then make a choice from the many research techniques that are offered.


• Research needs to be ongoing throughout a campaign to be effective, establishing the program and progress and evaluating the success of campaign tactics.


• "In most cases, public relations research focuses on understanding the environment in within which the organisation operates." This includes the public, competitors and stakeholders. In other words the PR practitioner needs to do some research into the "current situation" of the organisation in relation to it's target audience.


• The challenges of an organisations decision to implement a research tactic into their PR campaign includes money, access to human resources and time. Although research can be potentially beneficial in the long run, in short term research can be seen as too timely and take too much of the campaign budget.


• "Conceptualising public relations as a process that, once set in motion, is ongoing is extremely important for the public relations professional." This point again emphasises the importance of implementing a research plan and maintaining it throughout the campaign, otherwise the success rates of the research will be diminished.


• "Inputs determine what does into the project of program, outputs are the actual elements of the program or campaign, and outcomes are the result of those outputs on the target public or audience." Research is needed to find out what the inputs, outputs and outcomes are for a pr campaign, thus research is needed to measure the success of the program.


• Input research allows practitioners to identify what problems and opportunities exist for an organisation, how the public view an organisation and what tactics would be most useful to create an effective pr program. "Input research thus informs strategy and research." This level of research involves finding information about the organisation, their situation and the target audience.


• "Output research gather information on the appropriateness of the message and activity content, and the quality of message and activity presentations." The information found through output research allows a pr practitioner to modify a plan or message during the implementation phase so that it will heighten a campaigns success rate.


• "Outcome research not only indicates the level of success or failure of the strategy but can also demonstrate how effective planning and communication have been." Results from this research can aid the input phase of a following campaign program as practitioners can identify what tactics were effective and what were not.


• There are a wide range of methods used to condct effective research. Neccessary information can be gathered through both "...formal and informal research, using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Additionally, the practitioner may make use of primary research, which is original research conducted by or for an organisation; or secondary research, which utilises others' findings or material."


• Personally, I found the definition of research provided by Broom and Dozier in the text, to be more useful to my understanding. They define research as "...'the controlled, objective and systematic gathering of information for the purposes of describing and understanding' (1990:4)."


• Leedy recognises that "...formal research is characterised by scientific procedures, methodologies and analysis....goals must be set for what is expected of the research." In contrast "Informal research has no agreed rules and procedures, and is cheaer and more immediate than formal research...It is....less reliable."


• Qualitative and quantitative research are components of formal research. The text states that "Qualitative research is descriptive and informative, with the emphasis on the analysis and synthesis of information." Quantitative research is used to "...verify situations that the organisation may already be aware of, but is without any information to substantiate these beliefs, thoughts, feelings or opinions." Types of qualitative and quantitative research techniques include in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic studies, case studies, analysis of existing data, organisational culture study, feedback analysis, media monitoring, content analysis, benchmark research, statistical analysis, enviornmental monitoring, communication audits, corporate communication archives, testimonials, expert reviews, internet monitoring, measurement of online prescence, advertising value equivalents and secondary information sources (each outlined in the course text book).


• The research techniques enable practitioners to gather opinion and understanding from the public. Techniques can include surveys (there are a number of different types, including "omnibus surveys" and "pilot questionnaires"), mail, telephone, face-to-face and the internet, each providing different advantages and disadvantages as tactics for researching public opinion towards a company and it's situation. Surveys are the most frequently used technique and they require alot of thought towards design and question structure (for example, whether to incluse closed or open-ended questions).


• As outlined in the PRIA's Code of Ethics, a practitioner must be "...conscious of coercion, dishonesty, hurtful manner and manipulation of data to meet any other ends than the stated objectives or hypothesis." As we have already learnt from the course so far, the outline for the PRIA Code of Ethics is very important to successful, legal and honest pr practice. I think that it is crucial for all practitioners to come to know the legislation outlined within this code in relation to their campaigns.


• There are a number of "private and public organisations in Australia" that provide information that may assist the reaserch of a certain group in relevance to pr campaign. Such sources include the Australian Bureau of Statistics, including their website which I have personally often used for assignments and have found to be beneficial and effective.


• The textbook effectively concludes the use of research in pr campaigns through the comment "The style of research adopted by an organisation depends upon the system under which it operates, its environment and the requirments of the program being undertaken....". Therefore it is important that practitioners recognise and create a research model that is solely for the effectiveness of one specific campaign, learning from their mistakes in the input, output and outcomes so to develop a more appropriate mixture of tactics for the next campaign.

This reading has made me think more about public relations in connection to evaluation and research. It is now apparent that research is an extremely important tactic for successful communications and without it we would not develop our skills and move foward in our ability to appropriate campaign tactics. I was suprised that informal research should be a component of this research as I thought it would not be dependable enough to be used in a campaign. I find that evaluation is perhaps one of the most important components of a campaign, because as I have empahsised, it allows a practitioner to move foward in their work through recognising mistakes and successful tactics, thus assisting them in the future.

Well that's the last blog for this course, thanks for reading everyone!

Alyssa