A Comparison of Sex Roles in Public Relations - Term Paper Example

?Running Head: Public Relations Public Relations [Institute’s Article The article “A Comparison of Sex Roles in Public Relations” by Glen Broom (1982) focuses on the roles that males and females play when in public relations positions. The comparison is made to test four different roles that describe the perception of the client and/or employer in their respective role and the way that they are accomplishing their task. The four roles are identified and then a questionnaire distributed to the participants employed in PRSA to enable them to identify their own respective roles (Broom, 1982). The author does not base his research upon any pre-conceived theory but aims to test the previous notion that women were not given equal status in public relations jobs. They had to struggle to receive the same status and the same salaries as their men counterparts. Hence, Broom aimed to investigate whether women and men felt that they played differing roles in their jobs in the public relations sector and which roles they identified with more freely (Broom, 1982). The research was done by selecting a sample of 815 participants from amongst the members of the PRSA. All of these people were sent questionnaires to fill out and answer and 480 questionnaires were returned with 450 properly answered. After proper elimination of the questionnaires, which did not fully answer the questionnaire, the participants consisted of a ratio of the same amount of men and women each as the PRSA membership held. The 28 items used to identify and measure roles were pretested upon a sun sample before they were tested on this sample and the wording of the questionnaire was modified where needed. These qualitative measures were used to ensure that the questionnaire was valid and the questions were properly structured. Otherwise, it would make the results of the study voidable as the questionnaire was not reliable or valid (Broom, 1982). The participants of the study were a selective sample of the total population of the PRSA membership. While the sample was a random systematic sample of every 10th name on the mailing list of the organization, there may be slight chances of this sample being non-representative of the total population. This is because the females in the sample had less work experience compared to the males and hence were not on an equal footing with them in status. Other factors could have been used to better assess the sample, however the sample was just based upon sex and PRSA membership (Broom, 1982). The findings show that all the members showed affiliation with the different roles in varying degrees. Women were more inclined towards the communication technician role and those that were, did not see themselves as active in any other roles. Men mostly saw the expert prescriber role as the most important role, which they identified with. Hence, it was quite evident that men and women differed in their roles in public relations while they may have had the same amount of experience (Broom, 1982). The new questions that have been raised or the questions that have remained unanswered are why these role differences exist between men and women when women are known to perform better than men do on academic scales and tests and they may have the same level of experience as men. While the study is not able to provide answers to such queries, it does show the difference in identification of roles between men and women in this profession comparative to the 1980’s (Broom, 1982). While the article is well structured and the study is carried out in a systematic way, the study does not consider a number of variables that should have been considered. It lacks information on why the participants perceive themselves in such roles and whether their own judgment is correct or it is only a perception, they carry (Broom, 1982). Article 2 The second article written by Falker Hanusch (2011), “Travel Journalists’ Attitudes towards Public Relations: Findings from a Representative Survey”, is based upon a study concerning travel journalists’ attitudes towards public relations. The participants are Australian travel journalists who have been asked to give their views regarding public relations in their profession. While most of the views were pessimistic, as travel journalists do not see much of a role of public relations in their profession, some were varying between the degrees of positive and negative (Hanusch, 2011). While the article does not follow a particular theory, it is based upon the notion that previously there has not been any evidence suggesting a linkage between travel journalism and public relations. However, travel journalists do have a high amount of interaction with PR practitioners as part of their job and the influence of public relations upon journalism cannot be ignored. However, previously travel journalists have always shown negative perceptions and feelings towards public relations and this study aims to test those perceptions while controlling factors such as the journalists’ age, years of experience, and other factors (Hanusch, 2011). The method of conducting the survey was through selecting a random sample of 85 Australian travel journalists and it was ensured that this sample had only those that were actively involved in the travel journalism industry. Journalists who worked in different departments ranging from newspapers to magazines were chosen to make the sample as representative of the population as possible. The questions that were asked were three main questions, which were 1) what are travel journalists attitudes towards public relations? 2) How do travel journalists perceive the influence of public relations on their job? 3) What are the main determinants’ of travel journalists’ views on PR? These three questions were the main realm of focus of the study and the responses to these questions were analyzed likewise to determine the perception and attitude of travel journalists’ towards public relations. These three questions were used alongside previous studies to form a questionnaire. An ordinal ranking scale was used to measure the responses given by the participants. The design is adequate for the study; however, these viewpoints and the results found cannot be generalized to other populations besides Australians. The results are subject to the views of the Australians only. There was extreme control applied to ensure that the respondents were adequately chosen without any biases and that the questions designed would gauge satisfactory results for the study (Hanusch, 2011). The participants of the study were a sample of 85 Australian travel journalists who belonged to different realms of journalism ranging from newspapers to magazines and were chosen adequately controlling for factors such as age, gender, and years of experience (Hanusch, 2011). The results produced from the study show that travel journalists possess mainly negative or immune attitudes towards the influence of public relations upon their work. They do agree that most of their work involves free travelling of places funded by public relations practitioners, yet they do not believe that this has a direct influence upon their work. A small number of journalists did agree that public relations has a heavy toll upon travel journalism, while most of them showed an attitude of being quite distraught with the concept of public relations as they felt that this did not leave objectivity in their work and their work could not be as critical as they would have liked. The study answers the previously unexplored realm of travel journalism and its relationship with public relations. It aimed to explore what perceptions and attitudes travel journalists had regarding public relations (Hanusch, 2011). The study however does not answer questions regarding the behavior of journalists all over the world. Clusters have been used to amalgamate and produce the results of the survey and the study is a good attempt at discovering and understanding a previously unexplored topic. However, the study does contain some limitations as mentioned above (Hanusch, 2011). Article 3 The third and final article, “A Baseline Summary of Framing Research in Public Relations from 1990 to 2009” by Lim and Jones (2010) is concerned with the typology of different frames of mind and the way public relations messages differ from news media. It also seeks to examine the thought process of individuals as they construct their own perception or image of reality in their mind and the way they perceive or interpret public relations messages and media coverage (Lim & Jones, 2010). The theories that are used for this study are Druckman’s conceptualization and categorization of two different types of frames. The first type of frame focuses upon the communication process and the second type of frame focuses upon the thought processes of the audience taking the message in. These frames form a baseline for the manner in which public relations scholars attempt to understand the typology of a frame and how they can further research it (Lim & Jones, 2010). The study was a longitudinal study that lasted from 1990-2009 and it was conducted through the matching of terms on databases online and through computer research. The words “framing” or “frame” were matched with other terms such as “public relations agencies”, “public relations”, and other terms related to the field of public relations. The method used was appropriate, as the point of the study was to find out how much attention public relations practitioners were giving to framing theory. However, there were some limitations to the method as it was limited to certain databases such as Google Scholar, Social Science Citation Index, and others. Hence, a clear perspective could not have been gauged. Moreover, the search terms used may not have been completely adequate and others could have been used to find more results. Not all of the results could have been analyzed properly if the search terms were restricted or were not chosen carefully (Lim & Jones, 2010). The research was not conducted upon a sample of people but was conducted upon computerized databases in search of information regarding public relations practitioners and framing theory. Hence, the participants in the study were all those people who had posted their research upon the Internet and those practitioners whose research was analyzed over the course of ten years (Lim & Jones, 2010). The results revealed that over the years frame theory had begun to gain quite a bit of popularity with public relations practitioners. The ‘search term match rate’ increased from approximately 69% in 1990 to 87 % in nearly 2000. This showed that public relations practitioners had begun to pay attention to the theory and begun to use it in learning how to frame their messages in order to target the audience properly (Lim & Jones, 2010). The questions that remained unanswered included whether the messages that public relations practitioners were producing by utilization of framing theory were more effective than without keeping framing theory in mind. Moreover, it was not properly representative whether framing theory was actually gaining in popularity or if it was only because research was more widely available at the end of the period of ten years (Lim & Jones, 2010). While the study was designed carefully and consisted of authentic results, the design and methodology of the study could have been better with a mixture of several methods of testing. However, since this was not done, the study is a mediocre study in its own discipline (Lim & Jones, 2010). References Broom, G. (1982). “A Comparison of Sex Roles in Public Relations.” Public Relations Review. Vol. 8, No. 3. Hanusch, F. (2011). “Travel Journalists’ Attitudes towards Public Relations: Findings from a Representative Survey.” Public Relations Review. In Press. Lim, J. & Jones, L. (2010). “A Baseline Summary of Framing Research in Public Relations from 1990 to 2009.” Public Relations Review. Vol. 36, No.3. Read More