Research

Cutlip. S, Center. A, Broom, G

'Systematic research is the foundation of effective public relations'

'Research's main purpose is reduce uncertainty in decision making'

• Internet
  • Sophisticated search engines
  • More information made available online
• Transparent considered increasingly important
• Socially: Young people valure privacy less than older generation

• Two-way communication being seen as increasingly important
  • Research is a form of listening
• Issues of sourcing accurate, credible information
• Interests in PR 'information-conscious'
  • Clients/managers have professional qualifications
  • Presenting relevant, original research can help win funds for PR campaigns
• Evaluation used to prove the worth of PR

• What do I want to know?
  • Asking the right question is crucial
  • To do so, you need to familiarise yourself with the field
• How will I gather information?
  • Primary v secondary research
  • Qualitative v quantitative research
  • Open v closed research

• Primary = Specific to case in hand, original
• Secondary = Desk research, uses already published data

Strategy built on research

• Media Relations
  • Research to understand what media your target audiences consume
  • Research to better understand the journalists you are targeting
• Commissioning of Research Reports
  • To generate news
  • For publications/blogs
• Social Media
  • Research to locate the social media your target audiences' uses
• Adapting peer/competitor tactics
  • From your research you may identify tactics used by other parts of the organisation or competitors that you can adapt

Testing messages on publics to ascertain their response

• Objectives
  • Research to identify where you are in terms of your target audiences awareness or attitudes or behaviour
  • Help you to specify where you realistically want to get to
• Publics
  • Primary research to understand the attitudes or motivations of priority publics
  • Secondary research to understand your publics

• Secondary research
  • Environment that organisation is competing in
  • Your client/organisation
  • Current and previous communications
  • Reputation with key publics
  • Competitor activity
• Primary research
  • Organisations communications
  • Help defining issues/problems at analysis stage through:
    • Environmental analysis PESTLE
    • Problem-opportunity SWOT

• Quantifies variables and points relationships between them, used to deliver comparable, generalised results expressed in numbers.
• Surveys - Mail, telephone, personal interview, online
• Measure Attitudes and Opinions
  • Semantic differentiate - Pairs of contrary items against which item of interest evaluated
  • Likert sales - Asks how  far a person agrees/disagrees with statements
  • Rank ordering - Place research objects in order against each other
  • Kumin Scale - Assessing objects non-verbally
• Advantages
  • Comparable results, can be generalised, cheaper, acceptable to clients
• Disadvantages
  • Only analysis questions asked, no deeper analysis of reasons

• Identifies and explores in depth phenomena such as reasons, attitudes. Results expressed in words in small number of interviews, with large numbers of interviews can map responses into different segments
• Intensive/In-depth attitudes
  • Explore attitudes, provide wealth of detail, can be sensitive to interviewer bias, smaller sample, open questions, customised and non-verbal behaviour noted
• Focus groups
  • Similar to intensive, six-ten respondents who interact, segmenting different publics
• Advantages
  • Greater insights into motivations, explore information unknown
• Disadvantages
  • Time consuming, expensive, limited generalisation, biased by researcher, focus groups can have dominant participants