From Aardvark to Zebra: A New Millennium Analysis of Theory Development in Public Relations Academic Journals

Sallot, Lynne M.; Lyon, Lisa J.; Acosta‐Alzuru, Carolina; Jones, Karyn Ogata

doi:10.1207/s1532754xjprr1501_2

Cited by 143 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The sample (Table 1. The volume of articles published over the time period of this study (Table 2. The proportion of articles in the sample that were coded as having theory prominent in their writing was just under 34%. This compares well with Sallot et al (2003) who found just under 20% of articles were theoretical and 22% found by both Zoch et al (2007) and Sisco et al (2011). The proportion of articles with theory prominent also compared well to related academic fields, for example, with Potter and Riddle's (2007) content analysis of journal articles concerned with mass media effects that found 35% of articles featured a theory prominently.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Everywhere and nowhere: Theorising and researching public affairs and lobbying within public relations scholarship

Davidson

2015

Public Relations Review

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Public affairs and lobbying is a high status and strategically vital public relations specialism. It is a field of PR practice that generates high levels of both scholarly and public concern in regard to its perceived role in supporting corporate power and the associated impact on the functional legitimacy of democratic institutions. For this paper a content analysis was conducted of academic journals (between 2000-2013) to provide insights into how public affairs and lobbying have been theorised and researched within public relations scholarship and to ascertain to what degree wider public concerns have been addressed. Findings include an empirical confirmation of the low level of research activity on public affairs; that stakeholder and rhetorical theories have been the most widely used theories, but are far from constituting dominant paradigms; that scholarship has privileged functional objectives over civic concerns; and that published work originates almost entirely from institutions in Europe and the US with the Global South invisible. The paper also discusses future directions for research in public affairs and advocates the placing of discourse into definitions of public affairs, and that academic public relations should assert responsibility for this field, but in a manner that more equitably balances organisational and societal concerns. BackgroundThe centrality of the public affairs function within public relations in combination with the ongoing concerns regarding impacts on democratic decision-making, as well as popular assumptions of routinely low ethical standards present a strong normative case for this field to be a priority for theorising and research. While definitions of public affairs may still be in a state of flux, scholars who have explored this function have tended to agree on its significance as a specialism. Zetter mischievously nominated public affairs as constituting "PR for grown-ups" because of the "huge rewards for getting it right -and major consequences for getting it wrong" (2008: p. :xiii). Public affairs has been observed as higher status strategic work (L'Etang, 2008), and that specialists are more than "mere technicians" but professionals who wield influence in Part of the difficulty in defining and conceptualising public affairs as a specialism of public relations is that a considerable proportion of public affairs practice is indistinguishable from public relations activity (Somerville and Ramsey, 2012). By way of example, in written evidence to a committee of the UK parliament that was investigating the regulation of lobbying, Ed Williams then CEO of Edelman UK argued that for large agencies such as his "…public affairs is just one of many public relations services we provide to clients. The boundaries between, for example, activity which influences the political environment and activity which influences a broader media and stakeholder environment is increasingly blurred." (Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, 2012: p. 67).In most definitions public a...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Everywhere and nowhere: Theorising and researching public affairs and lobbying within public relations scholarship

Davidson

2015

Public Relations Review

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“…Thus, we identified papers about communication (So, 1988;Paisley, 1989;Cáceres & Caffarel, 1993;Jones, 1997;Lauf, 2005;Lievrouw, 1990;Martínez Nicolás, 2009;Castillo & Carretón, 2010;Castillo & Rubio, 2010;Castillo-Esparcia et al, 2012;Roca-Correa & Pueyo-Ayhan, 2012;Martínez-Nicolás & SaperasLapiedra, 2016;Compte-Pujol et al, 2016) and also specific studies about public relations (Pasadeos & Renfro, 1989, 1992Sallot et al, 2003;Xifra & Castillo, 2006;Ki & Shin, 2006;Castillo & Xifra, 2006;Pasadeos et al, 2010;Fussell et al, 2013;Míguez et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2014;Marca et al, 2014;Míguez-González et al, 2016;among others Considering the academic prestige achieved by WoK and the WoS data base in recent times (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009: n/e), researchers of the five continents try to public their works in journals included in their data bases (McNutt, 2014), turning the platform into the most outstanding display that allows observing the main study object topics in every discipline and period, as well as its evolution through time and develop comparative studies.…”

Section: Bibliometrics Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategy and Public Relations: a Bibliometric Comparative Study

Compte-Pujol¹,

Matilla²,

Hernández³

2018

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This article presents a bibliometric study of journals specialized in public relations (PR) that were listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index-Communication-Journal List database and journals specialized in strategy management that were listed in the Social Sciences Citation IndexManagement-Journal List. Both lists owned by Thomson Reuters until October 2016. Articles referring to the concept of "strategy" in PR journals were identified through content analysis, as well as those articles that included the concept "public relations" in journals specialized in strategy management. Variables of analysis were: periods of time for publishing; gender of authors; prevalent number of authors per article; and titles of the articles. Results showed that strategy appeared widely treated in the journals specialized in PR, while PR had almost no presence in magazines specialized in strategy management.

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“…Based on the Global Excellence factors, other researchers have conducted numerous national studies to test the generic and/or specific principles for their applicability worldwide (Chen, 2005;Hung, 2002;Lim, Goh, & Sriramesh, 2005;Molleda & Ferguson, 2004;O'Neil, 2003;Rhee, 2002;Sallot et al, 2003;Sriramesh, Kim, & Takasaki, 1999;van Dyke, 2005). Some studies focus exclusively on societal aspects of the Global-Excellence-Theory, such as the political-economic system of a country (Dolea, 2012;Kirat, 2005;Molleda & Suárez, 2005) culture (Huang, 2000;Taylor, 2000;Wu, Taylor, & Chen, 2001) and activism (Guiniven, 2002).…”

Section: Excellence-in-global-public-relations-theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

International public relations: A synopsis of German-speaking and Anglo-American research approaches

Ingenhoff

Ruehl

2013

Studies in Communication Sciences

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From Aardvark to Zebra: A New Millennium Analysis of Theory Development in Public Relations Academic Journals

Cited by 143 publications

References 36 publications

Everywhere and nowhere: Theorising and researching public affairs and lobbying within public relations scholarship

Everywhere and nowhere: Theorising and researching public affairs and lobbying within public relations scholarship

Strategy and Public Relations: a Bibliometric Comparative Study

International public relations: A synopsis of German-speaking and Anglo-American research approaches

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