Journalists and public relations specialists: A coorientational analysis

Abstract

Journalists and public relations professionals have had a difficult, interdependent and always complicated relationship. In spite of their differences, the growing dependence of both professions on each other once again raises the question of how journalists and public relations professionals perceive and evaluate each other. Here, we examine various elements of this complex relationship. Our research was aimed towards answering two main questions. First, we conducted a correlation analysis between the level of (dis)satisfaction with working conditions of each group and their perceptions about the other profession. We expected these correlations to be negative and significant, but this did not prove to be true. In spite of the conventional wisdom that there is a love-hate relationship between the two professions, this study shows that maybe it is time to reevaluate this assumption. Second, we used the coorientational model to analyze the perceptions and cross-perceptions of journalists and public relations experts on their role in organizational reputation building. Both professional groups showed pluralistic ignorance of the other side. It also seems public relations specialists underestimate journalists’ opinion of the communication profession. They seem to perceive the relationship as more adversarial than it really is. Our results fall in line with some of the more recent studies on the journalist–public relations relationship and actually suggest that there are fewer differences between the two groups than assumed.