Public Relations and the Media Environment in Morocco

Abstract

Effective public relations thrives on the availability of and access to new communication technologies. The use of different social media platforms has become a prominent part of public relations practitioners’ professional life. Recently, Moroccan political public relations practitioners have used social networking sites, such as Facebook in their personal and professional lives. They are well versed and tech savvy in new communication technologies and use social media platforms to build and maintain media relations. To explore this relationship, my approach draws on aspects of Sriramesh and Vercic’s (2003) framework to study the nexus between the media environment and effective public relations practices in Morocco. They suggest an approach of three factors consisting of media control, media outreach, and media access. This framework is used to help public relations practitioners and researchers to study the strategies of media relations that are appropriate to different media environments, and examine the interdependent relation between public relations and the media environment in different countries.