Canadian Public Relations Research Articles

Crisis, What Crisis? An Overview of Professional and Academic Credentials in Canadian Public Relations

<p>This study explored the reasons for the failure of accreditation (i.e., APR, ABC) in Canadian public relations and communications. An extensive mixed-methods research design (22 in-depth interviews, 231 completed surveys, and content analysis of 600 job postings) was used to determine both the attitudes towards and tangible benefits of accreditation. It was found that the majority of practitioners are investing in applied graduate degrees (i.e, MCM, MPR, MAPC, MPC) rather than accreditation. The CPRS and IABC designations have been available in Canada since 1968, however, as of 2014 only 793 practitioners possess them. Conversely, applied graduate programs for mid-career practitioners have graduated 973 practitioners since 2001. Academic credentials and experience in public relations and communications are the most important qualifications to the industry, employers, and practitioners. The APR and ABC designations have failed to demonstrate value and relevance to the practice over the past four decades. </p>

Assessing the CPRS Pathways to the Profession competency framework

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to assess the leadership skills and competencies defined in the Pathways to the Profession and understand the value senior corporate communications managers place on those skills and competencies and how senior-level corporate communicators demonstration of those skills and competencies.Design/methodology/approach– Institutional review board approval was obtained for a qualitative research design based on focus groups conducted in four Canadian cities with 25 senior corporate communicators, human resources professionals, and general business managers.Findings– This research has validated the competencies and credentials for senior-level corporate communications and public relations executives as highlighted in the Pathways to the Profession framework. It has also provided the profession with an understanding of the value senior public relations and organizational managers place on professional association membership and professional and academic credentials. This research is an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge on competency frameworks as professional associations, such as the Canadian Public Relations Society, take leadership positions in providing educational institutions with sets of standards for public relations and corporate communications education in Canada.Practical implications– This research will help the public relations and corporate communications profession provide guidance to educational institutions programming for senior-level public relations and communications management education based on quantifiable data on the value executives place on a particular set of skills and competencies.Originality/value– This is the first study of its kind that examines the perceived competencies and skills of Canadian senior public relations/communications management leadership. Further this research sought to assess the value of academic and professional credentials necessary for participation in executive leadership roles.

Canadian public relations students' interest in government communication

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine Generation Y communicators' interest in government communications.Design/methodology/approachThis paper outlines the results of a descriptive quantitative survey conducted with 39 students and recent public relations graduates at Calgary, Canada's Mount Royal University.FindingsThe results from the small, purposive sample confirm some assumptions employers have about Generation Y and challenge others. The results identify key themes requiring future research.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited in its sample size, but is not meant to be representative. It is a purposive, exploratory study that provides valuable insight into future research.Originality/valueThe paper sheds further light on this important topic and fills a gap in the research specific to Generation Y government communicators, offering valuable insight into the recruitment and retention of Generation Y staff in Canadian governments.

Pathways to the profession: An outcomes based approach towards excellence in Canadian public relations and communications management educations

This policy paper from the Canadian Public Relation Society’s (CPRS) outlines a new relationship between educators and the Society. In recent years, many institutions have asked CPRS to provide processes and support for consistency in curriculum and program planning that would lead to the formal recognition and endorsement by CPRS of educational programs. In addition, they asked for options to enrich students’ learning experience with direct links to the profession. As a way to address this while respecting the independent nature of programs, the CPRS National Council on Education developed the five pathways introduced in this document, which integrate education, skills training and research. ©Canadian Public Relations Society, all rights reserved.

The Art of Perpetuating a Public Health Hazard

Canadian chrysotile (white asbestos) could be a paradigm for those agents that are successfully exploited commercially long after they have been found to be lethal. Mining started in the late 1870s, and reports of disability and death followed in Britain (1898), in France (1906), and Italy (1908), but it was not until 1955 that Canada acknowledged asbestosis in its asbestos miners and millers. Even when shortly after asbestos was shown to be carcinogenic, Canadian Public Relations experts assisted by their scientists exculpated chrysotile by deeming other agents to have been causal. The PR techniques that have been successfully used in the defense of chrysotile are reviewed, to forewarn scientists involved in formulating public health policy for similar agents, as to the tricks that will be played on them.

Professionalisation, Building Respectability, and the Birth of the Canadian Public Relations Society

Professionalisation, Building Respectability, and the Birth of the Canadian Public Relations Society

Professionalisation, Building Respectability, and the Birth of the Canadian Public Relations Society

Drawing upon selected aspects of Macdonald's model of professionalisation (The Sociology of the Professions, London: Sage, 1995), this paper traces the emergence of public relations as an occupation in Canada in the years following World War II and, in particular, the role of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) in that process. A brief sketch of pre-war public relations history is provided; selected explanations for post-war growth are advanced. The paper's primary aim, however, is to outline some steps that CPRS took to establish the respectability of the emerging profession and its claims for expertise. Specifically examined are two steps among several Macdonald identifies: (1) struggles over the definition of membership and the criteria by which applicants would be assessed, and (2) strategies for building ongoing respectability for public relations among both the general public and employers. While Canadian public relations is, at best, a semi-profession, it exhibits elements of the professionalisation project.

Roles and Program Evaluation Techniques Among Canadian Public Relations Practitioners

This chapter reports on a portion of a larger study on Canadian public relations professionals and focuses on the extent of systematic program evaluation within the Canadian public relations profession. We therefore hypothesized that as top management support for systematic research in public relations increases, there will be a concomitant increase in the use of scientific evaluation methods. The survey instrument was designed to measure evaluation methods across four program content areas and practitioner roles. Reliability coefficients were determined for the practitioner role measures as well as for the program evaluation scales. The coefficients for practitioner roles parallel closely those found by G. M. Broom and D. M. Dozier who used the longer version of the scale. The relationships between dominant roles and evaluation methods were explored and a number of hypotheses tested. Practitioners who assume a technical role are expected to primarily write and edit communication materials and deal with the media.

Profile: Women in Canadian public relations

The author of this article has taken a close look at trends that show sharp increases in the number of women choosing public relations as a career, and has zeroed in on Canadian practitioners for analysis. While this study did not examine bias in the workplace per se, a number of significant patterns stood out which strongly indicate that female practitioners in Canada mirror the same handicaps documented in studies of U.S. practitioners: They have less authority and lower salaries than men in the profession. Few hold senior management positions; only a third feel they exert influence on policy-making in their organizations. The author poses a question: Will young men moving into the field, with higher education levels than the women studied here have attained, advance any faster or further? Judith Scrimger is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Relations, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.