RESEARCH METHODS

SUPERVISOR: Dr. ANJUM ZIA

SUBMITTED BY: FATIMA RIAZ
MPhil. (Professional Track)

DEPARTMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION

(SESSION 2018-2020)

LAHORE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

UNIVERSITY
 2
Public Relations

MASTERING PUBLIC RELATIONS

By

ANTHONY DAVIS (2012)

About the Author

Anthony Davis is a writer and management consultant, specializing in corporate and

marketing communication. He has lectured extensively at several universities and colleges
and has originated and managed successful public relations programs for a wide variety of
companies, professional firms and organizations.

Book Summary

Chapter 1 "The Importance of Public Relations: UPS Case"

Chapter 1 Introduce the critical function of public relations to an organization and to show
how public

relations can work to prevent issues and crises. It also tells the importance of public relations
to any organization to maintain its reputation and well-being to its audience.

Chapter 1 tells the importance of Public Relations by highlighted the story of failure of
United Parcel Service (UPS), the world’s largest transportation and logistics company, due to
the poor Public Relations.

Chapter 2 "What Is Public Relations?"

Chapter 2 This chapter has introduced the purpose of public relations and introduce the
classification of the profession and the concepts dominant in the strategic management of
relationships with publics, and introduce some different names associated with this function.

This chapter also explained the detailed Function of Public Relations and name some of the
names of the functions of Public Relations.

Chapter 3 "Models and Approaches to Public Relations"

Is an exceptionally important chapter because it introduces the models and approaches to

public relations that provide a classification for evaluating communications efforts.

The models of public relations are introduced through a brief history of the field, and also
examine the subfunctions or specialties within the profession. Numerous key definitions are
provided to help rapidly master the dictionary of public relations and its professional practice.
 3
Public Relations

Chapter 4 "Public Relations as a Management Function"

This Chapter discusses the inclusion of public relations as a management function, roles of
Public Relations and access to the C-suite, decision making, and the core competencies for
working in business, including knowledge of strategy and profit motivations.

It discusses how chief communications officers (CCOs) earn their seat at the executive table.

Chapter 5 "Organizational Factors for Excellent Public Relations"

This Chapter is extremely important because it discusses how public relations should be
organized and structured, and how it should “fit” within the larger organizational culture to
provide it with the maximum opportunity for success.

This Chapter gives the basic Organizational structure of any large organization.

The chapter draws on research from public relations scholars, business management scholars,
and organizational theory.

Chapter 6 "Public Relations and Organizational Effectiveness"

This Chapter provides an in-depth discussion of how organizations define success, and how
the stakeholder management approach to public relations can provide a concrete strategy for
enhancing organizational effectiveness and can contribute to the long-term sustainability of
organizations.

Chapter 7 "Identifying and Prioritizing Stakeholders and Publics".

This chapter explained that how strategic public relations is practiced.

This Chapter also defined the stakeholders and public and their mutual relation relationship
with each other and with organization.

This Chapter gave the structure of the linkages of stakeholders and organization and
Communication Strategy with Stakeholders.

Chapter 8 "Public Relations Research: The Key to Strategy"

Research is an essential element in strategic public relations and an overview of those

methods is provided in Chapter 8, as well as an explanation of the importance of research in
strategy and in management.

This chapter explained the purpose and different strategic forms of research.

Chapter 9 "The Public Relations Process—RACE"

This Chapter gives an overview of the four-step process of strategic public relations
management, abbreviated as RACE, and associated processes of analysis and planning.
 4
Public Relations

This chapter also explained the complete steps of the construction of Strategic Plan for a
Public Relations Campaign.

Chapter 10 "The Practice of Public Relations"

The more advanced discussions of public relations as a strategic management function begins
with Chapter 10.

It provides a detailed look at the profession by highlighting the locales in which it is

practiced, and it offers a discussion and application of the concepts presented earlier
throughout this text.

This chapter also explained Agency Public Relation, Corporate Public Relations, Government
Relations and Public Affairs, Issues Management and Public Policy, Nonprofit, NGO, and
Activist Public Relations,

This chapter attempt to mix these theoretical concepts into the real-life structure of day-to-
day public relations and include a couple of case examples for illustration.

Chapter 11 "Ethics, Leadership and Counseling, and Moral Analyses"

This chapter explained the detailed ethics of Public Relations.

This Chapter establishes the ethical and moral guidelines for practicing principled public
relations that enhance the social responsibility of organizations and allows public relations
managers to take leadership roles in advising the top levels of their organizations.

Chapter 12 "Best Practices for Excellence in Public Relations"

The last chapter sums up the book by illustrating the best practices for excellent public
relations.

It explained Effectiveness and Excellence of Public Relations in an organization.

This chapter briefly reviewed the core knowledge of regarding what it takes to make public
relations the most effective or “excellent” that it can be, based on the findings of the IABC
Excellence Study and the importance to an organization of strategic communication.