Университет Российской Академии Образования

Нижегородский филиал

Факультет экономики и бизнеса

Реферат

Тема: «PR and Journalism»

выполнила студентка III курса

факультета экономики и бизнеса

специальность: связи с общественностью

Кришталь И.А

проверил: к.п.н., доцент Паршина Н.А

Н.Новгород

2009

Contents

Introduction

Theoretical Starting Points

Media and PR in Society

The Editorial Conditions

PR Agents' and Journalists' Perceptions of Each Other

Conclusion

List of the literature

Introduction

In many countries, the PR industry has undergone significant growth in recent decades. In Sweden today, the number of active communications experts is seven times that at the beginning of the 1990s. Through this significant growth, PR agents have established themselves as an important group alongside parties traditionally considered being part of the democratic process.

Public relations have become a significant and powerful industry, particularly in recent decades. This industry and its actors mainly work through the media to spread information, persuasion and opinions to the public on behalf of their clients. Publicity is the predominant goal. Networking, relation-building, news production and activities intended to be published in the media are thus part of the everyday work of PR agents such as information officers and PR consultants. The PR phenomenon needs to be examined and scrutinized as a new party and power in the democratic process. In recent years, some international studies have taken on this mission, but there is scope for more studies on different aspects of the phenomenon.

In this work we are focused on the relation between the PR industry and the news media.

The main themes and questions are: What characterizes the relation between the PR industry and the media or between PR agents and journalists? The work starts by outlining some of the pertinent circumstances concerning the relation between the parties as well as their view of each other.

Theoretical Starting Points

The news media are the most outstanding, common, and important channel for interest groups to get their messages out and influence their surroundings. A focus on media has, in fact, grown in importance to these agents, especially concerning those active on the scene of policy shaping in the broader sense. The media work has become a more central part of political activity in recent years.

Studies of the relation between the PR industry and the news media show that PR actors and journalists often establish close relations in order to fulfill a mutual need.

The influence of the PR industry appears in many different shapes in daily life. It involves anything from traditional press conferences and press releases to various more or less successful long-term agenda-setting-related activities. Among other things, strategies for controlling the news agenda are based on producing and serving the media with material that promotes the instrumental purposes of the senders' interests. This type of media influence and strategies for controlling the news agenda are today often referred to by the concept news management. Meanwhile, news material from sources outside the media may also be seen as a contribution to journalistic work and as a way of cutting costs. Observations in line with this point of view have made way for the theory of information subsidy, meaning efforts by policy actors to increase the consumption of persuasive messages by reducing their costs. A reasonably large proportion of published articles originate from external sources - in fact, more than half of the studied published articles stem from material originating from outside sources.

There is reason to argue that, in recent times, the theory of information subsidy has increased its relevance to the everyday journalism reality as a consequence of the financial and personnel cutbacks many news organizations have undergone. Some analysts claim that this type of contact and exchange has forced journalism to become increasingly dependent on, and more easily affected by, outside influences - a transformation of professional conduct that has resulted in a more alienated journalism. According to Davis (2002), the cutbacks are one explanation of the fact that PR practitioners have come to strongly influence today's news agenda. He argues that the material they present has become extremely successful in passing itself off as 'real news', and thereby, to a great extent, PR people have "worked to erode the autonomy of journalists at the micro level". Other researchers follow this line:

What passes for news of politics is often an inextricable mixture of messages from different sources. Advertising, public relations, reports of opinion polls, and propaganda become mixed up in the news product along with facts and editorial opinions. It certainly tends to undermine any simple faith in the reliability and independence of news.

Media and PR in Society

The news media are the most prominent instrument for disseminating information in society. The media have become an increasingly important stage for organizations' external communication. Editor of a business magazine:

«Today, the media are the most important marketplace - all important deals are settled in the media sphere /.../. ............