An Analysis of New Communications Media Use in Public Relations: Results of a Five-Year Trend Study

This article provides the fifth annual report about an international, longitudinal trend study examination of the social media and other aspects of the new technologies are having on public relations practice. Results strongly suggest the new communications media are having a dramatic impact on public relations. As has been the case with each year of this trend study, results show considerably more agreement in some areas than was the case in previous years. This year’s study reports that 85 percent of the public relations practitioners surveyed believe new communications media have changed the way organizations communicate. Findings continue to suggest these changes are more prominent in external than internal communications. Most (99%) of this year’s respondents claim to spend part of their typical day working with some aspects of new communications new media. Results continue to show that traditional news media receive higher scores than blogs and social media in terms of accuracy, credibility, telling the truth and being ethical. Although there was very strong agreement (greater than 90%) that public relations practitioners should research and measure the impact new communications media are having on public relations campaigns, only a small number (38% in 2010) actually are conducting this kind of research. On February 19, 2010, Tiger Woods held a unique and unusual press conference. The world’s most famous golfer and a professional athlete who has earned more than $1 Billion in prize money and endorsements went on television to address and apologize for his highly publicized marital infidelity that had been a major source of news during the previous few months. This press conference was unique and unusual for several reasons. Even though Woods totally controlled the event by making sure only his close friends and associates were invited and refusing to answer questions, all of the major television and cable news network’s covered the gathering live and many of them called in their highest profile news anchors to moderate the coverage. The control that Woods placed on this event facilitated another unique and unusual reality by making it one of the few recent major news stories to be covered via traditional news outlets before anything about what happened at the press conference could be communicated via micro-blogging web sites such as Twitter, social networking web sites such as Facebook or any other of the new and non-traditional media. News stories about this press conference didn’t stop with the live coverage. All of the major television networks featured the story during their evening news broadcasts later that day and stories about Woods and the press conference were prominent on the front pages and sports pages in the next morning’s editions of most of the country’s major daily newspapers. Another unique and different aspect about this press conference and coverage about it is the reality this is one of the few major news stories within the past few years where audiences received their first information about the event from traditional news media instead from micro-blogs and social media. In so many other news situations over the past few years, audiences learned the news from micro-blogs or social media first and well before television and other traditional news providers reported what was happening. As we have pointed out previously (Wright & Hinson, 2009e & 2009f), information about most of the world’s major news stories today is first told via micro-blogs or social media and then reported in the traditional news media. This certainly was the case with the terrible earthquake that rocked the Sichuan province in China on May 12, 2008 that killed 70,000 people, wounded 350,000 and left five million people homeless. As Shirky (2009) has pointed out, the first reports about this earthquake came from Sichuan residents who sent messages on QQ, China’s largest social network, and on Twitter, the world’s most popular micro-blogging service. Twitter also has been recognized for being first to report news about US Airways Flight 1549 landing safely in the Hudson River in New York City on January 15, 2009 with all 155 people on board being safe and accounted for. This micro-blog also has been cited as the first medium to provide news seekers with information about the November 26, 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and as the first medium to provide most of the initial reports about the transition and re-branding of Kinko’s into FedEx Office following the FedEx acquisition of Kinko’s. While he was the Editor of PR Week, Keith O’Brien (2009) said that Twitter was having a dramatic impact on the practice of public relations. Mike Elgan (2009), a technology writer and former Editor of Windows magazine, believes social media has replaced television as the main news source for Americans. Since first appearing about six years ago, social media networking sites have become increasingly popular each year. Bill Tancer (2008), the general manager of global research at Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive service, claims social media overtook pornography as the number one use of the internet two years ago. the impact new technologies are having on public relations, we found the phenomenon of blogging and other aspects of the social media already are bringing dramatic changes to many aspects of public relations. We have found the development of various new technologies has significantly empowered a wide variety of strategic publics by giving them dynamic new media many are using to communicate effectively with a variety of internal and external audiences.