Strategic Public Relations Management

We decided to write this book in 1995 when we attended the national Public Relations Society of America convention in Seattle. We observed with
some surprise that the sessions on measurement and evaluation attracted
standing-room-only crowds, and many conversations in the hallways focused on the same issues. Managers seemed frustrated with the challenges
of proving the value of public relations and developing credibility as counselors to upper management. Meanwhile, discussions about the need to
prove results in the trade press had increased steadily. We were getting
calls from organizations wanting research who never before had seen the
need for it. We had alumni reporting back to us about how well their course
work in research and planning had prepared them for the so-called real
world and how their training had positioned them advantageously in their
organizations. Both experience and observation had taught us that research
and strategic planning serve as powerful tools.
Just as strategic plans need updating every few years, we realized we
needed to update our book. As authors and teachers, we wrote this volume to serve as our ideal resource for our own classes and then hoped
others would find it useful, too. We have felt honored and gratified that
other teachers and practitioners also have put it to use successfully since
publication of the first edition in 2001. Nonetheless, the field evolves and
contexts change. Our files of new trends, examples, and research practices
has grown, especially with the explosion of Internet technologies. Colleagues also have made a few suggestions that we wanted to incorporate,
so we have done some updating and a bit of rearranging.
The primary changes cover three main areas. First, we have updated
the information on research methods to incorporate methods that make
use of the Internet and computer programs that aid data entry and analysis. Second, because we believe in learning by seeing and doing, we have