My very last post... feel the excitement everyone!

Research and evaluation... What a great way to end my blogging experience.
This week's reading provides an insight into the process and importance of researching within public relations campaigns while also simulating me to question practices within PR.

I think there are many key points to remember from this week's reading however, I believe the most crucial point is that research is not only used at the end of a campaign to evaluate its effectiveness, but should also be used when planning a campaign and during its implementation.
This is stated by Singh and Glenny (2004), "Research contributes to all the functions of planning, action and evaluation." p. 140.

Prichitt and Sherman (1994), state that "one of the most effective ways of viewing the research process is in terms of inputs, outputs and outcomes." (p.140).
I think that this statement is correct and thus, the key points to remember from this week's reading are what input, output and outcome research actually are.
Following is a summary of these elements of public relations research.

Input research: determines what goes into a campaign. According to Singh and Glenny (2004), it "can indicate what problems or opportunities exist, what the perceptions and beliefs of the public are and what tools or methods of communication would be most effective in helping the organisation achieve its objectives with those publics." (p. 142).
It is essential to know that there are different types of input research that can be undertaken during different stages of a campaign. These include:
Exploratory research: Explains why an issue must be reviewed and which target audiences should be addressed.
Development research: Helps a PR practitioner in subdividing and prioritising target audiences along with the determining the best time to implement launch a campaign and the most suitable communication messages to use. Development research also helps a practitoner to determine the costs involved in implementing the campaign.
Benchmarking:"Used to identify the situation before a campaign is implemented and then to measure it's success or failure." (Singh and Glenny, 2004).

Output research: Outputs are the actual tactics/methods used within a campaign. Therefore, output research gathers information on the quality and appropriateness of the messages used within the campaign along with who received them. This information broadened my understanding of PR in practice extensively, as it states that this form of research allows practitioners to alter or modify implemented strategies. But this also caused me to raise the quesion of if a campaign message is not appealing to target audiences, do PR practitioners simply create a whole new message? Would this make them go over budget? Or are they required to only make minor changes to the campaign and accept that it may not be as successful as they thought?


Outcome research: Finally, outcomes are the result of the outputs on target publics. Thus, according to Singh and Glenny (2004), "Outcome research measures the extent to which the original campaign objectives were met, providing a sound basis from which to begin the planning for future campaigns." (p.145).

This chapter was useful as it also informed me about the different methodologies, both formal and informal, that can be used within these research stages. Some of these include qualitative, quantitative, primary and secondary research. According to Leedy (1997), the decision to use a methodology is dictated by the nature of the data required. This was helpful, as I learnt that if data is numerical, then quantitative research should be used, however if it is more descriptive, than qualitative research is more appropriate.

Finally, once a methodology has been selected, a public relations practitioner must then choose techniques to use that will provide them with appropriate information. For example, if qualitative research is needed, a practitioner should conduct a face to face interview, as this would provide detailed , informative information, however is the methodology of quantitative research is chosen, an appropriate technique to use would be statistical analysis.

Therefore, this week's reading made me think more about public relations practice because I learnt that research is an essential process in constructing a campaign in order to ensure it is a success. I also gained a sound understanding of the different methodologies available to use and how the techniques you decide to use should be chosen carefully to ensure they fulfill the aim of your research.

This week I commented on Michaela Virgara's blog.

Glenny, L. & Singh, R. (2004). Research and evaluation. In, Johnston, J. & Zawawi, C. (Eds). Public relations: Theory and practice. (2nd ed).( pp.137-168). Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Leedy, P.D. (1997) Practical research: Planning and design. (6th ed). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Pritchitt, J. & Sherman, B. (1994). Public relations evaluation: Professional accountability. Sydney: Internal Public Relations Association.