Political Public Relations

Spiro Kiousis and Jesper Strömbäck13 Political public relations

Abstract: This chapter reflects on political public relations. It first characterizespolitical public relations as a central component of political communication bypolitical actors. Moreover, the chapter argues that political public relations are notonly about communication and involve a wider group of stakeholders such aslobby groups, think tanks, and party donors. The chapter then gives an overviewof the literature on political public relations and defines it by suggesting a contin-uum of stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, several domains of political publicrelations are discussed in detail, i.e. news management and agenda building,issues management, event management, crisis management, assessment in politi-cal public relations, and digital communication. Finally, the authors call for a moresystematic application of public relations theories and concepts that have seldomor never been applied in the context of political public relations.

Key Words: political public relations, political stakeholders, news management,agenda building, issues management, event management, crisis management, digi-tal communication

1 IntroductionThe significant role of public relations in the political process has been ubiquitousthroughout history. From Ancient Greece and Rome to the American Revolution,scholars have documented the importance of public relations and communicationin politics and democracy (Broom 2009; McKinnon, Tedesco, and Lauder 2001;Wilcox and Cameron 2007). Political public relations is practiced by a variety ofpolitical professionals, including but not limited to press secretaries, speechwriters, campaign fund raisers, event managers, and political marketing and cam-paign consultants to name a few. Despite its pervasive impact, our theoretical andempirical understanding of political public relations has, however, lagged behindin comparison to other areas of political communication, public relations, andpolitical science research. To remedy this, the purpose of this chapter is to providean overview of political public relations research and encourage its growth as afield of study.

In comparing the concepts of political public relations and political communi-cation, on the one hand political communication is a broader concept, highlighting“the exchange of symbols and messages between political actors and institutions,the general public, and the news media that are products of or have consequencesfor the political system” (McLeod, Kosicki, and McLeod 2002: 217). From that per-

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250 Spiro Kiousis and Jesper Strömbäck

spective, political public relations constitutes one aspect of political communica-tion. On the other hand, political public relations is not only about communication(to be discussed below), and political public relations explicitly involves a widergroup of major stakeholders than usually conceptualized by political communica-tion, such as industry lobby groups, party members or activists, issue competitors,think tanks and party donors. Another major characteristic that partly separatespolitical public relations from political communication is that it is intentional andobjectives driven. Thus, while the fields of political communication and politicalpublic relations overlap theoretically, conceptually and in practice, they do notalways equal each other.

1.1 Defining Public Relations

Much like existing conceptualizations of related concepts, a lack of consensusexists in the scholarly literature regarding definitions of political public relations.For example, simplistic views of political public relations may only emphasizenews management and media relations as core aspects of this field. While para-mount, this ignores other critical areas such as crisis communication, issues man-agement, volunteer relations, and fundraising to name a few, and displays a super-ficial understanding of public relations theory. In an attempt to synthesize manyof the extant perspectives, building on a solid public relations foundation, a recentbook on the subject edited by the contributors of this chapter defined politicalpublic relations as “the management process by which an organization or individ-ual actor for political purposes, through purposeful communication and action,seeks to influence and to establish, build, and maintain beneficial relationshipsand reputations with its key publics to help support its mission and achieve itsgoals” (Strömbäck and Kiousis 2011a: 8).

Several qualities of this definition are noteworthy in advancing our under-standing of political public relations. The first is that it emphasizes the strategicand management role of political public relations efforts and activities. That is,political public relations should not be simply relegated to a technical or tacticalfunction within political organizations or campaigns, but rather be used to helpadvance the political organization’s principal mission and broad objectives. Thisview not only emerges from the general public relations literature on its organiza-tional functions (Dozier and Ehling 1992; Dozier and Grunig 1992; Grunig, Grunig,and Ehling 1992), but also from the political communication literature on the roleof public relations. Indeed, Kelley (1956: 211–212) argues that “to be of any value,the public relations man must sit in on all planning sessions and do his part inthe selecting of issues,” and “public relations in a campaign is worthless unlessthe public relations man has at least a voice in selecting, determining, and project-ing issues”. In fact, one of the key responsibilities of public relations is to functionas a boundary-spanner representing the organization to the publics and the pub-


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Political public relations 251

lics to the organization. This holds true for political public relations as well as inother contexts, and to be effective, requires that public relations belongs to thedominant coalition within an organization.

A second important characteristic of this definition is its contention that politi-cal public relations involves both communication and action. This, of course, islinked with the strategic management role mentioned above. The contribution ofpolitical public relations via communication is carried out in many forms, includ-ing press releases, media interviews, and speeches. The contributions via actionalso occur in many forms, such as counseling management to alter organizationalpolicy, forming partnerships with interest groups, or holding special events. Thisis consistent with perspectives on public relations stressing its relationship man-agement function (Broom, Casey, and Ritchey 2000; Ferguson 1984; Ki and Hon2006; Ledingham 2003; Ledingham and Bruning 1998). Thus, while it can beargued that political public relations can be thought of as a type of strategic com-munication, it is important to underscore that political public relations is not onlyabout communication.

Also central to the definition above is that the concept of political organiza-tions is broader than that of political parties. Political organizations certainlyinclude political parties, but also government offices, interest groups, think tanks,non-governmental organizations, and even corporations to the extent that theyattempt to influence political issues, processes, or public opinion related to politi-cal matters (Strömbäck and Kiousis 2011b). In this context, a recent analysis ofpolitical marketing and stakeholder engagement by Hughes and Dann (2009) isinstructive. Following their analysis and depending on the type of organizationsinvolved in political marketing or political public relations, at least 17 stakeholdergroups can be identified: alternative political providers; electoral commissions,parliaments, government offices; industry lobby groups; issue competitors; mediaorganizations; party donors; party members and supporters; political candidates;political opponents; private lobbyists; social pressure lobby groups; citizens andsociety at large; splinter interest groups; voters at election time; and votersbetween elections. While this may not be the definitive list – as it depends on theorganization and is contextual – it demonstrates that there is a large number oforganizations and groups that are relevant in the context of political public rela-tions (see also the chapter by Hertog and Zuercher).

To better understand the variety of stakeholders in political public relations,Grunig’s situational theory of publics offers a critical conceptual perspective (Gru-nig and Hunt 1984; Grunig 1989). The core of the theory is that by effectivelyanticipating the communication behavior of members in stakeholder groups, pub-lic relations professionals can segment target publics and be strategic in theirchoices of how to best communicate with them. The application to political publicrelations lies in identifying strategies for how best to communicate with andreceive feedback from voters, donors, parties, activists, and other key target groups




and stakeholders. This can be used for a variety of goals, such as voter mobiliza-tion and fund raising. Based on situational theory, stakeholder groups can be clas-sified as nonpublics, latent publics, aware publics, and active publics (see alsothe chapter be Kepplinger). As a result, political public relations professionals canuse this perspective as a basis to ascertain where to best allocate resources for thepurposes of, for example, campaigning and governing (see also the chapters byStrömbäck and Kiousis and by de Vreese and Schuck).

A related point concerning the definition of political public relations men-tioned earlier is its simultaneous emphasis on its role in impacting both relation-ships and reputations with key publics as chief outcomes of communication ac-tivities and organizational actions. According to Bronn (2010: 309), reputation“represents the reality of the organization for the stakeholder regardless of whatthe organization believes about itself, chooses to communicate, or thinks it knowsabout what stakeholders are thinking”. Elsewhere, Carroll (2010) notes that corpo-rate reputation consists of three major dimensions: public prominence, publicesteem, and attributes associated with a company. While normally applied tostudying businesses and corporations, the concept of reputation is relevant to alltypes of organizations and groups. In the context of political public relations, this,for instance, extends to political candidates and even foreign nations (Wang 2006).The commonly measured approval rates of presidents and prime ministers may infact be conceptualized as measuring reputations.

In comparison to reputation, organization-public relationships are seen as “thestate that exists between an organization and its key publics in which the actionsof one can impact the social, economic, or political well-being of the other”(Ledingham and Bruning 1998: 62). Much work in this area has focused on identi-fying major dimensions of relationships, including trust, satisfaction, commitment,and control mutuality (Ki and Hon 2007). Because of the long-term orientation inthe relational perspective of public relations, scholars have also explicated majorcultivation strategies for developing relationships, such as dialogic communica-tion, and examined what the consequences of positive relationships are on atti-tudes and behaviors. Demonstrating applications to political public relations, Selt-zer and Zhang (2011) found that strong relationships between voters and politicalparties were predictive of favorable attitudes and supportive behaviors towardsparties.

As noted above, the range of stakeholders central to the practice and study ofpolitical public relations is large, and there is wide variance in the level of engage-ment with them among political organizations. From a stakeholder perspectivethen, our definition stresses the role of both reputation and relationship cultivationand maintenance as central aspects to the practice of political public relations.Applying the ideas of Hutton, Goodman, Alexander, and Genest (2001) to a politi-cal context, we see political public relations as crucial to all stages of stakeholderengagement, whether it involves an adolescent first developing an allegiance to a



Fig. 1: Degree of stakeholder engagement and appropriate conceptual framework for studyingpolitical public relations.

political party all the way to a lifelong volunteer for civic organizations aiming torecruiting new voters (Kiousis and Strömbäck 2011). Important in this context isalso the multiplicity of publics that are relevant for political organizations, broadlyconceived. As such, we reject views of political public relations as only focusingeither on short-term or long-terms interactions between organizations and keypublics, and views that reduce political public relations to media relations, newsmanagement, or voter relations. The concepts of reputation and relationship man-agement are both paramount to capturing the short-term and long-term orientationregarding the engagement of political organizations and the multiplicity of theirkey publics.

From this perspective, political public relations is not limited to simple infor-mation dissemination and exchange for peripherally involved publics, but it isalso not relevant just solely for engagement with highly involved stakeholdergroups such as major donors or special interest groups. Conceptualizing politicalpublic relations along a continuum of stakeholder engagement with reputationand relationship quality at each end can be useful tool for understanding its studyand practice. Figure 1 outlines this conceptualization.

2 Domains of Political Public RelationsWith the definition of political public relations established, we now turn to explor-ing major domains of political public relations. We define domains as major areasof practice or specialties within political public relations. While it is important torecognize this is not a comprehensive list, it does offer a starting point for aca-demic inquiry to better explore the antecedents, processes, and consequences ofpolitical public relations. As a preface, we will consider the following areas: (1)news management and agenda building, (2) issues management, (3) event man-agement, (4) crisis management, (5) assessment in political public relations, (6)and digital communication.




2.1 News management

While we are careful to stress the larger function of public relations in politics,perhaps the most well-known domain concerning its influence is in news manage-ment and media relations. Against this backdrop, political public relations effortsfocus on engaging journalists and news outlets in order to engender media cover-age regarding topics of key priority to the political organizations they represent orto convey their point of view on political matters affecting their organization. Inits simplest form, this may involve the dissemination of news releases or it mayinvolve more complex activities such as holding special news conferences or pro-ducing video footage to assist journalists in developing stories. It may also involveinformal communication such as during a background briefing. In a reactive situa-tion, it may involve being available for interviews to journalists or providing themaccess to information they might need for stories.

A chief conceptual perspective used to understand news management andmedia relations in political public relations is agenda-building (Tedesco 2011; Zochand Molleda 2006). In contrast to the traditional focus of agenda-setting on associ-ations between media coverage and public opinion, the construct of agenda-build-ing focuses on the reciprocal influence of policymakers, news media, and publicopinion in the process of salience formation and transfer. According to Cobb, Ross,and Ross (1976: 126), “the study of agenda building requires an understanding ofthe ways in which different subgroups in a population become aware of, andeventually participate in, political conflicts, whether the issues are initiated bygroups in the general public or by political leaders”. Elsewhere, Gandy (1982)observed that scholars need to “go beyond agenda setting constructs to determinewho sets the media agenda, how and for what purpose it is set, and with whatimpact on the distribution of power and values in society” (p. 7). Finally, Vasquezand Taylor (2001: 145) assert that “theoretically, agenda building is concerned withhow publics enlarge the conflicts over issues to receive the attention and actionof government decision makers” (see also the chapter by van Aelst).

When applied to media relations in a political setting, agenda-building refersto the process by which sources aim to shape the agenda of “objects” covered innews media messages. When explicating the constructs of agenda-setting andagenda-building, scholars have identified two levels of relationships – object sali-ence and attribute salience. In traditional research, issues have been used asexamples of objects; however, in the abstract an object can also be a politicalcandidate, an international organization, or a foreign nation (McCombs 2004).Exploring such theorizing empirically, prior literature has examined the linkagesamong public relations, news media, and public opinion in terms of object andattribute salience. In these studies, scholars have noted that news media (or publicrelations) emphasize certain aspects of objects while simultaneously ignoring oth-ers to help stakeholders develop an understanding about objects (Kiousis, Banti-maroudis, and Ban 1999; McCombs and Shaw 1993; Iyengar and Kinder 1987).



Linked to framing research, the second level agenda-setting and agenda-buildingliterature suggests that media (and organizational public relations activities) playa role in shaping public opinion by telling stakeholders “how to think about”certain objects (Carroll and McCombs 2003; Kiousis, Mitrook, Wu, and Seltzer2006; Wanta, Golan, and Lee 2004) (see also the chapters by Maurer and by Arendtand Matthes).

The two major types of attributes that have been explored in the literatureare substantive and affective attributes (McCombs and Shaw 1972). Substantiveattributes refer to the cognitive dimension of attribute salience based on reasoning.Issue frames or candidate image attributes are examples of the substantive attrib-ute dimension used in prior agenda-building (agenda-setting) studies. Six substan-tive attributes that have been consistently examined in the literature are the con-flict, human interest, problem definition, responsibility attribution, moral evaluation,and consequence assessment frames (Entman 1993; Hallahan 1999; Iyengar 1991;Price, Tewksbury, and Power 1997; Semetko and Valkenburg 2000; Shah, Domke,and Wackman 2001; de Vreese 2003, 2005). There are also affective attributes thatrefer to the affective dimension of salience based on emotions. The tone of mes-sages (negative, neutral, or positive) has been primarily employed to assess thesalience of affective attributes. Emotional intensity can also be part of affectiveattributes (Wu and Coleman 2010) (see also the chapter by Schemer).

A principal strategy in agenda-building efforts involves the use of informationsubsidies. Zoch and Molleda (2006) submit that “public relations practitioners gen-erate prepackaged information to promote their organizations’ viewpoints onissues, and to communicate aspects of interest within those issues, to their internaland external publics” (p. 284). According to Gandy (1982), the benefits of usinginformation subsidies are “to reduce the prices faced by others for certain informa-tion in order to increase its consumption” (p. 12). The most common form of infor-mation subsidy is the traditional news release, but they also exist in other forms,including speeches, media kits, and ads. It is important to note that informationsubsidies can be employed for efforts outside of media relations, but this contexthas been their principal application. Recent research has stressed the need to lookat multiple information subsidies within the context of agenda-building (Kiousisand Strömbäck 2010; Miller 2010). The effectiveness of media relations efforts mayrest on the extent to which they reflect existing elite discourse on major topics inpolitics. Applying the idea of indexing theory to a political public relations setting,Lieber and Golan (2011) suggest this mechanism may explain why some mediarelations efforts are more successful than others with regard to impacting mediasalience of objects and attributes (see also the chapter by Robinson).

A recent analysis of framing in political communication identified seven appli-cations of framing to political public relations (Hallahan 2011): (1) framing of situa-tions, (2) framing of attributes, (3) framing of risk, (4) framing of arguments sup-porting actions, (5) framing of issues, (6) framing of responsibility, and (7) framing



of stories. In the first area, framing provides context to topics such as when politi-cians use special events to personalize important issues. According to Hallahan(2011), “attribute framing involves the use of language in the message itself” (182).The battle over labels in political rhetoric offer prime examples of this such aswhether to describe the abortion issue as “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” The third useof framing draws on classic prospect theory and addresses how framing isemployed in politics to create concern regarding danger and hazards. This couldbe accomplished, for instance, in campaign rhetoric threatening major cuts to gov-ernment programs and entitlements. The fourth application of framing occurswhen valence and emotion are used to highlight emphasis in messages. The fifthuse of framing occurs when communicators portray topics in terms of disputesand arguments involved in a conflict. The sixth use of framing deals with assigningresponsibility for political matters, whether that involves crediting a group forprogress on say policy matters or whether it assigns blame to the government inpower for a failing economy. The final use of framing has the most direct applica-tion to media relations in terms of storytelling. The application of framing in thiscontext is designed to advance particular narratives that resonate among journal-ists and by extension news consumers (Hallahan 2011) (see also the chapter byArendt and Matthes).

2.2 Issues management

Another prominent domain of political public relations is issues management,which refers to the process by which politicians, campaigns, parties, and otherpolitical groups identify, prioritize, develop, and convey positions on key issues.A fundamental early step in effective political issues management involves forma-tive research where groups investigate the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviorsof target audiences concerning policy preferences and problems. These same ap-proaches are also used to evaluate the success of communication efforts for issuemanagement purposes. A variety of tools are employed to communicate positionson key issues as a part of this process, including position papers, speeches, plat-form statements, debates, and so forth.

A vital factor impacting the issues-management process involves meaningfullyclassifying different types of issues. Research has offered several systems for cat-egorizing issues. For example, the difference between obtrusive issues (those withwhich citizens have direct experience) and unobtrusive issues (those with whichcitizens have little direct experience) has proved critical with regard to media influ-ence on public perceptions of issue importance (Zucker 1978) (see also the chapterby Arendt and Matthes). A similar dichotomy regarding the impact of concrete andabstract issues has also been found to be meaningful. Specifically, problems thatare defined in concrete terms are more likely to resonate in news media and publicopinion than those that are abstract (Yagade and Dozier 1990). On a related point,



issues also evolve and shift in importance over time in society. The life cycle ofan issue has crucial implications for issues management processes. Downs (1972)foundational piece identified five major stages in the typical attention cycle of anissue: (1) the pre-problem stage, (2) alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm,(3) realizing the cost of significant progress, (4) gradual decline of intense publicinterest, and (5) the post-problem stage (see also the chapters by Stanyer and byvan Aelst).

While issues management is an important part of political public relationsprocesses, most research and theorizing has been developed from the point ofview of political parties and candidates. A natural extension of such work isacknowledging the influence of corporations and the business community toissues management. Heath and Waymer (2011: 142) note that “issues managementwas born and raised to be a political animal, to help make business managementmore political and less merely administrative”. Manheim’s (2011) concept of powerstructure analysis suggests a strategic approach for how corporations and busi-nesses might handle the issues management process for adversarial stakeholders.According to this perspective, businesses identify key adversarial stakeholders toassess weaknesses and then compare those to organizational strengths in an effortto deploy appropriate strategies and tactics for handling controversial issues. Evi-dence for the heightened impact of corporate issues management in politics canbe seen in the tremendous amount of resources invested in corporate lobbying.According to the OpenSecrets.org website, in the United States alone over $3.51billion was spent on lobbying in 2010, with the majority coming from corporateinterests. Lobbying involves direct appeals to policymakers by organizations, inter-est groups, associations, and businesses to influence regulation and law. Some ofmajor approaches include providing financial support to political campaigns andinterpersonal/small group communication activities.

Within the context of issues management, we can also illustrate the influenceof political public relations beyond the scope of domestic politics. Efforts of publicdiplomacy by foreign nations and their governments can be viewed as a part ofpolitical public relations given their objectives to engage citizens of other countriesand shape policymaking. A study by Kiousis and Wu (2008) revealed the publicrelations efforts by foreign nations are linked to favorable outcomes in media cov-erage and public opinion in the United States by the reducing the impact of nega-tive information. Of course, foreign nations are not the only groups employingpolitical public relations in an international setting. Molleda (2011) underscoresthe role of transnational corporations and stresses that there must be balanceamong the organization’s interests, home country’s interests, and host country’sinterests when attempting to influence political processes and decisions in othercountries (see also the chapter by Robinson).



2.3 Event management

In addition to traditional communication activities of information disseminationand exchange, another major domain of political public relations lies in eventplanning, management, and execution. A range of activities and events are used tosupport political public relations efforts. Among the most prominent are debates,speeches, news conferences, party conventions, and town hall meetings when itcomes to supporting campaigning and governance. Other types might include fundraising dinners and groundbreakings.

Political debates in the United States, for example, have received extensiveattention in the literature and are subject to extreme regulation and scrutiny fromboth the academic and professional communities. McKinney and Carlin (2004: 214)observe that “a presidential debate or debate series should be examined withinthe context of the overall campaign news narrative and is best viewed as an ongo-ing media drama performed in three acts”. They are an essential source for politi-cal learning, may have an impact on image evaluations (McKinney and Carlin2004), and clearly falls within the domain of political public relations. The inclu-sion of event planning, management, and execution in political public relations isalso consistent with the relationship cultivation and management approach cham-pioned by Ledingham (2011), who argues that the field involves more than justmessaging.

Political speeches, though clearly a communication activity, also can beviewed as events. They are used both for campaigning (e.g., in the form of stumpspeeches) and governance (e.g., the State of the Union). The planning and execu-tion of speeches are complex, but offer a germane tool for reaching large groupsin a mediated or unmediated setting. Research suggests that speeches can be effec-tive for agenda-setting, increasing political knowledge, and stimulating supportfor a cause, policy, or candidate (Eshbaugh-Soha 2011; Kiousis and Strömbäck2010). For example, U.S. presidential speeches have been shown to be an essentialpart of the public relations apparatus of the White House (Eshbaugh-Soha andPeake 2011; Kernell 2007). Organizationally, the infrastructure for presidential pub-lic relations activities in the United States is quite intricate and includes the Officeof Communication, Press Office, and the Office of Public Liaison.

2.4 Crisis management

Beyond event management, another primary area of political public relations iscrisis communication and management. While all types of organizations andgroups face crises, the management of this process within the realm of politicalpublic relations is somewhat unique. Among the ways it differs are in terms ofcrisis managers, crisis types, crisis communication constraints, and definitions ofsuccess (Coombs 2011). The locus of management of crises in political public rela-



tions falls into four broad groups: politicians, bureaucrats, elected agencies, andbureaucratic agencies. Thus, the variation of responsibility can shift from the indi-vidual to organizational level. In addition, differences arise as to whether the indi-vidual or agency is appointed or elected.

Perhaps the most important difference with respect to crisis management andcrisis communication in politics and the corporate sector is that in politics, manycrises are actively sponsored or even manufactured by political opponents. Whilecrises in the corporate sector occur and may have their origins outside as well aswithin the organization, in politics, both competitors and the media have an activeinterest in sponsoring frames that suggest that a political organization or its repre-sentatives is facing major problems and that these constitute a crisis or even ascandal (see also the chapter by Stanyer). This may hold particularly true forincumbent governments and during election campaigns, because of the increasedscrutiny governments are facing and that all political actors face in the run-up toelections. In contrast, most businesses are not continuously in the public eye, theircompetitors are seldom actively trying to bring them down outside of the realm ofthe commercial marketplace, and the threshold for what is perceived of and treatedas a crisis or scandal in the media is significantly higher.

Another important difference in crisis communication in the corporate andpolitical spheres is that fiscal forces are less influential with regard to politicalcrises. This may influence crisis response strategies, and for example lead to agreater use of an apology response when communicating with affected citizens andstakeholders. In terms of defining successful crisis management, political publicrelations effectiveness would be measured by the extent to which the four groupsof crisis managers mentioned above are able to retain their positions eitherthrough reappointment or reelections. This contrasts with the definition of crisismanagement success in the corporate sector being measured through financialindicators. The timing of how imminent job stability may decline is thought tohave a direct impact on the speed of response during a political crisis. In brief,politicians and bureaucrats are more likely to issue quick responses for crisesduring election years or at points when reappointment decisions are made(Coombs 2011).

2.5 Evaluation management

Another important topic of significant interest in the general public relations litera-ture, and consequently in the domain of political public relations, concerns evalu-ation and assessment. In brief, such work concentrates on how public relationsactivities contribute to advancing the overall mission of an organization. Whenapplied to political public relations, the question of effectiveness becomes morecomplicated because effectiveness needs to be thought of beyond the organiza-tional level to also include normative implications. In particular, organizational



effectiveness of political public relations efforts can be viewed as strategic whilethose at the societal and political system level can be thought of as normative. Atendency in early public relations research and practice for measuring effective-ness was simply in terms of message outputs resulting in media coverage andpublicity (Hon 1998). Both scholars and professionals have recognized that thisapproach is problematic because it does not measure effectiveness in terms ofoutcomes for stakeholders and therefore keeps public relations at a tactical level.In a political public relations context, movement to the strategic level in terms ofassessment can be conceptualized as winning an election, getting a piece of legis-lation passed, recruiting volunteers for a political movement, preventing regula-tion, and so forth.

Assessment at the normative level is distinctive because of implications fordemocracy and political participation, since political public relations strategiesand tactics that might be effective at the organizational level might simultaneouslyhave negative normative consequences on the societal level. Normative questionsrelated to democracy or society, as a whole, may not be as critical for other arenasof public relations. Some examples of assessment at the normative level includeimpacts on voter turnout levels, the range of opinions expressed in the market-place of ideas, and providing access to different constituencies as a part of thepolitical process. It is significant that most research considering evaluation inpolitical public relations is focused on the strategic level. As such, an opportunityfor future research at the normative level is needed to build this area of politicalpublic relations scholarship (see also the chapters by Kepplinger and by Janduraand Friedrich).

2.6 Digital communication

A key area of both general and political public relations theory and practice isrelated to different channels of communication, such as radio, television andnewspapers, free as opposed to paid communication, or mass-targeted as opposedto micro-targeted channels of communication. Perhaps particularly important andan emerging domain of political public relations involves digital communicationfor efforts such as fund-raising, recruiting volunteers, and connecting with voters.Digital communication activities have quickly become a central area of focus forpublic relations professionals because of their conversational and dialogic nature(Hendricks and Denton 2010). Contemporary political public relations research hasunderscored the need to better understand the role of digital communications andsocial media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as mobile commu-nications such as text messages. The use of these campaign communications hasrisen dramatically in recent elections across the world (Woolley, Limperos, andOliver 2010). Unlike traditional strategies and tactics, these are heralded as innova-tive because of their potential to promote dialogue and conversation, thereby lead-



ing to enhanced relationships between organizations and their major constituen-cies (Levenshus 2010; Reber and Kim 2006) (see also the chapters by Pfetsch andEsser and by Wolling and Emmer).

Illustrating this, Sweetser’s (2011) analysis of digital communication in politi-cal public relations outlines a framework for understanding the role of online mes-sages by considering their uses by politicians/campaigns, voters/constituencies,and elected/appointed officials. This encompasses their influence for both cam-paigning and governing. In highlighting their noteworthy qualities, she writes that“the personal, interactive, and instant elements of digital communication make ita unique medium through which to communicate. Underlying each approach isthe goal of the campaign to strengthen the relationship with target publics”(Sweetser 2011: 296).

Citizen use of digital communication tools can vary from sending emails tolocal politicians regarding a neighborhood concern to viewing archived speecheson YouTube during political campaigns. From a political public relations stand-point, perhaps the most crucial factor to recognize concerning digital communica-tion is the great power citizens and constituencies have to voice their perceptionsand mobilize themselves when compared to traditional communication channels.Social media, for example, have been successfully used to stimulate offline socialmovements and even contribute to regime change in governments, as illustratedby the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East in 2011 (Howard and Hussain, 2011) (seealso the chapter by Hertog and Zuercher).

Less pervasive though has been the use of technology to directly involve citi-zens in the policymaking process as might be conceptualized by models of directdemocracy (see also the chapter by Jandura and Friedrich). Logistical and securityconstraints have likely contributed to the lack of growth in this area. Nonetheless,the use of digital communication tools by politicians to support governance canbe used as a strategy to prompt citizen and external group interest on particularissues when direct communication and negotiations among politicians and partiesmay not be working. For example, the Obama administration has used targetedemails to registered users from his 2008 campaign as a means to generate publicand external pressure on Congress to support his priorities (Waite 2010). The strat-egy of “going public” is not new for the White House, but the channels throughwhich it occurs are new and demonstrate the value of understanding politicalpublic relations impact (Kernell 1997).

3 Conclusions and the futureIn summary, the brief overview of literature on political public relations in thischapter suggests that it is a noteworthy topic meriting scholarly attention for theo-retical development and empirical testing. Unlike many other areas of inquiry, it



draws on a rich interdisciplinary foundation from fields such as public relations,political science, political marketing, and political communication. While not anexhaustive list, this chapter examined major domains such as news managementand agenda building, issues management, event management, crisis communica-tion, assessment in political public relations, and digital communication.

As a conceptual tool for exploring these and other domains of political publicrelations, we suggest the continuum of stakeholder engagement explicated earlierholds great potential. To review, when stakeholder engagement in political publicrelations is low, then reputation quality offers a germane conceptual framework forstudying the interactions between political organizations and their stakeholders.Conversely, when stakeholder engagement is high, relationship quality is moreappropriate.

The most important shortcoming within the field of political public relationsresearch is that most public relations theories and concepts have seldom or neverbeen applied in the context of political public relations. To do so, and extendpolitical public relations to domains seldom investigated, should be the mostimportant priorities in future research on political public relations. Not only wouldit increase our understanding of political public relations per se; it would also testthe validity of public relations theories beyond traditional contexts. For example,rather limited attention has been given to the role of non-profit organizations,activism, government communication, and fundraising in political public rela-tions. Although left out from this chapter for reasons of space, we believe theseare fruitful arenas for future scholarship. We also believe that theories such as,for example, excellence theory, contingency theory, situational theory, and rela-tionship management theory have much more to offer in the context of politicalpublic relations, and needs to be explored and tested in political contexts (Ström-bäck, Mitrook, and Kiousis 2010).

In conclusion, it is hoped that this chapter can serve as a springboard forfuture research on the emerging area of political public relations research. Theexpansion of knowledge awaits.

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