Open AccessOnline Pressrooms: Journalists’ Expectations from Public Relations Practitioners Concerning Online Media Relations
Author(s) -
Ümit Atabek,
Özlem Alikılıç
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
romanian journal of communication and public relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.175
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2344-5440
pISSN - 1454-8100
DOI - 10.21018/rjcpr.2020.3.309
Subject(s) - credibility , media relations , public relations , political science , structuring , turkish , sample (material) , focus group , sociology , philosophy , linguistics , chemistry , chromatography , anthropology , law
Online pressrooms are important for public relations practitioners when improving their media relations in a rapidly developing new media ecosystem. This paper aims to provide an insight into the journalists’ preferences when retrieving information from online pressrooms. In a mixed design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from Turkish journalists. As the first step of the study, a focus group with 11 journalists was conducted to understand what the expectations of journalists of online pressrooms are, and how they verbally express these demands. These qualitative data were then used for the structuring of a survey questionnaire that was applied to a sample of 155 journalists. Results indicate that journalists were frustrated by the current state of online pressrooms. Journalists asserted that information-rich and skilfully designed pressrooms help increase the corporations’ credibility. Journalists designated visuals and news archives as the most important contents for an online pressroom. It is also found that journalists trust more an organization if they receive fast answers from an authorized media relations person. Furthermore, our cluster analysis revealed that junior journalists with more new media practice have more trust in organizations with successful online media relations.