THE EVALUATION OF PUBLIC RELATIONS STRATEGIES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PORT HARCOURT”
THE EVALUATION OF PUBLIC RELATIONS STRATEGIES IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF PORT HARCOURT”
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The practice of public relations is as
old as civilization. As an aspect of communication which no man can do without.
Public relations is central to every human activity. The only unfortunate thing
about it is that not every one that has the privilege to relating with the
public possess the necessary knowledge and skill to do so. For this reasons,
the world of public relation has been thrown into more confusion than ever.
Public relation is the practice of
managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics. It is
often referred to as (PR), gains an organization or individual exposure to
their audience using topics of public interest, activities, campaign, news item
that do not require direct payment because public relations places exposure in
credible third- party outlets. (Cutlip, 1982). Ordinarily, public relations
would mean relationship with various organizational publics by means of
information. The objective therefore would be to achieve mutual understanding
with the publics so that the objective of the organization could be achieved.
Public relation is one of the
fundamental factors that determine the level of performance that is achieved by
an organization or institution within a given period. All definition and
concept do emphasize that the basic philosophy underling public relations
practice is that that people matter and the support of public opinion is of
prime importance in all sphere of public opinion (p.112).
Although standard explanations of what
public relations is the way professionals and non-professionals carry out their
business of relationship in the name of public relations leaves much to be
desired by many who know and value public relations.
According to Salu (1994), it is a
deliberate planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual
understanding and goodwill between an organization and its publics, but more to
this understanding is the fact that practice of public relation in an
organization or institution function. As a management function public relations
experts believe that the public relation executives or practitioner must be
allowed unlimited access to the deliberation of the decision making boards or
machinery of the decision practicing organization (P.24).
It also implies that the management of
such organization must be well informed and be made to support the basic
process of evaluating the attitudes of the publics identifying the attitudes of
the publics policies and procedures of the institution with public interest and
developing as well as executing programmes of action which will calm public
understanding and acceptance and goodwill.
Suffice it therefore to say that for
public relations to be practiced by a public relations to be practiced by an
organization or institution as a management function, the main function of
management must be brought to bear in the conception, processing and execution
of public relations programmes (p.35).
Brech
(1975) outlines the management function to include:
a. Planning:
i.e. determining courses of action
b. Organization:
Coordinating activities and resources.
c. Heading:
Motivating and managing employees.
d. Controlling:
Interacting meaningfully
e. Staffing:
Recruiting the right workforce.
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
Public relations is aimed at achieving
mutual understanding and is formed on the basis that people must be well taken
care of and to be treated right respect must certainly be given to the forces
of public opinion, therefore there has been a setback and failures may be as a
result of various factors ranging from poor managerial handling to poor public
relations management.
However the existence of many other
renowned organizations and institutions are faced with the problem related to
poor public relations practice. One way propaganda appear to be the must
commonly adopted public relation strategy by the institutions operating in the
Niger Delta region. This one sided approach will continue to full face-off
between them and the operations of other institution and unless more
appropriate strategies is adopted by the institutions, public relations will
not see the light of the day.
It is against this backdrop that the
study seeks to evaluate public relation strategies in the university of Port
Harcourt.
1.3 Objective
of the Study
The
following are the objective of the study:
1.
To determine the public relations
strategies adopted by the university of Port Harcourt.
2.
To ascertain the impact of public
relation strategies in the University of Port Harcourt.
3.
To determine the extent to which
these strategies have affected the institution.
1.4 Research
Questions
The
following research questions have been formulated to guide this study. They
are:
1.
What are the public relations
strategies adopted by the university of Port Harcourt?
2.
What are the benefit of public
relations strategies in the university of Port Harcourt?
3.
To what extent does the strategies
adopted affect the institutional growth?
1.5 Significance
of the Study
Public relations as was earlier
indicated as a sinc quonon for any institution or individual corporate body or
organization that seek goodwill, good image better understanding with people,
thus the study which seeks to evaluate public relations strategies in the
university of Port Harcourt should be of immense benefits to the management of
university of port Harcourt: the outcome of the study will be useful not only
to the institution but to the entire students
in evaluating the benefits of the public relations department, the
outcome of the study will also be of immense benefit to the public relations
practitioners who can apply the experiences from this study in their
consultancy effort with other institutions. The study will also act as a
resource material for further studies.
1.6 Scope
of the Study
The study is limited to the public
relations strategies in the university of Port Harcourt. The reason for this proximity
is to be able to control certain variables, for instance in meeting with the
respondents.
1.7 Limitations
of the Study
The researcher in the course of
carrying out this research faced a lot of challenges that almost worked against
the success of this study among the challenges were, finance which almost
worked against the success of this project but when the little fund was
minimize, the researcher overcome, time. The limited given for the submission
of the study almost impeded on the success of this study, but when dateline was
set, the researcher succeed; non-availability of relevant material also limited
the success of this study but when visited the library, interns and consult
experts the researcher overcome.
1.8 Definition of Terms
For
easy understanding of the study the following terms will be defined.
1. Public
relations is the act and science of analyzing trends, predicting, their
consequences counseling organization leaders and implementing planned
programmes of action which will serve both the organization’s and the public
interest.
2. Strategy:
Strategy is defined as a plan that is intended to achieve a particular purpose
or as the process of planning something or putting a plan into operation in a
skillful way.
3. Evaluate:
To evaluate means to form an opinion of the amount, value or quality of
something after thinking about it carefully.
4. Publics:
A group of people with which an organization communicates with: example;
opinion leaders, neighbours, consumers, suppliers.
5. Organization:
A group of people who form a business together inorder to achieve a particular
aim
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