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Whose News? Investigating Power Relations Between Journalists and Public Relations Practitioners

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Whose News? Investigating Power Relations Between Journalists and Public Relations Practitioners Whose News? Investigating Power Relations Between Journalists and Public Relations Practitioners Helen Sissons A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2014 School of Communication Studies Abstract The interactions between journalists and public relations practitioners directly and indirectly influence the news that citizens consume. In fact, this thesis finds the interdependence between public relations and journalism in New Zealand is extensive enough to call journalists and PRPs content siblings, together constructing the news we all rely on to make decisions about our lives. However, the relationship is not one of equals with evidence of media and information management clear in both the products of the relationship and the interactions between the two practices. Recent research has shown that at least half of all news stories are based wholly or in large part on public relations material and journalists are now reliant on such information to fill the “news hole”. The aim of this study was to examine the day-to-day practices of journalists and public relations practitioners in New Zealand and investigate in detail how interactions between them affected the news product, with a particular emphasis on which practice held the initiative. In order to achieve the research objective, the researcher applied innovative video-ethnographic methods and textual analysis to an examination of the practices and their outputs. The study took the perspective of the practitioners and the processes they employed in their everyday routines, which is an area underexplored by researchers. The study captured rare footage of journalists and PRPs interacting and through analysis of verbal and non-verbal actions, demonstrated journalists’ increasing difficulties in accessing information, even in publicly funded organizations, without going through public relations spokespeople. While it is known that this reliance is potentially damaging to the quality of the news product, the research provided new evidence that it may also be unhelpful at an individual level for journalists and PRPs, requiring them to be less than open and honest in their dealings. The findings showed that an over-reliance on public relations’ materials by journalists is weakening journalism’s traditional investigative role. Further, the power relations between journalists and public relations practitioners favour PRPs, allowing them opportunities deliberately to restrict media access to information in order to control the tone and/or the substance of the media coverage. What should be of concern to scholars, particularly scholars of public relations, is that the data presented here contradict what ii many in public relations would like to believe, that it is about creating understanding, building relationships and ensuring management is informed about and responsive to public opinion. What this study has demonstrated is that public relations is still about working on behalf of organisations to control what information is released, including the finessing of negative reports, the blocking of legitimate public debate and the influencing of public opinion for the good of the organisation. iii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures ............................................................................................................. vii List of Tables............................................................................................................... vii Attestation of Authorship .......................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... ix Chapter One: Introduction .............................................................................................. 2 1.0. Setting the context – a vexed relationship .......................................................... 2 1.1. Aims of the study – understanding the cultures .................................................. 3 1.2. Methodology – considering fieldwork ................................................................ 4 1.2.1. Critical discourse analysis ............................................................................ 6 1.3. Methods of data gathering ................................................................................... 7 1.3.1. Ethnography .................................................................................................. 8 1.3.2. Obtaining valid video data .......................................................................... 10 1.3.2.1. Gaining access - the criteria for inclusion............................................12 1.3.3. Interviews and texts .................................................................................... 13 1.4. Methods of data analysis ................................................................................... 15 1.4.1. Multimodal interaction analysis ................................................................. 16 1.4.2. Textual analysis ........................................................................................... 17 1.5. The significance of the study ........................................................................... 18 1.6. Structure of the thesis ....................................................................................... 20 1.7. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 23 Chapter Two: Literature Review .................................................................................. 25 2.0. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 25 2.1. The relationship in context: the media environment ......................................... 25 2.1.1. Journalism shrinking .................................................................................. 27 2.1.1.1. Reliance on information subsidies ...................................................... 28 2.1.2. Public relations growing ............................................................................ 31 2.1.2.1. Media relations .................................................................................... 33 2.1.2.1.1. Media relations and the digital age .............................................. 35 2.2. Approaches to journalism and media relations ................................................. 38 2.2.1. The fourth estate ......................................................................................... 39 2.2.2. Systems theory ........................................................................................... 43 2.2.2.1. Critical approach ................................................................................. 45 2.2.3. Public sphere .............................................................................................. 47 2.3. Relations between journalists and public relations practitioners.......................51 2.3.1. Information subsidies: News release research ........................................... 54 2.3.2. First wave of ethnographic studies ............................................................. 57 2.3.3. Second wave of ethnographic studies ........................................................ 60 2.4. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 63 Chapter Three: Journalism and public relations: A tale of two discourses ............... 65 3.0. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 65 3.1. Materials and method ........................................................................................ 67 3.1.1. The analytical procedure ............................................................................ 68 3.2. News report genre ............................................................................................ 69 3.3. Media release genre .......................................................................................... 72 3.4. Studying the transformations ............................................................................ 73 3.4.1. The National Piano Competition media release ......................................... 73 3.4.1.1. Generic structure .................................................................................. 75 3.4.1.2. Topic ................................................................................................ 77 3.4.1.3. Perspective ....................................................................................... 78 iv 3.4.1.4. Choice of sources ............................................................................. 79 3.4.1.5. Lexis ................................................................................................. 79 3.4.1.6. Promotional phrases that are reproduced in the news story .............. 80 3.4.2 The Neutrogena media release .................................................................... 81 3.4.2.1. Generic structure ................................................................................. 83 3.4.2.2. Topic ....................................................................................................
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