Measurement in Public Relations

Abstract

Although public relations has been an established field for more than 100 years, standardized measures have only recently been introduced. In an attempt to make public relations practitioners more accountable and to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of public relations in an era of downsizing, scholars and practitioners have called for more rigorous, reliable, valid, and quantifiable measures for evaluation. In addition, the contribution of public relations is also being measured in terms of the relationships built between an organization and its public. This chapter will review those measures and discuss the development and usage of online surveys and measurements in public relations. Finally, the chapter will conclude with a discussion of the future of measurement in public relations.