Final Post

This week in class we focused on studying for the exam and preparing draft two of the final project. This is the last blog post for the semester. I looked at a couple of my classmates blogs to comment about. Many of them were very interesting and informative. The two blogs I looked at came from my classmates, Alyssa and Meagan. 


Alyssa blogged about quantitative research with a focus on the fast food industry. I thought the subject of her blog was prevalent to the events occurring in the media lately. The events include the discrepancies over California taking the toys out of happy meals. When I read Alyssa's blog I thought of the news stories about the current fast food scandal. Alyssa chose an article that explains quantitative research in the industry, "analysis is a marketing research function that shows how certain fast food restaurants compare with their competitors on sales, service and even product quality." Survey research is important when collecting customer feedback. Alyssa shares a website with useful tips on how to get people to fill out surveys. The article says to give people free food to fill out fast food surveys. What a great idea! I enjoyed Alyssa's blog filled with quality useful information. 


Meagan's blog was interesting because its had information about Christiano Rinaldo, a famous soccer player. After playing in this summer's World Cup, Rinaldo successfully completed an experiment to improve his game. Rinaldo realized the new ball had changed. Meagan used this change as the dependent variable in an experiment. What a creative way of thinking! I liked this post because it turned an everyday example into a learned experiment. Rinaldo experimented with his new ball, The Jabulani, to improve his shots. 

Experimental Research in PR

Experimental research is the topic of this week's class. We learn to conduct an experiment there must be a control group and an experimental group. The survey we took in class was used as a pretest and a posttest to an experiment on students ease in mathematics. I thought I was taking a survey about investor relations. The experiment was successful because everyone in the class didn't know they were placed into two different groups. No one knew the posttest surveys were different. The instructor didn't know who was in the control group or who was in the experimental group either. This is called a double blind study. Students gave truthful answers without knowledge of the true need for the experiment. The experiment successfully retrieved students' insight.

There are many experiments conducted within public relations. PR News blogs about The White Shirts Experiment conducted by Harvard University. Diane Schwartz from PR News blogs about this project that was shared with attendees of the Specialized Information Publishers Association at a conference she recently attended. Her enthusiasm about the experiment encourage others to watch the video.

The developers of the experiment are Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. The study uses social media to involve the audience in a fun experiment. The experiment involves the audience to watch a YouTube video in which six people pass a basketball around. There are three people in white shirts and three people in black shirts. While the audience watches, they are to count the number of passes made by the people in the white shirts. I encourage everyone to watch this video! Our class watched this video during an in-class presentation but if you haven't see it--watch it! Don't read on until you do!

Most people do not see the gorilla jumping around the middle of the people passing the basketball around. The experiment revels a couple qualities about people. People don't realize what is going on around them. Most people don't know how much they are missing until they watch this video. The gorilla is so obvious after you watch the video a second time. People are so caught up in the common responsibilities of everyday life that they fail to pay attention to surroundings.

Walking around the QU campus, I see many student robots texting on their cell phones failing to look up to see where they are going. It has come to my attention that people are so reliant on technology that it is making our culture like robots or zombies. This experiment proves that people are overlooking everyday experiences. I think this change in behavior has a lot to do with the increase of technology. People rely on smart phones to occupy and computers to network, research, and email. Most people are caught up in the many forms of technology and neglect the real world. Their concentration is on what is due immediately. In this competitive world today everything is immediate--one click of a mouse and the whole world is informed. It's no wonder most people in this experiment didn't see the gorilla!

Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris create a successful experiment yielding useful results. "This experiment has become one of the best known experiments in psychology," said Chabris and Simons. "It is described in most introductory textbooks and is featured in more than a dozen science museums. It has been used by everyone from preachers and teachers to corporate trainers and terrorist hunters, not to mention characters on the TV show C.S.I., to help explain what we see and what we don't see," explain Chabris and Simons. They came up with this experiment to explore the limits of human intuition. Successfully executed, The White Shirts Experiment points out people's reactions.

This experiment is useful to public relations practitioners. PR professionals use this information to grab attention of consumers. It is important to know changes in human behavior to bring awareness about companies or products. The enlightening experiment sets in reality. Schwartz blogs about the experiment, "So next time you’re at that cocktail party or in a meeting with key influencers, be on the lookout for the big, hairy, sometimes invisible 800-pound gorilla."

Survey Research

 This week's lecture discusses survey research, one of the most popular research methods in the public relations industry. Popular both in the academic world as well as in the professional world, surveys are often found in academic journals like PR Review to provide insight on a research topic. It is a cheap and easy way to analyze data and get responses right away. PR News is the information resource for news, research, analysis, business opportunities, market trends, etc. in PR and communications. Most of the articles I blog about from PR News base data from surveys.

PR Newswire features an article discussing an insurance survey. The article titled, State Farm Life Insurance Survey: Despite Importance, 74 Percent of Couples Rarely or Never Talk About Life Insurance, showcases people's thoughts about life insurance. The survey, conducted by KRC Research , shows most people find life insurance extremely important and a top priority. However a majority of people don't like talking about the subject.

I could see why most people would not want to talk about this issue. The survey says,"the key reasons for avoiding the topic include stress over daily economic pressures and concern that a partner might react negatively – especially in the event of a job loss."People avoid confrontation so the survey research method is the best way to find out these hidden opinions. 

If I was the public relations researcher for this topic, then survey research method would be the tool to use. Surveys are the best way to find out information that people fail to converse about. Similarly, it is beneficial to get a prospective from a large group of people.

State Farm Insurance struggles to get information out of consumers about life insurance. "This survey shows that, at a time when couples should be sitting down to discuss how to prepare for the unexpected, far too many remain silent," said Joe Monk, CEO of State Farm Life Insurance. However despite people's reluctance to speak about the issue, 62 % of men and women think life insurance is most important today due to the uncertainties of the recent economic downturn.

Overall, KRC Research chose wisely when selecting the survey research method. It is a wise decision to use survey research to explore thoughts and feelings when people don't want to talk about it. Most people in the survey said life insurance is an awkward conversation so using a survey to get more information is a safe bet. Surveys stick to being the most popular research method in the industry because it is the best means to find hidden feelings and responses.

Post on classmates blogs

This week we tackle our peers blogs and get a glimpse into the minds of my fellow classmates. After reading a few well written blog entries of my intelligent public relations classmates, I focused on two entries that I had no knowlegde about. Lindsey talks about her internship at NBC News and Charlie talks about the medical field. 


I read Lindsey's blog entry on qualitative research. She shared a personal experience that was very helpful in defining qualitative research. She said it, "Attempts to uncover information to provide a basis for future research as well as for communications insights and prompts. This includes observing what people say and do, their meaning, comprehension and progress." I thought this definition was well put and thourough. Her internship at NBC News required her to listen to viewers through a hotline. Viewers called in to express their feelings about MSNBC programming. I could imagine the characters she must of had to deal with! Her experience with the viewers allowed her to see the effective research. NBC uses qualitative research to estimate the demand for TV commercial time during the upfront market, a time when TV networks sell a majority of their on-air advertising. I was happy to see a concept learned from class used by a highly respected company like NBC. Their collected data helps improve the company. NBC finds more information about where their money should go. Information about advertising spending in TV, print, radio, billboards and such is vital for the TV network NBC. 


Charlie Niland's blog on health care and medical PR interested me. He wrote about the increased amount of qualitative research in health care. He provided a good definition of qualitative research. He said it is, "the gathering of data through non-numerical information which investigates the "why" and "how" of a certain topic. " Niland asks how can qualitative research answers clinical questions? Qualitative research in the medical field doesn't provide answers to many  questions such as "is the design of the study appropriate?" Clinical experience is necessary when identifying scientific results. I would not be able to define most scientific terms found in medical research so it is a good thing that people who have a medical background conduct such research. However, people can do not often rely on personal experience as means to make decisions in the medical field. Charlie thinks that in certain situations an experienced person can be helpful in the medical field. This makes the issue of this type of research controversial. 


I loved reading these blogs well written by my peers. Its a great exercise to get to know my classmates better. 

Qualitative Research and PR NEWS

Qualitative research is extremely helpful in public relations. This type of research helps PR practitioners gain insight on people's attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. In order to do qualitative research, a PR professional needs to decide on the appropriate type of qualitative research. Will observation work well or should one use ethnographic research? In other words, should the researcher stay out of the research experiment or take part in the experiment as a participant? 


As we learned in lecture, there are many types of observation methods. Latent method gains insight on people's attitudes while manifest measures results. Participant observation requires the researcher to be part of the issue and non participant observation the researcher observes without getting involved. Structure method is research studied before and unstructured is new research. 


An article in PR News, More Than 30 Social Media Topics Headlined the PRSA Conference, But Influential Traditional Media Still Has Its Day observes the 2010 PRSA Conference held this past Sunday in Washington, D.C. PR News writer, Scott Van Camp, informs the reader that 1,900 people attended the event for many informative sessions. In order to write this article someone had to of been observing to calculate the number of people present. The article summarizes some important sessions in a few paragraphs. 


The highlighted sessions in the PRSA conference were Save the PR Industry: Support Traditional Media, PR Knowledge, Skills & Abilities Needed in 2015, and Speechwriting and Social Media. The conference urged attendees to continue to use print media. Social media is not in total domination. PR News says, "57% of the U.S. population—or 171 million people," still use print. I didn't expect to see more than half of the population still reading the daily newspaper.  Sharon Geltner, president of Froogle PR, advises communicators that students are still majoring in print journalism. This is a good sign for newspapers because it is not dead yet! 


The skills needed in 2015 is the most beneficial piece of information I read in the article. PR News says, "A new PRSA survey of more than 1,000 PR professionals finds that the skills that will be needed most by 2015 will be social media, crisis communications and reputation management." Although print media isn't dead, social media remains the newest up and coming form of communication. Students, teachers, businesses, and more need social media to stay connected. I was happy to see crisis communication because that is my next course of study at Quinnipiac University . Also, writing and listening are good skills to posses when communicating with social media. "Writing has always been the No. 1 request from companies searching for PR executives," said Lisa Ryan, senior VP  of of communications recruiting firm Heyman Associates. Executives want people to write well. This is a good skill to have in any career. 


The speech writing and social media session offered tips on how to reach target audience on Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets. LinkedIn Polls can provide communicators with research on people's concerns and issues. GET MOVIN! Use this tool in your next presentation. Instant audience polling is a great way to add social media to a meeting. The best part of this online tool is that it is cheap and easy. Furthermore, more people are using Twitter in their presentations to allow audience members to tweet their thoughts during the presentation. Twitter can also be used for research by using the search bar. If you search for a topic, then you will find all conversations about the topic. Social media is so important to know. There is so many new tools to use that it is imperative for communicators to keep on top of new media. 


The writer of this article most likely used qualitative research to report on the PRSA conference. Whether or not the reporter participated in the conference is not known. I would guess Scott Van Camp was sitting in the audience actively participating in the conference while observing the audience and speakers in Washington, D.C. 

Comment on classmates blogs

This week I will comment on other classmates blogs. After reading through many blog posts, I found two that really stood out to me. I connected with Katie's Blog and Devon's Blog because they both talked about social media, a topic that is so popular right now. The social media buzz has even started taking over the entertainment industry with the release of the movie The Social Network.

Katie talked about social media. I agree with her ideas. Social media has indeed taken over our lives. And fast! There is a growing trend of checking Facebook statuses and Twitter updates worldwide. It is a beneficial way for companies to connect with their demographic. Social media provides non profits with inexpensive affective communication. I never thought of all the added benefits that social media has given our society. Not only is it fast communication but it gives non profits a free way to get in touch with people.

Devon said unobtrusive research is easily obtained through social media. I knew social media can market products efficiently by placing a face to the company or person. I follow many celebrities on Twitter and it is interesting to see their tweets. I see them in a different light by following them on Twitter. It definitely helps to give celebrities and companies good PR. Celebrities seem more down to earth. Devon proved that research can be done through social media. I never considered social media as a form of research but it can be done!

Blog Post 5 Unobtrusive Research

This week our class discussed different types of Unobtrusive research. This method of research studies an issue from a distance without influencing the process. It examines records, events, characteristics, and behaviors. The two types of unobtrusive research our class focuses on is content analysis and indirect measures of research. Unobtrusive research is strongly needed in public relations in order to conduct a good campaign and measure the effectiveness of the company.

An interesting article in PR News sheds light on how to approach current communication trends. I found the article titled, "Yesterday's PR Pros, Today's Chief Content Officers," extremely beneficial and informative. The author, Bob Rumpza, argues that PR professionals should take authority in tackling the challenges of marketing convergences because it is the PR people that communicate news well. After all,"We know how to tell the story—and tell it in ways that get results," says Rumpza. He gives readers pointers when marketing tactics such as social media, advertising, and digital PR compete for the best way to reach an audience.

Tip number one says to "Keep up with consumers’ rapidly changing use of media." To engage readers, public relations practitioners should use relevant content in places the audiences will see the most. A study done by ARAnet inc., proves communication methods are rapidly changing. Most people in the company's target market are searching the Internet to find brand information because they trust online opinions. What I found most interesting is the people in the study are more influenced by online information than by a group's belief. They also prefer websites loaded with information rather than a banner ad for purchasing. Thus it is important to conduct content analysis research to learn about competitors methods, the media, and the target audience to successfully keep up with these changing trends. Check out the You Tube video at the top to see just how fast our world is changing!

Tip number two reads, "Incorporate new content tools that combine the best of PR, advertising and digital." The best way to reach an audience is to use a mixture of PR, advertising, and digital. Public relations tactics focus on credibility, building relationships, and reaching target audiences. Advertising uses catchy slogans and branding to get attention. Digital and online tactics are useful when measuring the company's success and providing online photos and logos.

ARAcontent 2.0 is a matte company that distributes to top media websites and provides PR practitioners with branded content and good PR results. Looking into this tool, I found it attains surpassing amounts of media coverage by publishing a targeted story around the world. In 1996, ARAnet first created a print version of this amazing tool but as times are a changin' the company came out with a new digital version now known as the evolution of PR branded content. How easy!

The last tip advises PR people to, "Select tools that provide measurement." Public relations practitioners need to measure the success of the company. This goes further than recording the number of clicks a website receives. The article recommends PR people dig deeper, work harder to discover the traffic on a client's site. Overall this will tell the value of the marketing tactics. One common way measure success is by conducting unobtrusive research to analyze available records or behaviors. It is cheap and easy to do. It is the only way to examine large-scale trends.

As PR practitioners, we cannot overlook the many uses for Unobtrusive research. This method of research helps PR people keep up with changing communication trends by learning about what the competition and target markets are doing. Unobtrusive research methods can be used to study client website attendances as means to determine company success. As PR News informs us, the best way to reach an audience is to keep up with public relations tactics, advertising branding, and digital media.