Public Relations Research In Western Countries

Public Relations industry has being developing and growing rapidly in our country,the establishment of public relations discipline is increasingly mature,but compared with western countries,there are still many shortcomings.Accompanied by the 21 st century is the aggravating of social risk,the comprehensive development of network communication technology,as well as the rapid expansion of globalization,the academic research and industry development of public relations around the world worth exploring according to this interweaved complex environment.In this paper,we take content analysis and text analysis to study papers from Public Relations Review and Journal of Public Relations Research from 2001 to 2015.We adopt and improve the classified table form Ferguson and Sallot,which clarified three attributes and many research topics from the papers.And the aim is to do a complete and comprehensive analysis of the study of public relations in past 15 years,complementing the previous study results,as well as providing guidance for domestic theory research and practical activities.Through the analysis of 1402 valid samples,the results show that there has been steady growth in public relations research literature in the past 15 years,the research topic is increasingly diversifying,with the applied research dominated.Through the analysis of 1402 valid samples,the results show that there has been steady growth in public relations research literature in the past 15 years,the research topic is increasingly diversifying,with the applied research dominated;organization communication,study of new communication technology,study of public relations industry,international public relations and critical/cultural research are the most popular research topics in the three kinds of papers;scholars from America dominate the field;the last but not least,critical research of public relations mainly involves four sub-topics: critical cultural study,postmodernist research,sociological issues and political economy critics;new communication technology research,strategic communication research and critical public relations research are important growing research topics in the future.