"PR-ization of news and the new media"

Is it more possible for PR-ized news to appear on the websites of media

conglomerates or on solely web based mediums?
Overview
This paper is a research observation on the current production trends within the
media industry. More specifically, in the following pages I will try to spot the way and
the degree that PR influences the news agenda of the new media. I intend to answer
the basic questions that a student or professional of the communication field may
ask in a first attempt to explore the 'PR-ization' of the new media. I will do this by
trying to answer the five 'Ws' and 'How' questions.
In order to do this, we need first to compare the new media with the traditional
media, to find any similarities and differences between them in terms of ideologies
and political economy to finally meet the production practices and the final products.
We should identify the ownerships' roles and how technology influences the
practices in a digital newsroom. Then we will be able to identify the basic elements
that constitute the different forms of PR-ization in the new media. The report is
divided into four sections. The first section introduces the term of PR-ization and
illustrates the theoretical framework that I use to analyse the findings of the
research. In the second section is the actual case study along with the analytical
techniques and research. The third section discusses and analyzes the findings of the

research while the fifth concludes with some reflections on the findings and makes
some assumptions and suggestions.

Contents

Pages
Introduction

Case Study

Analyses

10

Conclusion

12

Bibliography

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Introduction
In my opinion it is of a great importance for a communication student or professional
to have a clear understanding of the current production practices in the news industry.
That is why this work is concerned with the external influences that are able to alter
the content and flow of the news agenda; in our case PR is one of these influences that
lead to the PR-ization of news. PR-ization thesis is the professional state where PR
attitudes are incorporated into journalisms mind-set and where PR-biased material is
published without sourcing (Moloney, 2010, p. 152, cited in Moloney, et al. 2013,).
By this research I want to identify if, why and how PR penetrates the new media and
which are the differences or similarities of this penetration between an independent

website and a website that belongs to a media organization. But for the purpose of the
research we have to take into account all these factors which allow the Public Relations
to invade a digital news room and consequently affect the news content.
So, the best way to identify these factors is by studying the political economy of the
new media. For example we cannot overlook the environment in which the journalists
operate; While the number of journalists in the national press has remained fairly
static, they now produce three times as much copy as they did twenty years ago
(Lewis et al, 2008, pp. 6-7, cited in Karen, F-W., 2013). An outcome of this pressure on
workloads is that journalists are increasingly deskbound. This means less time to
develop contacts, less original investigation, and more reactive journalism by way of
writing up agency copy or PR material. Consequently, many journalists are now
processors of news rather than generators (Karen and Stuart 2013). Well, will it be too
risky to assume that the above situation has been also established in the new media
but is deeply-rooted because of the fast paced nature of the medium? I personally
believe that desk-bound journalism is more possible to occur in a digital news room
rather in a traditional one, but there are opposite voices to my argument. For example,
Pavlik believes a networked world will compel journalists to be even more attentive
to detail and accuracy because feedback can be swift, hard-hitting and self-correcting.
While see the internet as a fearsome challenge to the news business, Pavlik views
technological change as an opportunity to slow if not stop the medias long decline in
credibility and audience (Pavlik cited in Maier, Scott R). In addition to the specific
practices in a news room we should also identify which are the external factors that

influence the political, organizational and practical identity of a medium. Riffe (2008,
p. 240) argues that Patterned reliance on expert sources for science news falls within
the media routines circles. Changes in ownership of a media company would be
identified as an influence occurring at the organizational level. Bowing to advertiser
pressure not to cover something is an extreme example of extramedia influence. In
addition to these influences that Riffe presents we should also take into account the
influence that technology has on journalism, particularly Aeron Davis argues that:
While technology has been responsible for many savings, it is also likely that journalist
workloads have increased considerably. Davis supports his argument by citing Tunstall
who in 1996 estimated that Between the 1960s and the 1990s the amount of words
written and space filled by each national newspaper journalist doubled and perhaps
trebled. Davis states that the current situation in the information industry has
affected the way journalists did their research and that investigative journalism is in a
decline. Davis says that the decline in the traditional journalism research has opened
the way to PRPs to become a major source of news.
Behind the media interest in a few key spin doctors, there has developed an
extensive and well-resourced profession that services a wide range of source
organisations. In contrast, the news-gathering resources of journalists have declined.
As news organisations have been forced to make cuts while simultaneously increasing
output, so their dependency on PR information studies has grown. On the one hand,
this suggests that public relations are having a stronger influence on the profession of
journalism. On the other, it might also be concluded that traditional hierarchies of

media-source relations are being altered significantly in the new PR-saturated media
environment.
Except of new practices for journalists, technological innovations brought also new
consumption and production trends in the media market; Berger, et al. (2012) states
that For over a decade, journalists, journalism educators and journalism scholars have
been occupied with participatory journalism. New media technologies have
triggered this development. The most common understanding of participatory
journalism could be formulated as the idea that digital technologies enable the
audience to get involved in making and disseminating news.

Although the above theories and facts derive mostly from studies on the traditional
media; we can assume that the same happen in the new media. But in order for a
media scholar to be able to measure the amount of PR-ization in the new media
content ; he or she have firstly to examine and understand the political economy of
the new media, but as Mansell (2004) argues There is a very substantial tendency in
studies of new media to emphasize the abundance and variety of new media products
and services, and to concentrate on promoting access with little regard for the
associated structures and processes of power that are embedded within them.
Thus, in the following pages I will use two different websites as an example in order to
find out how the political economy of a new medium can influence the news content.

Case study
To begin with, we need to know some background information regarding the
organization and the ownership of the two mediums that we want to examine.
The Yorkshire Times
The Yorkshire Times is an exclusively digital presentation of news and views from
across the county. It includes Local, Business, Arts and Lifestyle news and events, so
you can advertise alongside relevant content that will attract the customers you want
to reach (The Yorkshire Times, 2014)
The Times
The Times and The Sunday Times are two of the worlds best-known and respected
media titles. Established over 200 years ago we are the most trusted commercial news
brand in the UK and continue to lead the market in the quality and depth of our
journalism. We invest in both our journalism and brand marketing to remain the No.1
news publisher in the UK and provide audiences with a diversity of channels - engaging
with them whenever and wherever they choose. At News UK, our focus is on providing
the best service to advertiser brands and proving return on investment in Times media
products (New Commercial).
It also worth mentioning that the News UK is part of the News Corp; News Corp is the
largest news and information services provider in the English speaking world
comprising leading newspapers in each of the US, Australia and the UK; integrated
marketing services; digital real estate services; book publishing; digital education; as
well as sports programming and pay-TV distribution in Australia (News Corp).

For the purpose of the research I use the Quantitative Content Analysis (QCA)
Content analysis is a method that may be used with either qualitative or quantitative
data; furthermore, it may be used in an inductive or deductive way. Which of these is
used is determined by the purpose of the study. If there is not enough former
knowledge about the phenomenon or if this knowledge is fragmented, the inductive
approach is recommended (Lauri & Kyngas 2005 cited in Elo and Kyngas 2007).
Because of limited space, the research concentrates mostly on the number of times
that specific types of news sources and specific types of news content appear on the
websites. Thus, the findings will be placed in the appropriate category depending
either on their source or content, or both.
In order to keep the research as consistent and specific as possible and the findings
representative, I use only one section of the websites; particularly the Trending on
YT (The Yorkshire Times) and Latest UK News (The Times). Both sections contain
the latest and most viewed news from the UK. In its Trending on YT The Yorkshire
Times contained eight stories while the Latest UK News from The Times had five
stories.
The Findings

*Type of Source

The Yorkshire Times

Exclusive

The Times

Reportage

2, 6

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Republication

1, 5, 7, 8

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Mostly Press Release

1, 5, 7, 8

Part Press Release

*Type of News
Politics/Public Sector

2, 4, 5

Celebrity/Entertainment/Crime/Sports

2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8

1, 3, 4

Science/Education/Technology/Health

*The table above is divided into two sections; one is the Type of Source which refers
to the way that the story appeared on the website and the other is the Type of News
which has to do with the content of the story (Politic, Entertainment, Science etc.)
Regarding the analysis of the findings I use a variation of the conventional data
analysis methodology. Data analysis starts with reading all data repeatedly to achieve
immersion and obtain a sense of the whole (Tesch, 1990) as one would read a novel.
Then, data are read word by word to derive codes (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Morgan,
1993; Morse & Field, 1995) by first highlighting the exact words from the text that
appear to capture key thoughts or concepts. Next, the researcher approaches the text
by making notes of his or her first impressions, thoughts, and initial analysis. As this
process continues, labels for codes emerge that are reflective of more than one key
thought. These often come directly from the text and are then become the initial

coding scheme. Codes then are sorted into categories based on how different codes
are related and linked. These emergent categories are used to organize and group
codes into meaningful clusters (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Patton, 2002) (Hsieh, H. &
Shannon, S.E. 2005). As I said before, because of limited space the research focuses
more on some basic observations that emerge by looking on the findings; and that is
why I said that I use a variation of the conventional data analysis. For example, instead
of read the news stories word by word in order to produce meanings and codes, I
copied and pasted different parts of the stories in a search engine with the aim to
reach the initial source that the story was produced. As long as I had found the initial
source I was able also to categorize the content of the story, by reading the story and
identifying the author; if for example the author was a political correspondent then
probably the story fitted in the politics section of the table.

Analysis
It would be logical to believe that PR-ized news is more possible to be published on
the website of a media organisation or conglomerate; and this because such
organisations dominate not only on the media market but also on a variety of
professions in the marketing and communication field. In addition to that; investors
and entrepreneurs from different markets are usually hold shares in some of the media
conglomerates. Thus, we can assume that these kinds of media are more vulnerable
to the invasion of PR because of the tight relationships between the medium and the
market.

But, as the case study revealed; at least on this kind of media, the number of PR-ized
news was clearly higher on the independent website in comparison with the website
that belongs to a media organisation.
As we can see in the table some stories fit in multiple categories. For example, story
number eight from The Yorkshire Times (YT) appears in the Mostly Press Release and
Republication sections while story five from The Times appear both in the
Republication and Reportage sections. The last example exists in every story from
The Times; and although the stories were written differently and the only similarity
was the topic of the story, it would be very interesting to examine these texts more
carefully in order to see if PR material is embedded in the text as Public relations
activity particularly the more sophisticated kind may leave few traces (Baistow 1985
cited in Lewis 2008 et al.)
In terms of the type of news, it is worth to mention that although the YT it is not a
gossip website, only one story out of eight was placed in the Politics category and
was neither an exclusive or a reportage; while The Times had three stories out of five.
Only the YT had an exclusive story but this was an article written by the health editor
and not an actual reportage.
While The Times had maintained the balance between the Politics/Public Sector and
Celebrity/Entertainment/Crime/Sports stories; from the other side the YT had six
stories in the Celebrity/Entertainment/Crime/Sports category and as we said before
only one in the Politics/Public Sector. This could be due to limited funding and thus,
the medium is forced to published stories which are more attractive for the reader and

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easily produced; as in most of the cases Celebrity/Entertainment/Crime/Sports stories

come directly and ready to use from the PR agencies and professionals. So may be, this
is why the YT had one story that was part of a press release and four stories which
were mostly or solely a press release product and republication. In addition to that YT
used these press releases without investigate the stories further, and again; may be
this is the outcome of limited funding that result to desk-bound journalism and under
sourced news rooms.
The above situation could be explained further by citing Lewis; An important
theoretical intervention in the debates around sources is Oscar Gandys (1982) notion
of an information subsidy. Gandy argues that PR practitioners and other suppliers
of pre-packaged news offer a subsidy to news organisations (through press
releases, press conferences, video news releases, press briefings, lobbying and special
reports). These subsidies reflect efforts by policy actors to increase the consumption
of persuasive messages by reducing their costs and in government and beyond,
there are information specialists whose responsibility is to ensure that the nations
public media carry the desired message forward to the general public (Gandy, 1982,
p. 74). These subsidies assist news organisations to maintain profitability by squaring
the circle between cost cutting (cuts in journalism wages and numbers of journalists
employed), while sustaining if not increasing news output through greater pagination,
more supplements and the development of online editions and other news services.
Research suggests that newspapers receptivity to such subsidies reflects directly the
finanical and journalisticresources which different newspapers possess: well-

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resourced daily newspapers with specialist journalists are more resiliant to PR

initiatives than poorly resourced weekly(especially free) newspapers with few
journalists and little budget (Franklin, 1986, 1988,1997, 2005) (Lewis et al. 2008).
Thus we can understand a web based medium and especially a medium that is only on
the web is more vulnerable to the above influences as the only way to funding itself is
by advertising, and new media is a prosperous place for advertisers as there any kind
of advertisement can be supported.
Conclusion

Finally, although the PR-zation of news is a very complex topic, we can say also that it
is a crucial aspect of the modern journalism because some times what finally reach
the reader could be a pure marketing product and that is why it worth further research.
But in order for the findings to be representative, the researcher should analyse a large
amount of media and news; in addition to that, a combination of content analysis that
combines qualitative, quantitative and word by word analysis should be applied. A
future research should examine both the political economy of the media as well as the
journalistic practices because as Baistow, 1985 (cited in Lewis et al, 2008) argues if
the media are to function as watchdogs of powerful economic and political interests,
journalists must establish their independence of sources or risk the fourth estate being
driven by the fifth estate of public relations. As we can understand, a research cannot
ignore the journalistic ethics when researching the news content.

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