PR practitioners aren’t mathematicians

I can’t speak for all public relations practitioners, but from a personal standpoint Dozier et al’s got me all figured out – except for the profound distaste part. High verbal skills, but low interest and aptitude in quantitative skills, yes that’s me. Although of late I’ve become increasingly interested in quantitative study, and wish that I was a bit savvier on that side. After all, terms like standard deviation, correlation and coefficients sound quite impressive when writing research findings, and they do give a great sense or impression of research credibility. To the trained and untrained in statistical analysis, just the sight of numbers sends the message to the brain, “this is spot on”.

So, I’m currently comforting myself with basic statistical terms like mean, mode and median, talking percentages and even pursuing some standard deviation. Somehow it makes me feel much more credible in presenting my research, and much more like a strategic, analytical public relations practitioner. After all, if I ever want to be considered worthy to be involved in strategic, corporate decision-making, I’ve got to be comfortable with numbers. Regardless of all the normative theory that scholars may want to dish out about PR practitioners being boundary spanners and relationship builders, management would like to see public relations firmly planted on measurable ground – that is. not just communicating and building consensus, but also being able to transform PR into numbers. Isn’t that why so many professionals are so big on ROI (return on investment)?

Reference
Dozier, D. M., Grunig, L. A., and Grunig, J. E. (1995) Manager’s guide to excellence in public relations and communication management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.