International public relations’ influence on media coverage and public perceptions of foreign countries

Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 491–493

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Public Relations Review

Research in brief

International public relations’ influence on media coverage and public

perceptions of foreign countries

Suman Leea, Hyehyun Hong b,∗

a Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, 204B Hamilton Hall, Ames, IA 50011, United States b Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 4 October 2011

Received in revised form 14 March 2012

Accepted 24 March 2012

Keywords:

International public relations

Public diplomacy

National image

a b s t r a c t

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of international public relations on a

target country’s news coverage and public perceptions toward other countries. This study

proposed a public relations influence model of national image formation and tested its

relationships based on 27 countries’ public relations effort targeting the U.S. news coverage

and publics. This study found that (1) public relations of other countries in the U.S. had a

direct impact on how significantly the U.S. public perceived those countries; (2) the more

prominently and favorably foreign countries were covered by the U.S. news media, the

more significantly and favorably the U.S. public perceived and felt toward those countries.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Building and maintaining a positive national image enables a nation to achieve a more advantageous position in global

economic and political competition. A positive national image may drive other nations’ foreign policies to favor a country,

increase revenues from trade, and draw tourists and foreign investment (Lee & Yoon, 2010).

Cognizant of these benefits, many governments are active in practicing international public relations to improve their

national images throughout the world. The foreign news media have mostly become a major target for governments trying

to influence news content about international issues and foreign affairs, especially with regard to their own countries.

Governments also reach foreign publics directly by disseminating information about their countries, launching government￾sponsored international broadcasting channels and websites, and hosting cultural exchange programs.

To effectively execute public relations programs overseas, many governments hire public relations firms in target coun￾tries. According to Gilboa (2000), contracting public relations firms in the target country is believed to be effective to reach

and affect both foreign public and media because it can “strengthen the legitimacy and authenticity” of the public relations

campaigns. In addition, geographic proximity of the resident PR firms operating in a target country enables quick reactions

when a crisis related to the target country occurs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate: (1) to what extent public relations by foreign governments can directly

influence the national image in publics’ perception and media coverage in a target country and (2) to what extent the

public’s perception of foreign nations is influenced by the media coverage.

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 820 5506.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Lee), [email protected] (H. Hong).

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.03.007