State of international public relations research

Please cite this article in press as: Jain, R., et al. State of international public relations research: Narrowing the knowledge

gap about the practice across borders. Public Relations Review (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.02.009

ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model

PUBREL-1253; No. of Pages3

Public Relations Review xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

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Public Relations Review

Research in Brief

State of international public relations research: Narrowing

the knowledge gap about the practice across borders

Rajul Jaina,∗, Maria De Moyaa, Juan-Carlos Molleda b

a College of Communication, DePaul University, 1 E Jackson, Chicago, IL 60604, United States b College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, 2085 Weimer, Gainesville, FL 32611, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 13 August 2013

Received in revised form 5 February 2014

Accepted 6 February 2014

Keywords:

International

Global

Public relations

Research paradigms

Comparative

Scholarship

a b s t r a c t

This study examined the state of international public relations research to identify promi￾nenttrends,themes, and theoretical paradigms in the field.Acontent analysis of 200 articles

from 12 peer reviewed journals shows that international public relations scholarship has

increased steadily in the last four years. Likewise, the areas being studied by academics in

the field have also diversified. The findings point to areas and regions that remain under￾studied and should be explored to continue building knowledge in the field in general, and

more specifically, in theory development.

© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Public relations scholarship is as diverse as the profession itself. Every year, academic journals in communication and

related fields publish articles describing public relations practices in various parts of the world and challenging com￾mon notions and assumptions about the practice in a particular culture. Scholars are also testing established theories and

paradigms in a variety of cultural, political, and socio-economic contexts, and evaluating the ways in which public rela￾tions is shaped and influenced by global issues and trends. In the last few years alone, several scholarly books dealing with

international and intercultural public relations have been published (e.g., Freitag & Stokes, 2009; Sriramesh & Verciˇ cˇ 2009,

2012).

And yet, there is no compendium of international public relations scholarship that can offer a comprehensive under￾standing of the state of the field, and document the recent growth and expansion of scholarly work in this area. Scholars

emphasize that scientific research should not only generate new knowledge, but also codify and organize data accumu￾lated from various sources by generations of scholars to help build the knowledge base in a field (Chaffee & Berger, 1987;

Shoemaker, Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004).

To address this gap, the present study expands on Molleda and Laskin’s (2005) overview of international public rela￾tions from 1990 to 2005. First, it first summarizes the overarching themes and main approaches in existing scholarship in

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 312 362 8910.

E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Jain).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.02.009

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