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War Between Spears and Shields: How public relations practitioners define, detect, and counteract dark PR

Chen, Jinyang LU (2022) SKOM12 20221
Department of Strategic Communication
Abstract
This study introduced a practitioner perspective to explore how public relations (PR) practitioners define, detect, and counteract dark PR by conducting 15 in-depth interviews with current PR practitioners in China. Dark PR is widely used in business competition worldwide as an emergent phenomenon. Many PR practitioners have been plagued with such an aggressive public relations practice since it can cause varying degrees of damage to public relations outcomes, such as the organizational reputation of the targeted entities.
Ultimately, this research confirmed the connection between PR and dark PR, identified the lack of a factual basis as the core difference between normal PR and dark PR, and found that PR practitioners have a higher... (More)
This study introduced a practitioner perspective to explore how public relations (PR) practitioners define, detect, and counteract dark PR by conducting 15 in-depth interviews with current PR practitioners in China. Dark PR is widely used in business competition worldwide as an emergent phenomenon. Many PR practitioners have been plagued with such an aggressive public relations practice since it can cause varying degrees of damage to public relations outcomes, such as the organizational reputation of the targeted entities.
Ultimately, this research confirmed the connection between PR and dark PR, identified the lack of a factual basis as the core difference between normal PR and dark PR, and found that PR practitioners have a higher expectation of the organization’s authority in establishing facts in public discourse. This research identified a set of clues practitioners used in daily practice to detect dark PR: coincidental time points, unnatural interest bias, the reversal combination of fact-logic-attitude, limited media channels, data and information diffusion anomalies. Furthermore, this research found an organization’s PR ability can be used to conduct both normal PR and dark PR. Besides, this research also provided a set of strategies and tactics PR practitioners use to counteract dark PR. However, the outcome shows that while the currently used counteract strategies and tactics probably help reduce the damage, their effect on preventing the attacker from gaining competitive advantages might be limited. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Chen, Jinyang LU
supervisor
organization
course
SKOM12 20221
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Public relations, Dark PR, Competitive advantage, Attack strategy, Facts
language
English
id
9098471
date added to LUP
2023-02-10 13:06:45
date last changed
2023-02-10 13:06:45
@misc{9098471,
  abstract     = {{This study introduced a practitioner perspective to explore how public relations (PR) practitioners define, detect, and counteract dark PR by conducting 15 in-depth interviews with current PR practitioners in China. Dark PR is widely used in business competition worldwide as an emergent phenomenon. Many PR practitioners have been plagued with such an aggressive public relations practice since it can cause varying degrees of damage to public relations outcomes, such as the organizational reputation of the targeted entities.
Ultimately, this research confirmed the connection between PR and dark PR, identified the lack of a factual basis as the core difference between normal PR and dark PR, and found that PR practitioners have a higher expectation of the organization’s authority in establishing facts in public discourse. This research identified a set of clues practitioners used in daily practice to detect dark PR: coincidental time points, unnatural interest bias, the reversal combination of fact-logic-attitude, limited media channels, data and information diffusion anomalies. Furthermore, this research found an organization’s PR ability can be used to conduct both normal PR and dark PR. Besides, this research also provided a set of strategies and tactics PR practitioners use to counteract dark PR. However, the outcome shows that while the currently used counteract strategies and tactics probably help reduce the damage, their effect on preventing the attacker from gaining competitive advantages might be limited.}},
  author       = {{Chen, Jinyang}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{War Between Spears and Shields: How public relations practitioners define, detect, and counteract dark PR}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}