Media relations

1. Corporate
Communication
A Guide to Theory and Practice
Joep Cornelissen

2. Chapter 8
Media Relations
Overview
•Outline how journalists and media organizations
work,
•Explore use and effectiveness of specific media
relations techniques, strategies around new media.

3. Journalism and news
organizations
•The production of news content typically involves
two levels:
 journalists who on an individual basis consult
sources and write news stories
 other parties within the news organization
(e.g., copy editors) who, based upon their news
routines, edit stories before they make it into
print.

4. Framing news stories
•According to some reports, as much as 80 per cent
of news reports about companies is prompted and
delivered by communication professionals.
•The realization of this interdependence has led to a
further specialization of media or press relations
within corporate communication

5. Framing news stories
• When corporate communication professionals
propose a particular story to a journalist, they
engage in two separate but related processes:
 Solicit interest in the story / topic
 Make sure that the story is framed in a way
that is consistent with the organization’s
preferred framing

6. Framing news stories
•Framing essentially involves selection and salience.
•To frame is to select some aspects of perceived
reality and make them more salient in the
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a
particular problem definition, causal interpretation,
moral evaluation and/or treatment
recommendation for the item described.
Entma (1993)

7. Framing news stories
• Corporate frame: the framing by practitioners of a
particular corporate decision, issue or event in such
a way that it furthers and promotes the interests of
the organization.
• News framing: the way in which news is selectively
portrayed by the media in an effort to explain news
or ideas about organizations in familiar terms for a
broader audience.

8. Framing news stories
•Frame alignment: The skill in media relations, to
spot the stories or the angles that can turn
corporate news into media news or bring a
corporate story into a global news story.

9. Framing news stories
Tools and techniques:
•Press release
•Press conference
•Interviews
•Media monitoring and research

10. Further Reading
Argenti, Paul A. and Courtney M. Barnes (2009), Digital
strategies for powerful corporate communications. New York:
McGraw Hill.
Henderson, David (2006), Making News: A Straight-Shooting
Guide to Media Relations. Harlem Writers Guild Press.
Arthur W. Page Society (2007), The authentic enterprise:
relationships, values and the evolution of corporate
communications. Arthur W. Page Society