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Research: Understanding Public Opinion

Research is an essential part of the public relations process. Information gained through careful research can be used to target audiences and their characteristics, to guide planning, to pretest messages, to evaluate results, and to guide follow-up efforts.

Effective research techniques for public relations practice include both scientific, or formal, research and informal, or non-scientific, research. The use of research data to evaluate current practice and forecast future events is well accepted in most organizations today. Public relations practitioners must be able to evaluate their efforts and demonstrate effectiveness.

Good public opinion research must be sensitive enough to identify publics as definable groups rather than as unrelated masses. Public relations audits, social audits, communication audits, and environmental monitoring are effective research methods for public relations planning and evaluation.










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