PR & Internet--the opportunity and challenge


The following questions concern how practitioners perceive the Internet's influences on their practice. There are no right or wrong answers; please indicate the answer that best represents your opinions.

This research project is sponsored by the School of Communications at the University of Houston. If you have any question about this survey, please contact Dr. Robert Heath at 713-743-2882, or Hua-yu Chen at hychen@bayou.uh.edu. A summary of final results can be obtained by sending a request email to the investigator at hychen@bayou.uh.edu

Thank you.

Please indicate your opinion for the following questions:

  1. Has your organization established a website?

  2. Does the website feature an e-commerce function for customers to process transactions?

  3. How often does your organization update its website content?

  4. What kind of expertise did public relations practitioners provide during website design in your organization?

    Writing content

    Updating content

    Designing homepage artwork

    Managing and protecting the corporate brand image

    Designing the website to be interactive

    Selecting the information to be made available on the website

    Deciding on the website managerial rules and policies

    Deciding on how the website supports management's goals

    Deciding on how the website achieves stated communication goals

  5. What departments were involved in the website design?

    Advertising

    Corporate counsel

    External consultant

    External professional Web designer

    Human resources

    Information technology or Computer engineering or MIS

    Marketing

    Public relations

  6. Among these departments, which one played the leading role?

    Advertising

    Corporate counsel

    External consultant

    External professional Web designer

    Human resources

    Information technology or Computer engineering or MIS

    Marketing

    Public relations

  7. In your opinion, which department should play the leading role?

    Advertising

    Corporate counsel

    External consultant

    External professional Web designer

    Human resources

    Information technology or Computer engineering or MIS

    Marketing

    Public relations

    Collaborative work of departments

    Please click the answer that corresponds to the extent you agree or disagree with each statement.

  8. Our website helps our publics (i.e. customers) to easily obtain information about our organization.

  9. Our website helps our publics to obtain information that they want about our organization.

  10. Our website increases the amount of information our publics can obtain about our organization.

  11. Our organization uses the Internet to determine our publics' attitudes toward the organization by giving them a channel to express their opinions to us (i.e. e-mail).

  12. Our organization's website is designed to help us better understand our publics because it captures key information about their preferences.

  13. Our organization's website is designed to help us better understand our publics because it captures key information about their behaviors.

  14. Our organization uses survey research to determine how effective our website is.

  15. The Internet increases the ability for an organization to interact with its publics.

  16. Using the Internet as an interactive channel improves our organization's relationships with its publics.

  17. Our organization monitors websites, newsgroups, and chat rooms where our critics voice their concerns.

  18. Our organization monitors websites, newsgroups, and chat rooms to find false/untrue statements about us.

  19. Our organization uses the Internet as a tool to share its positions on issues.

  20. The Internet gives us more ways to learn the views of our critics.

  21. The Internet allows critics of our organization the ability to quickly and widely disseminate their opinions.

  22. The rapid dissemination of information through the Internet limits our ability to respond to these critics.

    Please provide your opionions about these questions:

  23. What is the Internet's biggest advantage to public relations practice?

  24. What is the Internet's biggest disadvantage to public relations practice?

  25. What type of industry best characterizes your organization?

or

Please send other comments to Hua-yu Chen

THANK YOU!