The impact of Public Relations in media during election campaigns

Abstract

The increase and strengthening of the public relations (PR) industry has directly impacted media content. Nowadays, in Albanian media it is almost impossible to find TV programs – talk shows, news, newspapers, magazines and the like – in which public relations are not present. The main reason is that media and public relations are considerably correlated. It should be noticed that the presence of public relations in media is higher during the election campaigns because political parties and politicians try all they can to influence the editorial line of the newscasts in order to meet their political goals.

This article aims to show how public relations impact media content, especially during election campaigns. The research questions that this study poses are: how public relations impact quality of information communicated to the media? What is the role of public relations in the so-called “agenda-setting” theory of media? Does the media financial crisis affect journalism- public relations relationships and, if that is the case, in what way? In conducting this research, we have relied on empirical data, which include interviews conducted with stakeholders in the media industry, such as journalists, editors, as well as previous research in this field.