Mur 078

JPART 22:597–621
Overcoming Negative Media Coverage: Does

Government Communication Matter?
Brooke Fisher Liu*, J. Suzanne Horsley†, Kaifeng Yang‡
*University of Maryland; †University of Alabama; ‡Florida State University
ABSTRACT
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article/22/3/597/1050563 by guest on 19 July 2023

Public administration scholars often note that government should engage in more effective
external communication to improve citizen trust and maintain political legitimacy. An
important part of the belief is that more effective communication can lead to more favorable
media coverage that ultimately shapes citizen trust in government. However, the link
between government communication and media coverage remains empirically untested.
Through a survey of 881 government and business communicators, this study tests the
relationship between external communication activities and media coverage. The study
shows that government organizations report being less likely to have favorable news
coverage than their private counterparts, but most government organizations do report that
their media coverage is favorable. Moreover, the results show that active media interaction,
organizational support for communication, and adequate communication budget are
associated with reporting more favorable coverage. In comparison, a different set of
variables, except adequate communication budget, are found to affect whether business
organizations report having more favorable media coverage.
Public communication is undeniably one of the most important government functions.

Government entities must communicate about changes in laws, public safety issues, matters
related to international diplomacy, and a host of other topics in an effective and time-sensitive
manner. Unlike most business communication, government communication often deals
with life and death issues, as during a natural disaster or terrorist attack, and with issues
that directly affect citizens, such as taxes, elections, and public policies. Moreover, given
the declining citizen trust in government and increasing negative media coverage of gov-
ernment since the 1960s (Bok 2001; Nye, Zelikow, and King 1997), many public admin-
istration scholars have suggested that more frequent, improved public communication
efforts about government performance can improve relationships with both the citizens
they serve and the media they rely on to convey their information to the public (e.g., Berman
1997; Fairbanks, Plowman, and Rawlins 2007; Garnett 1992; Orren 1997).
Meanwhile, government communication faces many challenges. An important chal-
lenge, somewhat ironically, is the problem government communication is supposed
to solve: public distrust. One of the greatest challenges that government communicators
face is a highly cynical public (National Association of Government Communicators 2008).
Address correspondence to the author at bfliu@umd.edu.
doi:10.1093/jopart/mur078
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The effectiveness of communication may be questioned when the recipients of those mes-
sages do not trust the senders. Citizen trust in government plummeted to 17% in 1994 and
again in 2008, the lowest since these statistics were first kept in 1958. The average of those
who trusted government most of the time was 35% with a high of 77% in 1964 (Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press 2010). While dealing with public distrust, government
communicators also face more limitations on their ability to communicate due to laws and
regulations than their counterparts in the private sector (Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus 2010).
Given the importance and challenges, it is crucial for public administration scholars to
more rigorously study government communication and its impact on media coverage and,

in turn, citizen trust. However, although the role of communication has been emphasized in
public administration theory (Barnard 1938; Garnett 2005), scholars have argued commu-
nication has been largely neglected in public administration scholarship and teaching with
the exception of political communication (Garnett, Marlowe, and Pandey 2008; Pandey and
Garnett 2006). Some recent research has examined the factors influencing communication
performance (Pandey and Garnett 2006), how communication affects organizational effec-
tiveness (Garnett, Marlowe, and Pandey 2008; Yang and Pandey 2009), and communica-
tion strategies in disaster response (Comfort 2007; Garnett and Kouzmin 2007; Wang and
Kapucu 2008). Still, little research has focused on the external communication activities
government engages in and their relationship to media coverage. Because media coverage
relates so closely to government image, citizen trust, and political legitimacy, which are
fundamental aspects of government performance (Kirlin 2001; Putnam 1993; Yang and
Holzer 2006), it is reasonable to state that the mechanisms linking external communication
and government performance have not been mapped out with empirical evidence.
The purpose of this study is two-fold: to identify the types of government commu-
nication activities and to test how the activities affect perceived media coverage. To assess
how unique public sector characteristics affect the results—a goal that is highlighted by
many public management scholars (Bozeman 1987; Garnett, Marlowe, and Pandey 2008;
Rainey 2003)—we control for environmental factors that might distinguish government
and business, and we include both government and business samples in model testing.
By examining both public and private sector communicators in our sample, we can better
understand unique public sector characteristics that govern media relations activities.
We first examine the literature related to media coverage on government and its im-
pact on public trust in government. We then develop hypotheses and research questions that
link external communication activities with media coverage favorability, as well as hypoth-
eses that explore the effects of important contextual factors. After introducing the survey
methodology, we present the Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.
MEDIA COVERAGE AND TRUST IN GOVERNMENT

Media Coverage Trends
The media play a critical watchdog role as an instrument of democracy in the United States
and elsewhere (Lee 2008). As such, the media are inclined to focus on negative, rather than
positive news, and are more likely to cover dramatic events (Downs 1972; Kalantari 2008).
When making decisions about which stories to cover, the media consider the following
news values: timeliness, relevance to audiences, impact on audiences, proximity to the
audiences’ geographical location, rarity, and human interest (Coombs 2008). Increasingly,
entertainment value also drives media coverage decisions (Kalantari 2008).
al. Overcoming Negative Media Coverage
Liu et al. 599
3
When it comes to covering government organizations in particular, the media tend

to cover government agencies only when the agency actions reflect ‘‘an ‘everyday’ issue,
novelty or policy failure’’ (Coglianese and Howard 1998, 48). Coverage of negative
issues is especially prominent in media coverage of governments with some arguing
that media coverage of governments has changed from healthy skepticism to automatic
negativity, especially after Watergate (Cappella and Jamieson 1997; Lee 1999; Sabato
1993). For example, a survey found that state and local public health officials perceived
media reporting as inaccurate 27–48% of the time, and one-third of the officials found
media relations adversarial (Gellert et al. 1994). Despite these trends in negative cov-

erage, the media are essential for serving as an intermediary and facilitating transpar-
ency between the government and the public (Jones 2004). Increasing government
transparency is critical for increasing trust in government (Piotrowski 2007; Rawlins
2007).
The Link between Media Coverage and Trust in Government

Studying government media coverage is important because negative coverage, such as
scandal stories, erodes confidence in government and increases cynicism (Fallows
1996; Sabato 1993). Whereas cynicism, to a degree, is healthy for maintaining checks
and balances in a democracy, excessive cynicism can stymie government action and prog-
ress. A pronounced negative image of government can hurt recruitment efforts of qualified
employees and discourage thoughtful debate in favor of making hasty decisions that go
unchallenged (Orren 1997). It also can cause citizens to avoid participating in government,
including voting (Bok 2001). Although much of the coverage may be accurate, focusing on
scandals and failures can further create an impression that all public sector organizations
and their employees behave badly (Bok 2001; Graber 2003).
The media’s negative portrayals of public administration influence the public to ex-
pect failure, attack the motives of public officials and, in turn, put officials on the defensive
(Goodsell 2004). Defensive responses ultimately support the media’s original premise that
government is flawed and deserving of criticism. For example, results of a survey of gov-
ernment and business communicators found that government communicators reported be-
ing covered more frequently and more negatively than business communicators (Liu,
Horsley, and Levenshus 2010). Conversely, positive media coverage of government is as-
sociated with higher levels of government trust and confidence, especially after major na-
tional crises such as the September 11 terrorist attacks (Gross, Aday, and Brewer 2004).
Media exposure also can enhance the public’s political efficacy and activity (Miller and
Reese 1984).
In sum, trustworthiness is a significant factor when considering that much of the news
focuses on personalities in government rather than the policies that are enacted. Of course,
other factors such as overall satisfaction with democracy (Christensen and Laegreid 2005),
satisfaction with public services (Welch, Hinnant, and Moon 2005), and government re-
sponsiveness (Tolbert and Mossberger 2006) also affect trust in government. However, the
factor that arguably has received the most attention and research support is media coverage
of government (Cappella 2002; Wu and Coleman 2009). Therefore, while it may be too
simplistic to say media coverage of government drives public perception, government ad-
ministrations are not helping their own images when they do not use communication tactics
to promote their achievements.
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USING COMMUNICATION TO INFLUENCE MEDIA COVERAGE

Most public relations activities in both the private and government sectors are focused on
external publics. A survey of public relations practitioners found 59% of corporate and 66%
of government communicators spend most of their time on external communication ac-
tivities (Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus 2010). Public relations scholars discuss processes,
strategies, and tactics (i.e., research, strategic planning, media relations, public relations
products, and channels of communication) primarily for external audiences that are vital
to the organization’s mission (see Lattimore et al. 2009; Smith 2009). Lee (1999, 2009)
established that there are two primary activities in public administration public relations,

both of which focus on external relations: public information (i.e., public education cam-
paigns) and public reporting (i.e., transparency to promote democratic values). These are
accomplished through a variety of methods that Lee (2009) listed as: media relations, pub-
lic reporting, responding to the public, promoting services, public education, regulatory and
compliance promotion, public engagement, and increasing public support. Given that there
are no existing typologies of government communication activities based on empirical
research, this study offers the first such typology as detailed in the Results section.
What can be done to encourage favorable media coverage of government organiza-
tions, thereby alleviating public cynicism and apathy? Improved communication with pub-
lics may help increase public trust in government (Fairbanks, Plowman, and Rawlins 2007).
Although a high level of cynicism is a threat to public participation, information about
government actions and performance is essential for democracy. This can be achieved
through open communication, use of multiple channels of communication, the ability
to receive public feedback, and a management team that supports communication practices
(Fairbanks, Plowman, and Rawlins 2007; Garnett 1992; Lee 2001). The primary channels
that government organizations have to reach their publics are traditional news media. The
government also must communicate with the public about services and opportunities for
civic engagement (Lee 2001). Communication strategies intending to improve public en-
gagement increase the level of accountability and transparency of government activities,
which ultimately raise the level of public trust. The public’s distrust of government starts
with concerns that the government is hiding or misrepresenting information or when the
government appears to ignore public feedback (Garnett 1992). Being open and responsive
can combat the negative media slant and create effective communication practices.
Berman (1997) conducted a rare empirical study to determine how local governments’
use of participation, information, and reputation management strategies (each rooted in
communication) affected public cynicism. Through a nationwide survey of 304 city man-
agers and chief administrative officers, Berman assessed the respondents’ perception of
citizen cynicism in their localities and the strategies used to work with the public. One-third
of all cities were evaluated as having a cynical public, but cities that utilized communication
activities such as direct mail, performance reports, citizen panels, and image campaigns
reported less perceived cynicism among their population.
How would reporting be affected by organizations’ external communication activi-
ties? First, by proactively distributing information to a reporter, organizations increase
the likelihood that the reporter has accurate information, which increases the likelihood
of fair coverage. Second, distribution to multiple news media may increase the likelihood
of fair and accurate coverage because of competition with other news outlets. However, one
problem that emerges is that the interpretation of any information is always subjective.
Liu et al. 601
5
Public cynicism has persisted even though research finds that most government messages
are communicated in an open and honest manner (Graber 2003). Third, proactive interac-
tion with reporters can help build strong relationships between communicators and report-
ers, which increases the chance of fair coverage (Lattimore et al. 2009). Reporters often
rely on government communicators for information, and an interdependent relationship
may help produce favorable reporting (Elsbach 1994; Gellert et al. 1994). Therefore, we
propose:
H1 External communication activities are associated with more favorable media
coverage.

So far, neither theory nor empirical evidence has convincingly examined government
communicators’ activities and their impact on the mediated information citizens ultimately
rely on to form their opinions of government. Therefore, we proceed with this overall hy-
pothesis without delving into the possibility that different communication activities may
have different effects.
CONSTRAINTS ON GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION

Government organizations are restricted by more legal and administrative constraints than
those in the private sector (Gelders, Bouckaert, and van Ruler 2007). US public officials are
prohibited by federal law from using public funds for advertising. These laws create bar-
riers for creative and effective dissemination of public information (Graber 2003). Dem-
onstrating the full impact of legal constraints, a survey of communicators from the public
and private sectors found that laws and regulations marked the greatest difference between
business and government communication practices (Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus 2010). In
addition, the effect of legal constraints is consistent across all levels of US government
(Horsley, Liu, and Levenshus 2010). Various regulations concerning government public
relations activities have been enacted into federal law such as the 2005 regulations on video
news releases (Lee 2006).
A direct consequence of these legal constraints are financial ones. Government com-
municators report having a less adequate budget for communication activities when com-
pared with business communicators (Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus 2010). One of the most
frequent laments Liu and Levenshus (2010) heard from their 49 government interview par-
ticipants was that they lack the resources their corporate counterparts have. Resource ad-
equacy is crucial for traditionally cumbersome government agencies to effectively and
efficiently serve their publics (Rainey and Steinbauer 1999). Thus, it is reasonable to expect
that resource inadequacy limits government communicators’ abilities to effectively com-
municate with the media. This relationship should exist for business organizations as well
given that any organizational task is easier to achieve if the organization has ample resour-
ces. Therefore, we propose:
H2 Communication budget adequacy is positively associated with favorable media
coverage.
A constraint found internally concerns whether colleagues outside of the communi-
cation function support communicators. Elected officials and public administrators have
traditionally devalued the role of communication, whereas business organizations have em-
braced communication strategies and tactics given the fiscal importance of marketing
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(Lee 2008; Liu and Horsley 2007). This devaluation in government not only reduces non-
communicators’ desires to support communication activities but also places communicators
in relatively low organizational positions that cannot attract colleague support. A recent na-
tional survey found that only 36% of government communicators have management titles
(National Association of Government Communicators 2008). Lovell (2001) found that
police departments that encourage communication with the media from all levels of the
organization tend to have better media image. Therefore, we propose:
H3 Cross-department support for external communication is positively associated with
favorable media coverage.

There are two other commonly perceived constraints on government communication:
influence of politics (Lee 2008; Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus 2010) and high volume of
information demand (Rothschild 1979; Viteritti 1997). However, there is no strong theory
or prior evidence to specify formal, directional hypotheses. Thus, we pose two research
questions regarding their effects below.
Unlike corporations, government organizations are defined by politics (Appleby
1973). Politics is conceptualized as ‘‘In the narrowest conventional (dictionary) usage—
what governments do—politics is affecting us intimately, day by day, and hour by hour. In
the wider sense—people exercising power over others—it is part of all sorts of social
relationships, be they kinship, occupational, religious or cultural’’ (Tansey and Jackson
2008, 3). Consequently, politics includes both external and internal influences that
affect communication, especially in the public sector (Appleby 1973; Liu, Horsley, and
Levenshus 2010).
Politics can provoke government officials to cut communication plans, accuse certain
activities of being propagandistic, or report performance information in a dishonest way
when it suits their political interests (Bohte and Meier 2000; Lee 2008; Yang 2009). Gov-
ernments around the globe have been accused of prioritizing publicity over public infor-
mation, which contributes to public and media skepticism and suggests unethical
communication practices (Kozolanka 2006; Reich 2009). In anticipation of this, elected
officials may not trust what is communicated by government agencies, and thus often
use laws and regulations to constrain agencies’ communicative behavior and practice
(Tonon 2008). A survey of government and business communicators found that politics
had a greater influence on the daily communication activities in government organizations
than in business organizations (Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus 2010).
Although it is clear that external and internal politics affect government communi-
cators’ jobs, how that affects the tone of media coverage has not been tested. Public man-
agement literature has studied the impact of politics in general and the degree of political
support and found they matter a great deal (Pandey and Wright 2006; Yang 2009), but the
extent to which politics affects communicators’ jobs has not been measured or examined.
On the one hand, politics may hamper the effectiveness of communicators’ efforts as the
logic of the politics-administration dichotomy goes. For example, internal and external
politics can restrict creativity in message development (Fitch 2004; Horsley and Barker
2002). On the other hand, influence of politics is likely to be expected as normal for gov-
ernment by the media, which tends to evaluate all government decisions from a political
perspective. In addition, high influence of politics does not necessarily mean dirty politics
that will produce negative news coverage. Some high-political-influence programs may
generate significant attention and favorable coverage. For example, liberal media may give
Liu et al. 603
7
some controversial ‘‘liberal programs’’ favorable coverage despite being highly political.
In comparison, politics not only hinders the effectiveness of business communicators’ jobs
but also is likely to be viewed as less prominent or healthy for business organizations. Thus,
we pose the following research question given that the extant literature is not able to support
hypothesis generation:
RQ1 To what extent do politics affect government and business external
communication?
Another constraint faced by government communicators is the amount of information

demand from the public and media. Government communicators serve a more information-
hungry and heterogeneous public than do their corporate counterparts (Rothschild 1979;
Viteritti 1997). A key difference between government communication and business or non-
profit sector communication is nodality (or centrality): ‘‘The property of being in the mid-
dle of an information or social network’’ (Hood 1983, 4). Being a nexus, government is the
central player in organizing and regulating the conditions that most affect people’s lives.
Thus, governments, particularly state and local governments, tend to communicate with
a broader range of audiences than do business organizations (Garnett, Marlowe, and Pandey
2008). Little research, however, has assessed how the information demand pressure affects
the tone of media coverage. Given the pro-business culture in the United States and busi-
ness managers’ pursuit for marketing and brand name recognition, business communicators
are likely to expect a positive relationship between information demand and affirmative
media coverage. For government communicators who tend to be reactive and incremental,
information demand can be either good or bad. Thus, we pose the following research ques-
tions given that the extant literature is not able to support hypothesis generation:
RQ2 To what extent does information demand affect government and business external
communication?
In short, communication budget inadequacy, less cross-department support, influence
of politics, and information demand pressure are likely to be more characteristic of gov-
ernment communication than business communication, but how they influence the tone of
media coverage that ultimately drives the public’s levels of trust in government has
remained largely unexplored. Their influence may vary across sectors.
METHODS
This study is based on data collected from a mail and online survey of US government and
business communicators between April and June 2008.
Survey Sample
The survey sample was 2,525 US government communicators and business communicators.
Government communicators were defined as current government employees or contractors at
the local, state, or federal level, or for quasi-governmental agencies such as public utilities
partnerships, whose primary responsibilities are communicating internally or externally to
various publics regarding agency/department/office policies, decisions, or actions, and/or
guiding communication strategy. Business communicators were defined as current employ-
ees or contractors of companies and corporations whose primary responsibilities
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are communicating internally or externally to various publics regarding company/department

policies, decisions, or actions, and/or guiding communication strategy.
To recruit participants among a wide range of practitioners, we sought assistance from
five prominent professional associations: City-County Communications and Marketing As-
sociation, Federal Communicators Network, National Association of County Information
Officers, National Association of Government Communicators, and the Public Relations
Society of America (PRSA). Seeking outside endorsements is a preferred method for
increasing the response rate to surveys (Dillman 2000).

Survey Instrument
The study employed the same survey instrument as Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus (2010),
which they developed from previous research comparing government and business com-
munication. The survey consisted of 68 questions pertaining to daily communications
activities, relationships with primary publics and the media, the influence of politics on
communications work, satisfaction with professional development opportunities, and
respondent/employer demographics. The Cronbach’s alpha scores range from .65 to .87, in-
dicating acceptable levels of reliability or internal consistency.
Particularly, the dependent variable is measured by three dimensions: the extent to
which the media coverage is perceived as favorable, accurate, and fair. It is possible
the three dimensions may deviate from one another and not be completely exchangeable
at times. For example, a particular news article can be accurate and fair, but undesirable.
However, the general tendency of reporting as perceived by communicators is that the three
dimensions are more likely to vary consistently. This reflects the assumption that there is
a latent factor—either reporters’ tendency to find news value in ‘‘negative’’ stories or the
relationship between an organization and the media—that affects reporting behavior. When
there is a tendency for reporters to create ‘‘negative’’ news or when the relationship be-
tween the organization and reporters is hostile, then reporters are more likely to create
inaccurate, unfavorable, and unfair stories. The high consistency among the three dimen-
sions is reflected in the high Cronbach’s alpha value (.87), and the factor analysis further
confirms that a latent factor explains a large portion (79%) of the common variation among
the three dimensions. In other words, we have theoretical and empirical reason to consider
the three indicators as reflective measures (Fornell and Bookstein 1982; Howell, Breivik,
and Wilcox 2007).1 The dependent variable as a latent construct has a causal effect on the
three items (Bollen and Lennox 1991). The Appendix includes all the survey questions used
in our analyses as well as the Cronbach’s alpha scores for all the index variables.
Survey Administration
Prior to disseminating the survey, we pretested the questionnaire with 6 government com-
municators and 10 business public relations practitioners. For the dissemination, we fol-
lowed a modified version of Dillman’s (2000) tailored design method: (a) we e-mailed
1 To further ensure that the use of a latent factor did not bias our hypothesis testing based on ordinary least squares
(OLS) regression later on (i.e., table 6), we ran separate logistic regression models with each of the dimensions as the
dependent variable. The results were highly consistent across the dimensions, and they are consistent with what is
reported in table 6.
Liu et al. 605
9
a brief prenotice letter, (b) we e-mailed a detailed cover letter with a link to the online
survey, (c) we e-mailed a thank-you/reminder letter, (d) we mailed via US Postal Service
a thank-you/reminder letter with a replacement questionnaire to nonresponders, and (e) we
called and/or e-mailed a random sample of nonresponders.
The survey response rate was 41% with 1,043 communicators responding to the sur-
vey. Fifty-five respondents identified themselves as currently working in ‘‘Other’’ types of
organizations such as nonprofits, thus the usable response rate was 39%. The response rate
for the government communicators (40%) and business public relations practitioners (37%)
was roughly equivalent. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents completed the survey

online, and the other third completed the mail survey. To determine whether there was
a statistically significant difference between the online and mail responses to our research
questions and hypotheses, we conducted a series of independent sample t-tests. After con-
trolling for family-wise error rate using Bonferroni’s correction (a 5 .004), t-tests indicated
a statistically significant difference in some variables such as budget adequacy (t 5 23.20,
p 5 .001) and positive news coverage (t 5 25.61, p , .001). Despite these differences, we
decided to analyze the data as one sample because the magnitude of the differences in the
means was small (Cohen 1988).2
Respondents’ Demographics
The respondents’ demographics are reported in table 1 by employer type (business or gov-
ernment). For our purpose here, we dropped respondents who identified themselves as
working for government but either as a consultant or in a quasi-governmental agency, thus
reducing the sample size for government responses to 571. Similarly, for business respond-
ents we dropped those who worked for a PR or advertising agency or as a consultant, re-
ducing the sample size for business response to 307. The overall relevant sample size is 881.
Among the government respondents, 55% identified themselves as part of the top
management team, 33% were male,3 the average number of employer-paid training semi-
nars attended last year was 2.14, and the average number of subordinates was 3.42, all of
which were not statistically significant from the business respondents. However, govern-
ment respondents on average had lower salaries than did business respondents (p , .001).
On average, government respondents reported salaries in the range of $60,000–$80,000
2 The t-tests further show that online respondents and traditional respondents did not differ on the variables including
multimedia communication, influence of politics, and information need. Online respondents reported statistically
higher scores on engaging public information activities than traditional respondents, but they reported statistically
lower scores on media interaction, communication planning and research, and cross-department support for
communication. In general, even when there was a statistical difference between the two types of respondents, the
substantive difference was very small. In using regression models to test the hypotheses, we included a dummy variable
with online completion being coded as 1. Consistent with the t-test results, this dummy variable was statistically
significant in the regression models and was negatively associated with positive news coverage. However, adding or
excluding the dummy variable neither change the significance and direction of all other variables nor have a significant
impact on the F values and R squares of the models. In other words, our final results reported in table 6 would remain
essentially the same if the dummy variable were included. Given that this dummy variable is not essential to our
hypotheses and that the difference between online and traditional surveys is an important topic in and of itself, we
concluded that a separate methodological article should be produced to specifically address the issue.
3 The gender breakdown of our respondents is consistent with previous surveys of government communicators and
public relations professionals (e.g., National Association of Government Communicator 2008; Toth and Aldoory
2000).
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Table 1
Characteristics of the Average Respondents (Government versus Business)
Government (n 5 571) Business (n 5 307)
Salary level 4.33*** (1.28) 5.33 (1.21)
Tenure in the profession (years) 10.26* (8.37) 12.08 (9.74)
Number of subordinates 3.42 (5.77) 9.16 (37.57)
Number of communication associations 2.14 (2.11) 2.01 (1.25)
participated
No. of training seminars attended last year 2.09 (1.97) 2.20 (2.07)
paid for by the employer

Gender (% male) 33% 39%
Part of top management team (%) 55% 49%
Note: *, significant at the .05 level. ***, significant at the .001 level; Values inside parentheses are SD scores.
(level 5 4.33) whereas business respondents reported $80,000–$100,000 (level 5 5.33). In

addition, government respondents reported working in government communication for an
average of 10.26 years, whereas business respondents worked in corporate communication
for an average of 12.08 years, with the two means being statistically different (p , .05).
Overall, we believe that the government and business respondents held similar organiza-
tional positions and experiences. The salary and tenure differences reflect the general dif-
ference between government communication and business communication, not reflecting
a sample bias.
ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Communication Activities
To identify the types of activity engaged by communicators, we conducted an exploratory
factor analysis (EFA) of daily communication activities.4 The survey asked respondents
to rate 22 items on a 5-point anchored scale from ‘‘never engage in the activity’’ to
‘‘very frequently engage in the activity (e.g., daily).’’ An EFA with orthogonal rotation
(maximum-likelihood method) was conducted with all the items (see table 2). Both the
eigenvalues and the Scree test suggest a four-factor solution, which explains 100% of
the common variance. Four items did not significantly load on any factors and thus were
dropped from analysis. One item, ‘‘train and prepare leadership or subject expert for media
interviews,’’ significantly loaded on two factors and was dropped to achieve simplicity
of factor structure (Hatcher 1994). Eventually, four factors were retained and named as
(a) media interaction, (b) public information, (c) communication planning and research,
and (d) multimedia communication.
4 Missing values are not a problem as fewer than 3% of observations had missing values. As an empirical check, all
the statistical tests were rerun with multiple imputation procedures (SAS MI and MIANALYZE), and the results were
essentially the same as what is reported here.
OvercomingNegative
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Table 2
Factor Analysis Results for Communication Activities
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4
Write news releases and advisories 76* 14 7 13
Hold news conferences 41* 25 18 40
Conduct media interviews 79* 27 24 11
Respond to media inquiries 89* 4 5 5
Pitch stories to the media 72* 7 14 22
Track media clips 55* 2 16 1
Create brochures 0 90* 11 1

Create fliers 24 90* 9 6
Create guides 29 73* 19 13
Create print advertising 5 56* 3 37
Develop strategic plans 12 9 71* 2
Develop crisis communication plans 35 2 59* 18
Conduct primary research 24 16 46* 25
Write fact sheets 34 20 46* 11
Create radio or TV public service announcements 18 18 22 55*
Create video news release 6 1 22 50*
Create broadcast advertising 2 22 8 72*
Train and prepare leadership or subject experts 50* 27 47* 10
Hold community meetings 8 31 20 30
Contribute to content on organization Web site 20 37 1 23
Blog on behalf of organization 12 211 21 36
Network with others in the profession/industry 15 13 40 11
Note: Factor 1, media interaction; Factor 2, public information; Factor 3, communication planning and research; Factor 4, multimedia
communication. Eigenvalues: Factor 1 (13.64), Factor 2 (10.91), Factor 3 (2.90), Factor 4 (1.99), and Factor 5 (0.73). * indicates factor
loadings greater than .40.
Comparing Subsamples with Descriptive Statistics and t-Tests

Both descriptive statistics and the t-tests (see table 3) show systematic communicational
differences between government and business organizations, as well as some difference
between federal and state/local governments. For our dependent variable, positive news
coverage (scale midpoint 9), government scores 10.51 on average (standard deviation
[SD] 5 2.34), which suggests that on average the news coverage is positive for government.
In comparison, business organizations have more positive news coverage than government
does (M 5 11.40, SD 5 2.08, p , .001), confirming recent research (Jones 2002; Lee 2008;
Pounsford and Meara 2004). There is no statistically significant difference between federal
government and state/local governments.
To further understand the dependent variable, table 4 presents the responses’ detail
distribution in government and business subsamples. Note that 9 is the scale midpoint de-
picting a neutral evaluation. Consistent with the t-test, higher percentages of business com-
municators (as opposed to their government counterparts) had responses higher than 9.
Among government respondents, although very few of them reported extremely low values
(3, 4, and 5), 15.3% of them reported that on average their organization had experienced
unfavorable media coverage in the past six months. In contrast, 65.3% of government
respondents reported favorable media coverage.
Table 3, as also reported by Liu, Horsley, and Levenshus (2010), shows business
organizations engage in more media interaction activities (p , .01), conduct more
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Table 3
Descriptive Statistics and t-Tests between Government and Business Respondents
State and
Scale Federal Local
Range Midpoint Government Business Government Government
Positive news coverage 3–15 9 10.51*** (2.34) 11.40 (2.08) 10.32 (2.54) 10.42 (2.27)
(N 5 867)
Media interaction 6–30 18 20.24** (5.68) 21.29 (5.24) 17.09*** (7.34) 21.15 (4.73)
(N 5 869)
Public information 4–20 12 12.26** (4.04) 10.84 (4.72) 10.23*** (3.70) 12.86 (3.94)

(N 5 869)
Communication 4–20 12 11.31*** (3.47) 12.65 (3.36) 11.10 (3.76) 11.22 (3.35)
planning and
research
(N 5 869)
Multimedia 3–15 9 6.01** (2.62) 5.50 (2.39) 4.80*** (2.11) 6.39 (2.65)
communication
(N 5 869)
Influence of politics 4–20 12 13.82*** (4.13) 12.20 (3.71) 14.19 (4.24) 13.72 (4.12)
(N 5 869)
Information need 4–20 12 16.07** (3.08) 15.49 (3.03) 14.73*** (3.69) 16.50 (2.77)
(N 5 869)
Cross-department 1–5 3 3.73 (0.947) 3.76 (0.85) 3.64 (1.00) 3.76 (0.91)
support (N 5 869)
Communication 1–5 3 3.12** (1.17) 3.34 (1.04) 2.94 (1.25) 3.13 (1.13)
budget adequacy
(N 5 869)
Note: **, significant at the .01 level. ***, significant at the .001 level; Values inside parentheses are SD scores.
communication planning and research (p , .001), but engage less in public information
(p , .01) and conduct fewer multimedia communication activities (p , .01). Among the
constraint variables, government organizations have less adequate communication budgets
(p , .01), are more influenced by politics (p , .001), and face more extensive information
need from outside the organization (p , .01). However, there is no difference on cross-
department support for communication. The reason might be that public sector manage-
ment has increasingly understood the value of communication and public relations. Overall,
government organizations face a tougher communication environment (more politics and
needs) but with weaker budgetary support.
Table 3 also demonstrates that there is no statistically significant difference between
federal and state/local governments regarding communication planning and research, in-
fluence of politics, communication budget adequacy, and cross-department support for
communication. However, federal agencies face less need for information from outside
the organization (p , .001), and they conduct fewer activities in media interaction
(p , .001), public information (p , .001), and multimedia communication (p , .001).
The comparison makes sense as state and local governments more frequently interact with
citizens and clients than do federal agencies. Budget and politics are constraints regardless
of the level of government.
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Table 4
Response Distribution on Perceived Favorable Media Coverage
Percentage
Value Government (n 5 568) Business (n 5 299)
3 0.2% 0%
4 0% 0%
5 0.7% 0.7%
6 4.4% 1.0%
7 4.6% 2.0%
8 5.5% 4.3%

9 19.4% 8.4%
10 11.3% 11.0%
11 13.9% 14.7%
12 25.9% 36.1%
13 7.2% 7.4%
14 4.2% 9.7%
15 2.8% 4.7%
Model Testing
A correlation matrix is displayed in table 5. Most variables are weakly or moderately cor-
related except a relatively strong correlation between media interaction and information
need (r 5 .65, p , .001), suggesting that multicollinearity may not be a problem
(later confirmed with regression diagnostics such as low scores of variance inflation factor).
Among the four types of communication activities, only media interaction is significantly
correlated with positive news coverage (r 5 .19, p , .001). The correlation coefficients
among the four types of activities are either not statistically significant or not strong,
indicating they are indeed distinct types.
To assess the impact of communication activities and constraint variables on media
coverage, three models are tested with OLS regression: One with the whole sample, one
with the government subsample, and the other with the business subsample.5 This is done to
see whether government and business organizations have different dynamics. As table 6
shows, all three models are statistically significant with acceptable F values (13.22, 8.42,
and 4.52, respectively, all significant at the .001 level). The R-square values are not very
large (.12, .12, and .11, respectively) because the survey did not include other variables that
might be relevant given that our focus is on the major explanatory variables discussed by
Liu and Horsley (2007) and Liu and Levenshus (2010).
Overall, the hypotheses are largely supported. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, the
results show that some of the communication activities do lead to positive media coverage:
media interaction for government (Model 2, b 5 .29, p , .001) and public information for
business (Model 3, b 5 .23, p , .001). But multimedia communication is statistically
5 The normality assumption was slightly violated for the residuals, as shown by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the
Shapiro-Wilk test, which are unfortunately sensitive to sample sizes. The normality plot of the residuals showed very
slight violation. Whereas OLS regression is fairly robust for slight violation of the normality assumption (Hair et al.
1998; Tabachnick and Fidell 2007), we tried nonparametric tests (logistic regression) to cross-validate the results, and
the results were similar (same significant variables and same directions of the coefficients). The logistic results can be
obtained from the authors. We also tried regression with robust standard errors and the results were similar too.
Therefore, we report the regular OLS results here.
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Table 5
Correlation Matrix
Variables V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9
V1 positive news 1.00
coverage
V2 media interaction 0.19*** 1.00
V3 public information 20.00 0.04 1.00
V4 communication 0.04 0.37*** 0.27*** 1.00
planning and
research
V5 multimedia 0.03 0.27*** 0.30*** 0.27*** 1.00
advertising
V6 influence of politics 20.11*** 0.06 0.13*** 0.17*** 0.14*** 1.00
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
V7 information need 0.11*** 0.65*** 0.05 0.33*** 0.30*** 0.23*** 1.00

V8 cross-department 0.14*** 0.13*** 0.11** 0.10** 0.12*** 20.03 0.15*** 1.00
support for
communication
V9 communication budget 0.19*** 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.02 20.10** 0.05 0.27*** 1.00
adequacy
V10 government 20.20*** 20.11*** 0.15*** 20.19*** 0.10** 0.18*** 0.08* 20.02 20.10**
(yes 5 1)
Note: *, significant at the .05 level; **, significant at the .01 level; and ***, significant at the .001 level.

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Table 6
Regression Results Predicting Positive News Coverage
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Whole Sample, Government, Business,
b (SE) b (SE) b (SE)
Media interaction 0.17 (0.02)*** 0.29 (0.02)*** 20.03 (0.03)
Public information 0.06 (0.02)* 20.01 (0.02) 0.23 (0.03)***
Communication planning 20.12 (0.02)** 20.12 (0.03)** 20.13 (0.04)*
and research
Multimedia communication 20.00 (0.03) 20.01 (0.04) 0.01 (0.05)

Influence of politics 20.07 (0.02)* 20.01 (0.02) 20.20 (0.03)***
Information need 0.04 (0.03) 20.03 (0.04) 0.23 (0.05)**
Cross-department support 0.08 (0.09)* 0.10 (0.10)* 20.01 (0.13)
for communication
Communication budget adequacy 0.15 (0.07)*** 0.19 (0.08)*** 0.13 (0.11)*
Government (yes 5 1) 20.19 (0.16)***
Federal Government (yes 5 1) 0.06 (0.23)
F value 13.22*** 8.42*** 4.52***
R2/adjusted R2 .12/.11 .12/.11 .11/.09
N 865 568 297
Note: *, significant at the .05 level; **, significant at the .01 level; and ***, significant at the .001 level.
significant in none of the models, and communication planning and research negatively
impacts media coverage for both government (Model 2, b 5 2.12, p , .01) and business
(Model 3, b 5 2.13, p , .05). Among the constraint variables, budget inadequacy matters
for both sectors. As predicted in Hypothesis 2, budget adequacy is positively significant for
both government (Model 2, b 5 .19, p , .001) and business (Model 3, b 5 .13, p , .05).
Hypothesis 3 is partially supported: cross-department support for communication is pos-
itively related to affirmative media coverage for government (Model 2, b 5 .10, p , .05)
but is not significant for business.
Of the variables for which we did not specify formal hypotheses, influence of politics
is not statistically significant in the government model but significant in the business model
(Model 3, b 5 2.20, p , .001). Similarly, information demand is not statistically signif-
icant in the government model, but significant in the business model (Model 3, b 5 .23,
p , .01). Finally, government is less likely to have positive media coverage than business
organizations (Model 1, b 5 2.19, p , .001).
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Although better communication to the public has been a critical concern for improving
trust in government, few empirical studies have assessed how communication activities
relate to positive news coverage. Importantly, this is the first study to examine how gov-
ernment communication activities relate to perceptions of positive news coverage com-
pared to corporate communication activities, thereby highlighting unique media relations
challenges and opportunities for government communicators. This is also the first study
to offer a conceptual framework of government communication activities based on
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empirical research. Consequently, this study’s findings offer some important and intrigu-
ing insights and point to some future research directions. In this next section, we highlight
the primary findings and offer tentative interpretations, based on our results and previous
research. Future research, such as interviews and focus groups, is needed to further val-
idate our interpretations.
Communication Activities
The results offer an empirically validated conceptual framework of government commu-

nication activities that includes four categories: media interaction, public information,
communication planning and research, and multimedia communication (see Appendix).
This conceptualization also applies to business communication. The results also illustrate
that some of the communication activities do matter for government image. Media inter-
action (news releases, news conferences, media interviews, responding to media inquiries,
pitching stories to the media, and tracking media clips) is found to positively affect media
coverage for the government subsample, but no such relationship is found for the business
subsample. One explanation is that the media interaction activities by business organiza-
tions may normally be for advertising purposes. In a market where all competing companies
participate in an advertising race, these advertising activities may not contribute to a com-
pany’s positive news coverage in relation to other companies. Media interaction activities
by government, in contrast, normally are not advertisements and are subject to laws and
regulations regarding content and purpose. The implication is that government communi-
cators should, within the regulatory boundary, more proactively work with the media to
publicize government programs, activities, innovations, and performance, as suggested by
some public administration scholars (Berman 1997; Glaser and Denhardt 2000; Goodsell
2004). As indicated previously, positive coverage of government news is associated with
higher levels of government trust and confidence (Gross, Aday, and Brewer 2004), and
positive media exposure also can enhance the public’s political efficacy and activity (Miller
and Reese 1984).
Public information positively affects media coverage for the business subsample but
not for the government subsample. In comparing business organizations with other business
organizations, public information content preparation, such as creating brochures, fliers,
guides, and print advertising, is associated with positive news coverage. This is not true
when comparing government agencies with other government agencies, an interesting find-
ing given, as shown in table 3, that government agencies engage in more public information
activities than business organizations. The reason may be public information activities are
what most government agencies should do to communicate their basic mission and oper-
ations to the general public, but they may not have news values for the media (Garnett
1992). That such activities may not generate positive news coverage does not mean they
are unnecessary; rather, they are basic communication activities in which government
agencies routinely engage, and they may improve citizen knowledge and trust via direct
communication without relying on media coverage (Berman 1997). In contrast, when busi-
ness organizations engage in public information activities, it usually has to do with new
product promotion and may be more likely to generate positive news coverage.
A somewhat surprising finding is that communication planning and research, including
activities such as developing strategic plans, developing crisis communication plans,
conducting primary research, and writing fact sheets, is negatively associated with positive
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news coverage for both government and business samples. One explanation is that when
scarce time and resources are spent in planning and research, activities that will directly
influence the tone of news coverage, such as media interaction and public information,
are undercut. This is plausible because organizations on average do not have plentiful budget
and staff for the communication function, but the correlation matrix does not lend much
support as planning and research is positively correlated with other communication activities.
A more likely explanation is the negative association suggests a causal relationship
that is reversed: When organizations face more negative news coverage, they are more
likely to focus on planning and research. This leaves an important question for future stud-

ies that may utilize alternative research designs to assess the direction of the causal relation-
ship. A final interpretation of this finding is that many communicators have journalism
backgrounds including reporting and editing experience and/or college journalism training,
which may lead them to value media interaction and public information roles more than
planning and research roles. Future survey research should include questions about employ-
ment and education history to assess whether a journalism background indeed affects how
communicators value different public relations activities. Existing research indicates that
having a journalism background increases perceptions of credibility and expertise (Sinaga
and Callison 2008) but has not examined whether this background affects communication
decision making.
Multimedia communication, including creating radio or TV public service announce-
ments, video news releases, and broadcast advertising, is not statistically significant in any
of the models. This finding has interesting implications given that multimedia communi-
cation activities target broadcast and digital media rather than print media. This indicates
that organizations’ communication activities targeted at broadcast and digital media are not
perceived as generating more positive news. As one reviewer noted, the finding could be an
artifact of our sample given that historically many communicators have print journalism
backgrounds. Additionally, those trained in public relations often are less exposed to broad-
cast production than writing for print journalism given current standard college curricula
(PRSA 2010). Further, multimedia communication requires more time and resources to
produce than print communication, which may affect communicators’ assessments of
the relative ‘‘bang-for-the-buck’’ of multimedia communication, which future interview
research could explore. Finally, as the newspaper industry continues to restructure and
downsize (Blumer 2010), we wonder whether this relationship will change. In other words,
will multimedia communication be positively and significantly related to positive news
coverage in the future? Future research, of course, is needed to answer this question.
Constraint Factors
Although it is common perception that government communication faces more constraints
than business communication, our results suggest that only some constraints influence per-
ceived government media coverage. Our t-test results confirm that government has higher
degrees of influence of politics, external information need, and budget inadequacy than
business organizations, but the multivariate test results show that only budget inadequacy
and lack of cross-department support are associated with reporting more negative media
coverage for government. Influence of politics and information need do not affect the re-
ported tone of media coverage for government, although they do influence the reported
media coverage for business in interesting ways.
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A clear observation from the study’s results is you reap what you invest in: commu-
nication budget adequacy is positively and significantly associated with reported positive
news coverage for both government and business organizations. This is not surprising given
that resource adequacy is an important determinant for any performance model (Pfeffer and
Salancik 1978; Rainey and Steinbauer 1999). The finding, however, is particularly alarm-
ing for government as government tends to have lower levels of communication budget
adequacy than business organizations (see the t-test results). This is in line with the finding
by Liu and Levenshus (2010) from interview data that the lack of resources is the biggest
challenge faced by government communicators. This concern becomes more severe in

a tough economic environment where cutback management takes the upper hand. Even
in a regular environment, communication is not in a good position to compete with other
functions because it tends to be resourced less (Garnett 1997). Our study indicates that
without adequate budgets, communicators are unlikely to secure positive media coverage,
limiting communicators’ abilities to enhance public trust via the media. Inadequate budgets
also logically hinder communicators’ responsiveness to public inquiries and requests,
which also negatively affects trust in government (Tolbert and Mossberger 2006).
Across-department support for communication, capturing whether colleagues and
organization units outside the communication function support communication activities,
is positively associated with positive news coverage for government but not for business
organizations. Across-department support is important for government communication be-
cause communication and communicators are often devalued in government (Lee 2008;
Liu and Horsley 2007), while at the same time government agencies are often departmen-
talized into relatively independent programs. This finding provides empirical support for
the excellence theory, which predicts that the public relations function (including media
relations) is most successful when communicators are supported by management and their
peers (Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier 2002).
When comparing government agencies with government agencies regarding the tone
of news coverage, the extent to which politics affects the organization is not a significant
factor. Instead, it is negatively associated with reporting positive news coverage for busi-
ness organizations. An explanation is that political influence may hamper communication
effectiveness by interfering with communicators’ professional activities such as creative
message development (Fitch 2004; Horsley and Barker 2002). This negative effect, how-
ever, may be moderated by communicator and media expectations. All government agen-
cies are often perceived political by the media and the public (Graber 2003; Liu and Horsley
2007), which offsets the negative impact of politics when comparing government agencies
with one another. In contrast, politics in business organizations would be perceived as neg-
ative by the media and the public. A clear lesson from this finding is that if media coverage
of government is negative, it is not because government is political. Nevertheless, to fully
assess the role of politics, future studies may include additional variables in the modeling,
such as other aspects of communication performance, communicators’ political management
skills, and self-identity in relation to politics. In addition, future studies may measure not only
the degree of political influence but also its source (i.e., from different stakeholders, see
Pandey and Wright 2006) and nature (i.e., supportive or hostile, see Yang 2009).
Although government communicators report facing greater information pressure from
the public than do business communicators, as recognized in the literature (Garnett, Marlowe,
and Pandey 2008; Viteritti 1997), our results do not find a relationship between information
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need and reported media coverage for government. Instead, information need is associated
with reported positive media coverage for business organizations. It is likely that more
information requests from the media and the public may not necessarily be good for
government agencies that are more conservative in external communication and want
to protect their information territory. For business organizations, however, more informa-
tion requests tend to be a positive opportunity as their proactive managers strive for more
brand recognition and news coverage. It is worth noting that this study measures only the
level of information need, but future studies may also investigate the type of information
requested and the type of stakeholders who make the request.

LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
We offer a few words of caution in interpreting the results from this study. First, all of our
respondents were members of communication or public relations professional associations,
which may make the results not generalizable to all communicators. For example, profes-
sional associations can impart knowledge that facilitates technology diffusion among mem-
bers, indicating that members of professional associations may be more likely to adopt new
technology sooner than nonmembers (Swan and Newell 1995). Professional associations
may also engage in ‘‘anticipatory socialization,’’ promoting the value of new technology
without adequate evidence to support effects (Taylor and Kent 2010, 1). Further, profes-
sional associations often are limited by their relatively small size and lack of penetration
into smaller firms (Swan and Newell 1995).
Another limitation of our study is organizations’ external communication is done not
only by their communicators but also by their top managers such as agency secretaries or
commissioners who may affect media coverage more strongly. There are other relevant
variables that might be added in future studies, such as policy stability, political support,
and the media and social culture. A third limitation is the cross-sectional nature of the study
design, which prevents us from drawing causal conclusions. As mentioned before, the neg-
ative relationship between positive news coverage and communication planning/research
could be interpreted by taking the former as an independent variable and the latter as
a dependent variable. A more complex design also may consider adding reporters in
the sample and assessing how they respond to government communication activities
and why they choose to report in the way they do. Despite the limitations, our findings
are consistent with theories and prior findings.
In conclusion, we began this study with the goal of identifying the types of government
communication activities and determining whether such activities lead to reported positive
media coverage. We focused on positive media coverage because arguably this factor has
received the most attention and research support for impacting the publics’ trust in gov-
ernment (Cappella 2002; Wu and Coleman 2009). In addition, we aimed to examine how
media coverage is affected by four factors that are often perceived as constraints faced by
government communicators. We find that organizations engage in four types of external
communication activities: media interaction, public information, communication planning
and research, and multimedia communication. Among the four types of activities, only
media interaction is associated with positive news coverage for government. We further
find that among the four constraints, only the lack of cross-department support and com-
munication budget inadequacy are associated with negative media coverage for govern-
ment, but influence of politics and information need are not.
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These findings have great practical implications. Public managers need to recognize
that the nature of government work—more political influence and external information
demand—does not necessarily lead to negative news coverage. Although management
strategies may not be able to fully address the problem of negative news coverage given
factors outside managers’ control, more proactive media interaction does help improve
media coverage. If government agencies want their communication staffs to help generate
positive news coverage, they need to value the role of communication, find a way to in-
crease agency-wide support for communication, and allocate more for communication
budgets. This is tough to do in our current economic situation, but proving the performance

impact of communication activities may be a helpful step. In this regard, this study makes
a contribution by showing that media interaction improves media coverage, which in turn
would increase citizen trust and maintain political legitimacy.
Conceptually, this is one of the few empirical studies on generating positive news
coverage via communicators’ jobs. Only recently have public management scholars started
to examine empirically the antecedents and consequences of organizational communica-
tion. This study contributes to this line of research and shows that communication activities
and organizational constraints may have different effects for government and business
organizations. Therefore, it seems sensible to develop a public sector communication
theory that takes into account unique public sector characteristics and dynamics.
FUNDING
This work was supported by a grant from the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Rela-
tions at the University of Alabama.
APPENDIX
Measurement and Internal Consistency for Index Variables
Communication Activities: How often do you and/or a member of your team engage in the
following communication activities? 1 5 never engage in activity; 5 5 very frequently
engage in activity (i.e., daily)
Media Interaction (standardized alpha 5 .87)
Write news releases and advisories
Hold news conferences
Conduct media interviews
Respond to media inquiries
Pitch stories to the media
Track media clips
Public Information (standardized alpha 5 .86)
Create brochures
Create fliers
Create guides
Create print advertising
Communication Planning and Research (standardized alpha 5 .65)
Develop strategic plans
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Develop crisis communication plans

Conduct primary research (e.g., surveys, interviews, and/or focus groups)
Write fact sheets
Multi-Media Communication (standardized alpha 5 .65)
Create radio or TV public service announcements
Create video news release
Create broadcast advertising
Positive News Coverage (standardized alpha 5 .87; 5-point scale)

Considering all news coverage of your organization in the past six months, how would
you rate the tone of the coverage? (1 5 extremely unfavorable; 5 5 extremely favor-
able)
you rate the level of accuracy of the coverage? (1 5 extremely inaccurate; 5 5
extremely accurate)
you rate the level of fairness of the coverage? (1 5 extremely unfair; 5 5 extremely fair)
Influence of Politics (standardized alpha 5 .82; 5-point scale)
How much external political pressure do you feel? (1 5 low pressure; 5 5 high pressure)
How much internal political pressure do you feel? (1 5 low pressure; 5 5 high pressure)
How much of an effect do internal politics have on your job? (1 5 minimal effect;
5 5 large effect)
How much of an effect do external politics have on your job? (1 5 minimal effect;
5 5 large effect)
Information Need (standardized alpha 5 .68; 5-point scale)
How much pressure do you feel from your primary public to meet its information
needs? (1 5 low pressure; 5 5 high pressure)
How often do you communicate with your primary public? (1 5 rarely;
5 5 frequently)
How often do you interact with reporters? This can include issuing news releases or
media advisories, pitching stories to reporters, and answering reporters’ questions.
(1 5 rarely; 5 5 frequently [i.e., daily])
How would you rate the media’s frequency of coverage of your organization? (1 5 rare;
5 5 frequent [i.e., daily])
Cross-Department Support for Communication (5-point scale: 1 5 not at all
satisfied; 5 5 very satisfied)
How satisfied are you with the level of support you receive from colleagues outside of
the public relations/communication department or function?
Communication Budget Adequacy (5-point scale: 1 5 not at all adequate; 5 5 very
adequate)
How adequate is your budget for your public relations and communication activities?
Salary Level
1. $20,000 or less 2. $20,001–$40,000 3. $40,001–$60,000 4. $60,001–$80,000
5. $80,001–$100,000 6. More than $100,001
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Gender
Male 5 1 Female 5 0
Tenure in the Profession
How many years, if any, have you been employed in government (or corporate)
communication?
Number of Training Seminars Attended Last Year Paid for by the Employer
In the past year, how many training seminars, if any, did you attend that were paid for
by your employer?

Number of Communication Associations Participated
How many local, state, and/or national professional communication associations are
you a member of?
Number of Subordinates
How many employees, if any, do you manage?
Part of Top Management Team
Yes 5 1 No 5 0
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JPART 22:597–621

Overcoming Negative Media Coverage: Does

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Public communication is undeniably one of the most important government functions.

Address correspondence to the author at bﬂiu@umd.edu.

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MEDIA COVERAGE AND TRUST IN GOVERNMENT

When it comes to covering government organizations in particular, the media tend

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The Link between Media Coverage and Trust in Government

USING COMMUNICATION TO INFLUENCE MEDIA COVERAGE

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CONSTRAINTS ON GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION

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are communicating internally or externally to various publics regarding company/department

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(level 5 4.33) whereas business respondents reported $80,000–$100,000 (level 5 5.33). In

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

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Comparing Subsamples with Descriptive Statistics and t-Tests

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V7 information need 0.11*** 0.65*** 0.05 0.33*** 0.30*** 0.23*** 1.00

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DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

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Develop crisis communication plans

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V7 information need 0.11* 0.65* 0.05 0.33* 0.30* 0.23*** 1.00