Are ‘journalists’ own problems’ aggravating their hostility toward public relations?—A study of Korean journalists

Public Relations Review 37 (2011) 305–313

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Public Relations Review

Are ‘journalists’ own problems’ aggravating their hostility toward public relations?—A study of Korean journalists Seong-Hun Yun a,∗ , Heesang Yoon b a b

Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Dongguk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Korea Medicare, Seoul, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 10 November 2010 Received in revised form 7 February 2011 Accepted 4 March 2011 Keywords: Media attitude Public relations ‘Journalists’ own problems’ Occupational sociology

a b s t r a c t Journalists’ own job problems have been found to be detrimental to media recognition of public relations: journalists vent frustration from their worsening job conditions at public relations practitioners. This outlook of occupational psyche casts a shadow over the bright prospect for media recognition of the profession. Journalists’ problems operate outside media relations, thus beyond direct attempts of public relations practitioners at media recognition via enhancing professionalism in their practices. There have been, however, only a few qualitative studies on this significant issue, all pointing to journalists’ occupational psyche running against media recognition. The purpose of this study is to determine quantitatively whether journalists’ own job satisfaction and their envy of public relations practitioners lead to their negative attitude. A survey of 128 Korean off-line journalists was conducted, and its results suggested that occupational psyche has little influence on media attitude—contrary to the findings of previous qualitative studies. For future study, this paper issues a call for cross-country, comparative research on the subject of journalists’ occupational psyche. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The ever-growing competition in the media market has resulted in strains on journalists in terms of increased work hours, decreased salary, lowered occupational status and job satisfaction, weakened autonomy, and peaked burnout. This work milieu of journalists—called “journalists’ own problems” (DeLorme & Fedler, 2003, p. 108)—has been cited as aggravating their hostility toward public relations. The linkage between journalists’ work problems and their negative attitude to public relations is a psychological mentality arising from the occupational sociology involving both professions. At the heart of the mentality lies the view that journalists vent anger and frustration from their deteriorating job conditions at public relations practitioners. Also, journalists’ envy of perceived better working conditions of public relations practitioners fuels this occupational psyche. Yet, the role of the problem or, by extension, the changing media landscape in forging media hostility has evaded serious attention from public relations scholarship. A handful of studies, primarily based on qualitative analysis, have touched upon this issue, not as the focal research question from the onset but as one of many descriptive and explorative findings on media perceptions of public relations (DeLorme & Fedler, 2003; Sallot & Johnson, 2006; Stern, 2010; Tilley & Hollings, 2008). The research situation is quite disproportionate to the role’s critical implication for the century-long efforts of public relations

∗ Corresponding author at: K 325 Culture House, Dongguk University, Jung-gu, Janchung-dong, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Tel.: +82 02 2260 3929. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.-H. Yun). 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.03.004

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practitioners to overcome media negativity. The implication is that there would be no way, at the practitioners’ disposal, to deal with the internal working conditions of the media, in hopes of correcting media negativity, if journalists’ own problems play out as such. The purpose of this paper is to bring to the forefront of public relations research the role of journalists’ own problems in shaping their negative view of public relations by quantitatively examining survey data from Korean journalists. One of two critical implications for media hostility could emerge from this study. First, if the role of journalists’ own problems is disproved in fact, then the public relations’ suspicion about journalists’ frustration and envy would be an emotional bias on the part of the “under hand” (i.e., public relations people). If the role is proven true, however, then public relations people should be alarmed at the potential rocky road ahead for a congenial relationship with journalists. Such finding would be dispiriting to public relations practitioners who have sought to gain media recognition mainly through enhancing professionalism in media relations; that is, journalists’ own job problems exist beyond media relations and thus the reach of public relation people, and the ensuing journalists’ occupational psyche against public relations looms larger than before as the problems show no sign of abatement with the ever-growing competition in the media industry. 2. Literature review Four different lines of research have so far mapped out the factors affecting unfavorable media attitudes toward public relations: professionalism in media relations; media dependence on public relations information through information subsidies—in other words, the growing utility of media relations for news production; blind bias against public relations that is pervasive in journalism education; and frustration and jealousy-driven reactions from journalists’ own problems. 2.1. Professionalism in media relations Looking into media relations as the genesis of media attitude has been a natural starting point in the literature. Ever since the modern-day public relations profession started as a working partnership with journalists in the form of publicity, journalists have based their attitude on everyday work experiences with media relations. The two main grounds for professionalism in media relations have served as frames of references for journalists’ attitudes: its ethics, including goals, and its proficiency in conforming to the journalistic standards for news selection and presentation. “Much of the literature concerning the newsman/practitioner relationship,” Jeffers (1977) wrote, “centers around two broad topics—communication skills (such as news judgment and writing) and ethical issues (such as fairness and openness)” (p. 300). Since then, the literature has been saturated with coverage of the influence of professionalism on media attitude. The findings are firmly established: journalists have developed a negative attitude from their perception of the unethical practices of media relations, its obstruction to the free flow of information, and its lack of proficiency (DeLorme & Fedler, 2003; Ryan & Martinson, 1988; Sallot & Johnson, 2006; Sallot, 1990; Tilley & Hollings, 2008). 2.2. Media dependence on media relations As a cause of media attitude, media dependence on public relations has taken firm root in the literature, largely influenced by Gandy’s (1982) concept of “information subsidies.” A group of studies have since approached media dependence with an eye toward the characteristics of public relations information materials required to increase the chance for placement in the media and the likely conditions for media dependence (Abbott & Brassfield, 1989; Curtin, 1999; Morton, 1986; Sallot & Johnson, 2006). Another group, meanwhile, has focused inwardly on the consequences of dependence for media attitude. This group’s assumption is that the more dependent journalists are on media relations, the more likely they will have a growing feeling of utility toward it and eventually a more positive attitude. Pomerantz’s (1989/1990) work found that, compared with journalists in the metropolitan-based media, local media people—with less resource for news production and thus more dependence on the information subsidy—tended to have a more positive attitude toward public relations. In Pincus, Rimmer, Rayfield, and Cropp’s (1993) study, the utility of public relations information emerged as the strongest, statistically significant predictor of media attitude out of five factors examined, including the size of newspaper circulation. Also, revealed from the same study was a division in media attitude based on coverage specialty: sports editors expressed the most favorable attitude, followed by news editors, and business editors held the least favorable attitude. Recent studies continued to find that source dependence correlates positively with affect for the source. Journalists who used more media relations-originated information in their news production held a more positive attitude (Sallot & Johnson, 2006). “Media are inclined to be more positive toward public relations people when they behave in a way that aligns with their interests” (Stern, 2010, p. 23). 2.3. Bias in journalism education Beginning in the early 1980s, another cause of media negativity was suspected to come from outside media relations—from journalism education in the form of stereotypes. The thinking was that journalism education’s bias against public relations runs so deep that even before encountering media relations, journalists likely project their “educationalized”

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stereotypes onto public relations. The works of Cline (1982) and Stegall and Sanders (1986) found journalism textbooks riddled with entrenched biases against public relations. Not only do the stereotypes permeate educational writings, but also the minds of journalism faculty, according to Habermann, Kopenhaver, and Martinson (1988) and Shaw and White (2004). Arguing that “education does matter to the bias and [media negativity]” (p. 29), Pincus et al. (1993) concluded that having taken a public relations course at college tended to help journalists see public relations in a more favorable light. While the literature is quite consistent in its findings on the harmful effect of the lack of public relations education on journalists’ attitudes, it has not found the same, consistent connection with another demographical factor, a journalist’s tenure. Tenure, in theory, parallels the familiarity logic in Jeffers’ (1977) syndrome—journalists view more positively the practitioners with whom they have frequent contact. With more years leading to more familiarity, they may become less critical, more appreciative, and mellower toward public relations. There have been mixed findings on the influence of tenure on media attitude, however. In Kaur and Shaari’s (2006) study, for instance, journalists with more than 10 years of tenure rate more positively the quality and utility of media relations than those with less tenure; this suggests that as the length of tenure increases, so does the journalist’s positive attitude. But Sallot and Johnson (2006) found no statistically significant effect of the length of tenure on media attitude. The mixed findings call for more inquiry into the role of tenure on journalists’ attitudes. 2.4. Journalists’ own problems Occupational sociology, according to Anderson and Lowrey (2007), involves jurisdictional disputes or competition for control between two occupations. Some dyads, serving a common goal, compete with each other based on different skills and expertise, as between marketing, advertising, and public relations. Rivalry in these dyads can be fierce at times, but it often resembles trench warfare because each group, kept at a distance, employs different modi operandi. Other groups, however, involve a more constant, intense, and complex rivalry; they share the same skills and expertise in a shared domain of work but pursue different goals. This is the case for journalism and media relations. In the eyes of journalists, publicity began as a divergence from journalism using the same journalistic skills. Furthermore, publicity was seen not as a progression of journalism but as a degradation for private interests. This type of rivalry hardly finds any correspondence in other occupations. “They [journalists] rarely, if ever, expressed a similar contempt for related fields” (DeLorme & Fedler, 2003, p. 114). Despite many detractors of public relations in the United States, Coombs and Holladay (2007) noted, “the most vociferous critics can be found among the ranks of journalists” (p. 13). Aronoff’s (1975) shocking finding—that journalists ranked the occupational status of public relations the lowest among 16 occupations in comparison—is telling. There must be something irrational and emotional in their attitude beyond a rational assessment of the quality of media relations: something similar to the feeling of a legitimate child for its younger bastard sibling. In this sense, journalists may clearly “hate and envy up close” public relations practitioners as their occupation has been on the decline, plagued by job-related problems, while public relations has been on the rise. This unique occupational psyche, resulting from frustration and envy, is seen as the cause of media negativity. DeLorme and Fedler (2003) traced the working of journalists’ own problems in media negativity back to the early writings of U.S. journalists’ on their occupation and the public relations profession, published between the late 1880s and the mid1950s. Through text analysis, they identified journalists’ own work problems among six historical and persistent causes for media negativity. Five major hardships in the early newspaper industry appear in the texts and are attributed to media negativity, channeled through journalists’ frustration and anger: long hours, lack of job security, unpleasant assignments, incessant work demands, and negative reputation. As chronic complainers about their job conditions, “journalists also seem to have been envious [of public relations people]. They were overworked, underpaid, and overwhelmed by a multitude of other problems” (p. 113). Ever since the early days, media problems have haunted journalists, as evidenced in the studies of U.S. journalists’ job dissatisfaction. Over the past two decades, journalists have been found to be burned out, fed up, and “pissed off” (Peck, 1991). According to one survey, 46% of the nation’s journalists did not want their kids to follow in their footsteps (Pease, 2000); the same percentage planned to remain in the profession (American Society of Newspaper Editors, 2001). In fact, the problems have grown more daunting in the 21st century, not only in America but also worldwide. In Britain, for example, journalists now have only one-third of the time per story that they had 20 years ago (Lewis, Williams, Franklin, Thomas, & Mosdell, 2007). And American journalists are under more pressing work demands with a more serious shortage of staff than ever before (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008). A number of qualitative studies of journalists, conducted in the last decade, offered an update to the continuing link between journalists’ problems and media negativity. Tilley and Hollings (2008), based on interview data with journalists in New Zealand, discovered what can be viewed as the subconscious nature of the connection. With a broad, open-ended question posed to journalists—“What do you think of public relations?”—four distinct categories of answers emerged. The first group, making up 27% of all answers, was positive in valence, mostly about the utility of media relations for journalism; the second group (27%) was negative, about the low professionalism of media relations; and the third group (17%) was equivocal, a mixture of positive and negative views. These categories of views are consistent with previous findings. Yet, the fourth group (29%) of answers was unexpected, containing specific issues, primarily related to a comparison between journalists’ work conditions and those of public relations people. A typical comparison comment was, “Public

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relations practitioners enjoy more money and/or better conditions than journalists” (p. 11). These comparison comments support the view that journalists problems subconsciously lead to media negativity. Asked to write whatever they think of public relations practitioners, “journalists talk about their own workplace problems, including unfavorable pay comparisons” (p. 16). This finding leads Tilley and Hollings (2008) to speculate that media negativity “might at least in part be a displacement of emotion and anger about their own changing working conditions and sense of powerlessness” (p. 17) and that “the blame directed toward public relations provides at least one outlet for journalists’ feeling of dissatisfaction” (p. 17). In a similar vein, Sallot and Johnson (2006), who analyzed a collection of interview texts with 418 U.S. journalists between 1991 and 2004, found that “without prompting. . . journalists attributed their tensions with [public relations] practitioners to their perceptions that practitioners earn better salaries and work fewer hours” (p. 154). The backlash of journalists’ own problems was also found in Stern’s (2010) recent study of media perceptions of public relations in New Zealand. This study used a sample of senior-level journalists; this was different from the junior-level journalists interviewed by Tilley and Hollings (2008), but Stern reached the same findings. Dubbing the problems part of the environment, Stern said, “there is also an element of jealousy and chagrin clearly attached to the pay differentials between the two professions” (p. 24). The literature review has so far discussed major findings on the causes of media attitude toward public relations. In the literature, there has been a consensus that two causes—professionalism in media relations and the utility of media relations for news production—affect media attitude, while journalists’ tenure has been undetermined regarding its influence on media perception. Critically, the review sheds more light on the occupational psyche view that journalists’ own job problems aggravate their negative attitude toward public relations. Despite the view’s potential implications for media attitude, only a few studies have been conducted to examine the issue, all of which were qualitative inquiries. This subject requires a more diverse research effort to determine whether journalists’ job dissatisfaction and envy of public relations people lead to media negativity. In this vein, quantitative studies are needed to confirm not only the negative influence of journalist’s occupational psyche, but also its relative influence compared with other causes. Research is also called on to explore more sources or dimensions of journalists’ envy of public relations than simply working conditions. The prior studies examined journalists’ envy mostly over salary and stress levels; they left out other subjects of comparison, such as professional status in terms of occupational power and importance in society.

2.5. Hypotheses and research questions H1. The more dissatisfied journalists feel about their job, the more negative they feel about public relations. H2. The better journalists perceive the working conditions of public relations practitioners compared to their own, the more negative they feel about public relations. RQ1. How does journalists’ perception of the occupational status of public relations compared to their own affect their attitude toward public relations? RQ2. How does journalists’ tenure length affect their attitude toward public relations? RQ3. To what degree does the occupational psyche factor (journalists’ job dissatisfaction and envy of public relations) affect journalists’ attitude toward public relations compared to other factors?

3. Methods 3.1. Study site, Korea 3.1.1. Korean journalists’ attitude toward public relations From the mid-1990s to about 2002, research on Korean journalists’ attitude toward public relations exploded, producing a number of studies on the subject, but the volume of research has significantly declined since then. Though these studies of media attitudes need an update, they were generally similar to findings in the rest of the world, particularly in the United States. Like American journalists, their Korean counterparts held negative attitudes toward public relations. Examining journalists’ perceptions of informal media relations, Shin (1999) found that public relations in general were held in low esteem by Korean journalists. Park (2001) reached the same finding in a different way: through a content analysis of the top three major Korean national dailies, he found that Korean journalists had an unfavorable view of the meanings of the term “public relations.” Along with Shin and Park’s research on the media’s overall attitude, other studies delved into the sources of this negative attitude. Korean journalists rated the level of professionalism in media relations as mediocre to low, reported Lee (1995), and did not think public relations practitioners were as ethical or credible as they should be, according to Park (1996). Also, the media’s increasing dependence on media relations in the form of information subsidy was observed. Kim (1988) estimated that almost half of the news articles published in Korean major dailies originated in news releases. His estimation was corroborated by Hong (2002), then a senior editorial writer at one of the top three dailies in Seoul, who researched how journalists utilize public relations sources. In recent years, Hong (2006) looked at whether the managerial constraints on journalists inside a media outlet, such as control from media ownership and lack of supportive infrastructure assisting news production, affect their attitude toward public relations sources. The Korean literature, however, has not given serious attention to the role of journalists’ occupational psyche in their views of public relations.

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3.1.2. Korean journalists’ job problems Like elsewhere around the globe, journalists in Korea face a gloomy prospect for their troubling work conditions. A worsening trend in the conditions is well captured in a 20-year national survey, which the Korean Press Foundation (KPF) has conducted with representative samples every other year since 1989. First, work load has weighed heavily on journalists. According to a 2009 report (KPF, 2009), off-line journalists wrote 12.7 articles per week on average back in 1999, but the number jumped to 14.7 in 2009. While the 2009 figure is smaller than the 2005 figure of 15.4, this is not an indication of a real decrease: after 2005, journalists worked one day less than before with a five-day week in place. Last year, 60.8% of off-line journalists felt that their work load was too much to bear, and three out of four of them worked more than 10 h per day. Also remarkably, their work hours per month (228.1) were way above those of their colleagues in the United States (196.5) and Japan (156.0). Also, their satisfaction with salary level has dwindled since 1989. Twenty years ago the satisfaction level for salary was 59.25 on a 100-point scale; it had dropped to 40.66 in 2009. 3.2. Sample A total of 128 Korean journalists participated in an on-line survey, conducted between April 2008 and the year’s end. For the survey, 1500 members of the Journalists Association of Korea with live email addresses were solicited. They were all off-line journalists working for newspapers, broadcast stations, and wire agencies around the country. The response rate was 8.5%. Of the 128 respondents, 82.8% were male, 17.2% female. The average length of tenure in years was 11.34. A vast majority (70.4%) of them had a bachelor degree, followed by 27.3% with a master’s degree and 2.3% with a doctorate. The demographic composition of this sample roughly approximated that of a nationally representative sample of off-line journalists used in the KPF’s 2009 survey. In the national sample, the gender ratio was 82.2% male vs. 17.8% female; the average tenure in years was 12.9; the educational background 74.7% (bachelor’s), 22.6% (master’s), and 2.7% (doctorate). 3.3. Measures A question was asked to assess the dependent variable of this study, that is, favorable media attitude toward public relations in general: “How do you feel about public relations as being practiced as an occupational practice?” This attitude was measured on a five-point scale, with 1 = “much like,” 3 = “neutral,” and 5 = “much dislike.” As for the independent variables of this study, first, journalists’ job satisfaction level was appraised by the question: “How much are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your own job?” A four-point scale was used for this question, with 1 = “much satisfied” and 4 = “much dissatisfied.” Second, there were two statements to capture how journalists compared their job with public relations on a four-point scale, with 1 = “strongly disagree” and 4 = “strongly agree.” The statement for comparison of salary and work stress was, “Nowadays, public relations practitioners enjoy better salary and less work stress than journalists.” Another statement for comparative occupational status was, “Nowadays, public relations enjoy more power and importance for society than journalism.” Last, for journalist tenure, respondents were directly asked to write in their number of years in journalism. Three other questions, meanwhile, were added to the questionnaire to measure journalists’ perceptions of professionalism in media relations and its utility for news production—for later use as controlling variables. These variables for media attitude, along with tenure, were used to judge the relative influence of the occupational psyche factor on media attitude. Of the three, two pertained to professionalism in terms of ethics and conformity to journalistic standards: “Do you feel that the practices of public relations are ethical and contribute to the free flow of information?” (on a four-point scale with 1 = “very positive” and 4 = “very negative”); “Do you feel that public relations practitioners understand the media’s news value?” (on a five-point scale with 1 = “very well,” 3 = “neutral,” and 5 = “very badly”). The third question, related to the utility of media relations, was, “Do you feel that media relations is indispensable for your everyday news production?” (on a four-point scale with 1 = “very much” and 4 = “very little”). For statistical analysis, Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed, using the SPSS 17 version. 4. Findings 4.1. Descriptive statistics The mean of media attitude was 2.75 (SD = .78; n = 123), falling between 2 = “somewhat like” and 3 = “neutral,” which indicates that the journalists in the sample had a more or less neutral feeling about public relations in general. Also, the mean of their job satisfaction landed a little closer to 2 = “somewhat satisfied” than to 3 = “somewhat dissatisfied”: M = 2.36; SD = .83; n = 121. The mean (2.84) of journalists’ perception of public relations people being better paid and under less work stress registered more nearly to 3 = “somewhat agree” than 2 = “somewhat disagree” (SD = .92; n = 111). For their perception of public relations being more powerful and important for society, the mean fell more closely to 2 = “somewhat disagree” than to 1 = “strongly disagree”: M = 1.81; SD = .76; n = 115. In addition, the item of journalist’s tenure in years posted a mean of 11.34 (SD = 6.65; n = 121). Meanwhile, journalists’ perception of the ethics (including the goal) of media relations registered a mean of 2.57, a little closer to 3 = “somewhat negative” than to 2 = “somewhat positive” (SD = .58; n = 110). For their perception of how well public relations people understand news value, the mean (3.50) loaded at the mid-point between 3 = “neutral”

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Table 1 Correlation analyses between media attitude and its causes. Variables

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1. Media attitude 2. Job satisfaction 3. Comparison of work conditions 4. Comparison of occupational status 5. Tenure 6. Ethics of media relations 7. News value of media relations 8. Utility of media relations

– .10 (121) .11 (111) .17 (115) −.20* (119) .46** (110) .28** (121) .40** (120)

– .10 (110) .04 (114) .18 (118) .02 (110) .14 (120) .10 (119)

– −.06 (109) −.03 (108) .03 (103) .14 (110) .24* (110)

– −.07 (112) .15 (106) .03 (114) .05 (114)

– −.22* (108) −.17 (118) −.20* (117)

– .36** (109) .32** (109)

– .13 (119)

–

Note: Higher scores mean more negative (1), more dissatisfied (2), more envious (3 and 4), and longer tenure (5) but represent less ethical (6), less news value (7), and less utility (8). Values enclosed in parentheses mean the number of cases used in each analysis. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

and 4 = “badly” (SD = .75; n = 121). Plus, the mean (2.18) of journalists’ perception of the utility of media relations fell closer to 2 = “much” than to 3 = “little” (SD = .69; n = 120).

4.2. Frustration and envy Table 1 shows the results of correlation analyses among all the variables. H1 posits a corresponding relation between journalists’ job dissatisfaction and their negative attitude toward public relations: as their job complaints grow, so does their negative attitude. The correlation coefficient between the two was .10, statistically insignificant at the level of p < .05. In terms of direction (positive sign) of relation, H1 seemed to be supported, but the relation’s strength was far less than substantial. H2 predicts a parallel relation between journalists’ perception of better working conditions of public relations people and their negative attitude toward public relations: the better perceived public relations people’ salary and work stress were compared to the journalists, the more negative the media attitude. Both variables displayed a statistically insignificant and miniscule coefficient of .11, yet conformed to the predicted parallel relation as the positive sign indicated. RQ1 inquires into how another dimension of journalists’ comparison—professional status—is related to their attitude toward public relations. The positive direction of their association (r = .17) indicated that when journalists perceive public relations to be more powerful and important for society than journalism, their attitude becomes negative. But the association’s strength, as with the variables of job dissatisfaction and comparison over working conditions, was weak and statistically insignificant.

4.3. Tenure, professionalism, and utility of media relations RQ2 seeks to find how the length of tenure in journalism is related to journalists’ attitude toward public relations. The resulting coefficient was −.20, weak in strength but meaningful in statistical significance (p < .05). The coefficient’s direction (negative) indicated a reversed association between the two: the longer a journalist stays in journalism, the less negative his or her attitude becomes, eventually sliding to positive. For reference, Table 1 shows that the more unprofessional journalists view media relations, the more negative their attitude becomes: r = .46** for journalists’ perception of the ethics and goal of media relations; r = .28** for their perception of news value in information materials provided by media relations practitioners. Also, it appears that as the journalists’ perception of the utility of media relations goes down, their attitude turns negative (r = .40**).

4.4. Relative influence of occupational psyche RQ3 intends to isolate the relative impact of journalists’ job dissatisfaction and envy of working conditions and occupational status of public relations on media attitude, compared to the influences of other competing factors. The results of correlation analyses have already made clear that the psyche variables do not have any meaningful influence compared to other factors. Nonetheless, a multiple regression analysis (simultaneous-enter) was conducted for the sake of reporting to see the relative predictive powers of other factors on media attitude. Table 2 shows the results. For the three psyche variables, the standardized regression coefficients were very weak in strength (.04, .01, and .13) and statistically insignificant. In the seven-predictor regression model, journalists’ tenure and their perception of news value—unlike their small but significant bivariate associations with media attitude—have very weak and insignificant predictive powers. Only two variables emerged as significant predictors with medium-sized powers, with journalists’ perception of the ethics of media relations being the strongest (ˇ = .33**, p < .01), followed by their perception of its utility (ˇ = .21*, p < .05). Overall, the regression model explained 26% of the variance in media attitude, after statistical adjustment.

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Table 2 Summary of multiple regression analysis for variables predicting media attitude. Variables

Job satisfaction

Work conditions

Occupational status

Tenure

Ethics

New value

Utility

B SE B ˇ

.36 .08 .04

.01 .08 .01

.12 .09 .13

−.01 .01 −.09

.42 .13 .33**

.12 .10 .12

.22 .11 .21*

Note: N = 97. Adjusted R2 = .26 (p < .01). * p < .05. ** p < .01.

5. Discussion The findings from the correlation analyses clearly suggest that the Korean journalists surveyed did not hold negative attitudes toward public relations as a result of their own job problems. All three psyche variables—job dissatisfaction and comparison with public relations over work conditions and occupational status—turned out to play an insignificant role in media attitude. The directions of associations between each of the three variables and media attitude, at the least, only hint at a small degree of negative influence from the psyche variables: the more journalists are dissatisfied and envious of work conditions and occupational status of public relations practitioners, the more likely the media attitude will be negative. The insignificance and direction of the psyche factors came out as follows in the descriptive findings: the Korean journalists proved somewhat satisfied with their job and somewhat disagreed with the idea of public relations’ occupational status over journalism but somewhat agreed about the better working conditions of public relations compared with journalism. 5.1. Implications for theory and practice The primary implication of this study lies in the theory of media attitude: its findings run directly counter to a decadesheld view that journalists’ own problems get in the way of media recognition of public relations. The findings on the small influence of occupational psyche are a call to revisit this view, espoused by previous, qualitative-based studies (DeLorme & Fedler, 2003; Sallot & Johnson, 2006; Stern, 2010; Tilley & Hollings, 2008). The findings make us question whether the psyche view may be a deep-seated backlash bias on the part of public relations against the frustratingly persistent media negativity. Among the more notable findings, the Korean journalists’ general attitude toward public relations was by no means negative: the mean value of media attitude stood in positive ground between “somewhat like” and “neutral.” This finding goes in the opposite direction of the mainstream findings across the world, including Korea, that journalists hold negative views of public relations. The positive attitude accordingly adds to the recent findings of Nejiens and Smit (2006) and Shaw and White (2004): media negativity is thawing as mature professional relations have replaced animosity. Meanwhile, the findings on tenure from the correlation analysis offer another implication for the study on its role for media attitude. The tenure’s correlation (r = −.20*) appeared—if not substantial in size—meaningful in significance and in line with Kaur and Shaari’s study (2006). As journalists have longer tenures in the profession, their attitudes toward public relations turn from negative to positive. Also, this study’s finding—that there is little influence by occupational psyche on journalists’ attitude toward public relations—offers great assurance as well as good news to the profession of public relations. The practitioners and their associations have been persevering in their attempts at media recognition, and their strategy, boosting the professionalism of their practices, seems to be on the right track. This is not just because the psyche variables turned out to be inconsequential in this study, but also because the professionalism factor proved to contribute to media recognition. The ethics of media relations had the most influence on media attitudes among the seven variables in both correlation and regression analyses: r = .46**; ˇ = .33**. Plus, for the proficiency in offering information with news value, the associational bottom line (r = .28**) suggests its promising role for media recognition. Not only do the practitioners’ endeavors to boost professionalism seem to be working in this study, but also a structural environment for media relations operates to their advantage. The utility of media relations for news production—which results from media dependence on information from public relations sources—showed up as the second most influential variable next to ethics in both correlation and regression analyses: r = .40**; ˇ = .21*. As this milieu of media relations is firmly set in place, so is media’s positive view of public relations. 5.2. Limitations and future research This study suffers from potential biases in its findings. First, this study, similar to a survey with a convenient sample, cannot guarantee the generalization of the findings to the Korean journalist population as a whole. For another limitation, each variable was measured using a single indicator; so measurement reliability is open to question. The findings—particularly on the small influence of the psyche factor—require future replication using multiple indicators. For this matter, replication would benefit from using Chang and Massey’s (2008) measurement scheme for journalists’ job satisfaction. The authors

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assessed job satisfaction using six indicators: autonomy, impact on community, feeling about pay, job security, work schedule, and work stress. The same suggestion can be made for measuring journalists’ envy of public relations. Thus, until future studies replicate the evidence of the small impact of occupational psyche, this study’s findings should be viewed as preliminary. Nevertheless, this does not detract from the value of the study as the first quantitative investigation of its kind into the role of journalists’ own problems in their attitude toward public relations. The direction for future study does not lie only in assuring the generalizability and validity of findings in replication. Future research on the link between journalists’ attitudes and their occupational psyche will also benefit from taking a cross-country, comparative perspective. The mainstream view of the role of journalists’ occupational psyche in their negative perception of public relations developed mainly from studies with Western journalists in the United States and New Zealand. This study of Korean journalists, however, tells a different story. This difference is intriguing given that the same soil for the journalists’ occupational psyche—their deteriorating job conditions—existing in the United States is prevalent in Korea as well. The 2009 KPF report depicts the Korean journalists’ stressful job conditions, including an exhausting work load and a sharply declining level of satisfaction with salary. Although the Korean journalists studied in this paper turned out to be “somewhat satisfied” on a five-point scale, according to the 2009 KPF report, the level of overall job satisfaction has been going down over the past 20 years. So an interesting question emerges: “Why does such a disparity exist in the role of occupational psyche across countries?” Perhaps, the answer to this question can be found in the differences in the history and terrain of occupational sociology involving journalism and public relations. For instance, in the United States, the two professions have the longest history of collaboration and competition with no equivalent in the rest of the world. The history, as documented by most authoritative textbooks, dates back to the 19th century, when the famous P.T. Barnum began popularizing the press agency model of public relations. Since then, both professions, locked in a love–hate relationship, had intensified their occupational interaction through the Ivy Lee era in the early 20th century. Although beginning two centuries ago, it should be also noted, their earlier brewing rivalry took decades to reach fierce and outright competition. It was at the end of World War I, according to Lucarelli (1983), when the newspaper industry launched an aggressive campaign against “spacegrabbers,” fearing that the press agents’ work to get free publicity would hurt newspapers’ advertising revenue. This historical development likely provided the occupational sociological context for U.S. journalists to vent their anger and frustration from their worsening job problems at their rival—public relations practitioners—who they once perceived to be inferior but now as challenging. By contrast, in Korea the history of journalists-sources relation spans only half a century, going back to 1945, when the U.S. military’s General Headquarters (GHQ), after defeating Japan, brought to the peninsular U.S.-imported public relations practices (Shin & Oh, 2002). Thus, the encounter between both professions in Korea is a modern experience of the mid-20th century. Furthermore, for Korean journalists, their frustration with declining job conditions is never as chronicle as U.S. journalists’ despair but rather a recent, at best two-decade long reality. The Korean media industry entered its first real market competition after the 1987 democratization movement loosened state control over the press, leading to a flood of new media outlets into the market (Sa, 2009). Since then, market competition and its resulting worsening job problems in journalism have been the norm, culminating in the 1997 International Monetary Fund crisis and its aftermath, as well as the deregulation and liberalization of the industry. Apart from the much younger history of journalists–sources relation and the more recent journalists’ own job problems in Korea, the unique terrain of occupational interaction between both professions in the nation might have led to the limited role of the journalists’ occupational psyche in their perception of public relations. It has been an established finding in the study of international public relations that the defining nature of media relations in high-power distance countries, including Korea, is the personal influence model. The premise of the power distance-based model is that journalists and public relations professionals are unequal in their social status and power, even outside of media relations. Korean journalism has a long legacy of developmental journalism in which journalists are a powerful elite group, patronized by the government, in the service of modernizing and industrializing the country. The privileges and social recognition of journalists in Korea are something that their American colleagues can hardly imagine and that can hardly be fully appreciated by such job-condition standards only as work load and salary. In Korea, a large number of graduates from elite universities have long seen journalism as a stepping stone to a political and high-ranking administrative career in parliament and government. It has become not unusual to see thousands of applicants from elite educational backgrounds rushing to the annual recruitment exam nationwide for a dozen or so openings per major media outlet. According to Choi (2008), in the 2004 National Assembly, 13%, or 40 of the 299 members, were journalists-turned-politicians, a typical profile of the Assembly for the past half a century. Symbolic of the social power distance between the professions in Korea is the fact that the post of presidential press secretary has never been filled with a public relations person but always with a journalist. And strikingly, when compared with what goes on in the United States, Korean journalists do not see public relations as their favorite alternative career once leaving journalism. The 2009 KPF report showed that “working for corporations” (as public relations practitioners) was not among Korean journalists’ top five picks, including “university teaching and researching.” Their preferences for a desirable alternative job have stayed similar since 1989. For all these different milieus, it is likely that Korean journalists has not yet taken public relations professionals as their rival as much seriously as U.S. journalists do and are thus not yet imbued with a negative occupational psyche toward public relations. Thus, future study on this subject should consider differences in the history and terrain of both professions’ interactions across countries, as well as different developmental stages in the media system.

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