Institutionalizing government public relations in Romania after 1989*

Alina Dolea, PhD *Paper published in Public Relations Review, 38 (2012), pp. 354 366, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811111002037

Romania facts & figures

South East Europe Capital Bucharest Since December 1989 a post communist country 1995 Romania signed the official request to become a member of the EU Constant monitoring and reporting on countrys progress

2005 Romania enters NATO

2007 Romania becomes a EU member.

Public Relations in Romania

PR a new profession emerged after 1990

Preceded by publicity and political propaganda (Rogojinaru in Sriramesh & Veri, 2009a) Before 1990, PR was neither a domain of activity nor an area of inquiry (Nastasia, 2009);

1991 - First courses in PR (postgraduate) at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration and 1993 at the University of Bucharest (undergraduate studies);

1995 - Establishment of professional association - The Romanian Association for PR Professionals. The Club of PR Companies 2003;
1997 Official recognition of the profession in the national classification of occupations in Romania Public Relations Specialist.

Public Relations in Romania

Education In 2012, every university in the major cities and regions has a faculty or department that offers BA and/or MA diplomas in communication and PR; PhD diploma in communication sciences as of 2008.
Practitioners In 2005, around 15,000 practitioners in Romania (13,000 in public sector - the Agency for Governmental Strategies) (Bortun, 2005) All major Com & PR international groups have branches in Romania PR market estimated at: 20-25 millions EUR (according to PR agencies)

Alina Dolea

Public Relations in Romania

Phases of public relations development in Romania, Rogojinaru (2009a):
the pioneer phase of the early 1990s (1991-1995) based on amalgam practices of media, publicity and promotional events; the exploratory phase in the second half of 1990s (19952000/2001) introductory for public relations studies and transient in practice; the consolidation phase from 2001 and ongoing.

Theoretical considerations
Government PR means PR for public institutions:
-> publicness of process = transparency and public access to information;

> actors at intersection of politics and public administration & public interest;

-> constant dialectic and negotiation between public communication and political communication on the agenda of the institution and its leaders -> important role of the PR departments and PR practitioners in managing the two sides of communication, keeping the public interest as main goal.

Theoretical considerations
Context:
neo-liberalist perspective - the world as a global marketplace, a global public space with companies, states and institutions actors competing all together in this arena to gain attention and visibility
-> they adopt PR, marketing and branding strategies and tactics to impose themes on the public agenda

-> a need for an institutional understanding of PR as a strategic function to connect, engage and build relationships with the publics and not only as an instrument of communication.

Literature review Government PR

Public Administration and Public Relations
Public administration pedagogy gave little attention to the use of PR Lees comparative study on public administration textbooks from the 1920s to the 1950s with those of the 1980s and 1990s: sometimes PR is used, sometimes communication is used (2008).

Political communication and Public Relations

Gelders and Ihlen (2009) more and more definitions and ethical guidelines about government PR and propaganda recognize that ministers are allowed to score points in secondary order by using government PR, as long as this is not the main goal of the communication act.

Government PR in new democracies

Public communication can more easily become political communication
impact not only on communication, but on public policies and on the continuity of programs: -> the case of Central and Eastern European countries: Szondi (2007) identifies as a common mistake that country promotion is politicised and becomes the victim of domestic politics.

-> validated also in case of Romania - the research on the communication campaigns and initiatives of the Romanian Government to promote Romania after 1990 (Dolea & Tarus, 2009).

Government PR in new democracies

Major perspectives:
American perspective: transformational public relations - Grunig & Grunig (2005)
transformation implies a more complex process: besides explaining the transformations, PR programs need to involve the publics affected by their consequences in decision making, not just to inform them afterwards and try to convince that they are good.

-> strategic management function - the principles in the Excellence study are needed;
-> research indicated most practitioners lack the necessary knowledge for assuming this role and their work is limited to media relations, product promotions and campaigns to support privatisation and other changes.

European perspective:
PR in Eastern Europe = social phenomenon (Bentele, 2004) with evolution as a continuum, a succession of developmental strata (Bentele, 2010): Institutionalized PR only after 1989, but practice existed before (Bortun, 2005); transition public relations - Lawniczak (2001)

to describe PR in countries of CE Europe that help organisations adapt to the changes implied by the transition from a centered and planned economy to capitalism and from socialism to democracy

Purpose of paper

Identify main stages of evolution in terms of institutionalization and professionalization of government PR in Romania after 1989 until 2010 Correlate it with the general evolution of public relations in Romania, thus contributing to fill the gap in Romanian literature.
It is the first research in Romania focused exclusively on central government public relations in Romania It is part of a wider research on how the theme of country image/brand promotion became a public issue on the public agenda in Romania and on the role of the Romanian Government as key actor contributing to the construction of this public issue.

Methodology
An exploratory research to answer questions regarding:

the main stages of institutionalization and professionalization of government PR in Romania between 1989 and 2010; the challenges faced by government PR practitioners; present characteristics of government PR in Romania.

The research area is mainly made up by: government public communication (content of Governments official websites, answers and statements of government PR specialists from ministries); legislative framework and Governments decisions for the establishment or reorganization of ministries; organizational charts; internal regulations for the organization and functioning of the ministries.

Methodology
Methods:
public information requests questionnaire with open questions;
organizational and documentary analysis to see how the organisational charts of the Romanian Government and Ministries changed in time, what were the size, functions and role of the PR departments inside the institutions; content analysis of the documents, website sections and answers received from the PR departments in response to the request for public information to identify the main functions carried out by the PR departments.

Methodology

Period of research: February May 2011

The sample used in the study included all the 15 ministries in the present structure of the Romanian Government.

Only 10 ministries of 15 answered the questionnaire and some answers were incomplete. answers on institutional history were completed with information from the websites of the ministries (when available) this was not possible for aspects regarding the human resources dimension of the PR departments.
-> The research eventually focused only on the institutional evolution of the PR departments and did not include a section on the spokesperson and on the government PR practitioners.

Methodology
Two ministries did not answer the questionnaire and communicated through their websites only the title of the department and the organization chart, but not the functions as such. -> they remained part of the sample because the lack of information on the website and of response to the public information request show an institutional understanding of PR and is relevant for the research.

Methodology
A coding scheme was created from categories of assignments identified by Cutlip, Center and Broom (2006, pp. 34-35) and adapted to the Romanian context. Final categories of functions:
(1) writing and editing, (2) media relations and placement, (3) research, (4) management and administration, (5) counselling, (6) organising special events, (7) speaking, (8) production of materials, (9) training, (10) website administration, (11) representation function, (12) internal communication (information), (13) provide public information (544/2001), (14) crisis management.

Methodology
the categories of functions grouped in: functions of a technical role associated with execution and implementation: (1) writing and editing, (2) media
relations and placement, (6) organising special events, (8) production of materials, (10) website administration, (12) internal communication, (13) provide public information (544/2001);

functions of a managerial role associated with strategic thinking and positioning for the organisation: 3)
research, (4) management and administration, (5) counselling, (7) speaking, (9) training, (11) representation function, (14) crisis management.

Findings & Analysis

In 2011, all the 15 ministries inside the Romanian Government have a specialized structure to manage communication/ public relations. There are 7 different terms used in the names of this structure.
PR is the second most frequent (26%) but it only appears in 47% of the departments names; -> more emphasis on public communication, media relations and information. -> might suggest an institutional understanding of PR as a tool used to provide information via media, rather than a strategic and relationship building approach towards publics.

Findings & Analysis

Most frequent terms in the title of PR structures inside Romanian Government in 2011 4% 15% 4% 4% 26%

19% 30%

Public Relations Public policy

Communication Image

Media Relations/ Press Spokesperson

Information

Findings & Analysis

The distribution of the PR functions inside the ministries of the Romanian Government in 2011 indicate a focus on the instrumental aspects of the communication process (see Fig 2).
The values show a predominance of functions associated with a technical role; The functions associated with a managerial role and a strategic approach are at the end of the hierarchy.

Findings & Analysis

Distribution of PR functions inside the Romanian Government in 2011 Writing and editing Media relations Internal communication Organizing special events Management and administration Provide public information 544/2001 Representation function Production of materials Research Website administration Counseling Training Speaking Crisis management 0,00% 2,52% 2,00% 4,00% 6,00% 8,00% 10,00% 12,00% 4,20% 4,20% 5,88% 6,72% 6,72% 7,56% 7,56% 8,40% 8,40% 9,24% 9,24% 9,24% 10,08%

Findings & Analysis

Distribution of functions associated with Technical and Managerial PR Roles inside the Romanian Government in 2011 100,00% 100,00% 100,00% 100,00% 100,00% 100,00% 100,00%100,00% 85,71% 85,71% 85,71%

00,00%

90,00%

80,00% 71,43% 71,43% 71,43% 71,43% 71,43%

70,00%

60,00%

57,14%

50,00% 42,86% 42,86%

40,00% 28,57% 28,57% 28,57% 28,57% 28,57%

30,00%

20,00%

10,00% 0,00% MAI MARD 0,00% 0,00% MCIS MCNCH METBE MERYS 0,00% MEF MFA 0,00% 0,00% MH MJ 0,00% MLFSP MND MPF MRDT MTI

Technical Role

Managerial Role

Findings & Analysis

4 categories of departments:
strategic and relationship building PR (first category of departments) - MFA, MND, MPF and MAI. a mixture of instrumental and strategic PR (the second category) MJ, MERYS, MRDT a predominantly technical and instrumental PR (the third category) - MTI, MCIS, METBE misunderstanding of PR essence and incorrect use of the term (the forth category) MARD, MEF, MLFSP, MH, MCNCH.

Findings & Analysis

Access to dominant coalition inside the ministries
The majority of the PR departments inside the Romanian ministries are at present in the direct subordination of the Minister (73%),while the rest of 27% are subordinated to the Secretary General or to the State Secretary for the relations with the Parliament. This shows a direct access of the PR department and its employees (or at least of the Director of Department) to the leaders and the primary sources of information in the organisation, namely the dominant coalition.

Findings & Analysis

Education/professional background of PR practitioners: Only 53% of the PR departments inside the Romanian Government provided data on the educational background and profile of their employees. From this 53%, excepting MFA where the employees are diplomats and MTI where they have studies in Economics, Law, Philology and Public Administration, all the rest of the employees currently activating inside the PR departments have studies in Communication, Public Relations and/or Journalism.

Conclusions
The research shows different types of departments and even different functions united under the common title of public relations. variation in terms of approaches, but a more profound difference in understanding the role of PR inside a public institution. It is this very institutional understanding of PR that shapes the profile and activities of the PR departments and range from: strategic and relationship building PR to a mixture of instrumental and strategic PR a predominantly technical and instrumental PR up to misunderstanding of PR essence and incorrect use of the term (relations with the public)

Conclusions
Institutionalisation of PR inside the Romanian Government started at the beginning of 90s, before the profession was officially recognized.
The first stage, 1990 - 1995, is characteristic for a pioneer work in some structures inside the strategic ministries (defence, foreign affairs, public finance, administration and interior) context - a public discourse specific to the early stages of a new democracy and rather unidirectional. the public agenda was dominated by We dont sell our country, the first concept of the Romanian political communication and slogan after 1989.

Conclusions
After 1995, the existing PR structures inside the government continued the institutionalisation and professionalization processes, while others were starting to include in the organisational charts the first communication departments the media landscape started to be more diverse and commercial televisions appeared, new publication were launched.
On political level, Romania signed the official request to become a member of the European Union, the approach towards the foreign countries started changing and a right wing political coalition won the election in 1996 with a political platform towards the future.

Conclusions
The passing of the Law that granted access to public information (544/2001) and of the one that compelled institutions to transparency (52/2003) marked the debut of a new phase of institutionalisation.

Starting with this point, every public institution, including the ministries, was obliged by Law to have a department to communicate with various audiences.
Most probably - the exact point that led to the misunderstanding of PR or the reduction of PR to this administrative role reduced to the communication with the citizens.

Final conclusions
There is a predominance of technical role and a rather asymmetric model of public information, thus confirming a conclusion of another study on public relations in public institutions in Romania (Rogojinaru, 2009b). The characteristic of the government PR in Romania show Romania is no exception for the Central and Eastern European area, elements of transformational PR (Grunig & Grunig, 2005) being identified inside the Romanian Government.

Future research
Should focus on testing qualitatively these findings in order to gather a mores profound and nuanced understanding of the stages of professionalization, investigating the role of PR practitioners inside Romanian Government and how they define their functions in organisation.
Then, correlating practitioners definitions with the institutional definitions of the PR functions and roles that were reflected by this research can be obtained a more accurate view of the phenomenon.

Thank you!
Alina.dolea@comunicare.ro