Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Experimental Research

Public Relations would not normally be an outlet in which I would think experiements would be done to obtain certain research. Experiments are usually something science related, which is a common misconception. A lot of research can be done through experimental avenues, like the example we had in class of what could be seen as a survey but was in fact a type of experiment.

When it comes to crisis management, similar to surveying employees on their comfort level of being able to handle a crisis, companies could do some sort of expeiment within their company to see if they truly are ready for whatever is to come their way. For example, how would a company react if they were to find out a client of theirs was involved in a scandal how would they react? A company could do an experiment and put this "fake" situation in front of their clients, splitting them into a control and experimental group. One group would be given help and tools to help solve the crisis situation and the other wouldn't. To get different perspectivies and results on how to handle one of these situations if they were to ever arise would be a great result of such an experiment.

There's also the choice of doing a social media experiment through facebook, videos and the internet. Especially in the field of crisis managment because of the medias constant coverage on any type of global situation. Any crisis that seems to occur in the world, or even in the country when dealing with celebrities is covered by the media so doing an experiment with how many sites cover a certain crisis, how many people look at these sites, etc. I think the social media outlet would be great for firms in crisis managament when dealing with experiments

The hardest part about any experiment is the actual production of it. There can' be any bias from the people putting on the experiment. The groups must be randomly assigned to stray away from this bias and the groups should be tested to make sure they are even. You must also test the participants after the experiment to see if it was in fact successful. Experiments are not just for science, but a great outlet for Public Relations companies, and are very under-utalized. They are a little more expensive and harder to go about doing because the outcomes are never predictable, but if done the right way they are helpful in the PR world.

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