2^nd Journal Review:

An Open-System Approach to Building Theory in Public Relations

Glen M. Broom

School of Communication San Diego State University

As its described by the author that public relations’ theory from research perspective as a process that requires both scientific methods and openness to conceptual and methodological input from the larger fields of communication and human behavior. Public relation is not lack of theory, but has experienced many failures when it comes to put the theories into practices due to overlapping experience and leads to the judgment of bad standard for the practitioners when applying for job. It’s also stated there about the needs of paying more attention to the conducting research toward public relation study, which what’s needed are the questions we ask, the methods we employ, the decisions we make about what gets published, and to the openness of our search for concepts and theoretical frameworks. The writer believes the most effective method for theory-building process is by choosing the focal concept which its derived from the practice and viewed as important by the practitioners themselves. In defining the focal concept, the first step is the concept analysis, which is what we need to do literature review. The concept analysis itself includes several processes, which are select a concept of interest, determine purpose, identify how the concept has been defined and used, determine defining attributes, create a model case, create related but different cases, develop the measures, and the last is build theory around the focal concept. As we all may know, there is no easy or instant way in building a concept, but it is necessary in order to build and worth it to be resulted in the one we have aimed for. After getting through with all those complicated steps, we need to strengthen it by validating the concept through the scientific method explained in the journal. This is necessary in order to make the result credible and applicable. To make sure that the theory is really credible and applicable, we need to explicate it by making every possible question about it and getting the deep answers through surveys. In the end, what public relations needs is to use open system theory in order for them to develop their knowledge for public relations since closed system gives them a little access for development.

Bibliography:

Broom, G.M. (2006). An Open-System Approach to Building Theory in Public Relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 18(2), 141-150.

By: Putri Dena Ramadhania (135120207121025)