Communicatoren op de pijnbank : een onderzoek naar de werkvisie en werkwijze van voorlichtings- en pr-functionarissen

The research project presented here displays a general profile of 72 leading pr and public information professionals regarding their basic views on communication, professional standards and ambitions in relation to their reported daily routine and practices. By far and away most of these top-practitioners claimed and often held a management or management-advisory position. Many of them would like to be called 'communication manager', and viewed their position in the organisation chiefly as a strategic one. However, with respect to what exactly it is they try to manage, their ideas are far from consistent. In some instances they seem to involve themselves in organizing the communication job itself. In other cases they appear to operate as an agent for the organisation and its objectives, and then again as an intermediary between the organisation and its environment. A consistent choice is not often made. Nor did an analysis of the communication managers reported daily routines, practices and working method show them up as real managers nor as agents or intermediaries, but mainly as 'producing messages'. The findings strongly suggest that the observed inconsistencies are connected with the top-practitioners' ideas on the effects of communication: the basic problem may very well be their conception of communication.