Graduation Year

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Granting Department

Mass Communications

Major Professor

Michael Mitrook

Keywords

Commitment, Control Mutuality, Face and Favor, OPR, Satisfaction, Trust

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Organizations are working to establish and maintain relationships with their target publics using a wide variety of communication tools. How they work at developing this organization-public relationship (OPR) is open to the organization, but previous research suggests there are measurement scales that can indicate what factors an organization may be doing right and those they may need to improve on.

This study examines relationship building efforts of the Tampa Bay Rays organization and the representation it has demonstrated through online content. Utilizing a content analysis, sample articles were collected and coded to examine if relationship components could be found through the organization's affiliated website and the target public's local newspaper. The structure and development of this study was created based on the relationship indicators that were established by Hon and Grunig (1999) and Huang (2001).

Based on the analysis of the results, it was discovered that OPR indicators were being used by the Tampa Bay Rays. Examples of commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality were the most frequent indicators throughout the online content. Trust and face and favor were the two remaining indicators that showed the lowest frequency of representation through the online content.

From the study, the results revealed: (1) that differences in framing exist; (2) a representation of frequent OPR material and topics does occur; (3) there are thematic patterns on the part of the source; and finally, (4) the organization perspective of what may show up from online content may differ from the outside perspective.

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