Perspectives of an underconsidered stakeholder group: Citizen journalists’ views of public relations practitioners and their materials

• This study addressed lack of information about citizen journalist perspectives of public relations people and public relations material.
• A quantitative survey of citizen journalists found that more than half of them had a positive relationship with public relations people, but also voiced uncertainty about the quality of public relations material and hesitancy about public relations as manipulation.
• Citizen journalists voice more confidence in public relations people the more they interact with them, suggesting that public relations people have opportunities to improve relationships with these journalists.

Scholars have long studied the relationships between professional journalists and public relations practitioners. However, public relations literature (both scholarly and trade) has not sufficiently examined the nature of the relationships between citizen journalists and public relations practitioners. This study addresses that gap through surveying U.S. citizen journalists on their views of public relations professionals and their materials. Study findings point to ambivalence among citizen journalists: they are not sure of the value of public relations people or the usefulness of their material, but they voice a positive regard for public relations people the more they interact with them. These findings indicate that a more carefully considered outreach to citizen journalists can allow public relations practitioners to build better relationships with these non-traditional reporters and, therefore, enhance the opportunity for practitioners to be more effective conveying information within the online news ecology.