Examining the Relationship Between Interactivity on the Internet and the Four Public Relations Models in Federal Government Agencies

摘要

Little research has been done on the concept of interactivity as it relates to the World Wide Web, and none has been in the context of the four models of public relations as defined by James Grunig. This thesis is a quantitative analysis of federal agency Web sites. Eighteen sites were content analyzed and assigned interactivity scores. These scores were correlated with public relations model mean scores gathered in a previous study. No significant correlations were found between the various interactivity scores and the models of public relations. It is hypothesized that this lack of significance is due to public relations practitioners applying the models situationally. Because the World Wide Web demands high levels of interactivity, two way models of public relations will be used regardless of the dominant model used by the agency as a whole.