The Role Played by Public Relations in Building Good Image

This literature review examines the significant role of public relations (PR) in shaping the image and reputation of politicians, particularly in the digital age. It begins by defining public relations and its core goal of upholding the image of individuals, organizations, or products, emphasizing the importance of understanding public sentiment and strategic campaign planning. The review traces the development of political PR, highlighting key traditional concepts such as relationship management, reputation management, stakeholder engagement, positioning and segmentation, and rhetoric and persuasion. It discusses the evolution of political PR theories and the need to bridge the gap between general marketing PR and political PR. Furthermore, it explores the impact of digital media and social media marketing on political campaigns, emphasizing the importance of mass communication in disseminating relevant content and maintaining public relations. The review also touches upon the different types of publics and their roles in political campaigns, as well as the impact of digitization on political PR strategies. It references case studies and research to illustrate the practical applications and benefits of effective political PR.

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POLITICIANS
THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND
REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
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1THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Table of Contents
LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................................2
Introduction............................................................................................................................2
Concept of public relations....................................................................................................2
Public relation through the internet and understanding Online Reputation Management...10
Advantages of Public Relations for reputation management...............................................11
Disadvantages of Public Relation promotions using the web..............................................11
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH.................................................................................................14
Abstract................................................................................................................................14
Introduction..........................................................................................................................14
Case study – Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, 2008...................................................16
Data analysis........................................................................................................................19
Takeaways............................................................................................................................24
Summary and conclusion.....................................................................................................25
References................................................................................................................................27

2THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Over the course of time, public relations has been proven to be a very important factor
which can be tapped in order to reap maximum benefits as far as using crowd popularity is
concerned. Understanding public sentiments and strategically planning a particular campaign
based on the needs and interests of the public is what the primary building block of a
successful PR management task is (Fawkes 2013).
The main goal associated with a Public Relations campaign is upholding the image of
the individual, organization or the product concerned. In fact, the UK Chartered Institute of
Public Relations, in their definition of Public Relations, places reputation under the key
spotlight. According to them Public Relations is all about reputation. It is the result of what
one does, says and what others say about said individual (Bailey 2018).
This review focuses entirely on politics and political campaigns and how a good PR
can boost the image and reputation of politicians. It takes the internet into account as the
main medium of information resource, processing, generation and transmission to the public.
Keeping in mind the widespread utility and accessibility of the internet since the advent of
WEB2.0, PR campaigns would stay incomplete and unfruitful if the web is not given its due
importance (Waters, 2014).
Concept of public relations
As stated by Austin and Pinkleton (2015), public relations is the systematic and
strategic manner of managing information distribution between an individual or an
organisation and the general public. With advertising recently being considered a part of PR
activities, a larger group of audience is being reached and influenced (Singh 2017).
Politicians rely on their PR team when it comes to building rapport with the public and

3THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
perspective voters. They in turn help them keep up an image and a reputation among the
target audience.
Public relation experts need to study and understand target audience properly based
on their needs and demands. It is crucial because the message generated for the target
audience needs to be relevant to overcome low visibility, lack of public understanding,
critical opposition and funding issues (Demetrious 2013). Public relations experts thus need
to be highly skilled in media relations, marketing, branding and consumer requirement
understanding (Esser and Stromback 2014).
Development of political Public Relations
The concept of political public relations is almost as old as society and politics itself
(Martinelli, 2011; Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). Traditionally speaking, political Public
Relations is founded on various key traditional concepts. The five most important ones are
highlighted as –
1. Relationship management and cultivation: This concept prioritizes the organization
– public relationship management in order to ensure that the interests of both are
equally balanced (Ledingham 2003). In this perspective, Cutlip, Center and Broom
(1994) states the role of Public Relations as the function of management that
“establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization
and the publics on whom its success or failure depends” (P.2)
2. Reputation management: This concept refers to the practice of influencing,
controlling and managing the reputation of an individual or a group (Van Riel &
Fombrun 2007). This includes putting communication at the centre of all activities
and building positive image friendly content for the stakeholders in order to affect
their perceptons regarding the individual or the group. In the present context, Online

4THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Reputation Management coincides directly with the traditional concepts of Reputation
management.
3. Stakeholder engagement: This is the process through which an organization
incorporates people who might be influenced by the organization’s decisions or might
potentially influence the implementation of the decisions an organization makes. De
Bussy (2010) states that Public Relation campaigns are heavily influenced by the
stakeholders involved, which requires PR professionals to prioritize successful
stakeholder engagement through appealing dialogues that would ensure benefit for
both parties concerned.
4. Positioning and segmentation: This is a marketing strategy that prioritizes
segmentation of market based on consumer appeal, identify the characteristics of
specific market segments, target consumer sets and develop product positioning for
the selected segments along with building a marketing mix for the selected segments.
Davidson and Binstock (2012) implements this strategy in political public relations by
identifying similarities between the concept in terms of political marketing through
targeting specific voter groups and building campaign strategies based on the criteria
that the groups find appealing.
5. Rhetoric and persuasion: Political rhetoric concerns the building of arguments in a
political debate (Health & Toth 2013). It directly coincides with the concept of
political persuasion by urging argument builders to focus more on making the
arguments as persuasive as possible in order to appeal to target consumer/voter groups
(Pfau & Wan, 2006).

5THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Development of new political Public Relations theory
The practice of Political PR, despite being old, the newer approaches involve more
dedicated efforts to apply the traditional PR theories in contemporary political contexts and
build advanced theories in the political Public Relations theories (Strömbäck & Kiousis,
2011, 2013). However, it must be noted that most theories concerning Public Relations still
apply to business, marketing and corporate engagements, making the disconnect between
political PR and general marketing PR theories more prominent.
Strömbäck & Kiousis, (2011) mentions several reason which elaborate why it is
necessary to remedy this approach. Firstly, in order to build theories based on the cumulative
knowledge of the extant PR theories in the corporate marketing sector, bridging the
categorical gap between theories and research in political PR, political marketing,
communication and science is a necessity.
Secondly in order to establish a mutually beneficial relationship between practice and
theory, developing theories and research in political marketing is crucial.
Thirdly, application of general public relation theories in political PR contexts can
help understand the viability of theories in spheres outside the corporate marketing category.
This in turn helps in building and developing theories and practices in public relations in
general.
Contemporary political Public Relations.
Grunig & Hunt, (1984) state that Political Public relations is both about
communication as well as action and not just about communication as certain other
definitions emphasize. It is also about maintaining relationships between candidate and
stakeholder. Maintaining beneficial relationships is crucial to determine the success of a

6THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
political campaign. Political PR thus emphasizes the efforts to influence, establish, build as
well as maintain beneficial relationships and reputations.
Hutton et al. (2001) mentions that political Public Relations is critical for all stages of
stakeholder engagement.
Political PR includes all kinds of models pertaining to public relations (Grunig &
Hunt 1992). These include the following
a. The publicity model – The Public Relations expert prioritizes enhancing the image
of the individual or organization among all its stakeholders through positive
marketing and rendering Search Engine Optimization tools.
b. The public information model – Builds upon the publicity model by maintaining
and enhancing the image of the candidate by passing relevant information to the
public.
c. The two way asymmetrical model – This revolves around two way
communication between the parties but the information transmitted to both the
sides are not perfectly balanced.
d. The two way symmetrical model – the most ideal way of maintaining image and
reputation, this model relies on equivalence of information transfer on both sides.
This includes relaying information about the individual to the stakeholders and
using the feedback provided by the stakeholders to develop and advance campaign
strategies.
Cancel et al. (1997) states that the preferred model of public relations depends on a
variety of factors that ranges in a scale from total support for and organization to total
accommodation of public.

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Political PR and the public
According to Dewey (1927), in order for a group to be considered a public, it should:
a. face a similar problem
b. recognize that the problem exists
c. organize to do something about it.
Based on this Grunig and Hunt (1984) developed the situational theory of publics, according
to which 4 types of publics can be distinguished.
The situational theory of publics defines that the context to which a group is aware of
a certain problem and the extent to which the group is willing to do something to fix the
problem, are the criteria under which publics can be identified and classified.
The four types of publics as identified by Grunig and Hunt (1984) are
a. Non-public: People in a group who do not face a similar problem, do not
recognize the existence of the problem, and do not organize to do
something about it.
b. Latent public: While people in this group face a similar problem, they do
not recognize that it exists or organize to do anything about it.
c. Aware public: Only when groups of people both face a similar problem
and recognize that the problem exists does it become an aware public.
d. Active public: If they in addition organize to do something about the
problem, it becomes an active public. Active public plays a significant role behind the
success of a political PR campaign by proactively taking part in organizing
independent campaigns and promotional events, conducting localised fundraising and
generating awareness through positive promotion. They can either be volunteers or
have connections with the main campaign team and work on their behalf.

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Mass perspective differs public from society by considering society as a wholesome
unit comprising of different cultures, ethnicity and impersonal social institutions. A mass,
against a public is identified as a group with multiple social ties that are either strengthened
or weakened by governing factors such as democracy or bureaucracy (Macionis 2009). Based
on such factors, a general consensus of mass ideology is usually identified as a key factor
while determining strategies for building campaign strategies for political public relations. A
detailed understanding of the types of public helps generate consumer satisfactory content
and messages that propel a campaign towards success (Box-Steffensmeier 2013)
The most significant impact of mass perspective lies in the collective benefit of all
mases through the political campaign
Digital Political Public Relations
Digitization of public relations has been a key propellant in PR campaigns since the
advent of digital media. Gurevitch, Coleman & Blumler (2009) expand upon the concept of
digital political campaign by iterating the influence of televisions and radios in shaping
political public relation communications since their introduction as a mainstream media for
digital entertainment. Furthermore, they also elaborate upon the displacing effects of internet
and how the internet has been fundamental in shaping the digitization of political marketing.
The most vital contributing factor when it comes to digitization of Political Public
Relations is the usability and benefits of Social Media Marketing. Dimitrova and Matthes
(2018) explain how the expansion of media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit in
particular and their incorporation in the daily lifestyle of billion, have reshaped the way
politicians relay information to the public. The range of information can vary from detailed
articles, newsletters and blogs posted on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Medium to

9THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
microblogging using twitter (Nulty et al. 2016). These in turn heavily impact the political
campaign by influencing millions of Social Media Users around the world.
McQuail (2010) in his book ‘Mass communication theory’ builds the importance of
mass communication in transmission of relevant content across the domains of public and
individual in terms of maintaining public relations. “The Internet breaks through traditional
communication barriers, time and space, both horizontally between citizens and vertically
between the authorities and citizens” (Karlsson, Clerwall & Buskqvist 2013. p.3).
Importance of two way communication and relationship management
The two way communication model uses communication in order to negotiate, resolve
conflicts and promote mutual understanding and respect between the organization and its
stakeholders (Grunig 1992). This is divided into the symmetrical and the asymmetrical
models. The symmetrical model has been found to be of utmost importance in maintaining
better communication among the party and the stakeholders. It relies on equivalence of
information and feedback in order to build and develop campaign strategies.
Digital media has been highly influential in making sure that the two way
communication model functions with high accuracy and efficiency enabling the party and the
stakeholders to engage in seamless interchange of information and review (Ledingham, 2006;
Ledingham & Bruning, 2000).
Baines et al. (2011) illustrates a case scenario of the 2010 British general election
where he highlighted the various factors in communication channel that influenced the PR
campaigns. This elaborates the efficiency of the two way communication model in achieving
campaign goals.

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Public relation through the internet and understanding Online Reputation Management
Internet, more specifically with the advent of WEB 2.0, has made PR more engaging,
interactive and organized with feedback which is highly valued as we shall see in the case
study of Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign (Cogburn and Espinoza 2011).
Social Media Marketing plays a very crucial role when it comes to PR campaign allowing
direct communication with the public (Kent 2013). Political identity is crucial for the
candidate to attain a victory and present scenarios indicate that the internet is the best hub for
generating image and reputation (Doorley and Garcia 2015). It is not an entirely new
approach to PR campaigning, since PR professionals have always relied on television, radio
and magazines as media for transmitting their content. Digital media is an evolved extension
of the non analog process of marketing strategies that PR professionals used to employ. We
shall look at Barack Obama’s campaign for the 2008 presidential run to gain a better insight
into how the internet was used as a medium for a successful campaigning by his PR team.
Online Reputation management, also referred to as rep management or ORM is the
task of attempting to modify perception of an organization or a person by the public, by
influencing available information about that organization or person, primarily online
(Doorley and Garcia 2015). The specific task of the ORM is to intercept public opinion about
the said entities online, monitoring their reputation on the internet, addressing content that
might pose potential damage the reputation of the entities an using consumer feedback to
modify the content generated to prevent further damage to the online reputation of the entities
(Dreher 2014). A major role of online reputation management is to suppress detrimental and
degenerative search results, and highlighting the positive ones.
The important elements to a successful online reputation management are review
monitoring, review response, capturing positive reviews, showcasing positive reviews, and
generating more reviews (Dijkmans, Kerkhof and Beukeboom 2015)

11THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Advantages of Public Relations for reputation management
Public Relation strategies are mainly considered the most credible form of promotion
(L’Etang 2013). When it comes to political campaigns, the general evolution and
incorporation of modern PR techniques offer more benefits to the candidate than the
traditional PR techniques (Cutlip 2013). Here are some of the advantages that the modern PR
techniques in collaboration with the Digital Media Marketing or the Social Network
Incorporation provides its beneficiaries.
To begin, PR promotions can offer more details about the campaign and its workings.
It can offer the public instant news and updates about even the very minute shift in the
campaigning policies(L’Etang 2013).
It allows for a cleaner interaction between the public and the candidate where the
public can post about their feelings and needs and provide critical afterthought to the
politician’s statements.
Information is usually spread far and wide really fast, thus covering more ground in a
shot span of time. This can prove to be a huge advantage in favour of the candidate as they
find more time in their hands to analyse their stand points and re-evaluate their objectives
based on the feedback.
Cost of promotions is also brought down significantly. If properly executed, the
returns on this type of PR promotions can be quite high, as indicated by Obama’s 2008
campaign (Doorley and Garcia 2015).
Disadvantages of Public Relation promotions using the web
No amount of preparation can get someone ready for the fallouts of one failed
political campaign especially when a PR promotion with social media is kept under
consideration. For one thing, the information is openly available for all users but the release
of information can prove to be unstable because of the following factors.

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There is no control over the content being generated (Dijkmans, Kerkhof and
Beukeboom 2015). Given that the public response is so high and so fast in this regard, one
faulty campaigning can initiate a domino effect of counter campaigning and explanations,
content removal and follow up update which can prove to be troublesome for the
campaigners.
No control over content material means that anyone, including media personnel, can
change the content to fit their specific business requirements (Woodruff 2014). In addition,
internal conflicts can lead to leakage of vital confidential information since everyone has
access to internet. That can in turn hinder a successful campaigning.
Faulty and misleading content can be fixed from the part of the campaigners through
release of official statements but that can have significant repercussions on the strategy that
was planned for the candidate. Moreover, as much as a PR promotion can help boost the
image and reputation, if the candidate has a controversial past that has a high chance of being
revealed online through third party sources, it becomes a liability for the campaigners to
either confirm or deny the insinuations. Such malpractice can severely impact the image of
the candidate and revival in such scenarios prove to be extremely difficult, with the
controversial tag being permanent for life (Smith and Place 2013).
Apart from these, there are several other drawbacks of PR campaigning. Messages
that are being transmitted to the target audience may be overlooked if the necessary keywords
that boost visibility online are not specifically matched.
Conceptual Model
Various academic research pieces were consulted during the generation of the
Literature review in correspondence with the concepts of publics, Public relations,
Politics, Political Public Relations, digital media and social media marketing, online
reputation management. It has also been found that there are explicit similarities and

13THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
interrelationships between the two. The following image depicts the interrelationships
between the three most vital aspects of a political Public Relations campaign.
The concepts of public as discussed earlier connects itself to that of Political PR
explicitly when it comes to the role of public as a catalyzing agent for a successful PR
campaign. Their contribution to the PR campaign again is made feasible through digital
political PR. Through social media and online marketing tools, the public ensures that the
best image of the candidate is circulated widely across the globe. That in turn again enhances
the candidate image as well as brings more of the public into the play.
This research will help identify, interpret and expand the following points
1. Political Public Relations incorporates the concepts of public as a contributing
factor in the success or failure of a politician’s campaign (Martinelli 2011). It
includes active cooperation of concerned public in order to make the campaign
reach more people around the globe as well as gain positive reputation. In turn, the
public is affected by the campaign in the form of incentives and offers encouraged
by the candidate, thus creating an intricate web of give-and-take relations.
2. The public concerned with the viability of a political campaign uses the
contemporary technologies of digital marketing and social media in order to
Political PR
Theory /
Models
Political PR
& Publics
Digital
Political PR

14THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
ensure the retention of the best possible image of the candidate. Social media
being an integral part of almost every individual’s life, tends to impact the image
of a candidate by upholding the values he/she stands for in the form of most
relatable content (Mergel & Bretschneider 2013). Therefore the better the content,
the more are the chances of positive reputation management by the candidate.
3. Digital marketing plays a significant role in engaging the public and making sure
that the vision of the candidate is transmitted to as many people as possible
(Marland 2014). At the same time it also ensures that the content is transferred
fast and with as less disruption as possible (Doorley and Garcia 2015).
These three points interlinked together connect our previous understanding of the aspects
separately, with one thread. It also answers one basic question that could potentially be the
only gap in our understanding – how are the concepts discussed linked together? In doing so,
the research eventually brings out the answer and informs us that the aspects are not only
connected but also play significant roles in boosting each other.

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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Abstract
This qualitative research analysis is focused on political campaigning with PR support
and how each complement the other. It presents the case study analysis of Barack Obama’s
2008 presidential campaign and from there, identifies crucial points that can help an
ambitious candidate run a strong political campaign through utilising all available resources
efficiently.
Methodology
Introduction
Research Question
Political marketing and Public relations have been intricately linked where the former
is either heavily benefitted or greatly hampered because of the ways the latter functions. This
qualitative research analysis attempts to identify, from a case study of Barack Obama’s 2008
presidential campaign, how PR strategies can be manipulated for success.
The following two questions are asked in this research and attempts will be made to
answer them through the research.
A. What are the lessons that can be learned from Obama’s 2008 digital campaign
for political Public Relations theorists and practitioners?
B. How can the various Public Relations strategies used during Obama’s
campaign prove to be beneficial for Political PR in a contemporary context?

16THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Research objective
The goal of this analysis is to provide a conclusive idea for those with similar
ambitions, as to what are the various underlying functions that determine a successful
campaign.
This research aims at meeting four main objectives as listed below –
Firstly, the research aims at understanding the concepts of Public Relations
with respect to Politics, Reputation Management, Digital Marketing and aims to connect the
aspects together.
Secondly, the research aims at critically connecting the internal workings of
Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign with the aspects identified above.
Thirdly, the research aims to provide a detailed understanding of Political
Public Relations and the intricate strategies it involves in order to make a particular campaign
a success.
Finally, the research also aims to be a base for interested candidates with
similar ambitions and help them reach their goals through helping them understand the
functioning of Public Relations with respect to Political campaigns.

17THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Research Philosophy
Ontology
Ontology is the study of the science of being, as derived from the Greek words ‘Onto’
(being) and ‘Logia’ (logical discourse) (Blaikie 2010). In a subject domain, ontology refers to
the set of concepts that define the characteristics and properties of the domain and the
interrelations between them. Ontology is connected with the central question of whether or
not social entities should be regarded as objective or subjective (Bryman 2012).
Ontology entails four major research philosophies namely Pragmatism, Positivism,
Realism and Interpretivism (Scotland 2012). For this research, the philosophy of
Interpretivism has been adopted. The ontology behind Interpretivism is that the philosophy is
socially constructed and is subject to change based on external factors (Bryman 2012).
Epistemology
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge of something, especially in research, with
regard to the method, scope and validity of the knowledge and the difference between the
knowledge and known beliefs and opinions (Scotland 2012). In its essence, epistemology is a
concept opposite to ontology, where researchers classify what and what does not constitute a
knowledge (Hallebone & priest 2009). Knowledge in research can be classified under four
categories, namely Intuitive (based on intuition and human feelings), Authoritarian
(information obtained from books, research papers, journals, articles, expert opinions and
other authoritarian sources), Logical( through the use of logical reasoning, new knowledge is
created) and Empirical (based on established objective facts that can be demonstrated)
(Hallebone & Pries 2009).

18THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Authoritarian knowledge and empirical knowledge has mostly been sourced in this
research. The case study of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign has been accounted for through
multiple academic and non-academic credible authoritarian sources.
Rationale
The rationale behind selecting this research is to explore the internal functioning of a
political campaign and understand how Publics, Public Relations, Digital media and Online
Marketing play important roles together in ensuring that the campaign is a success.
The rationale is also based on the goal of helping other candidates with similar
ambitions achieve their target.
Research Method
The research method is based on collecting data about Barack Obama’s 2008
Presidential Campaign and the role of Public Relations in making that campaign a success.
The basis also included analyzing the role of Digital Media as an emerging public
connectivity tool back then and its role in a present context where the entire global population
is under the influence of the web.
In a qualitative research there are five types of research methods – Observation,
interviews, open-ended surveys, focus group discussions and content analysis of credible
materials (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault 2015). The methods involved in this research are focus
group discussions along with content analysis of visual and textual sources including research
papers, articles, news and books on Public Relations and similar corresponding topics.
Through focus group discussions, like minded people including authorities on the
particular topic share their valuable opinions and knowledge on the issue (Patton 2005). One
drawback of focus group discussions however, is that they do not cover a lot of depth in the

19THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
discussion which individual interviews are capable of achieving (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault
2015).
The reason behind implementing focus groups for this study is because of certain
advantages it entails. From a marketing viewpoint, a focus group study is especially suited
when an analysis is required to be confirmed with a variety of consumer profiles (Cox,
Higginbotham & Burton 1976). They are excellent platforms for exchanging viewpoints and
discussing agreements and disagreements between the respondents (Rabbie 2004). This is
where the face-to-face interviews fail to capture the inter-conversational dynamics (Frey &
Fontana 1991).
Focus group interviews are also more cost effective and engages people from a varied
age group in a boundless conversational activity (Rabbie 2004). The most significant benefit
of focus group discussions is the constant emergence of newer questions, issues and sub-
issues in correlation to the theme of the discussion (Rabbie 2004). That is an added benefit
that face-to-face interviews fail to capture (Frey & Fortana 1991).
Analysis of research materials is a highly acclaimed research method as it involves pre-
acclaimed information on the topic and can provide detailed knowledge of the issue (Patton
2005).
Sampling Strategy
The sampling strategy followed in this research is Purposeful Sampling. Purposeful
Sampling involves selecting participants and sources for the data based on a certain criteria
(Patton 2005). For this research, the criteria was knowledge and expertise on Public Relation

20THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
theories, Digital Marketing and Social Media based Reputation management, expertise on
politics and political campaigns with a focus on Obama as a presidential candidate. Thirteen
people who fit these criteria were consulted for taking part in the focus group discussion.
They were assured that full anonymity will be provided to them. Apart from the
aforementioned criteria, individuals with a strong background in marketing, journalism and
mass communication, media analysis and sociology and sociolinguistics were also included
in the group. The group consisted of two scholars, two journalists, one political historian,
three research students, two marketing experts, one sociologist and two graduate students.
Samples have also been collected from other sources which include scraping the
internet for primary resources in the form of news articles, journals and academic papers,
websites, videos, old social media posts, discussions with experts, witnesses and volunteers
of the campaign and multiple other research.
The justification behind selecting Purposeful Sampling is to erase the possibility of
irrelevant information and redundant inclusions (Marshall 1996). Thus, authoritative
individuals and multiple research articles and journals along with books provided solid
examples of data required for the research.
Data Collection
The process of data collection involved gathering people on the basis of certain criteria as
mentioned above. The following are the details of the respondents (names have been
excluded as some of them asked for anonymity to be maintained):
Two academic scholars on business and marketing (Age 44) and Political Science (Age 56)
Two Journalists (Ages 33 and 38)

21THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
One political historian (Age 52)
Two marketing experts (Age 29 and 37)
Three research scholars (Age 24, 24 and 25)
One sociologist (Age 37)
Two graduate students (Age 19 and 20)
Data Analysis
Case study – Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, 2008
Public interests at the time of Obama’s campaigning focussed mostly around change,
forming the backbone of Obama’s campaign. For starters, it meant a change in the failed
Republican Bush Presidency with a Democratic one. Afterwards, changing the functioning of
Washington was given priority. Obama’s belief that voters were unsatisfied with the general
working of the politics in Washington, is what drove his campaign towards success. His
campaign called for change and eventually, greater concern with public good was given
absolute priority (Icpsr.umich.edu 2019).
In order to succeed, linking John McCain to the Bush presidency’s failure was an
important step. Obama realised that McCain was not part of the Bush presidency, but he was
a republican – the same party as that of the president. Equating McCain with Bush as much as
possible allowed Obama to establish a successful anti-republican thought process in the
public mind. Afterwards, the campaign focussed on what the basic public needs are –
Healthcare and Economy. The campaign’s theme of change included Obama’s proposal on
major reforms in healthcare, reshaping economy prioritising energy consumption and
environmental protection and tax re-evaluation based on individual income. On a more global

22THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
level he was interested in reducing troop levels in Iraq and emphasised winning the
Afghanistan war.
Obama’s lack of connection with the Congress made him recognizable as an agent of
change but also made him vulnerable to critical commentary that he did not possess the
required experience to become a president. Changing public opinion on that regard also
became part of his campaign.
One of the most crucial driving factors behind Obama’s successful campaign was the
efficient use of social media and the internet (Miller 2013). His campaign integrated the
internet onto everything they did. They started thinking about the public from the level of the
public and started making connections. For Obama to become the president, he needed votes
of the public and thus the public became the mission of his campaign. The internet’s
integration to the campaign thus opened up a lot of possibilities and doorways. A specific
web team dedicated to maintain that digital arena of the campaign turned out to be a huge
turning point. If Obama was to reach presidency from the level of an unknown senator, he
needed communication. Internet was the solution. His campaign motives, goals, strategies
and everything he needed to get out to the public was made easy by the internet. From
connecting volunteers, activists and policymakers to the perspective audience, social media
paved a straight road for that to happen (Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan 2013). The most important
tactic the campaign used was the building of a centralized database of all the prospective
voters which helped them build support groups, online communities and promotional pages.
This database also held information about every individual voter, their necessities, demands,
ideas and opinions. This later helped design and modify objectives according to the
requirements. Besides, most of the groups and communities were not even built as a part of
the campaign but were created by loyal consumers and followers of his campaign, indicating
a rise in his popularity.

23THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Utilising the internet for the campaign had an array of other benefits too. The first and
the most important one being web visibility (Bimber 2014). Being popular on the internet
meant being visible on the internet through a vast network of search engines and keywords.
That in turn makes way for headlines and visibility on online news websites. The campaign
needed not just visibility on search engines and news sites but also needed the pictures to be
spread around the world and reach as many viewers as possible. This is where the internet
played the most important role, spreading the pictures from campaigns and backdoor
activities around the globe (Katz, Barris and Jain 2013). Obama’s campaign also featured
their own YouTube channel with more than 130,000 videos clips, many of which had a
million + views. This allowed people to relate more to the candidate and understand the
working style.
Of the other approaches the campaign used, having their own social networking
website – hosting more than 300,000 users actively sharing content and organising rallies and
events. The campaign even pushed their online presence by generating an iphone app and
even creating an SMS service for the interested (Mergel and Bretschneider 2013). The SMS
service delivered updates to more than one million subscribers, starting with the
announcement of Joe Biden’s nomination as VP. The campaign also resorted to
microblogging through twitter and it turned out that Obama had 240 times more followers
than his opponent McCain.
It is clear that the Obama campaign left no stone unturned when it came to digital
marketing and campaigning. His PR team resorted to all possible resources available when it
came to building popularity, generating revenue, connecting with people and sharing the
campaign activities with the followers. They seemed to understand that the best available
resource to utilise was the internet as the more popular one is on the web, the chances of
visibility increase dramatically (Jahanbaksh and Moon 2014). They did not just stop there,

24THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
they kept tabs on who were visiting the site and how popular their online presence was. They
employed multiple statistical tools to track their progress and generate graphical data. They
utilised a tool called ‘Votebuilder’ to track the voter’s locality, and even encourage those who
voted to prompt the ones who didn’t to go out and vote (Pang, Pollalis and Saluti 2013)
Embracing digital social media also helped the campaign generate more than 500 million
dollars as online revenue through various fundraising events organised on and off sites. This
was made possible by the vast network of followers Obama created on his social media
portals. His campaign kept the followers up to date, even promoted a section of them to
volunteers and later as active campaigners. Involving the public allowed for a wider spread of
the network, which in turn brought in more followers. Increased active participation in the
campaign was vital for the functioning of the campaign policies. It also proofreads the
policies for future implementation without the tiresome hustle of intricate planning from the
scratch. Needless to say the online marketing and digital platform for campaigning proved to
be of paramount importance in Obama’s victory.
Takeaways
All the aforementioned strategies and factors add to the success or failure of a
political campaign. However, for someone with similar interests and ambitions, the 2008 US
presidential Campaign is a brilliant source of information and planning. Here are the main
takeaways followed by the main ethical considerations while practicing a Public Relations
campaign in Politics.
a. Understand target audience/consumer` - This is crucial because without knowing
one’s target audience base, evaluating their needs and necessities would be
impossible, thereby hindering campaign development.

25THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
b. Understand opponent – understanding one’s opponent is as important as
understanding target consumer. One needs to identify the key points that differentiate
the candidate from his opponent in terms of ideological approach and objectives.
c. Address audience requirements – The goal of setting an objective list is to inform the
consumers that the candidate has knowledge of their specific requirements and is
willing to utilise all possible resources to meet set target.
d. Segregate necessary from redundant policies – prioritizing basic, primary needs over
irrelevant policies would boost candidate’s image as one who can identify key
elements in a policy and implement necessary steps for its functioning.
e. Utilise digital communication – If there is anything the Obama campaign has shown,
it is the power of digital communication and social media marketing. Utilising as
many resources as possible to boost campaign strategies as well as reputation, with
active participation of PR team ensures a positive results.
f. Systematic utilisation of Internet as a tool – This is a crucial factor because one
misstep can plunge the candidate’s reputation. Thus skilled PR professionals become
necessary to analyse and evaluate degrading online content and ensure positive
presence on the web.
g. Understand finances – This is the final and most important point to be kept in mind.
All previous endeavours would be fruitless without planned expenditure of allocated
finances. Fundraising events come in handy in such scenarios.
Ethical Considerations
a. Respect public sentiments in regards with ethnicity, religion, race and educational
level as well as sexual orientation and preferences.

26THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
b. Respect Legal rights and responsibilities while conducting a research on a topic
concerning politics.
c. Understand the value of public considerations and why they exist – the public
requirements which they wish to be fulfilled by the victor should be given priority.
d. In terms of sampling of data, it becomes necessary to maintain anonymity of the
participants.
e. Ensuring that the identity of the individuals concerned in a politically driven research
is kept safe should be done through proper documentation of relevant individuals and
the information be kept secure with the researchers themselves. Under no
circumstances should they be disclosed.
Results
Data analysis
To evaluate the qualitative data, the case study of Obama’s 2008 presidential
campaign has been performed. A thematic analysis has been done for the factors that played
an important role in the campaign.
Theme 1: Obama’s 2008 campaign strategies.
The key goal of the campaign organization was victory. The presidential campaign
treated Obama and his candidature as a product and had planned around it to understand
potential markets and strategies which could be used to sell this product to the masses
(YouTube 2008). The main strategy behind selling this point was the use of the word ‘we’. It
was not change for an individual or a selected set of individuals, but a change that the people
or ‘we’ could believe in. (YouTube 2008)

27THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Another point that is to be kept in mind is uniqueness. If a product is unique and
different from its competitors, it automatically attracts more consumer attention.
The three primary strategies used by Obama’s campaigners during the 2008 elections as
identified and narrowed down from the case study are-
1. Large scale integration of the World Wide Web: Integration of internet in every
aspect of the functions and workings of the organization making it the hub of
operations, such as customer development, product development, sales and marketing
ensured a large scale participation.
This meant connecting volunteers to prospective voters and turning interested
volunteers into activists who worked for the campaign.
Integration of internet into their campaign also ensured a seamless transaction
of ideas, opinions, general content, reviews and much more. The transaction in turn
returned valuable feedback for the campaign, giving them ideas as to how to build on
the existing parameters, fine tune them, test them and deploy them back to the public.
2. Prioritizing consumer base: Thinking about every individual consumer separately.
This can be termed as being ‘grassroots’. This meant letting every individual speak up
about their needs, telling their stories and being heard. This involved input from
several individual perspective and thus helping create more specific strategies which
could help in promoting Obama’s candidature. This strategy also made it easier to
spread the message that the democratic party was going after – ‘change that we could
believe in’. Deploying selective messaging that appeal to the target consumer base
through various communication technologies, plays a vital role in any political
propaganda (Marland, 2014).

28THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
The campaign’s approach to achieving fluency dealing with such a huge
number of people, was generating a solid consumer base through generating a
centralised database of all prospective voters. This database held information about
every individual voter’s requirements – their demands, needs, opinions, location,
background and non-invasive data. Having such a handy database enabled the
campaigners to engage in a deep analytical research into their target audience. Well
skilled public relations advisors play a crucial role here, implementing their marketing
and research skills to generate data targeting the particular voter groups (Newman,
2002).
3. Creating and maintaining multi-level consumer connectivity: The Obama campaign
made it of utmost importance to communicate with the general public of all tiers from
different parts of the country. This is where social media marketing became a reliable
asset.
The two highly beneficial approaches to using the social media to their
advantage was the creation of a personalised Youtube channel and their own social
media website. The channel featured more than 130,000 videos and official clippings
and many of them had views over a million in 2008 when a million views held a vital
significance. The social media website successfully hosted more than three hundred
thousand active followers who were constantly updated with information about the
campaign, strategies, plans and proceedings and in return their valuable feedback
helped shape the campaign. The social media site also encouraged its users to create
mini organizations and support groups among themselves, hosting rallies and
fundraising events voluntarily. More than half a million dollars was raised through

29THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
online fundraising campaigns. This shows the power of the internet in creating and
maintaining active long distance connectivity.
The campaign also resorted to existing social media platforms like Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr heavily for their promotion (youtube, 2008). These
social media sites not only help spread information and image fast, but also aids
building reputation and enhancing search engine visibility, a crucial factor when it
comes to maintaining positive campaign trends, allowing the candidate to be visible
throughout the internet for a long period of time. It also allows their Online
Reputation Management team to scan for positive and negative influencing online
content and take necessary action.
Theme 2: Factors contributing to the victory
One of the most common political campaign strategies is negative advertising
(Krupnikov & Piston, 2015). Obama’s campaigners understood that at the very outset. Thus
one of their primary approaches was to identify and target the faulty Bush presidency and the
failure of the Republicans as a whole. This in turn allowed him to target his opponent John
McCain under the same thread, beginning an anti-republican trend in the people’s minds.
Later studies have also revealed use of more attack posts by Obama’s campaign against his
opponent McCain in 2008, both being non-incumbent candidates (Borah, 2016). Negative
advertising has been a common practice and political campaigns resort to attack posting often
based on the differences in incumbency, gender, partisanship and competitiveness (Evans et
al, 2014).
The second vital element in campaigning strategy is understanding and evaluating
primary public needs and shunning needless practices that end up utilising national resources.

30THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Obama thus started his campaign focussing on the theme of change he promised. That
included the primary public requirements like reshaping healthcare, active economic reforms
which prioritized energy consumption and environmental protection. Re-evaluation of taxes
based on individual income levels was also one of his prospective engagements. Besides that,
he also emphasized on victory in the Afghan War and reducing US troops in Iraq. Introducing
policies that affect the public positively on a larger scale helps build better reputation. Public
realisation that a candidate is well aware of the national economy and where the resources are
being utilised wrongly instead of where they should be, plays major role in boosting a
particular candidate’s political promotions.
The third vital element that affects the outcome is active candidate-public interaction.
On location rallies and campaigns definitely do their job, however, proper understanding of
current trends in communication is a vital propellant when it comes to a successful campaign.
Obama’s large scale utilisation of the digital communication trends, including social media,
online content sharing, search engine visibility and a highly active online support base proves
that the medium of information sharing that is trending in a particular timeline is a vital factor
that determines the success of a political campaign (Miller, 2013). This is where a well
drilled team of public relations experts play their role. It is important to not treat a political
promotion as extremely different from business communication as both have cross-
organizational international dimensions and those responsible for communication in political
parties find the latter extremely useful (Xifra, 2010).

31THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
Summary and conclusion
A successful political campaign entails a well-executed PR promotion that takes care
of all the pre-requisites. It studies the market, the target audience, the goals and objectives
that are needed to be taken into consideration. Afterwards it connects the candidate to the
public and helps in a seamless exchange of ideas and feedbacks. Thus it not only takes care of
the marketing aspect but also helps keep up a positive image of the candidate in the minds of
the public. The public’s access to the internet creates a huge pool for the Online Reputation
Management to dump their resources in. They strategically comb the web for detrimental
content and constantly generate and highlight positive content and reviews. These help boost
image of the candidate by putting them in the public’s good books instantly. As the case
study along with the advantages and disadvantages pointed out, present day marketing
strategies linked with the internet creates a powerful medium for distribution of necessary
information regarding the goals and objectives behind a candidate’s campaign. At the same
time it allows for a seamless transmission of returning feedback, reviews and ideas about
what the public wants that can be incorporated into the campaigning. Thus, to summarize, a
public relations campaign uses all available resources, including the internet to create a
complicated network of resource management and output, and using the web as a source as
well as a medium, constantly keeps up the flow of content and response, and at the same
time, functions as a spotlight and a filter as well.
To summarise, PR and political marketing are intricately linked and even though the
latter can function without the former, active PR participation ensures a steady, lossless
growth of the campaign. This in turn results in building stronger strategies and policies for
future research and use since all the data collected by the PR experts eventually boil down to
the specific objectives as set by the candidate. An ambitious person can learn a lot from PR
marketing and implement them to his benefit.

32THE ROLE PLAYED BY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN BUILDING GOOD IMAGE AND REPUTATION FOR POLITICIANS
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