Standards Validation Paper Wins Jackson-Sharpe Award
The research paper „An Examination of the Validity, Reliability and Best Practices Related to the Proposed Standards for Traditional Media“ received the this year`s Jackson-Sharpe Award for its clear, scientific benefit to the debate on the measurement and evaluation of communication. In the center of the study, awarded at the International Public Relations Research Conference 2014 in Miami, is perhaps the most critical key to get standards adopted – the validation of the proposed measurements standards for media analysis.
Focused: testing on the proposed standards for media analysis
In 2012, the ‚Coalition’, an industry-wide association for establishing standards for measuring PR, published proposed standards for media analysis. But the perhaps most critical and important key to get standards endorsed, is validation which has to be examined in further research.
The awarded research paper co-authored by David Geddes (Geddes Analytics, LLC), Marianne Eisenmann (Chandler Chicco Companies) and Julie O`Neil (Texas Christian University) has provided this. Their results of two years` worth testing on the proposed standards for media analysis showed that you can get reliable results by following the proposed standards. However, two requirements have to be mentioned. The material should be measured by experienced coders using a well-developed and detailed code book. You can read all the details on research methodology, sources and results here.
Meet the Practitioner`s Need for Transparency
The study indicates the importance of sound training and a well-developed and detailed code book for a successful media analysis. Furthermore, the research paper has evolved to meet the practitioner`s need for replicable, comparable and transparent outcomes in media content analysis. The implementation of this study provides readers with guidance, best practices, and a set of tools to implement media content analysis with the necessary transparency in methodology and confidence of replication.
However, the given insights are important, but for social-scientific educated PR practitioners it is nothing new: ensuring the validation of content analysis and the necessary methods to do so belong to the standard tools of communications research, educated at Germany`s universities for a long time. Nonetheless, there is one crucial hint: Agencies in the field of media analysis should actively disclose those quality properties and clients should demand them as well.
References
Eisenmann, Eisenmann/ O`Neil, Julie/ Geddes, David (2014): An Examination of the Validity, Reliability and Best Practices Related to the Proposed Standards for Traditional Media. Paper presented at the IPPRC 2014 Conference, Miami, FL, USA.
The research paper is available free of charge at the website of the Institute for Public Relations.
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