Evaluating Public Communication ─ Exploring New Models, Standards, and Best Practice

Evaluating Public Communication addresses the widely reported lack of rigorous outcome and impact oriented evaluation in advertising; public relations; corporate, government, political, and organizational communication; and specialist fields such as health communication. This transdisciplinary analysis integrates research literature from each of these fields of practice as well as primary research including interviews, content analysis, and ethnography inside the world of evaluating public communication to identify the latest models and approaches. It presents in-depth of analysis of public communication and features:

• A review of 30 frameworks and models that inform processes for evaluation in advertising, public relations, health communication and promotion, government communication and other specialist fields including the latest recommendations of industry bodies, evaluation councils, and research institutes in several countries;
• Recommendations for standards based on contemporary social science research and industry initiatives such as the Task Force for Standardization of Communication Planning and Evaluation Models and the Coalition for Public Relations Research Standards;
• A comprehensive review of metrics that can inform evaluation including digital and social media metrics, 10 informal research methods, and more than 30 formal research methods for evaluating public communication; and
• A dozen contemporary case studies of evaluation of public communication campaigns and projects.

Evaluating Public Communication provides clear guidance on theory and practice for students of PR, advertising and all fields of communication.

Dr Jim Macnamara PhD is Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney. He was previously CEO of a leading research company specializing in planning and evaluation research. He is the author of 16 books on media and communication, including most recently Organizational Listening: The Missing Essential in Public Communication (2016) and Journalism and PR: Unpacking ‘Spin’, Stereotypes, and Media Myths (2014) and is internationally recognized as an evaluation specialist.