英文摘要 |
This paper explores the developments of the public relations discipline and public relations research from the mid 1960s to 2000 in Taiwan. The methods of content analysis and literature review were adopted. The data collected and analyzed encompassed: 1) articles published in Mass Communication Research from 1967 to 2000, 2) research reports for the National Science Council from 1966 to 2000, 3) articles collected in the Collections of Communications published by the Chinese Communication Society from 1997 to 2000, 4) 144 public relations papers, including master's and doctorate dissertations, from 1990 to 2000, and 5) public relations curriculum information from Taiwan colleges and universities. This paper first introduced the courses and departments in the field of public relations at colleges and universities in Taiwan. Then, the relations between the discipline of public relations and other disciplines were explored. The results indicated that the public relations discipline has the closest relations with communications, management and administration science. Characteristics of the public relations research in Taiwan can be characterized as: Organization orientation (in contrast to public orientation), plural research subjects (in contrast to single subjects), effect orientation (in contrast to non-effect orientation), and practice orientation (in contrast to theory orientation). Theory-wise, Western theories, primarily US theories, are major supports; communications and management theories are also referenced. This paper also noted the following indigenous characteristics of public relations research in Taiwan, i.e., exploring public relations from 1) the perspective of news sources, 2) guanxi and relationships in the cultural sense, and 3) indigenous definitions of public relations. This paper concluded with the outlooks on public relations based on two representative public relations forums conducted at the beginning of the 21st century in Taiwan and the US. |