The strategy applied to Public Relations in the digital environment: The Spanish case

Abstract

Introduction: The purpose of this article is to find out if the communication departments of the Spanish companies with the highest turnover strategically plan the public relations (PR) activity in the digital environment; what the typology and the communicative orientation of the plans that they de-sign are; and which the most used tools in the digital ecosystem are. Methodology: To do this, we sent a questionnaire to the functional communication managers of this type of companies and that are members of the Spanish Association of Directors of Communication-Dircom. Results: Based on the strategic decision-making model of John Marston (1963) and considering PR as an independent and strategic managerial function (Grunig and Hunt, 2003) we have verified that most of the PR plans of Spanish companies in the digital environment have been strategically designed. Discussion: These data contrast with several studies carried out in recent years at a professional level, which indicated that the management of PR in the digital environment was raised tactically and with short-term objec-tives. Conclusions: We confirm a trend towards professionalization of the strategic management of PR in cyberspace, but we also point out that there are aspects of applied strategic thinking that should be improved, such as the use of other types of programs, beyond those that they seek notoriety and beyond the informative function, and the use of new digital tools.