ABSTRACT
In the arena of human communication, public relations (PR) professionals have sought to understand the impact of messages and how to increase the likelihood that a message will have the desired effect. This chapter describes the history and background of measurement in PR, introduces the concept of measurements for PR, helps students think about PR research attitudes and approaches, also describes the current environment that facilitates research to support PR, and presents an example of how to gather information to inform PR decisions. "Research" is a term and a concept that has many faces and forms in the communications industry, not to mention much broader applications in fields from medicine to physics to sociology. In the early days of PR and professional communications, the measures of success for programs and campaigns were largely based on coverage in mass media or in sales figures, neither of which was readily linked to the communications efforts.
