ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the fi ndings of a content analysis that explores the level of “public relations activity” (Zawawi, 1994) in a week’s sample of arts journalism in two Australian daily newspapers based in Melbourne, The Age broadsheet and the Herald Sun news pictorial. The fi ndings suggest that public relations activity has been used in the production of the published items in 97% of the combined sample of journalism reporting of the arts Further analysis to identify the role of PR in each of the newspapers’ arts coverage revealed little difference between the two newspapers with 97% PR activity evident in The Age and 98% in the Herald Sun. Similar to the analysis presented by Turner, Bonner, and Marshall (2000) this chapter suggests that this very high level of public relations activity points to an embedded collaboration between arts public relations and arts journalism in Melbourne, to the extent where arts public relations professionals are now viewed as central to the news making process, such that basic arts publicity now assumes the value of arts news.
