Mr Branding: This Study Reveals Huge Gap Between PR Professionals and General Population

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

This Study Reveals Huge Gap Between PR Professionals and General Population

Public relations personnel are supposed to bridge the gap between the values of the company they are working for and those of the people that the company is supposed to be catering to. In spite of the fact that this is the case, a recent study has shown that there is a considerable ideological gulf between PR professionals and the general population.

According to a study conducted by New York University, it turn out that the people who are working in PR are considerably more progressive than regular, everyday folk. For example, 68% of the PR personnel that responded to this survey said that their political ideology was conservative, whereas just 26% of the general populace said the same.

Furthermore, only 25% of people who are working in PR said that they identify as Centrists, whereas 40% of regular people said that this aligns with their own personal values. 34% of normal folk went so far as to say that they are conservative, with just a meager 7% of PR professionals saying that they are conservative in their political viewpoints.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this just looks at political ideologies. Widening the lens to include stances on social issues can paint a clearer picture than might have been the case otherwise, and it turns out that the gap is even wider here.

A whopping 83% of people working in the field of public relations said that they held a progressive stance on a wide array of issues pertaining to society. In comparison, 31% of the regular population said that they were progressive, with a similar proportion, 31% to be precise, saying that they were conservative. 39% of people said that they sat somewhere in the middle of this dichotomy.

Economic issues seemed to find more common ground between PR representatives and the general populace. 51% of PR personnel said that they were progressive, with 24% of regular Americans agreeing with them. 23% of professionals in PR and 39% of regular people described themselves as economic centrists, and the proportions for conservatives were 27% and 37% respectively.

Finally, we have social issues where the divide is once again not quite as stark as what we can see in social or political ideologies. For PR personnel, 56% were progressive, 24% were centrists and 20% were conservative.

By comparison, 24% of the general population described themselves as progressive on safety issues, 38% said that they were centrists and 39% were conservative. This goes to show that PR personnel may actually be rather out of touch in many ways.