TRADE ASSOCIATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN NIGERIA: FROM INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TO REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

This study examined paradigm shift in public relations strategies of two maritime trade associations in Nigeria, focusing on the associations’ use of public relations and shift in paradigm in public relations management. This is with the view to determining whether the associations’ uses of public relations’ strategies have shifted from the practice of mere information management to reputation management. Reputation management is a more systematic, strategic and evidence-based/data driven management of public perceptions of organizations. The study anchored on the individual differences theory; the theory of media preferential encoding and active audience deferential decoding of the limited media effect paradigm; and the Social accountability theory. The study sought to find out the extent the organizations used public relations; the strategies they used; the tools they used to create understanding; the prospects and challenges they faced. The study obtained data using the In-depth interview design, considering the smallness of the study’s population, analyzing the data via narrative interpretation. The study found that the associations used public relations intensively, but to a limited extent, for public information disseminations, publicity, and advocacy, in a very dynamic business environment. The study found also that the organizations used media relations; identity and image management strategy; government relation and internal communication strategies. These strategies used more of one-way manipulative communication tools, especially press releases and advertorials, which hardly created mutual understanding with publics. The study found again the associations’ conceptualization of public relations communication to be one-way and manipulative. The study could not establish any paradigm shift from information management to reputation management. The study therefore concluded that the associations’ public relations practices had not “stamped Nigeria’s public relations’ ‘DNA’ on the global public relations timeline by shifting to a more strategic and systematic approach of managing public perceptions through relationship management.