THE MEDIA RELATIONS FIELD IN PUBLIC RELATIONS: EVALUATIONS OF RELATIONSHIP MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES BY TURKISH MEDIA PROFESSIONALS

It is known that in the early years of its emergence as a profession the public relations field was ap - proached as media relations. Today, public relations has reached a scope that cannot be evaluated as media relations only; however, when observed in terms of the contemporary public relations approach in which a relational paradigm comes to prominence, it is seen that the media relations field has main - tained its importance. This study aims to present the effect of relationship maintenance strategies on media professional - public relations practitioner relationships from the perspective of Turkish media professionals. Research was conducted among 181 media professionals. The findings indicate that media professionals tend to evaluate the openness strategy as the most effective strategy in terms of positive relationships between public relations practitioners and media professionals, followed by the strategies of positivity, assurances and sharing of tasks. This research also indicates that networking is considered as having the least, nearly neutral effect on relationship maintenance strategy