The Handbook of Public Sector Communication

25Measuring and Evaluating Media: Traditional and Social

Stefania Romenti and Grazia Murtarelli

Introduction

Media remain essential to public sector communication. To track and improve performance, communication through and with media must be evaluated. However, today the media environment raises both challenges and opportunities for media evaluation. This is due to the increased number and types of “new media” that are challenging press, radio, and television (TV) and creating a modern mediascape characterized by disintermediation and fragmentation.

Despite the recognized importance of media in public sector communication, the evaluation of both traditional and social media has relied in the past on a few primary quantitative metrics. However, digital media now enables the collection of a wide range of metrics, such as the number of views, downloads, clickthroughs, likes, follows, and shares. But with the proliferation of many different metrics, identifying standards for media evaluation is ever more challenging.

In undertaking evaluation of media relations and publicity practices, there are two interrelated but nevertheless different activities to examine:

1. Media relations, the relationship with journalists and major social media influencers, such as bloggers; and
2. Media publicity, the extent to which media content positively supports the objectives of an organization.

The advent of digital communication has revolutionized the way organizations interact with news media and ...