The Policy, Management, and Usage of Media in Communication for Public Relations of the Public Relations Department in the Context of Thailand 4.0

Abstract

This research aimed to study the policy, management and media usage for readiness and acceptance of the Department of Public Relations under the digital media landscape in the context of Thailand 4.0. The research was conducted by collecting data from in-depth interviews with 11 administrators of the Department and the distribution of a questionnaire to 400 staff members of the organization concerning the media usage operation. Data were analyzed with the use of the frequency, mean, standard deviation, and content analysis.  The findings revealed that the Department of Public Relations gave importance to the research information in order to apply new knowledge for development of the Department, there was the planning work operation on media usage, and work performance evaluation by using media for integrated public relations, namely, the main media, digital media, activity media, and communication within the organization. In this regard, the interesting and consistent findings from the research based on information provided by both the administrators and the staff members were about human resource administration and budgets. That is to say, the Department of Public Relations lacked personnel with specific expertise in mass communication while there were restrictions in the budget management. Finally, the researcher proposed an effective media usage plan for communications and public relations, both inside and outside the Department so that the operations of the Department would proceed in the same direction and could reach the target groups as well as achieve the specified objectives efficiently in order to create an effective media usage plan in communications for public relations of the Public Relations Department under the digital media landscape in the context of Thailand 4.0.