Entre a teoria e a prática: a atuação dos profissionais de relações públicas na comunicação pública de órgãos do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

Considering the role of public relations on issues such as the public interest, the need for popular participation and the relationship between State, government and citizens, the present research aims to analyze the performance of professionals in public state agencies regarding public communication, from their reports. Given this, we have as first methodological movements the contextualization research, aiming an approximation in relation to the object of study and the research of research seeking to get in touch with the works already produced in the area realizing a theoretical-methodological deconstruction that gave us bases to know how to carry out our investigation. Next the theoretical research is pertinent to understanding the contours and scope of this dynamic concept that is the public communication and also seeking to position the PR professional in this field, especially in public agencies. Already during the field work, we chose to use semistructured questionnaires in a first online contact to later conduct semi-open interviews in order to deepen our questions in personal contact. After we base ourselves on the precepts of the content analysis of Bardin (2011), adapting it to the specificities of our research to analyze the collected data. As main results found we can highlight the recognition and the performance of the professional in the areas of internal communication and events which contribute significantly to the construction of public communication when they promote public debate (like public hearings) or when dealing with public interest issues, as well the advertising campaigns. In addition, the integration and qualification of the internal processes has reflexes in the service to the external public. The digital communication also appears a lot, having important participation of public relations, from the planning to the interaction with the users. In the press office and the crisis management, it seems to us that there is still no recognition or integrated communication that counts on including the PR professional as a strategic figure. Finally, it should be emphasized that there is no ideal use of the planning and evaluation tools of the developed activities.