Analysis on the determination of stakeholder group priorities through press releases of the airline companies

Public relations discipline and its practices have been bridging institutions with their target audiences and enabling them to plan strategically to achieve their goals. As the discipline itself, its practices have also changed, developed, and evolved to this day. Establishing solid relations with the media, which is gaining importance day by day, has guided the success of the institutions. Nowadays, press releases published with conventional methods have been replaced by virtual press releases delivered to the target audience via corporate websites. Plus, the contents of these press releases, shared through press rooms, have also been created according to the targeted stakeholder group priorities. This master's thesis aims to determine which stakeholder groups prioritize the press releases shared by the institutions through their corporate websites. To this aim, it was examined in which press release and at what rate the stakeholder groups were prioritized according to certain criteria. Within the scope of the thesis, firstly, the concept of public relations, the historical process of public relations, public relations approaches, and media relations and its tools were mentioned. Second, stakeholder groups and stakeholder theory were explained. As the research, the press releases shared by the five airline companies through their corporate website were analyzed using the content analysis method. For the categorical content analysis, the list of variables adapted by Derya Gül Ünlü (2015) from Kim, Park, and Wertz (2010) was used. As the sample, 502 press releases of the top five airlines in Europe, namely Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and KLM Royal Netherlands Airlines, were covered. These press releases were coded according to the stakeholder group priorities included in their content. With the categorical content analysis carried out, it was aimed to determine the institution's prioritization of stakeholder groups in their press releases. The analysis showed which stakeholder groups were ignored and which stakeholder groups have given more importance to by the institutions. In conclusion, the analysis findings showed that similar stakeholder groups were prioritized both in the release themes and depending on the institution publishing the releases. According to these findings, it has been seen that the most prioritized stakeholder group is Customers, followed by the stakeholder group of the Community Members in the Environment. The stakeholder groups that were found to be ignored when the prioritization rates were examined were Government Relations & Lawmakers and Activist Groups. Keywords: Public Relations, Press Release, Stakeholders' Priorities, Stakeholders Theory