Public Relations Practices in Australian Local Government

On a typical day Local Government (LG) communicators provide communication advice to staff and senior management,monitor online and traditional media, and manage media inquiries and responses. This first national survey of 330Australian LG communicators found patterns of communication activity were generally similar across urban and ruralLG categories, but urban practitioners tend to use more social and online media, and are more proactive with traditionalmedia, than rural practitioners. Online and social media are an important part of LG communication, but there is muchmore use of Twitter and Facebook and websites than blogs. The ratio of females to males was four to one. Fifty-ninepercent of respondents joined local government less than five years ago, and thirty percent plan to leave in the next fouryears.