Ulrike Röttger

Ulrike Röttger (* 1966 in Kamen ) is a German communication scientist. Since 2003 she has been Professor of Public Relations at the Institute for Communication Studies at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In May 2008 she was elected chairwoman of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies .

biography

Ulrike Röttger studied journalism at the Technical University of Dortmund . After that, Röttger worked from 1993 to 1994 at an agency for communications consulting and PR in Bochum and a research assistant at various institutes. In 1999 she received her doctorate with the thesis "Public Relations - Institute and Profession". She has been a professor in Münster since 2003.

Her main areas of research and teaching are:

• Public relations , especially university PR
• CSR communication
• Campaign communication
• Issues management
• Internal communication
• Online PR / weblogs
• Communication advice
• Communicator research

public relations

Röttgers distances himself from modeling public relations as a social sub-system, since it questions whether public relations can even be viewed as an autonomous autopoietic system in the sense of systems theory . In their view, PR differs too much depending on the client to identify a primary function that is performed exclusively by PR for society or to find a key difference.

The autonomy of PR as a subsystem is questionable, as it does not necessarily develop its decision-making standards and structures itself. From the system-theoretical point of view, observations about public relations are also very difficult to operationalize.

In particular, Röttger has dealt with how public relations can be theoretically and empirically analyzed using structural theory approaches (Giddens 1984; 1997) (Röttger 2000; Jarren / Röttger 2004). The structural theory-based approach of PR according to Jarren and Röttger differentiates between several functions of PR:

• Interpenetration: PR links the organization with strategically relevant environmental systems by establishing interpenetration zones.
• Control: Context control of environmental systems etc. a. through communication and control resources.
• Reflection: Feeding external descriptions relevant to the legitimation into the organizational system through systematic environmental observations

Literature (selection)

• as editor: PR campaigns. About staging the public. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1997, ISBN 3-531-12950-3 (2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Ibid 2001, ISBN 3-531-32950-2 ).
• as editor: Issues Management. Theoretical concepts and practical implementation. An inventory. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-531-13688-7 (reprint. Ibid 2003).
• with Jochen Hoffmann and Ottfried Jarren: Public Relations in Switzerland. An empirical study on the professional field of public relations (= research field communication. Vol. 16). UVK-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Konstanz 2003, ISBN 3-89669-412-X .
• as editor: Theories of Public Relations. Basics and perspectives of PR research. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14044-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Ulrike Röttger in the catalog of the German National Library
• To person
• Overview of current publications