EVALUATING CROWDFUNDING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Abstract

Developments in communication technologies caused both the development of practices of public relations and emergence of new practice areas. Now, public relations can reach the individuals from various different aspects and can transfer private messages to the individuals with use of new technologies. Thus, transferring messages to the audience and creating a behavioural change on the audience, which are the bases of public relations, have acquired a new dimension. For this reason, professionals of public relations are creating practice areas in new digital-based communication platforms. Crowdfunding web pages, whose popularity has been increasing each passing day in the recent years, have become an important platform of transfer of messages, and have started to be used frequently by both the individuals and the professionals of public relations. This study researches how crowdfunding web pages can be used as a means of public relations and makes suggestions on the use of crowdfunding as a means of public relations as a result of the literature and netnographic research on the topic.