The third research question explores the purposes or functions social media fill within the departments. Functions of social media were named, and practitioners indicated if their departments use social media a great deal, some, or not at all. Results of this inquiry are presented in Table 4. The five functions reporting the highest numbers when combining “a great deal” and “some” include, in order of frequency: research (n=142), collect objective information (n=112), establish relationships (n=107), track competition (n=103) and place stories (n=88). The least-named function was represent the public (n=174), followed by entertainment (n=165) and determine opinion (n=132)