Models of Public Relations

Communication may be managed in several ways, depending upon the culture of the organization and the way the organization looks at the world. Grunig and Hunt identified four models of public relations that have been practiced in the history of public relations. By "model," they mean four typical ways in which organizations practice public rela­tions. Some of these "models" of public relations are more effective than others, however. Some also are more ethical.

The press agentry model describes public relations programs whose sole purpose is getting favorable publicity for an organization in the mass media. P. T. Barnum's promotion of his circus was one of the earli­est examples of press agentry. It also is common in the work of publi­cists who promote sports, movie stars, products, politicians, or senior managers.

The public information model is similar to press agentry because it too is a one-way model that sees public relations only as the dissemination of information. With the public information model, an organiza­tion uses "journalists-in-residence"—public relations practitioners who act as though they are journalists—to disseminate relatively objec­tive information through the mass media and controlled media such as newsletters, brochures, and direct mail.

Both press agentry and public information are one-way models of public relations; they describe communication programs that are not based on research and strategic planning. Press agentry and public in­formation also are "asymmetrical" or imbalanced models—that is, they try to change the behavior of publics but not of the organization. They try to make the organization look good either through propaganda (press agentry) or by disseminating only favorable information (public information).

Public relations practitioners who take a professional approach base their communication programs on more sophisticated and effec­tive models. The two-way asymmetrical model uses research to develop messages that are likely to persuade strategic publics to behave as the organization wants. Two-way asymmetrical public relations is scientific persuasion that uses the services of research firms to plan mes­sages. Because it includes research on the attitudes of publics, it is more effective than press agentry or public information.

Two-way asymmetrical public relations is also a selfish model, how­ever, because the organization that uses it believes it is right (and the public wrong) and that any change needed to resolve a conflict must come from the public and not from the organization. The model seems to work reasonably well when the organization has little conflict with a public and the public stands to benefit from a change in its behavior. For example, even though members of a target public for a health campaign may resist changes in behavior to prevent a heart attack or AIDS, they do benefit from changes advocated by the campaign.

Research on these models suggests, however, that two-way asymmet­rical public relations—like its fellow asymmetrical models of press agen­try and public information—is less effective than a "symmetrical" model of public relations. It is especially less effective when an organization ex­periences greater conflict with a public. For example, environmentalists seldom can be persuaded that a polluting organization is not polluting. Antinuclear activists seldom are converted to supporting nuclear power plants. Members of employee unions seldom can be convinced that low wages are high or that poor working conditions are good.

Rather, they want the organization's mission to include the problems they consider relevant. They want to participate in the decisions about what to do with the problems. They want balanced, "symmetrical" communication with the organization. They want dialogue rather than monologue. They want the organization to be persuaded equally as often as they are persuaded.

The fourth model, the two-way symmetrical, describes a model of public relations that is based on research and that uses communication to manage conflict and improve understanding with strategic publics. Because the two-way symmetrical model bases public relations on relations and compromise, it generally is more ethical than the other models. It does not force the organization to make the choice of whether it is right on particular issues. Rather, two-way symmetrical public relations allows the question of what is right to be settled by negotiation. since nearly every side to a conflict—such as nuclear power, abortion, or gun control—believes its position to be right.

 

STRATEGIC PLANNING

Starting to talk about strategic planning, let’s again compare organizations with humans. People tend to plan everything in their lives: they enter universities because they want to get a good job, they take a badly-paid job because they need experience for their career, people always do something for the sake of something else, even when they don’t want to do it but the final target requires it. Those who plan their lives are considered by most people successful, those who don’t – losers that waste their lives. Of course this is a philosophical question, but it is still quite demonstrative. People PLAN things. Why? Because they want to achieve something. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes – the whole life. Organizations are like people: if they want to get something, they must plan, develop a strategy. If they don’t their actions don’t serve one purpose and are random, so the result won’t be successful, at least not the same as with strategic planning. The idea is that strategic planning is crucially important.

Nowadays especially in Russia things are done without any strategic reasons. Companies don’t usually have any PR specialists, so if they undertakes activities they don’t actually realize for what purpose. For example, it is fashionable now to gain publicity. So companies want to be known “just because”. A good example here would be an oil company that organized several rock concerts for young people. Does an oil company need to be recognized among young people? No, it doesn’t. So what was the purpose? Just because companies do it.

Another example. A KMB bank, which deals with financing small business, conducted a special event. They made a party for orphans and at the end of it let a hundred balloons with their symbols into the air.

So, the point is that an organization should do something not because its boss wants to do it, not because it is fashionable, but because the company needs it.

When a football team steps out on the field, the players have no control over the strategies and tactics the other team will use. Nobody can predict the breaks that will alter the course of the game. In the face of these uncertainties, the coaches develop a "game plan" around which they can organize their actions. The game plan might call for maintain­ing a deliberate, controlled ground game using certain players to run certain patterns at the perceived weaknesses of the other team. Specific plays are selected because they will deliver what the general game plan calls for. The main idea, of course, is to win by doing what your team does best.

Successful organizations also base their actions on a game plan. The process starts with the enunciation of a mission statement. This is an im­portant part of strategic planning, as it was discussed. For a manufacturing company, the mission statement might include "mak­ing a fair profit for our stockholders by developing and distributing the highest-quality goods to a national market." The mission statement also might cover "treating our consumers and employees fairly and being good citizens of the communities where our facilities are located."

 

A nonprofit organization's mission statement

WARNER-LAMBERT CREED

 our mission is to achieve leadership in advancing the health and well-being of people throughout the world We believe this mission can best be accomplished by recognizing and meeting our fundamental responsibilities to our customers employees shareholders, suppliers and society.

To Our Customers     WE ARE COMMITTED to providing high quality health care and consumer products of real value that meet customer needs We are committed to continued investment in the discovery of safe and effective products to enhance people' s lives.

To Our Employees      WE ARE COMMITTED to attracting and retaining capable people, providing them with challenging work in an open and participatory environment marked by equal opportunity for personal growth Performance will be evaluated on the basis of fair and objective standards Creativity and innovation will be encouraged Employees will be treated with dignity and respect. They will be actively encouraged to make suggestions for improving the effectiveness of the enterprise and the quality of work life

To Our Shareholders   WE ARE COMMITTED to providing a fair and attractive economic return to our shareholders and we are prepared to take prudent risks to achieve sustainable long term corporate growth

To Our Suppliers       WE ARE COMMITTED to dealing with our suppliers and all our business partners in a fair and equitable manner recognizing our mutual interests

To Society                  WE ARE COMMITTED to being good corporate citizens actively initiating and supporting efforts concerned with the health of society particularly the vitality of the worldwide communities in which we operate.

above all, our dealings with these constituencies will be conducted with the utmost integrity, adhering to the highest standards of ethical and just conduct.

 

Reproduced courtesy of Warner-Lambert might call for "increasing knowledge about Huntington's disease among the people of California and raising funds for the state chapter of the Huntington's Disease Soci­ety to support research at state and national levels."

Out of the mission statement grows a list of goals —somewhat more specific than the mission statement, but still general in nature and unspecific as to time frame or numerical targets. Goals for the manufactur­ing company might be "to be a market leader in the small appliance field. For the nonprofit organization, a goal might be to "offer assistance to all families in the state that are affected by Huntington's disease."

Only when a mission statement and goals are in place can the man­agement of an organization move to the necessary task of setting objectives. What makes objectives different from mission and goals is their specificity. An objective should specify the desired effect as specifically as possible: "To increase the number of senators who understand the Leukemia Society of America's position on research funding from forty-five senators to seventy-five senators by November 1" (under­standing), or "To decrease the number of newspapers in the state that oppose rate reforms for the insurance industry from 60 percent to 40 percent by the first of the year" (agreement).

Well-articulated objectives specify a time frame and the number of people or projects affected. When objectives contain specific times and numbers, they are measurable. Management can determine regularly whether objectives are being met. If they are not, either more realistic objectives must be set or more effective events, campaigns, or programs should be developed.

 

Because planning is such an important part of public relations, it is useful to understand the different requirements of an event, a campaign, and a program.

An event is a one-shot occurrence. It happens in one time frame—an hour, a day, or perhaps as long as a week—and it serves one prime pur­pose with one or more selected publics. If an organization's leader retires and a banquet is held in conjunction with the retirement, that would be an event. A special tour set up to enable the trade press to visit a new facility is an event. If the President of the United States invites the leader of your organization to the White House, you will gain publicity from the event.

A campaign has at least one thing in common with an event: a specific beginning and ending point. But because those two points are separated by weeks or even months, and because several different events will be part of the process, we call it a campaign. Obviously, an election campaign is a good example. If the legislature is due to vote on a bill that affects your organization, the ways you target your publics with information add up to a campaign. Campaigns necessarily build to a decision point such as an election or a vote.

A program is like a campaign in that it consists of several events. But it differs from a campaign in that it has no pre-set end point A program is put in place because of an anticipated need for continued dissemination of information. The program is reviewed periodically to determine whether its objectives are being met. All or parts of it will be continued as long as there is a need for more communication with target publics. Drug education, driving safety, blood donation, adoption, nutrition— these are all social situations that call for continuing programs, because complete resolution of the problem is never achieved.

 

When public relations people and their counterparts in marketing and advertising sit down to define a situation and begin the planning process, temporary chaos can result if no one defines whether an event, a campaign, or a program is in order. The deciding factor may be the types of objectives desired by the client. We discussed five general objectives of communication: communication, accuracy, understanding, agreement, and complementary objectives. The following are some specific examples of those objectives.

 

Objectives for an event include:

¨ Attendance by a certain number of peo­ple.

¨ One-time dissemination of information to a target public.

¨ Putting something "on the record" for an organization and its publics.

¨ Gaining press attention. All are examples of the communication objective.

Objectives for a campaign might be:

¨ Delivering a positive vote or reac­tion at the proper time (behavior).

¨ Building support for an issue that will be resolved in due course (agreement).

¨ Raising funds for an organization so that it can proceed with growth (behavior).

¨ Attracting enough sup­port to guarantee continuance or survival of an organization at a critical time (understanding).

Objectives for a program could include:

¨ Creating and maintaining a level of support for an ongoing program (understanding).

¨ Opening and maintaining contact with other organizations that enable your organi­zation to continue its functions (communication).

 

Any organization can be involved in events, campaigns, and pro­grams simultaneously. An example would be a community blood bank:

• Getting the governor to donate a pint of blood at the beginning of the holiday season, when donations typically lag, would be an event that could attract press attention and inform people about the need to help.

• At the same time, the blood bank might kick off a campaign to enlist 1,000 people who would agree to schedule their dona­tions for the weeks before New Year's Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day—the times each year when the blood supply reaches a critical low.

• Meanwhile, the blood bank could launch a program to involve more companies and their employees in twice-a-year donations conducted in the workplace, with the companies rewarding each employee a day off with pay for every two donations.

 

Typically public relations people are working on many projects at one time. Understanding the difference between events, campaigns and programs is one way they can allocate their resources of time and money more effectively.

 

At the 1939 World's Fair in New York, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. introduced nylon to the public by showing coal, air, and water go­ing into one end of a mythical machine and delicate nylon stockings coming out of the other.

Fifty years later, Du Pont saw the golden anniversary of its prod­uct as an opportunity not only to celebrate, but also to remind con­sumers that the company's global reputation is based on its leadership in product innovation.

In a wide-ranging program, the firm prepared video news re­leases that were pegged to the anniversary of nylon but focused also on current and planned research. The news media tended to use the historical footage in its reports, but Du Pont is satisfied that it will reap long-term benefits because it took the opportunity to remind ed­itors and program producers of its role in science and business.