Analysis of "This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9th Editi" (part 7)

Identifying and Describing Publics

by:

Charles Lamson

In any public relations situation whether it is at the public relations management or public relations technician level, you cannot even start without first identifying your publics.

Every discipline develops its own terminology; sometimes the same term is used in different ways by people in different disciplines and professions. For the sake of this analysis, a very important term is public, which has a very specific meaning in public relations. It is essential that a practitioner grasp the distinction between a "public" and an "audience" (This is PR: The Reality of Public Relations - 9th Edition by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, pg. 92).

The term public has traditionally meant a group (or possibly individual) that has some involvement with an organization. Publics thus include the organization's neighbors, customers, employees, competitors and government regulators. Publics and organizations have consequences for each other. What a public does has some impact on the organization and vice versa. You might imaging that public and audience are synonymous. However, in important ways, they are not (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

From a public relations perspective, the term audience suggests a group of people who are recipients of something - a message or a performance. An audience is thus inherently passive. However, this conflicts with the goals of most public relations programs which is to stimulate strong audience participation. To help resolve the semantic conflict the term public evolved to distinguish between passive audiences and active ones (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

In public relations, the term public ("active" audience) encompasses any group of people who are tied together, however loosely, by some common bond of interest or concern or who have consequences for an organization. The best way to understand this concept is to think of various publics that you as an individual may be part of (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

First, you belong to a group of consumers that no doubt has been well defined by marketing people. You may for instance be in the 18-24 year-old "college" market. This market receives a great deal of attention because - although you may not believe it it - it is responsible for a vast outlay of cash. Secondly, you may have an organizational identity. For example, if you belong to a professional social or civic organization you are a member of a public. You also belong to other publics because of your race, religion, ethnic group or national origin. You probably would not want to be thought of as a member of "the general public" And you are not. No one is. No such public exists. Instead you are a member of many definable and describable publics. It is the job of public relations practitioners to identify these publics as they as they relate to the practitioners' organizations (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

Publics are often identified nominatively but while we can name them, it is important to remember that any public has no homogeneity. All members of that public are not alike. Making that assumption can createvproblems. Perhaps it helps to remember that another way to look at publics is by their demographics and psychographics. Psychographic ties among people create a sense of shared identity. Although that is usually positive, or at least benign, such as scuba divers or football fans it can also be negative as we know from teenage gangs (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

In traditional public relations literature, publics are divided into two categories: external and internal External publics exist outside an institution. they are not directly or officially a part of the organization, but they do have a relationship with it. Certain external publics such as government regulatory agencies have a substantial impact on the organization (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

Internal publics share the institutional identity. They include management, employees and many types of supporters (investors, for example). Occasionally, the term internal politics is used in public relations practice to refer specifically to employees. However this usage is unfortunate because it results in employees being considered as unrelated to management instead of as a part of the same team. This has a marginalizing effect that creates serious communication problems. In a strong union situation, the separation is real and a team concept is not as likely. Still the adversarial relationship can be healthy as long as communication between the two groups is maintained (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

Realistically, the categories internal and external are too broad to be useful in identifying publics. A more definitive typology has been developed by Jerry A. Hendrix who identifies the following major publics: media, employees, members, community, government, investors, international, special and integrated marketing. Every organization needs to thoughtfully compile a comprehensive list of its publics (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

Any particular public regardless of its broad category may become the focal point for a public relations effort. When that occurs, the public singled out for attention is called a target public or a priority public (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 92).

Not everyone approves of the connotations of the term target in the context of an important public. The "dean" of communication researchers, Wilber Schramm, was one authority who early on disparaged it.

For nearly thirty years after World War I, the favorite concept of the mass media audience was what advertisers and propagandists often chose to call the "target audience."... A propagandist could shout the magic bullet of communication into a viewer or a listener who would stand still and wait to be hit!...

By the late 1950s, the bullet theory was, so to speak, shot full of holes. Mass communication was not like a shooting gallery. There was nothing necessarily irresistible about mass communication or mass propaganda. Many influences entered into the effect of the mass media. The audience was not a passive audience; rather, it was extraordinarily active (Newsom, VanSlyke, Kruckeberg, pf. 93).

Most PR practitioners would agree that a target public tends not to be passive and may exhibit unpredictable behavior. Still, the idea behind the term is valid - as a silhouette or a statistical profile, and not as a life-size,  full color portrait. Although priority public may be more accurate, the term, target public continues to be used today to signify some definable audience for whom advertising and information are specifically prepared. The "mass audience" is indeed a myth and using the scattershot approach to reach target publics is both foolish and uneconomical. 

End