The Rant's mission is to offer information that is useful in business administration, economics, finance, accounting, and everyday life. The mission of the People of God is to be salt of the earth and light of the world. This people is "a most sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race." Its destiny "is the Kingdom of God which has been begun by God himself on earth and which must be further extended until it has been brought to perfection by him at the end of time."
Arthur W. Page offered six management principals that lead to ethical behavior:
Tell the truth. Let the public know what is happening and provide an accurate picture of the company's character, ideals and practices.
Prove it with action. Public perception of an organization is determined 90 percent by doing and 10 percent by talking.
Listen to the customer. To serve the public well you need to understand what it needs and wants; Keep top decision makers and other employees informed of public reaction to company products, policies and practices.
Manage for tomorrow. Anticipate public reaction and eliminate practices that create difficulties. Create goodwill.
Conduct public relations as if the whole company depended on it. It does. Corporate relations is a management function. No corporate strategy should be implemented without considering its external and internal public relations impact. The PR practitioner is a policy-maker, not just a publicist.
Remain calm, patient and good-humored. Lay the groundwork for public relations miracles with consistent, calm and reasoned attention to information and contacts. When a crisis comes, you will be prepared and know exactly what to do to diffuse it (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9 ed., Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk, Dean Kruckeberg; pg. 151).
These principles underscored the Page philosophy: "Real success, both for big business and the public, lies in large enterprise conducting itself in the public interest and in such a way that the public will give it sufficient freedom to serve effectively" (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg; pg.151).
An organization's standing depends on its actions, an organization's good standing depends on its acting in an ethical manner. An organization is also judged on how ethical its publics perceive it to be.
Media have been studied for decades and the Internet is now under academic scrutiny. What we do know from research is that if you have a complex message, you are better off with print media. However, when the message is simple video presentations are much more effective. Video or live performances are most effective if attitudes on an issue are changing. Next in order of effectiveness are audio messages. Least effective in that environment is print. Television involves its audiences more than radio and far more than print. Because computers are interactive they probably will rank higher than TV when computer presentation of video improves (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9th ed., Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk, Dean Kruckeberg, pg.137).
The Media orientation of publics is critical information since media deliver the messages. Public relations involves deciding what to tell, whom to tell, how to tell it and through what media to communicate. The choice of medium is critical, It must be believable, able to reach the priority public and technologically capable of carrying the message. For example, television has high credibility and mass persuasion. Safety officials who want to alert residents about an impending hurricane invariably take to the airwaves. However, something complicated like a change in Social Security benefits cannot be communicated as well through this medium. All television can do is alert people to the change and tell them where to find the information. A print medium is better for explaining details (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg; pg. 137).
People also turn to different media for different types of gratification and rewards.
Problems in communication are often caused by semantics. The words you use must mean the same thing to the receiver that they mean to you. It does not matter if the words you use to say something are the ones you think sound the best or the most authoritative, rather you must focus on what words have the mot forceful and desirable impact on the viewer or listener. Only people can bestow meanings on words says communication specialist Don Fabun, adding, "When we act as if we believed that a word symbol is the event that was originally experienced we ignore all the steps that have made it something else" (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
Jargon and obfuscation abound in government education and elsewhere. Important factors in language choice include clarity, emotional impact and context. A message's consistency with other messages from the same source and its level of repetition are also significant (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
Clarity has also been lost. Obscurity in language has reached absurd proportions in American usage as today's technical society embraces an entire vocabulary of words that would not have been understood even a decade ago. And since PR practitioners are not around to explain what their messages mean, the language they use had better be self-explanatory. You must chose your words with a feeling for the association that the receivers will make based on their individual frames of reference; the images the words will conjure up for them based usually on stereotypes they hold, and the simple fitness of the word itself (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
The emotional impact of language has nothing to do with clarity. It depends on emotional association. Emotional impact is of course an important weapon in all propaganda battles. In World War II, Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, two sultry radio personalities and propagandists, tried to entice American defections. However, two great commanders of the English language Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt urged their countrymen on with eloquent propaganda raising the morale and resolve of those on the front lines as well as those at home (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
The emotional impact of icons - emotionally arousing images, events or verbal metaphors - is an important mechanism for affecting public opinion. Robert Blood strategic communication analyst in the united Kingdom says, "Icons impact people's beliefs and they replicate by communication - they are viruses of persuasion. His studies indicate that three factors influence the rate at which an icon spreads through the public consciousness emotiveness, resonance and benignity. Emotiveness is the icon's measure of emotional arousal; resonance, its degree of agreement with existing beliefs and anxieties; benignity, its lack of direct effect on the individual exposed to it.
The context of messages - their verbal setting is also important. As one writer advises:
There is no easy way of choosing words. They must not be so general in meaning as to include thoughts not intended. Let the meaning select the word. A word is ambiguous when the reader is unable to choose decisively between alternative meanings, either of which would seem to fit the context. A great deal of unclear writing results from the use of too many broad general words, thus having so many possible meanings that the precise thought is not clear. The more general the words are, the fainter is the picture; the more special they are, the brighter (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 135).
Because people both seek and avoid messages, it is important to consider the significance of repetition and consistency in public relations messages. Repetition increases the opportunity for exposure. Consistency helps increase credibility (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 135-136).
Making sure a message gets through to an intended receiver is the first goal, and repetition increases your chances of accomplishing this. Making sure the message is believed is the next goal and consistency helps there. However, both these techniques are based on a time element and communication scholars have made some disquieting discoveries in this area. First, they found that when pressed for time people often make decisions on less information than they would normally require. Second, writers must decide whether their target public needs information piece by piece or whether they need an evaluative structure or frame of reference to permit making comparisons between alternatives.
Once you know which needs and values you want to appeal to, you understand the purpose of your message and which persuasive appeal is likely to work; then you can chose the texture of the message for its persuasive effect. The medium dictates to some extent the range of textures. Television has a wide range - color, design, movement and sound. A computer has all of these, plus interactive control. However, pictures and sound on computers are still not as good as TV. In print, the size shape and feel of an object - as people.trained in graphics know - may determine whether a brochure is picked up, whether a package is taken off a supermarket shelf and whether an ad catches people's attention (This is PR: The Reality of Public Relations by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
Motivational studies involving texture need to be interpreted by public relations practitioners as well as by marketing people in approaching particular problems. For example, most business people will not respond to a questionnaire printed on hot pink, little response to one on blue, but will give many answers to a questionnaire printed in green, beige or white (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
Most of us psychologically favor certain colors. This is likely to manifest itself in our choice of colors for clothes, cars and furniture. The public relations person needs to know which colors will appeal to a particular audience and how well those colors reproduce in the medium chosen for communicating with that audience. One despairing art director after having to change colors for a campaign owing to problems in reproducing them in different media, said with some resignation. "I'm ready to go back to the basics: red, white and blue," a safe choice after 9/11 (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
Nonverbal symbols are also part of a message's texture. Be particularly careful to avoid those that suggest bias, such as a woman standing beside a man seated at a desk or an ethnic or racial minority in a subservient posture in relation to a majority figure. Nonverbal cues say things that words do not and today's diverse and culturally sensitive audiences will be quick to notice them. Be sure that the semblance your message projects matches your intentions. Well chosen nonverbal ques can greatly enhance the message communicated by the accompanying word. Carelessly chosen cues can completely destroy an intended message and alienate an audience (Newsom, Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 134).
Social legislation, income tax, Medicare, civil rights laws and other public policy initiatives all reflect changes in opinion that were sensed and acted upon by politicians. Generally, such public opinion is an emotional response to information or events. Social psychologist Hadley Cantril contends that some "laws" govern this emotional response, although critics say that no law can account for something with as many variables as public opinion. Cantril's laws do suggest five basic ideas that seem common to all studies of opinion expression: (1) Events are most likely to affect opinion; (2) demands for action are a usual response; (3) self-interest must figure heavily if people are to become involved; (4) leadership is sought, and not always objectively and critically; (5) reliability is difficult to assess (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9th Ed. by Doug Newsom, Judt VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, 125-126).
Another five elements have been isolated by psychology professor Robert Cialdini, who identifies these as being elements of self-persuasion, the strongest and most effective type of persuasion strategy discussed thus far. Cialdini explains the elements as follows:
Consistency: After committing themselves to a position even in some trivial way people are more likely to perform behaviors consistent with that position. When people decide to comply with a request they check to see if they have already done something that is consistent with the request. For example, in one American Cancer Society charity drive it was found that homeowners who had previously gone on record as supporting the Cancer Society (by accepting and wearing a small lapel pin for a day) were nearly twice as likely as others to give a monetary donation a week later when the charity drive began. However, not all small initial commitments are active, public and not coerced.
Reciprocity: One question people ask themselves before agreeing to another's request is, "Do I owe this person something?" If the answer is yes, they are more apt to comply often when they would otherwise have declined and even when what they agree to do is more significant than what they received earlier. For this reason, charities mail unsolicited token gifts.
Social validation: People are more influenced to perform an action or hold a belief when they see that others are doing so.An important piece of evidence people inspect in deciding what is appropriate conduct for themselves in a situation is how others are acting. For this reason, advertisers love to include the words "fastest growing" or 'largest selling" in their product descriptions. They do not have to say directly that the product is good; they only need to say that others think so, which seems to be proof enough.
Authority: People are more willing to follow the suggestions of someone they consider a legitimate authority in terms of knowledge and trustworthiness. Demonstrating knowledge can usually be accomplished by showing evidence of superior experience, training, skill or information. Establishing trustworthiness is trickier. One device in pitching a story to an editor is to back off from this week's story, but promise real newsworthiness with the following week's item - for example, "I know this item isn't exactly what you want but wait until you see what we have for you next week."
Scarcity: People try to seize items and opportunities that are scarce or dwindling in availability. This accounts for the success of the "deadline," "limited number" and "can't come back later" sales tactics. Research indicates that people want a scarce item more than ever when they are in competition with others for it or when they believe they have an exclusive.(Newsom, VanSlyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pgs. 126-127).
Public Relations and Opinion-Making What is true of news management by government is true of any group in business, science or education or elsewhere that possesses specialized information. Those in command of information control its destination. The public's only defense lies in being aware that someone is always trying to influence its opinion. A sophisticated person will ask, "What am I being asked to think? What am I being asked to do? By whom? Why?"
In a democracy, these questions often are raised by members of some opposition, resulting in a struggle for favorable public opinion. This struggle is inherent in our concept of democracy. PR practitioners become involved in struggles because each side in a controversy employs them as professional advisers or spokespersons. Practitioners usually represent the side corresponding to their own beliefs although some ethical practitioners will, like lawyers, serve any client with loyalty whether or not they personally subscribe to the client's position. What differentiates the professional practitioner from the unprofessional news manager, who unfortunately is often mistaken for the PR person, is strict adherence to a code of ethics that upholds a strong sense of overall social responsibility. Professional public relations practitioners never lie to the news media although in the interests of a client they may sometimes have to say to the press, "I know but I cannot tell you." The success of those who control certain areas of information in affecting public opinion is only as strong as their credibility. Credibility is thus among the most important assets a public relations practitioner possesses (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9th Edition by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, pg. 123-124).
Propaganda and Persuasion Appeals People who want to sway opinions use a variety of persuasive appeals - not all of them honest. The following list identifies some propaganda devices commonly used to mislead publics.
Name calling: The characterization can be positive or negative. Someone can be called "wise and conscientious or a "liar and a cheat" (or the matter can be left open to interpretation as with "He's a character").
Glittering generalities: Many nebulous words can be used here - for example, "enthusiastic crowds" or "throngs of greeters."
Transfer: This occurs when a movie star or other celebrity campaigns for a politician or product with the result that some of the famous person's aura is transferred to the less well known person or product.
Testimonial: This is an actual endorsement as opposed to a transfer device. It is a common advertising technique. It involves having professional athletes and other celebrities encourage consumers to buy a product by saying that they use it.
Plain folks: A favorite of politicians, this device involves using homey language of appeals to down-to-earth concerns to convince a public that despite their high office or aspirations, the politicians are still "one of us."
Bandwagon: This compelling device is used to sway undecided people to go with the majority however slight the majority might be. The band wagon device is considered so powerful that networks avoid telecasting projected results of election returns in the East until the poles close in the West. Some research evidence indicates however that such coverage has no impact on people who have not yet voted.
Card stacking: Telling one side of the story involves selecting facts that represent one point of view while obscuring other facts. The result is distortion and misrepresentation.
Emotional stereotypes: These evoke all kinds of images and are so designed: "good American," "housewife," "foreigner," and so on.
Illicit silence: This device is a subtle form of propaganda like innuendo, suggestion and insinuation. It involves withholding information that would correct a false impression.
Subversive rhetoric:An offshoot of card stacking, a device of discrediting a person's motivation in order to discredit the idea which may be good and useful. For example, someone may discredit the mayor's plan to build a bridge on grounds that the mayor owns property on the other side of the river. In the meantime, viewed objectively, the bridge- building plan may still be a good one for opening up commerce, traffic or tourism (Newsom, VanSlyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pgs. 124-125).
Obvious forms of these propaganda devices are easily recognizable, but history offers numerous examples of skillful users wielding them with great subtlety and effectiveness. Anyone who communicates may employ propaganda devices: spoken, written, pictorial, whatever. Such devices may also take the form of synthetic events. Demonstrations are all propaganda devices (Newsom, VanSlyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pgs. 124-125).
Although it encompasses some techniques that are used to mislead, the word propaganda should not be thought of as totally negative. There is nothing inherent in the nature of propaganda that prevents it from being used to change attitudes and behavior in a constructive way. Propagandists differ from educators in that educators try to teach people how to think and propagandists try to teach people what to think. (Newsom, VanSlyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pgs. 124-125).
Persuaders and Their Appeals We have all practiced persuading others to do our bidding since we discovered as babies that crying brought us a bottle. As adults we persuade people to come with us to see a film they do not want to see or to take us to pick up our car at the shop or to come for us when the car breaks down. Although these may be considered deeds of friendship, they are actually negotiations. We used something in the bargaining process, stated or unstated
Personal Persuaders Organizations and authorities, family members and what sociologists call "significant others" - people you care about - exercise leverage over you. Organizations that you belong to ask for money regularly and you usually give. They ask you to obey certain codes of conduct and to be present for certain events, and you usually comply. You may belong to the organization for social, religious or political reasons or for economic reasons (as with the organization that employs you). In the workplace, certain people are in positions of authority - those who have special responsibilities. When you work for someone or when you are a conscientious member of an organization you generally comply with the requests of those in authority. You also do generally what close friends and members of your family ask you to do. Recognition of authorities in families is long-lived when it grows into respect or when someone has the leverage of purchase (that is inheritance). Often personal persuaders can get you to do things contrary to your own desires, best interests or values. Their persuasive control is potent (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9th Edition by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, pg 123).
Interpersonal Persuaders Less potent and influential are the interpersonal persuaders. These are found in the mass media in the forms of editorials and advertisements. They are found in the content of various types of entertainment and among persons who perform. They are found as well in educational and governmental institutions and in the commercial institutions that we depend on for goods and services. In some countries all of these may be operated or controlled by government. These interpersonal institutions may persuade you through your fear of the punishments that they have available for noncompliance or because of the interpersonal persuasiveness of their representatives. An individual teacher in a school or an individual sales clerk in a favorite store moves the relationship beyond the impersonal and into the personal
(Newsom, VanSlyke Turk and Kruckeberg, pg.123)
Some of these interpersonal persuaders qualify as opinion-makers because they influence significant numbers of people. Some are opinion-makers because of their public status (as in the case of celebrities and other newsmakers), and others because they manage the news. Some of the most visible opinion-makers are both public figures and news managers (Newsom, VanSlyke Turk and Kruckeberg, pg.123)
Opinion-Makers and News Managers A news manager may be someone who creates an event that becomes news when it is made to happen usually on a carefully detailed and prearranged schedule. The event may be Mickey Mouse's visit to a children's hospital or the terrorist attacks on a major city building or system somewhere. It may continue over an extended period of time as did the 1979-1981 hostage crisis at the American University in Tehran, Iran. A news manager may also be someone who focuses media attention on an event that might otherwise be overlooked. In addition, a news manager may attempt to control information as President Clinton tried to do in the Kenneth Starr Grand Jury. This is not new. As media critic William L. Rivers noted, "Nothing is quite so absurd as thinking of news control by government as a modern phenomenon... Information policy has been at the very center of governing the United States from the beginning (Newsom, VanSlyke Turk and Kruckeberg, pg.123).
The basis for organizational theory lies in general systems theory. The theoretical concept can be found in works by George Hegel. His idea of a power struggle provided by tensions of opposing ideas was picked up by Karl Marx who applied it to labor versus capitalism. To some extent Darwin's work on evolution was not exactly a survival of the fittest, a sort of power struggle, but he saw species adapting to pressures from their environment (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations 9th Edition by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeberg, pgs. 119-20). Biologist Ludwig Von Bertallanfy used systems theory for his expansion and adaption of the idea to general systems theory for his expansion and adaption of the idea to general systems theory. His belief that all life forms, social as well as biological are organized for dynamic interaction to sustain life was picked up by therapists who used the life systems theory in their interactional theory of communication (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
Systems theory embraces an organization and all of its publics. The idea that all parts of a system are interrelated and function as an organized whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. These systems are open to change from the outside environment but the amount of change is relative to the degree of openness of the system. You will hear organizations referred to as having open or closed information systems. All systems try for but never gain real equilibrium or stability (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
Many theories have evolved from this basic concept, including open systems theory, but one that is of particular interest to us is cybernetic systems theory developed by Norbert Wiener in 1948 for physical systems but later found applicable to organizational systems. This is one of the sources for the idea of goal setting within an organization and the notion of using feedback to adjust actions directed toward achieving that goal. Here is the way it works. A system's control center directs behavior toward a goal and systems mechanisms are used to change system behavior when feedback suggests that the goal is not being met (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
Systems approaches are not the only ones used and not the only sources for communications theory. Two others are especially important: cultural and critical/postmodern. PR literature often refers to the impact on PR practice of organizational culture. The primary basis for the organizational culture is its values. That is why you read so much about good public relations practice being aligned with an organizational mission statement - its reason for being - and its values either stated or implied by the practices and behaviors of its employees. Organizational cultures change because they depend on the interaction of participants in them. However, the most direct influence is the organizational leadership. Sometimes a change of leadership changes the culture (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
All members of the organization may not share the organizational culture or at least not to the same degree. All organizations have subcultures that exist within the broader culture and some may be connected to the particular skills or knowledge of a subgroup. For example, in a university setting, even though there is an overall mission statement, colleges and departments also have mission statements, and often the culture of one department differs from that of another (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
The study of cultures usually involves quantitative research. One such measure that deals with social science research is ethnography. Ethnography treats the study of culture as a text to be read and draws observations from direct involvement in the organization to gain personal experience. The theory about the organization is then "grounded" in direct experience (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
Critical and postmodern approaches have also had an effect on theory in the field. For example, systems theory attempts an objective approach to understanding organizational dynamics, whereas cultural theory tries to experience an organization as an insider so as to interpret it to outsiders. Critical theory, with its origins in Karl Marx looks at organizations as power structures of dominance (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
Postmodernists believe that an historical break occurred sometime in the mid-1960s to move us into a postmodern world. Postmodern characteristics include a global economy, the dominance of popular culture and the power and control of organizations over people. Postmodern theorists see scientific methods and rational critical inquiry as inadequate for examining today's society (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
The major criticism of postmodern theory is that it is nihilistic, rejecting all moral principals - no basis for social orders, values or moral conduct. As theories are viewed though, postmodernism is considered "new" and a theoretical frontier (Newsom, Vanslyke Turk, Kruckeberg, pg. 120).
Public relations practitioners function in a climate of public opinion that often conditions their own perceptions and responses. Climates of public opinion can be as broad as that of the international community with regard to a nation's presumed leadership in an arms race or as narrow as that of securities analysts when a company's bonds are re-rated downward.
Public opinion is what most people in a particular public think; in other words it is a collective opinion of, for instance, what voters or teenagers or senior citizens or politicians think about a specific issue. Bernard Hennessy said, "Public opinion is the complex of preferences expressed by a significant number of persons on an issue of general importance." Hennessy, who does not distinguish between opinion and attitude says that public opinion has five basic elements. First, public opinion must be focused on an issue which Hennessy defines as "a contemporary situation with a likelihood of disagreement." Second, the public must consist of "a recognizable group of persons concerned with the issue." A third element in the definition, the phrase "complex of preferences," Hennessy says, "means more than mere direction and intensity; it means all the imagined or measured individual opinions held by the relevent public on all the proposals about the issue over which that public has come into existence." The fourth factor, the expression of opinion, may involve any form of expression - printed or spoken words, symbols (such as a clenched fist or stiff-armed salute) or even the gasp of a crowd. The fifth factor is the number of persons involved. The number of people in a public can be large or small as long as the impact of their opinion has a measurable effect. The effect may be as much determined by the intensity of opinion and the organization of effort as by the size of the public. Hennessy's definition of public opinion does not deal with what could be called latent public opinion. He would reserve that term for "describing a situation in which a considerable number of individuals hold attitudes or general predispositions that may eventually crystallize into opinions around a given issue." In any case, public opinion has to be expressed in order to be measured.
Public opinion expresses beliefs based not necessarily on facts but on perceptions or evaluations of events, persons, institutions or products. In the USA, many people assume that "public oipinion is always right." Perhaps this view should be expected in a democracy in which elected officials must be concerned with public opinion. Long before the pollsters were on the scene, 19th century essayist Charles Dudley Warner said, "Public opinion is stronger than the legislature and nearly as strong as the Ten Commandments."
Obviously, public opinion can be misused or manipulated as Adolph Hitler's master propagandist Joseph Goebbels, demonstrated. And it can be based on a lack of accurate information - as in the period before World War II when many Americans applauded Mussolini's efforts at "straightening out the Italians and 'making the trains run on time," while many Italians were beginning to live in fear of the black-shirted fascist militia.
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.
President Ronald Reagan's deputy press secretary, Pete Roussel, said he faithfully adhered to what he called the "Press Secretary's Prayer": "Oh Lord, let me utter words sweet and gentle, for tomorrow I may have to eat them." Rousel was one of several public opinion-sensitive specialists on President Reagan's staff. President Reagan came to be called "the Great Communicator." Recognizing that some people who did not like what President Reagan said nonetheless continued to like him, Colorado Congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, nicknamed him the "Teflon" president: Nothing unpopular that his administration did seemed to stick to him personally. President Reagan's administration also employed Richard Beal, whose job was to look at public views on questions likely to arise as issues in the future.
In doing this, President Reagan was following a trend that started with John F. Kennedy's use of polling, according to Sydney Blumenthal, author of The Permanent Campaign. Blumenthal called President Reagan "Communicator in Chief" and made this observation:
Reagan is governing America by a new doctrine - the permanent campaign. He is applying in the White House the most sophisticated team of pollsters, media masters and tacticians yet to work there. They have helped him to transcend entrenched institutions like the Congress and the Washington press corps to appeal directly to the people.
In addition to filling the administration's major public relations posts with experienced professionals, President Reagan appointed PR pros to many positions not traditionally considered public relations jobs. Of the three top advisers to the president, two were lawyers and one, Michael Deaver, was a public relations professional. Deaver was indicted for influence peddling after he left the White House, and Bernard Kalb of the State Department left in protest when the government got involved in a disinformation campaign.
After Press Secretary Jim Brady was severely injured in the assassination attempt on President Reagan March 30, 1981, Larry Speaks became acting press secretary. Speaks sometimes felt that he was not sufficiently informed by other administration officials and some news people agreed. However, Speakes said, not knowing is the lesser of two sins of a press secretary: lying was a "cardinal sin" and unforgivable. After he left the administration to work for a large public relations firm and then to direct public relations for a major brokerage firm - Speakes acknowledges he had "made up" quotes that he had attributed to President Reagan.
The Reagan presidency was one of the most controlled in the history of the office. One indication of this was the number of orchestrated photo opportunities. In addition, during the Reagan administration, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and its companion U.S. Information Service (USIS) in other countries grew in power and influence.
However, USIA was disbanded in October 1999 with many of its functions being absorbed by the U.S. Department of State. Since 1994, the International Broadcasting Breau (IBB) has provided administrative and engineering support for U.S. government-funded, nonmilitary, international broadcast services, including Worldnet Television and Film Service. Originally part of USIA, the IBB was formed by the 1994 International Broadcasting act, and the IBB was established as an independent federal government entity.
Concern about Worldnet was expressed in 1987 by Florida Congressman Dan Mica, who observed that it had an "untapped and unlimited potential." The Congressman was concerned "that a particular administration could use Worldnet as its private propaganda vehicle."
