A PEEP INTO PR: 'PUBLICS' IN PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public Relations is defined as:

The management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or organisation with the public interest and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.

Given such a definition, the function of an organisation and the public relations manager is to be externally oriented in order to make the company sensitive to the concerns of the external environment and to convince the external environment (the public) of the worthiness of company

positions.

Public relations strategies have focused a great deal on understanding audiences, publics and stakeholders. Communication and PR are directed at audiences and stakeholders or publics often via the mass media. Public Relations process models such as RACE, ROPE and others emphasise the need to analyse audiences to effectively tailor communication strategies to specific audience groups. Several scholars also, have developed various models and approaches to define target publics (Grunig, 1997; Cutlip, Center & Broom, 200; Heath & Coombs, 2006).

How we plan and do public relations (PR) depends on our understanding of the nature of audiences, stakeholders or public. Theories, concepts and models surrounding these three major keywords (audience,stakeholder and publics) are very important as they help us understand and explain our PR campaigns and therefore determine how we plan and conduct PR.

SEGMENTATION MODELS - 'Audience, Public, Stakeholders'

Public Relations scholars have developed several models for segmenting audiences and stakeholders taking into consideration the way communicators imagine their audience and thus communicate with that audience.

According to John Dewey, philosopher of sociology, a public is a group of people who :

face a similar situation
recognise the consequences
seek to deal with the situation

A public is identifiable, homogeneous, important to the organisation, large enough to matter and reachable.

Linkages Theory

Milton Esman's linkages theory / model classify publics based on their functional relationship with the organisation (cf.Grunig & Hunt, 2984). Linkage is a sociological concept that identifies a pattern of relationships between an organisation and its publics within interdependent or inter penetrating systems.

There are four key linkages:

Enabling - groups of people who allow the organisation to exist and these include governments who allow the public sector organisations to operate or investors for private sector firms.
Normative - represent groups that experience similar issues as the organisation
Functional Linkages (Input / Output) - Input:comprise groups of people who bring something into the organisation, such as suppliers and employees ; Output: described as those who take something from the organisation, such as students and customers.
Diffused - represent other groups of people not belonging to the other three linkages

Freeman's Stakeholder Theory

Another common segmentation framework is drawn from Freeman's Stakeholder Theory (1998) which defines stakeholders as "those groups who are vital to the survival or success of the corporation. He also offers a broader definition to include groups or individuals who "can afffect or is affected by the corporation". These stakeholders include: management, owners, suppliers, employees, customers and the local community. This model shares commonality with Esman's linkages theory in that it focuses on the role individuals have in relation to the organisation. Criticisms of this model comes in the form of a neglect of possible role overlaps such as employees who are residents of the community and the assumption that their 'professional' alues override their individual and cultural values.

Grunig's Situational Theory of Publics

This theory argues that publics can be identified based on how an issue or problem affects them.

Grunig and Hunt (1984) drew from Dewey’s typology of publics: latent public are groups of people who face similar issues but do not detect a problem; aware publics are those who recognise there is a problem; active publics are those who organise, discuss and do something about the problem; and non-publics are those who do not belong to any of the other groups. Grunig (1997) built on these concepts and developed the situational theory of public: all issue publics who are active on all problems and issues; apathetic publics are those who do not care about any of the issues; single issue publics are interested in only one part of the issue; and hot issue publics are active on issues that already generate extensive media coverage.

The purpose of this theory remains to explain when and how people communicate and when communication aimed at people is likely to be effective.

Communication behaviour is affected by three conditions:
Problem Recognition - the extent to which people detect a problem
Constraint Recognition - the extent to which people identify obstacles to act on the problem
Level of Involvement - The extent to which people feel connected to an issue

The Power / Interest Matrix

Power / Interest Matrix classifies stakeholders in relation to the power and the extent to which they are likely to show interest in the actions and strategies of the organisation. This model is used to indicate the nature of the relationship which should be adopted with each group.

Stakeholders in :

Group A : need only minim effort in monitoring
Group B : should be kept informed as they may be able to influence more powerful stakeholders
Group C : are powerful, but level of interest is low. Generally expected to be passive, but may move into group D on an issue of particular interest
Group D : are both powerful and interested. Their co-operation is of key importance for new strategies.

Is Social Media changing the paradigm?

Whether or not social media is fundamentally changing the paradigm is an interesting angle to look at. Professor James Grunig says 'Public relations has not been changed by the revolution in digital media." The illusion of stakeholders being controlled, according to him, existed before and it still exists now. Stakeholders create their own reality. The only way to impact on this reality is to engage and share information, to evolve based on this sharing and to enhance the meaning that relationships bring.

Social media is providing public relations with an opportunity to reinforce its importance to business and society. The profession is, in many cases, trying to take advantage of this opportunity. The question, however, still remains - will it succeed?

Let us have a look at a presentation on Stakeholder Analysis:

Stakeholder Analysis

View more presentations from SteveRaybould.

References:

Tench,R. & Yeomans, L.(2006). Exploring Public Relations. England: Pearson Education Limited

R.L.Heath (ED.), Handbook of Public Relations (pp.629-637). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_07.htm

http://www.themanager.org/resources/Stakeholder%20Management.htm