Public Relations (1)

1
Public Relations (1)

• History
• Definitions
• Understandings
• Global Contexts

2
Programme

• Presentation
• Practical and didactical remarks
• Learning objectives
• Profile International Market Communication and
  Public Relations
• Course Public Relations
• History of Public Relations
• Definitions of Public Relations
• Understandings of Public Relations
• Publics in Public Relations
• Public Relations in a Global Context
• Summing up

3
Some practical remarks

• PowerPoint slides on CampusNet Sunday before
  22.00
• Reference list (literature) on CampusNet after
  lecture
• Hard copies in C100 or in lecture

4
Some didactical remarks

• No 100 match between readings and lectures
• PowerPoint slides in English
• Lectures in English
• unless complete audience understands Danish

Reading
Lecture
5
Learning objectives

• After this lecture
• You
• should be able to
• Place the course in the study programme
• Know the requirements for the course
• Know definitions of PR
• Know Grunig Hunts four models and the criticism
  of them
• Be able to identify PR approaches and types of
  publics
• Know global/intercultural implications of PR

6
MA in International Business Communication
Profile International Market Communication and
Public Relations
7
Course description

• COMPETENCES DEVELOPED
• The aim of the course is to enable you to
  produce public relations material in an
  international context on the basic of the
  relevant theories and methods.

Course Description CampusNet
8
Course description

• Knowledge about
• the planning and managing of international public
  relations
• corporate social responsibility and ethics (CSR)
• crisis communication
• national identity and tourism communication
• corporate websites and newsletters

• Proficiency in
• analysing a communication situation, using a
  selection of the relevant theoretical constructs
• applying the analytical results in the production
  of appropriate and targeted public relations
  material in defined international contexts and
  media.

Course Description CampusNet
9
Course description

• TEACHING
• Public Relations will be taught as a combination
  of lectures in English and classes in the chosen
  languages where student initiative and activity
  will be prioritised.

Course Description CampusNet
10
Course description

• EXAMINATION
• Written home assignment with oral defence
• Production of PR material report
• Text(s)/ genre(s), case/ corporation/organization
  of own choice
• In the foreign language
• 22,000 characters (10 pages of 2,200 characters
  each)
• Examination date/ deadline to be set and to be
  announced by the Study Administration
• 7-point scale
• External Examiner

11
History of public relations

• Historical preconditions emergence of a public
  (18th century) and emergence of a society with
  organisations (Habermas 1962)
• The term public relations shows up in the
  beginning of the 20th century in the USA
• Edward The Father of Spin Bernays
• Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)

12
Definitions of PR common language

• A clever way to get publicity
• At lave PR for noget/ At lave PR for nogen
• If a young man gets to know a girl and tells her
  what great guy he is, thats bragging
• If he tells her how adoring she looks, thats
  advertising
• But if the girls chooses him because she heard
  from others that he is a great guy, thats public
  relations

13
Definitions of PR diversity

• Estimates up to 2,000 definitions of PR
• Wide-ranging definition combined of 472
  definitions
• Public relations is a management discipline
  which analyses, adapts and develops all mutual
  societal relations between an organization and
  its internal and external stakeholders through
  goal oriented communication

(Griswold/Griswold 1948 4 Scharf 1971 166)
(Harlow 1988 9)
(Blach/Højberg 1989 20 translation MN)
14
Definitions of PR PR organizations

• Public relations helps our complex, pluralistic
  society to reach decisions and function more
  effectively by contributing to mutual
  understanding among groups and institutions. It
  serves to bring private and public policies into
  harmony.

(www.prsa.org gt Official Statement on Public
Relations
15
Definitions of PR PR organizations

• Public relations is about reputation - the
  result of what you do, what you say and what
  others say about you.
• Public relations is the discipline which looks
  after reputation, with the aim of earning
  understanding and support and influencing opinion
  and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained
  effort to establish and maintain goodwill and
  mutual understanding between an organisation and
  its publics.

(www.cipr.co.uk gt Looking for PR gt What is PR?)
16
Definitions of PR scientific

• The management of communication between an
  organization and its publics
• Basic elements in PR definitions
• Goal oriented /systematic
• Through communication
• Understanding/ trust/ sympathy
• relations corporation (organizations)
  stakeholders (publics)

(Grunig Hunt 1984 6)
17
Basic understandings of PR

• Symmetrical understanding
• PR communication dialogue
• Purpose
• mutual understanding
• Representative
• Grunig, James/ Hunt, Todd (1984)
• Managing Public Relations

• Asymmetrical understanding
• PR communication persuasion
• Purpose
• persuasion
• Representative
• Toth, Elizabeth/Heath, Robert (eds.) (1992)
• Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public
  Relations

18
Grunig Hunts 1984 four models

• Press Agentry/Publicity
• attention at almost any price, truthfulness
  secondary
• Public information
• precise, true, but usually beneficial information
  about the organization
• Two-Way Asymmetric
• Scientific research to find out how public can be
  convinced/persuaded to act according to
  organizations interest
• Two-Way Symmetric
• Research and dialogue to create symbiotic change
  in ideas, attitudes and behaviour with both,
  organization and public

Before (cynical)
One-way
Two-way
Now (ethical)
19
Criticism and development/ evolution of Grunig
Hunt 1984

• Criticism
• Utopian/unrealistic/ idealistic to assume
  symmetry between PR parties
• Two-Way Symmetric is kneeling for interests of
  the public and unconditional giving up of own
  interests
• In reality a combination of more of Grunig/Hunts
  models is used

• Defence
• Persuasion etc. and instrumentality is still a
  part of Two-Way Symmetric
• Misunderstanding it is a mutual
  adaptation/accept and a balancing process
• agrees

Grunig 2001
20
Criticism and development/ evolution of Grunig
Hunt 1984

• Criticism
• Corporations have greater power than their
  publics and therefore do not have to do
  symmetric PR
• Perspective normative theory to be used by
  corporations (vs. to be used by publics)

• Defence
• Not quite true publics are not entirely without
  influence (organized, litigations, use of media)
• Development normative theory (5 item action
  plan) to be used by publics

• Self-criticism Symmetry rather a process than
  a state of affairs or a result

Grunig 2001
21
The symmetric notion in a nutshell

• the public should be just as likely to
  persuade the organizations management to change
  attitudes or behavior as the organization is
  likely to change the publics attitudes or
  behavior.
• communicators must listen as well as argue.
  This does not mean, however, that they do not
  argue or attempt to persuade. Rather, they must
  consistently remind themselves and management
  that they might not be right and, indeed, that
  their organization might be better off if they
  listen to others.

(Grunig Hunt 1984 23)
(Grunig 2001 28)
22
Stakeholder approach Media relation
Norm and moral stakeholders
Local population
Media
Organizations
NGOs, grass roots movements
Close economic stakeholders
Law and power stakeholders
Lenders
Owners, shareholders
corporation
Suppliers
State
Local authorities
Employees
Customers
European Union
Cooperation partners
Based on Kjær Hansen 2004 82
23
Publics in Public Relations

• All-issue publics
• Apathetic publics
• Single-issue publics
• Hot-issue publics

• Aware public
• (high knowledge low involvement)
• Active publics
• (high knowledge high involvement)
• Aroused publics
• (low knowledge high involvement)
• Inactive publics
• (low knowledge low involvement)
• Non-publics
• (no knowledge no involvement)

(Grunig 1983)
(Hallahan 2000)
24
Global Public Relations

• Globalization
• Liberalization
• Westernization
• Universalization
• Intercultural
• Cross-cultural
• NB cultural closeness
• Close
• Semi-close/ semi-distant
• Distant

Fuzzy notions Quasi-synonyms
(Scholte 2000 44ff.)
(Gudykunst Mody 2002, Nielsen 2004)
(Kuada 1996)
25
Global Public Relations

• Intercultural/ Cross-cultural dimensions of PR
  only insufficiently studied
• Necessity to do empirical research on global/
  intercultural/ cross-cultural PR

(Sriramesh Vercic 2003)
26
Global Public Relations environmental variables

• Political ideology
• Economic system
• Degree of activism
• Culture
• Media system

• Infrastructure
• Political System
• Level of Economic Development
• Activism
• Legal System
• Media environment
• Determinants
• Dimensions
• Corporate Culture
• Societal culture
• Images of Nations
• Media Control
• Media Outreach
• Media Access

(Vercic et al. 1996)
(Sriramesh Vercic 2003)
27
Summing up

• PR has gone from propaganda to two-way symmetric
  communication
• PR definitions comprise goal orientation,
  (mutual) understanding, communication basing,
  relations between organizations and publics
• A central distinction is symmetric vs. asymmetric
• Publics may be categorized in different ways,
  giving the PR practitioner the possibility to
  characterize his/her target groups in some detail
• International PR has not yet been studied
  profoundly, but awareness is recommended when
  using Western/ Anglo-American models on any
  countrys PR