Week 8: Public Relations Management In Organization

I agree with what Ms. Tanya always stress, public relations practitioner needs to establish good working relationships and maintain important ties.

As mentioned by Bruning & Ledingham (2000), relationships between an organization and its public audiences have been the focal interest in public relations research and practice.

After having done some research on public relations management, I came across OPR (Organization Public Relationships). So, what is this all about?

Broom, Casey, and Ritchey (1997) define that organization public relationships are represented by the patterns of interaction, transaction, exchange, and linkage between an organization and its publics. So, organization-public relationship is a connection or association between an organization and a public that results from behavioral consequences an organization. Organization Public relationships refer to relationships between the organization and its external publics.

And, EPR (Employee Public Relationships) simply mean that the individual level relationships that develop between employees and external publics. Quoting Hon and J. Grunig’s (1999) perspective and conceptualize EPR as an employee-public relationship is a connection or association between an employee and a member of the public mainly resulting from interpersonal communication that occurs because of behavioral consequences an organization or the public has on the other. Relating this to J. Grunig and Huang’s (2000), dimensions of relationships of trust, satisfaction, and commitment, defined cultivation strategies as “communication methods that public relations people use to develop new relationships with publics and to deal with the stresses and conflicts that occur in all relationships” In this case, employees play a vital role in communicating with customers and, I have come across a selective set of symmetrical communication strategies that are likely to produce relationship outcomes. Several strategies were adopted from interpersonal relationships and conflict resolution theories:

• Access—members of publics or opinion leaders provide access to public relations people. Public relations representatives or senior managers provide representatives of publics similar access to organizational decision-making processes.

• Positivity—anything the organization or public does to make the relationship more enjoyable for the parties involved.

• Openness—of thoughts and feelings among parties involved.

• Assurances—attempts by parties in the relationship to assure the other parties that they and their concerns are legitimate.

• Networking—organizations’ building networks or coalitions with the same groups that their publics do, such as environmentalists, unions, or community groups.

• Sharing of tasks—organizations’ and publics’ sharing in solving joint or separate problems.

These conflict management theories are both 1) integrative as because all parties in a relationship benefit by searching out common or complementary interests and solving problems together through discussion and decision making and, 2) cooperative as the organization and the public work together to reconcile their interests and to reach a mutually beneficial relationship. In general, I think that it in order for an organization to effectively build long-term relationships with customers, it must first develop positive, long-term relationships with employees who interact those customers. Hence, in conclusion, within the relationship management paradigm, public relations is a critical strategic communication management function which will lead to a certain relationship outcome.

Week 7: Mid Semester Break!

Happy Holidays!

Week 6: Strategies to Proactively Manage Activity

Public Relations Strategy

According to the reading, strategy is a key concept within the public relations field.

So, to start off, what is strategy? Oxford dictionary defines strategy as a plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim / the art of planning and directing military activity in a war or battle.

And so, what is public relations? “Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. PR 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 organization and its publics.”

Strategic planning is crucial in public relations sector because of a few factors.

Firstly, it is too complement the overall business plan of an organization and then, identify ways in which Public relations can help achieve an organization's goals and objectives. Next is to focus and manage all the communications of an organization and also to o ensure maximum benefit from all public relations activities. It can also help educate those within an organisation about the value of Public Relations. So in this case, public relations is more than simply producing publicity material. An organization is only as strong as its reputation. The public relations function is to manage that reputation.

After doing some research, I learned that a good and useful Public Relations Strategy should answer a few questions, for instance: Where are we now?, Where do we want to be?, To whom are we talking (audiences)?, What do we want them to do?, Why do we want them to do it?, What are we going to say to them (messages)?, Where are we going to reach them?, When are we going to reach them?, Which techniques (methods) are we going to use?, How much are we going to spend?, What if there are unforeseen problems?, How did we do?.

I would like to highlight a few interesting parts - Firstly, it would be audiences! From my point of view, I realized that a public relations' practitioner's objective is nearly always about influencing someone to do something. Therefore, it makes sense to identify target audiences as it is a vital part of a strategy (if the people I'm talking too ain't the right person, I might as well forget it, right?). So, next up is to identify the smallest possible groupings of individuals for maximum effect. Now, having identified the audiences, they should be prioritized.

Next interesting part would be the timing part! Research shows that timing is very important because it link specific public relations activities to fixed events in an organization's corporate calendar and it makes no sense in issuing a news release days after an event.

For the part on unforeseen circumstances, I feel that potential problems should be identified and worked on. It is better to be safe than sorry and in this case, contingency planning is crucial! Developing a good and comprehensive strategy is vital as it leads to the success / failure of a designated campaign. Whao, seems like there really is quite a lot to do for a detailed public relations strategic plan!

Week 5: Engaging with the media

There are a few useful communication theories which PR practitioners should apply to their work with the media. Communication is defined as the production and exchange of information and meaning by use of signs and symbols which involves encoding and sending messages, receiving and decoding them, and synthesizing information and meaning. Communication permeates all levels of human experience and it is central to understanding human behavior (referenceanswers,2009)

There are many communication theories for instance:

1. Two Step Flow, by Lazarfeld (1955), states that an organization beams a message to the mass media which will then deliver it to a great mass of people for their response. With regards to Public Relations, this theory asserts that information from the media is transmitted in 2 prominent stages : Firstly, from radio and print to opinion leaders. Opinion leaders will then add in / pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content. ‘Personal influence’ refer to the process intervening between both, the media’s direct message and the viewer’s ultimate reaction to that message. Opinion leaders are influential in getting people to believe in them and change their attitudes and behaviors. And secondly, message is transmitted from the opinions leaders to the less active sections of society. The two-step flow theory has helped to improve my understanding of how the mass media influence decision making
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2. Agenda-Setting Theory, by McCombs, M., & Shaw, D.L. (1972), states that the media, usually the news media channel, ain't always successful at telling us what to think however, they are successful at telling us what to think about. I agree with this theory as a powerful influence of the media, as it has the ability to tell us what issues are important. Linking back to public relations, agenda-setting is to create public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media. Two basis assumptions underlie most research on this theory. Firstly, the press and the media does not reflect reality. They filter the information they receive and shape it. Secondly, the media concentration on a few selected issues and subjects leads the audience to perceive those concentrated issues as more important than the others. I think that agenda-setting theory seems quite appropriate to help me to understand the pervasive role of the media.


3. Framing Theory, by Tversky & Khaneman (1981), states that either the media or organizations decide where people think about. It is the shaping of views and discussions through selective choice of facts, themes and works. In addition, the sender makes the selection. With regards to public relations, Public Relations Practitioners has a huge influence in 'framing' how the media will discuss a certain product, or development. Hence, framing creates the context in which the discussion occurs. For instance, a good case study would be the company Apple Computer, making a come back to the IT market with the introduction of iMac Computers. From this, I understand that the media draws the public attention to certain selected topics and then decides where people think about. Framing, is the way in which the news is written, the frame in which the news is being presented, is being selected and put up by journalists. Frames are abstract notions which serve to organize or structure certain social meanings. It influences the perception of the news. I feel that this form of agenda-setting not only tells what to think about, but also how to think about it. In conclusion, the basis of this theory is that media focuses attention on certain events or issues within a field of meaning. Framing is important as it can have a big influence for the media to inject certain messages to the public - magic bullet theory.

After doing some research, I came across this interesting theory: Expectancy Value Theory - This theory has nothing to do with the theories which PR practitioners will apply to their engagements with the media instead, it serves as a motivation for PR personnels.

Expectancy Value Theory, by Martein Fishbein (1970), states that it focuses on the complex nature of attitudes, which highlights social influence, both attitude & its' changes in particular. behaviour is a function of the expectancies and the value of the goal toward which one person has and is working towards. This predicts that, when more than one behavior is possible, the behavior chosen will be the one with the largest combination of expected success and value. The behaviors people perform in response to their beliefs and values are undertaken to achieve some end. Relating to public relations practitioners, I think that this model proposes that the overall tendency to achieve in a particular situation depends upon two obvious motives - 1) To be successful, 2) To avoid failure. This model is very much for the well-being of each pr personnel themselves. This mathematical model predicts that goals that require moderate effort to achieve will have the greatest value for persons highly motivated for success.

I think theories acts as an important guideline and understanding them will be useful as theory helps to make me understand how individuals construct meaning and how these meanings are affected by different factors. :)