Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Instructor
Dr. Ilias Hristodoulakis, Ph.D
Athens, Greece
• Public relations serves not only the organization but most important
the public(s)’ interest(s)
– Public relations practitioners must constantly communicate
with many different publics, each having each own special needs
and requiring different types of communications.
– Public relations practitioners’ role is to identify with critical
publics with whom the organization must communicate on a
frequent and direct basis.
– Under the quittance of public relations, organizations learn of
how to get more sensitive to the self interests, desires, and
concerns of each public.
– They understand that self interest groups today are themselves
more complex and with more power than ever before.
– They harmonizing actions necessary to win and maintain
support among each groups.
– Emphasizing and achieving a win- win arrangement.
Press Agentry/Publicity
For Propaganda purpose , one way communication– complete truth is
not essential, Source – Receiver as com. model, the initiative is always
strongly in the hands of the source/sender. The means are usually strait
forward advertising or other promotional activities
Public Information
For dissemination of information purpose, one way communication but
truth is important, source receiver as communication model, it is one
way communication w/out usually the purpose of persuasion. little
research usually readability and readership, is used for Government-
nonprofit associations, businesses
• Communicator: Source
• Credibility
• The principal characteristic of the Communicator affecting his or her
persuasiveness is his or her credibility. Credibility itself is made up of
a variety of factors:
• Trustworthiness:
• Is this person honest?
• Can I believe what he's telling me? If Bill Clinton has had an affair and
not told his wife, then how do I know he won't lie to me as well?
Mass Medium
• There is no very clear evidence as to which medium is likely to be the
most effective. Lenin and Goebbels both considered film to be the
most powerful propaganda medium. TV today has much the same
reputation and radio was considered in its early days to be particularly
powerful. Television and radio are perhaps considered so effective
because they are in our own homes, but there's not much evidence to
show that that makes much difference, even though it's one important
factor in the BBFC's decisions on how to censor videos. TV and film
may be considered especially powerful because they incorporate both
sound and vision, but there is some evidence that that may in fact
reduce effectiveness. TV is often also considered especially powerful
because it is a mass medium, delivering the same message to around
20 million people at a time for the major soaps. However, that may
work to its disadvantage when compared with, say, newspapers and
periodicals which have highly differentiated markets, allowing much
more precise targeting.
• Intra-personal factors
• By definition, intra-personal factors such as the receiver's attitude to
the subject matter and the extent of her personal involvement may well
be largely unknown to the communicator. Sherif and Hovland
attempted to summarize the effect of these two factors by saying that
the person's position on an attitude scale provides her with an anchor
from which she evaluates other positions on the attitude scale and that
evaluation will be the firmer and more difficult to shift the greater the
degree of ego-involvement. They concluded that if the positions of the
communicator and of the receiver are so far apart that the
communicator's position falls within the receiver's latitude of rejection,
then the only way that the communicator can have an effect is by
adopting a step-by-step approach, starting from messages which fall
within the receiver's latitude of acceptance and gradually working
outward from there.
• What is persuasion?
Is an activity or process in which a communicator attempts to induce a change
in the belief, attitude, or behavior of another person or group of persons
through the transmission of a message in a context in which the persuade has
some degree of free choice
• Use of Persuasion
• - Change or neutralize hostile opinion
- Crystallize latent opinions and positive attitudes
- Conserve favorable opinions
• Lack of penetration
• Competing message
• Self-selecting
• Self-perception
• What is propaganda?
It is the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognition, and direct behavior to achieve a response that
furthers the desired intend of the propagandist.
• Techniques
- Plain folks
- Testimonial
- Card-stacking
- Transfer
- Glittering generalities
- Name-calling
• You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this
crown of thorn. You shall not crucify mankind upon a
cross of gold! -- William Jennings Bryan, 1896
• "Transfer is a device by which the propagandist carries
over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we
respect and revere to something he would have us accept.
For example, most of us respect and revere our church and
our nation. If the propagandist succeeds in getting church
or nation to approve a campaign in behalf of some
program, he thereby transfers its authority, sanction, and
prestige to that program. Thus, we may accept something
which otherwise we might reject.
• Only when a mission statement and goals are in place can the
management of an organization move to the necessary task of setting
objectives. What makes objectives different from mission and goals is
their specificity. An objective should specify the desire effects as
specifically as possible. “To increase the number of senators who
understand the Leukemia Society of American’s position on research
funding from forty-five senators to seventy-five senators by November
1” or “To decrease the number of newspapers in the state that oppose
rate reforms for the insurance industry from 60 percent to 40 percent
by the first of the year.”
• Once goals and objectives are in place, they can be drawn upon to plan
campaigns and programs.
– Research on the problem or opportunity
– Action that includes evaluation and planning
– Communication of the message from organization to publics, and
– Evaluation of the effects of those messages
• Grunig’s “ Behavioral Molecule” further broke the management steps into:
– detecting a problem
– constructing a possible solution
– defining alternatives
– selecting the best course of action
– confirming the choice by pre-testing
– behaving by enacting a program, and then returning to the process of
– detecting whether the program met the desired objectives.
• Focus group interviews are a marketing research technique that has been
successful adopted by the needs of public relations practitioners. They do not
yield the strictly quantitative data that can be gotten from a survey.
• They have the advantage of being open-ended and permitting members of
target groups to speak in their own term of understanding, provide their own
emphasis, and response to the views expressed by other members of the same
group.
• The focus group interview requires trained moderators and equipments for
recording the session. Audio and/or video tapes have to be put in transcript
form, and then the transcript must be summarized and analyzed.
• Sometimes focus group interviews are used as the basis for designing the
questionnaires used in survey research, creating a valuable linkage between the
two devices and enriching the value of both.
• The Final Stage of Research is the Analysis of the Collected Information
• Identifying your key publics-those groups that are more likely to seek and
process information and to behave in a way consequences on your
organization- is a fundamental aim of the process we call public relations
management.
• Once target audiences have been selected, it is important to decide what
message each group needs to receive from your organization. Rarely does an
information campaign give precisely the same message to each of its publics.
• That’s because careful analysis shows that each public has a different stake in
the organization.
A campaign that wants to promote Greek made products it can be spelled
out in three different audiences
Audience Message
Retailers “A made is Greece” label is a valuable selling tool
Manufacturers Producing at home is a good business
Consumers Made in Greece means quality
• In addition to e-mail, voice mail, Web sites, and house publications, employee
relations programs use a variety of other forms of controlled media, such as:
• 1. Bulletin boards
• 2. Displays and exhibits
• 3. Telephone hot lines or news lines
• 4. Inserts accompanying pay checks
• 5. Internal television
• 6. Films
• 7. Video cassettes
• 8. Meetings
• 9. Teleconferences
• 10. Audiovisual presentations
• 11. Booklets, pamphlets, brochures
• Audience Research
• The final aspect of community relations research consists of carefully identifying
audiences to be targeted for communication and learning as much about each audience
as possible. Community publics can be subdivided into three major groups:
• community media,
• community leaders, and
• community organizations.
An Area of Conflict
• Journalists feel overwhelmed by mass of press agents and publicists- “flacks,”
as they call PR people- who dump unwanted press releases on their desk and
push self-serving stories that have little new value.
• Public relations practitioners, on the other hand, feel that they are at the mercy
of reporters and editors who are biased against their organization, who would
rather expose then explain, and who know little about the complexities of their
organization.
at the organizational level, media specialists would work with editors to get a
story assigned to a reporter
At the Institutional level, they would stage events and cater to the tendency
of one reporter to copy others.
• A story must be on the media agenda for some time – 3 to 5 months – before people become
thoroughly aware of it.
• Newspapers seem to set the public agenda more than television.
– Television introduces issues but doesn’t stay with them long enough to affix them on the
public agenda. Newspapers do.
• Not all people pick up personal agendas from the media to the same degree as other people. In
particular, the more involved people are with issues, the less the media affect how important
these people think the issues are.
• Involved people actively seek information form many sources. They don’t process passively
from the media
• People with a high need for orientation (uncertainty about a problem) they accept the media
agenda more than people with less uncertainty.
• When people don’t have cognitions about important issues they develop them from the most
ubiquitous source of information – the media.
• Skillful media relations people can get issues of concern to their organizations on the agenda
for public discussion, and they can be involved in the discussion when other groups build the
agenda – although they don’t control the outcome, they are able to interject the organization’s
position and get people’s attention.
• Evaluation of the Media Agenda
– Most media relations specialists already use a commercial clipping service so that they
can evaluate their work
– Unfortunately they use clippings in a wrong way
• One aspect of financial affairs that increasingly affects the national mood is
investor’s evaluations of the corporations in which they have invested. The
major measurements are Euros sales volume, profit, the increase or decrease in
interest or dividends paid, and whether the price of the stock or bond has
increased or decreased from the original purchase price. Other factors include
the rank of the company among competitors in its field and what percentage of
dividends are paid in comparison with the purchase price.
• Experts in the financial world who make a living, and sometimes a fortune, by
analysing and trading equities for themselves and for customers have to be
aware of changing conditions in the money supply, raw materials prices,
international monetary affairs, national economies around the world, and much
more. They use sophisticated measurement tools such as stock market trend
lines, a company' s management capabilities, debt to asset ratio, and several
others.
• Today, with stock market news and international monetary or economic status
constantly reported and talked about, public relations practitioners also must
keep abreast of these topics.
• Given these realities, it is simply not possible for all those who have a
stake in the outcome of an enterprise to take an active part in a forum
for major decisions or as links in the decision process. Apart from
being largely inaccessible, the stakeholders of a publicly owned
corporation are 100 diverse in their self-interests and in their views of
what a business should do, except for a few public issues such as
quality of environment, to rally and force action.
• Given the realities, it shou1d not be surprising that profit, and the
power it brings, frequently leads to excesses, abuses, and corruption.
These bring investigation, prosecution where indicated, and regularly
measures to preclude recurrence, in the name of the ultimate public
interest.
• Corporations are not ordained by Mother Nature but are a creation of the state.
Until the early 1800s, someone starting a business had no "corporate shield"
but put all his or her assets at risk. If the business failed, the owner was
personally responsible for all debts to the point of personal bankruptcy.
Because this situation discouraged the formation of new business, laws were
enacted allowing for the formation of corporations-business entities in which
shareholders risk only the amount of their investment.
• What the state creates it can regulate. Regulatory measures started a long time
ago. In addition to regulations in interstate commerce mandated by the U.S.
Constitution, the federal government began to institute more stringent (tough)
controls over business. In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed, aimed
at concentration or monopoly within several industries. This act was
supplemented by the Clayton Act in 1914, and in the same year, the Federal
Trade Commission Act set up a mechanism to keep channels of interstate trade
open to competition. The 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression of
the 1930s stimu1ated legislative and regulatory actions in the investment area.
• The tools of today's political campaign are many and varied. Constant
focus groups and polls continually test messages and determine the
"hot" buttons of the voter. Extensive use of modern communications
technology such as satellite media tours and video news releases, bulk
faxing of background material, and the use of the Internet have greatly
expanded message delivery.
• According to James Perry, writing in The Wall Street Journal: The
new media label covers a broad band of new technologies. With
satellites, candidates can, and do, hold rallies in several places at once;
strategists in different parts of the country meet in teleconference,
direct mail gives way to videocassettes delivered door to door; voters
with personal computers log on to candidate bulletin boards and call up
vast amounts of information. It's an explosion of technology.
• Here are several ethical guidelines for people working in political public
relations formulated by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA):
• 1. It is the responsibility of professionals practicing political public relations to
be conversant with the various local, state, and federal statutes governing such
activities and to adhere to them strictly. This includes laws and regulations
governing lobbying, political contributions, disc1osure, e1ections, libel,
slander, and the like.
• 2. Members shall represent clients or employers in good faith, and while
partisan advocacy on behalf of a candidate or public issue is expected,
members shall act in accord with the public interest and adhere to truth and
accuracy and to generally accepted standards of good taste.
• 3. Members shall not issue descriptive material or any advertising or pub1icity
information or participate in the preparation or use thereof which is not signed
by responsible persons or is false, misleading, or unlabeled as to its source,
and are obligated to use care to avoid dissemination of any such material.
• In this set of conditions, it was inevitable that sellers would stretch the
boundaries of quality, service, and safety in products and services.
They would exceed the limits of truth and accuracy in their claims and
would abuse the privilege of using the public media. On occasion,
through inadequate concern for quality, they would kill and injure
some people and alienate many others.
– Ralph Nader “Unsafe αt Any Speed “
• In the 1980s, a new rash of crises shared the front page; they involved
violence, drugs, greed, pollution, and lack of integrity. Business has
adjusted to this situation. Advertising and publicity talk about
reforestation, human dignity, education, rehabilitation, and "caring."
Projects and speeches focus on safety, health, and the minority,
neglected, and handicapped groups in society.
• There are other problems. Conglomeration and divestiture discolour
traditional identities. What happens when Twinkies becomes a product
of International Telephone and Telegraph?
• Multinationalism is another matter. Does anything significant happen
in consumer relationships when a company that has proclaimed its
"loyal Greek heritage" goes abroad to manufacture because wages are
lower? See BALCO
An Area of Conflict
• Journalists feel overwhelmed by mass of press agents and publicists-
“flacks,” as they call PR people- who dump unwanted press releases
on their desk and push self-serving stories that have little new value.
• Public relations practitioners, on the other hand, feel that they are at
the mercy of reporters and editors who are biased against their
organization, who would rather expose then explain, and who know
little about the complexities of their organization.
• Audience, however, is not the only factor affecting the choice of the writing
style. Your style as well may be influenced by your mass medium choice.
– The Broadcast Media: Use few words, tight your writing and tailor it for
reading aloud, make sure to use words that help the audience to picture
what is happening
– Trade Magazines: remember that they have such departments as “trends”
and “new products” with standardized forms and style – use them.
– Commentators and Columnists: understand the idiosyncrasies and make
sure to cater to them
• Releases serve many purposes and its an excellent tool for achieving
publicity
• Editors depend on releases
– Routinely, certain columns in almost every paper are put together
by pasting our news releases: business promotions, military
personnel activities, cultural, sport and entertainment events.
• Elements of the Standards News release
– Paper and Typeface: Print on one side only, Double –spacing is
standard (triple spacing is not uncommon), try to keep the release
only in one page, user a standard clean typewriter face or one of
the basic computer fonts, for radio releases make sure to use font
size at least 18 – points.
– News Flag: To make it absolutely clear that the information is
intended as a news release, a large single word NEWS in Black or
Red and printed in large font (36 in typical)
– Release Date: Floating clearly above the text and after the news
flag, is the phrase FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (both underlined
and capitalized) as well (if you wish) a specific day and time of
release For release at 6 pm Friday, Oct 23. In case that you want
the release to take place during morning hours you must have an
indication such AMS, or AM’s
– Contact Person: The name address and phone number of the
person to contact for additional information should appear in a
block near the upper right hand corner of the page. The use of
more that one contact names is okay.
– Serial Number: Many organizations assign a code number to each
release (in the heading, under the contact person, or at the end of
the first or last page). This code usually indicates the no of release
the month and the year as well as the initials of the person prepared
the release. Serial numbers serve two purposes:
Feature Style:
The straight news style is important for unbiased information presented
straightforwardly using summary lead to open the story and the classic
inverted pyramid organizational structure with facts presented in
descending order of importance.
The feature style treatment, on the other hand, is considered more
appropriate for news about trends, interesting people, and product
information that is part of a marketing public relations campaign.
* Teasers are one kind of feature lead, and sometimes they take
the form of question: Why is J.J. moving for the third time in three
years ……..
* Suspended interest feature leads tell a story in chronological
order: M.A. was on time, as usual. Her car pulled out of the driveway
exactly at 8 and she was on the freeway by 8:10 ……..
* Marketing public relations features often speak directly to the
reader in order to involve him or her with the information: Lets face it,
you have better things to do with your time than remodel the entire
house …..
• The press conference should be used when it is clear that it gives to the
press an opportunity to question expert sources will result in more
meaningful and effective media coverage
• In preparing a Press Conference you need to consider a number of
problems
– Whom shall we invite?
• Make sure to avoid embarrassing Silences: possible ways –
invite the correct press people, sit a couple of your PR people
within the media media to assist the rolling of the conference.
• Issue the invitation: Make sure that you invite the media
people early enough in attending your press conference
• Don’t forget that even journalists or some media they do
behave according a specific code of ethics. Make sure to take
their code of ethics into consideration
• If you want to dictate the precise content, time, and date of your
message, you need to have an Advertisement
• A PSA is usually 10,15,30, or 60 seconds long
• They are generally announcements of public interest on behalf of non
profit organizations.
• They are free of charge because broadcast stations in order to get their
licenses renewed they must demonstrate that they have provided the
public service of distributing useful information from governmental
agencies.
• The same person who supervises the preparation of news releases and
broadcast messages is likely, at any given time, to be working on one
or more of the following non media tasks.
– Preparing the head of the department to give a press release,
– Rehearsing the president of the firm for a public appearance
– Making arrangements for a dialogue between the company and any
external or internal group.
• All of the above tasks have one thing in common = the need of
someone to prepare a speak on behalf of the company.
• Speaking vs. writing
– Differences: the written message is impersonal while the spoken
message carries the credibility of the speaker. Enthusiasm,
concern, tolerance, understanding, and empathy are all best
demonstrated through the verbal and nonverbal act of meeting an
audience in person.