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Course of Study: (COM21) Management Communication

Title of work: This is Pr; the realities of public relations, 10th ed; student ed. (2010)

Section: Chapter 5 Publics and public opinion pp. 93--116

Author/editor of work: Newsom, Doug.; VanSlyke Turk, Judy.; Kruckeberg, Dean.

Author of section: Doug Newsom

Name of Publisher: Wadsworth Cengage Learning

To appreciate the similarities and distinctions among the public

relations terms stakeho/der, public and audience.

To recognize and be able to identify priority or "target" publics

for an organization.

To understand how priority publics can be described

nominatively, demographically and psychograghically.

To develop sensitivity toward minority publics such as women

and those of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

To be able to identify potential issues that may create problems

for an organization.

To understand the complexity of opinion formation and the

fragility of public opinion.

ublic relations or communications? Just as what to call the person handling a public relations job is un­

dergoing some changes, so too is the subject of that public relations activity. You'll find many references to stake­ holders, rather than publics. The idea comes from the term stockholders, who have bought into a publicly held company and thus have a vested interest. However, there are many others with vested interests in an-organization, such as employees who may or may not actually own stock. Thus the term stakeholders has evolved to capture that broader

·concept. Stakeholders can be employees, suppliers, customers,

government, investors, a local community or even many · local communities where an organization operates, spe­ cial interest groups affected by the organization and others interested in the organization and its activities including activist groups, local and global, with some perceived ad­ versarial relationship. The concept is a good one because stakeholders have expectations of an organization and the organization owes them some level of accountability. Stakeholders have more than the peripheral exposure to an organization that some publics might. Stakeholders may have a financial investment, but their investment could be intangible: tim�, energy, loyalty, self-identification, de­ pendency. Thus, public opinion is the collective opinion of various publics.

94 Part Two I Research for PR

In any public relations situation, whether it is at the public relations management or public relations technician level, you can't even start without first identifying your publics.

Every discipline seems to develop its own termi­ nology; sometimes, the same term is used in different ways by people in different disciplines and profes­ sions. In this book, one exceedingly 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."

The term public has traditionally meant any group (or possibly individual) that has some involve­ ment 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 organiza­ tion, and vice versa. You might imagine that "public" and "audience" are synonymous. But in important ways they are not.

From a public relations perspective, the term au­ dience suggests a group of people who are recipients of something-a message or a performance. An audi­ ence is thus inherently passive. But this conflicts with the goal 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.

In public relations, the term public ("active audi­ ence") encompasses any group of people who are tied together, however loosely, by some common bond of interest or concern and who have consequences for an organiza­ tion. The best way to understand this concept is to think of various publics that you, as an individual, might be part of.

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 1 8- to 24-year-old "college" market. This market receives a great deal of attention because-although you may not believe it-it is responsible for a vast outlay of cash. Sec­ ond, you may have an organizational identity. For instance, if you belong to a preprofessional, social or civic organization-the Public Relations Student Society' of America, a sorority or fraternity, a service club, a political action group or an athletic team­ 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're not. No one is. No such public ex­ ists. Instead, you are a member of many definable, describable publics. It is the job of public relations practitioners to identify these publics,as they relate to the practitioners' organizations.

Publics are often identified nominatively, but while we can name them, it's important to remember that any public has no homogeneity. All members of that public are not alike. Making that assumption can create problems. Perhaps it helps to remember that another way to look at publics is by their de­ mographics and psychographies. Psychographic ties among people create a sense of shared identity. Al­ though that's usually positive, or at least benign, such as scuba divers or football fans, it can be negative, as we know from teenage gangs.

In traditional public relations literature, publics are divided into two categories: external and inter­ nal. External publics exist outside an institution. They are not directly or officially a part of the or­ ganization, but they do have a relationship with it. Certain external publics, such as government regu­ latory agencies, have a substantial impact on the organization.

Internal publics share the institutional identity. They include management, employees and many types of supporters (investors, for example). Oc­ casionally, the term internal publics is used in public relations practice to refer exclusively to employees­ that is, workers. This usage is unfortunate, however, because it results in employees being considered as unrelated to management instead of as part of the same team. Such thinking 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 re­ lationship can be healthy as long as communication between the two groups is maintained.

Realistically, the categories internal and external are too broad to be very useful in identifying publics. More definitive typologies are needed for planning purposes. J erry A. Hendrix identifies major publics as media, employees, members, community, govern­ ment, investor, international, special and integrated marketing. However, even a term such as media has become more complex with mass media conver­ gence, community journalism concepts and the par­ ticipation of "citizen journalists" in the news process. Many specialized media exist only electronically,

Cha pter 5 / P u b l ics a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 9 5

category is broader than ever. Each organiza- needs to thoughtfully compile a comprehensive

of its publics. particular public, regardless of its broad

may become the focal point for a public effort. When that occurs, the public singled

for attention is called a target public or a prior­ public.

ot everyone approves of the connotations of the target in the context of an important public.

"dean" of communication researchers, Wilbur was one authority who early on dispar-

For nearly thirty years after World War I, the favorite concept of the mass media audience was what adver­ tisers and propagandists often chose to call the "target audience." . . . A propagandist could shoot the magic bullet of communication into a viewer or a listener, who would stand still and wait to be hit! . . .

By the late 19 50s 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 propa­ ganda. Many influences entered into the effect of the mass media. The audience was not a passive target; rather, it was extraordinarily active. 2

Certainly most PR practitioners would agree that a target public tends not to be passive and may exhibit unpredictable behavior. Still, the idea be­ hind the term is valid-as a silhouette or a statisti­ cal profile, and not as a life-size, full-color portrait. Although priority public might be more accurate, the term target public continues to be used today to sig­ nify some definable audience for whom advertising and information are specifically prepared. The "mass

Prioritizing Publics

audience " is indeed a myth, and using the scattershot approach to reach target publics is both foolish and uneconomical.

As a public relations practitioner, you,must carefully study your comprehensive list of publics and iden­ tify each priority public that is especially pertinent to your particular project. You must also designate pub­ lics not on your initial list that might be affected in the future. One way to isolate these peripheral pub­ lics (which are not normally a part of your contact list) is to determine how you would get names, ad­ dresses and phone numbers if you needed to contact each member of that public directly.

The PVI (public vulnerability importance) index has been developed to help organizations identify target or priority publics. The potential P of a pub­ lic plus the vulnerability V of the organization to ac­ tion from that public equals the importance I of that public to the organization and to its public relations program (see Figure 5 . 1).

The key to identifying and rank-ordering (that is, prioritizing) target publics accurately is research­ finding out who these publics really are and what they actually think. The danger of not doing research and only assuming what a priority public thinks or knows is quite serious. Alert public relations practitioners consider not only the collective or majority opinion of each public, but also the opinions of dissenters.

To develop sensitivity to the attitudes of various priority publics, a PR person must develop empathy for each one, much as an actor studies a role and then becomes the character. The PR person must ask, "If I were this public, with this background, these situ­ ations, this set of concepts, how would I react to the

Prioritizing publics may be done in several ways. One informal method is called the PVI index: P, the organization's potential to influence a public, plus V, the organization's vulnerability to that public (which may change over time and in different situations), equals I, the impact of that public on the organization. The higher the I value, the greater the impact. Here is a tabular form for "computing" a PVI index.

Audiem:e or Public

p

Potential for Organization to Influence (Scale 1-10)

Source: Reprinted with permission ofJim Haynes.

+ V

Vulnerability of Organization to Being Affected (Scale 1-10)

= I

Importance of Audience to Organization

9 6 Part Two I Research for PR

set of circumstances being introduced by the insti­ tution I represent?" Developing such empathy for a public-trying to imagine how that public will react-not only helps in planning for a specific situa­ tion, but also helps in media selection.

Each institution has its own particular primary publics, all or many of whom are priority publics­ although the terms are not necessarily synonymous. A business, for example, has internal primary publics (stockholders, employees, dealers and sales repre­ sentatives) and external primary publics (customers, government regulatory agencies, suppliers, competi­ tors, the financial community-security analysts and investors in addition to their own stockholders­ and the local community). At any time, depend­ ing on the issue or situation, one or more of these primary publics can become a target (that is, a priority) public.

Priority publics can be described in any of three ways: nominatively, demographically or psychographically. The nominative form of description consists merely of giving the public a name, such as "stockholders." The demographic approach involves looking at the public's statistical characteristics such as age, gender, income, ed;ucation and so on. The psychographic method examines the public's defining emotional and behavioral characteristics. These psychographies often show how one primary public resembles another in interests, attitudes, beliefs or behavior.

Such descriptions are becoming more and more important as the diversity of publics increases. Tell­ ing evidence of that appeared in The TiVall Street Jour­ nal in a story about jury selection.3 In the USA one is supposed to be judged by "peers," which has meant that lawyers selecting a jury have used demograph­ ics. However, some lawyers realize that demographic profiles corresponding to those of their clients may not yield as favorable an opinion as expected, despite the attitudes attributed to certain groups. One as­ sumption, for example, has been that women are less likely to vote for a death sentence than men. This cannot be relied upon. According to research by the American Bar Association, demographics account for no more than 1 5 percent of the variation in jury verdict preferences. Then why are demographics so commonly used? Because they' re easy. Marketers fre­ quently make the same mistake. Assumptions about demographics are risky. Religious preference, or the lack thereof, often is assumed from demographic

data to be an indicator. Perhaps religion does suggest a value system and maybe some lifestyles, such as food choices or attire, but not always. Religion can't be discounted, but yet another demographic might need to be considered at the same time, such as age. Generations approach religion differently, and not just in the USA.

Sophisticated approaches to publics exam­ ine core personality traits such as values and look at attitudes as well as lifestyles. An example is the psychographic casting done by SRI International, which uses a system called VALS™.4 Adults re­ sponding to the SRI questionnaire are placed in one of eight types: Innovators, Thinkers, Achievers, Experiencers, Believers, Strivers, Makers, Survi­ vors. The VALS™ framework has two dimensions: primary motivation and resources. SRI says the following of these two:

Primary Motivation: Consumers buy products and services and seek experiences that fulfill their characteristic preferences and give shape, substance and satisfaction to their lives. An individual's pri­ mary motivation determines what in particular about the self or the world is the meaningful core that governs his or her activities. Consumers are inspired by one of three primary motivations: ide­ als, achievement and self-expression. Consumers who are primarily motivated by ideals are guided by knowledge and principles. Consumers who are primarily motivated by achievement look for prod­ ucts and services that demonstrate success to their peers. Consumers who are primarily motivated by self-expression desire social or physical activity, variety and risk.

Resources: A person's tendency to consume goods and services extends beyond age, income and education. Energy, self-confidence, intellectualism, novelty seeking, innovativeness, impulsiveness, lead­ ership and vanity play a critical role. These person­ ality traits in conjunction with key demographics determine an individual's resources. Different levels or resources enhance or constrain a person's expres­ sion of his or her primary motivation.

Another psychographic approach was the media cross-referencing used in a Roper Starch Worldwide global study that surveyed the views of 1 .5 billion people. Roper interviewed 35,000 people ages 1 3 t o 6 5 i n 35 nations o n all continents using 1 -hour, 1 ,000-answer questions in face-to-face interviews. The questions were based on what Roper called 5 8 "guiding principles" for their lives . From these 5 8 , th e top 1 0 global values were: ( 1 ) protecting family,

Chapter 5/ P u blics a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 97

(2) honesty, (3) respecting ancestors, (4) authen­ ticity, (5) self-esteem, (6) friendships, (7) freedom, (8) health and fitness, (9) stable personal relation­ ships, and ( 1 0) material security. These values are used to describe six psychographic categories, in­ cluding important variations in patterns of media use.5 The way these patterns are interpreted by public relations practitioners may be dramatically affected by the increased use of the newest medium, the Internet.

Psychographic researchers realize the difficulty of predicting behaviors from attitudes, but attitudes remain easier to measure than behavior (without invading privacy). To improve educated guessing before a final decision is made, demographic and psy­ chographic information should be cross-referenced with other statistics. Numerous firms correlate such data with the outreach potential of various forms of the media. The study by Roper Starch Worldwide described previously, for example, was one that ef­ fectively used media cross-referencing.

Research, Media Use

:Audience research is used by media to help sell ad­ vertising time and'space and by media buyers to determine how to maximize their budgets to most effectively reach their publics. Some media specialty firms offer combined databases that they sell to me­ dia buyers. Research information firms often supply these data at a lower cost than subscribing to all of these databases, some of which might be used only

,.occasionally; certainly this is easier than trying to maintain a usable library of information in-house. :;Media relations people also use media specialty firms, ,some of which also offer placement of both advertis­ }ing and publicity. :An important service that specialty firms can provide is interpretation of information 'from the databases. A serious consideration for both ::placement of advertising and publicity is the falling %�terest in news from traditional media. Newspapers 'vp:ive fewer readers and television news programs per i�� have only somewhat larger audiences than news­ �]?apers. Radio news gets the smallest audience. W ith ��raditional broadcast media, the falling statistics ��re related to news of international, national, state ��nd local events, not entertainment news or enter­ :���inment programs that include issues. These have ���igher ratings, as do talk shows and commentaries. ��agazines and books are being read, but not those ':ibout public affairs. Although the number of peo­ �ple exposed to news from traditional media sources

continues to decline, people do get news-from the Internet.

A confounding problem for media use researchers is how to interpret "audiences" on the Internet. Al­ though Web pages abound on the World Wide Web and "hits" can be counted, it can be difficult to de­ termine who is doing the hitting. Web pages are set up by organizations to put out information, publicity and advertising, and to engage publics, especially pri­ ority publics, in responding. Exacdy who is accessing Web page information and responding is becoming increasingly significant to know in a global society composed of fragmented publics.

One aspect of this fragmentation is the grow­ ing number of people, especially in the USA, who feel inundated with information from all kinds of media. Specialized media invade their privacy with phone calls and unsolicited, unwelcomed mail­ postal and electronic. Of course, part of this comes from the ability to electronically track all kinds of personal information about people from just their daily living: credit card use, telephone calls, plane and hotel reservations, banking services and the like. The result of all of these data is the growth of services that sell information about individuals, some of which is sold on the Web. Buyers of this personal data can be anyone, but usually it is some­ one trying to sell something. The effect on market­ ing and market research has been great enough that the Direct Marketing Association now requires its members to publicly disclose how they gather and use data.6

Many people have responded by effectively "tun­ ing out" all of these media, mass and specialized. Additionally, as noted in the research chapter, mo­ bile phones have replaced landline phones, and the numbers are not as easily available and are more likely to change. Some of these changes are simply the result of technology, others are backlash against intrusions into privacy. Whatever the reason, orga­ nizations trying to reach publics with messages have resorted to new methods, especially more personal and more participatory approaches. Also increas­ ing is the use of intranets within organizations and listservs on the Internet to reach special publics. Participation is the key that media users hope will facilitate messages getting through. 7

That sort of participation on the Internet, though, serves to underscore the fragmentation of pub­ lics, inasmuch as it works through the building of definable constituencies. For example, one of the appeals of the Internet to teenagers is its anonymity,

98 Part Two I Research for PR

a quality which is also appealing to fringe groups afraid to speak openly on controversial issues. For the elderly, who were written off early as not likely users of the Internet, it has become a way to socialize and keep up with family, and to focus on issues that concern them, such as Medicare and Medicaid. 8

Social Security is another item for concern but the audience for that information, of interest to the government, politicians, insurance companies and the entire medical community, requires a careful definition of what kinds of information go to which groups and who constitutes those groups. Not carefully defining publics has led to incorrect as­ sumptions. For example, the group called the Baby Boomers-those born from 1 946 to 1 964-is not at all a cohesive group owing to dramatically differ­ ent economic, political and social climates in those years. Also, the assumption that people already drawing Social Security are bystanders in the issue is also wrong. These individuals worry about dimin­ ished resources for their children and grandchil­ dren. Contributing to the public discourse on this topic is the declining middle class in the USA, many of whom are college graduates with considerable Internet savvy. The Internet savvy of teenagers, on the other hand, is overrated. They may play video games, but when it comes to getting information on the Internet, they want simple, not flashy, sites that are easy to use and that provide helpful information and services.

The benefit of having these groups on the Web has been significant for public relations people who can use Web sites and chat rooms as part of their issues identification and monitoring procedures. The downside of the Internet for public relations people is that constituencies can attack the orga­ nization directly by setting up rogue Web sites, for example, which mimic the real site but which contain negative information .9 In other cases, the constituencies coalesce in much the same ways that any fragmented, disenchanted public does. They are outside the bounds of traditional institutional spheres of influence and can affect an organiza­ tion's operations and well being.10 Included in these constituencies are some important conventional publics, such as employees or customers of a par­ ticular ethnic group or women who have had some relationship with the organization, as well as those who may become concerned about an issue and use the Internet as a platform to attract others to their concerns.

Employees are always an important public because they are any organization's public relations "front line. " Employees are seen as lmowledgeable about the organization with the special insigl:t of an insid­ er's experience and information, so they are credible to other publics. In addition, employees often have direct contact with other publics, such as customers or suppliers. Women and minorities may be a part of an employee public, but additionally, from a broader perspective, they constitute significant publics who can damage an institution's reputation. Insensitivity to women and minorities in all types of relationships has cost profit and non profit groups both money and status.

Employees Employees have incredible job pressures. A headline in The Wall Street Journal in 200 1 asked, "Can Workplace Stress Get Worse?" The answer seems to be "yes," according to a number of studies examining the cost of stress to national economies. Contributing to this stress in most Western nations is financial uncertainty because of the economy, merg­ ers and downsizings, and the ability of managers to monitor individuals' job performance. Information overload comes from technology that makes employ­ ees reachable anytime and increases demand for in­ stant responses.11 Long hours and cramped quarters are other factors contributing to "desk rage," which can range from lost tempers such as yelling and ver­ bal abuse to physical violence. Overwork is blamed, as is crowding. Employees are packed tighter than in the past, often in cubicles like those in the Dilbert cartoons. High housing costs mean that some peo­ ple must commute long distances from affordable homes.12

However, most employees will respond with loy­ alty to their employers when they are made to feel valued . 13 The key to feeling valued for most em­ ployees is not salary and benefits as much as it is the quality of their work life-space and improved com­ munication from management, which helps build stronger relationships. PR people can make impor­ tant contributions in this area.

Women Women in the workplace are more likely to feel stressed than men, and although some women say it is the combination of family and job pressures, for many it is a problem of lack of power. Although

Chapter 5 / P u b l i cs a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 9 9

women are a majority o f the world's population, many, if not most, are in economic, social and po­ litical environments in which they are a minority in terms of power. Because most women are working in male-dominated environments in which they have little authority, many experience sexual harassment. Only a fraction of those complain about it, but in the USA some of those cases have resulted in class action lawsuits with high-profile trials. The damage is not just monetary. A company that gets a reputation for abusing women as employees or customers may fail to get both. This is an issue that needs to be ad­ dressed in any organization before it creates a prob­ lem. The same is true for treatment of minorities.

Minorities Minorities can be ethnic or religious groups, and they can be physically present in a nation or represented by a constituency abroad-one now connected to its counterparts any place in the world by the Internet. This is an important consideration in issues identification and monitoring . Although an issue can cause diverse groups of any religion or ethnicity to coalesce, it's important to remember that these groups often have no real homogeneity.

Hispanics, for example, now constitute the larg­ est minority in the USA. The greatest number is of Mexican origin, but there are large groups from other places, such as Cuba and Puerto Rico. These groups should not be casually lumped together-not by politicians, advertisers or public relations people. Spanish is common, but not at all uniformly spoken.

The problem is finding the right Spanish for each Hispanic audience, but there also needs to be some confidence that the translated message fits the cul­ ture. The California Milk Processors Board, for ex­ ample, discovered that their "Got milk?" campaign couldn't be literally translated because the result meant something like "Are you lactating?" Worse than that, the notion of running out of milk in the household was not funny because it implied that the provider had failed to meet family responsibilities. A California-based Hispanic ad agency was hired to develop a campaign just for that state. Rather than focusing on deprivation, the campaign by Anita Santiago Advertising, Los Angeles, instead showed milk as an important ingredient in recipes handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter in traditional Mexican families.14 The research showed that simply translating the original campaign not only would have been confusing, but also could have been very embarrassing.

Hispanic cultures and histories are very different. Moreover, the gulf between recent immigrants and those whose families have been in the USA for many generations often can be even more significant than differences of national origin. The need to be sen­ sitive to the differences created by the diversity of cultures exposed to messages is part .of what makes the role of issues identification and monitoring so important.

Identifying issues that are likely to create problems for a company or nonprofit organization is the first step in the process of monitoring not only the issue but also the socioeconomic and political climate for any event or development that could have an im­ pact on any of the organization's publics. Not ev­ erything that appears on the PR radar can be dealt with, but each must be evaluated for its potential to create some serious problem or to offer an op­ portunity . Monitoring helps management foresee when opinion is likely to build around incidents or trends.

Anticipating problems makes it easier to deal with them before a major difficulty arises and a crisis en­ sues. Not all problems result in crises. Some issues can be managed, at least from the perspective of the organization's response. In many cases, the emer­ gence of an issue creates an opportunity, and even a crisis may in the long run be turned into a benefi­ cial experience. Increasingly, issues are arising from global situations. Typically these have come from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), some of which may be lobbying groups. Many, though, are private voluntary organizations (PVOs) that have a narrower focus, that of social goals. These include some well-known names such as Oxfam, Greenpeace and Amnesty International.15

Handling issues demands an integrated approach to communication. The issue, the public and the sit­ uation in which an issue develops all require that an evaluation consider strategies that use any commu­ nication tools available . This is where the artificial barriers in an organization, especially among its com­ munication units, can be extraordinarily detrimental. The organization needs to speak with one voice, and that voice must be clear and unambiguous.

100 Part Two I Research for PR

A worldwide focus on terrorism caused social psychologists to l o o k at s u icide bombers beyond what

was known about their demographics and at thei r a d m i ration of martyrd o m . What they found was that

g ro u p dynamics are the determ i n i n g factor. Terrorist g ro u ps create a pseudo family for their recruits,

says Todd Stewart, retired USA Air Force general who d i rects the Program for I nternational afld Home­

land Secu rity at The Ohio State U niversity. it i s for this family that the b o m bers are willing to sacrifice

thei r l ives.

The concept that i d entification with a g ro u p , m ore than i n d i v i d u a l personality, often dete r m i n es

behavior that exists without peer pressure. Robert C i a l d i n i gives the exa m p l e of a woman visitor to the

petrified fo rest in Arizona who p icked up a piece of forest there, d e s p ite admonitions to the contrary

p o sted everywhere by foresters. As someone who w o u l d n't h ave taken even a paper c l i p from her of­

fice, she told her astonished boyfriend that taking a piece of the fo rest was normal behavior for visitors

and she was just d o i n g what everyone else d i d-confo r m i n g to the group norm.

The lesson for p u b l i c relati ons p ractitioners i s to look beyond however p u b l i cs are classified and

exa m i n e g ro u p n o r m s and how closely individuals accept and i dentify with those norms.

Source: Sharon Bagley, "Alternative Peer Groups May Offer Way to Deter Some Suicide Bombers," i n Science Journal,

The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2004, B1. Reprinted with permission.

The handling of issues once they have been iden­ tified is not a linear action that concludes when a favorable solution is achieved. Instead, it is a cycli­ cal process with five steps: ( 1 ) sensing the prob­ lem (research), (2) defining the problem (through judgment and priority setting), (3) deriving so­ lutions (through policy and strategy selection), (4) implementing them, and ( 5 ) evaluating out­ comes (see Figure 5 .2). The process can recur as each portion of a solution is worked through. The feedback causes adjustments in the plans, which in turn cause the next step of the solution to return to step one each time.16

Iss u es

In many instances, the appropriate strategy to use depends on the life-cycle stage of the issue, 'ac­ cording to John F. Mahon of the Boston Univer­ sity School of ManagementY He suggests three strategies: ( 1 ) containment, for an emerging issue; (2) shaping, for an issue that has media attention and therefore is on the public agenda; (3) coping, for issues that face legislative, regulatory or interest­ group action. When an issue is emerging, Mahon recommends dealing directly with it, or with those who are promoting it, to defuse the situation.

The most aggressive stance an organization can take is to shape or define the issue in its own terms. Shap­ ing strategies include total resistance, bargaining, capitulation, termination and cessation of activity. If the issue has reached the coping stage, Mahon says, the organization has no choice but to change its behavior substantially.

Accepting the cyclical nature of issues, many the­ orists argue for the revised catalytic model (see the theory for this in Chapter 6). In this model, the issue is guided through its life cycle toward a resolution that is in the organization's favor. This takes into consideration an intense examination of the publics involved in the issue and their potential receptive­ ness to information about the issue, how that mes­ sage can be presented, and how the organization can frame the issue and set the agenda for public discus­ sion to gain a favorable resolution.

One of the hardest parts of handling issues is convincing management that an issue needs to be addressed. The late Richard Long suggested a four-step process: ( 1 ) state the issue or problem in the most specific terms possible and describe the various effects it can have on th·e organization, (2) identify adversaries and friends, (3) develop a strategy that includes deciding whether to take the initiative, and (4) determine whether to involve coalitions.18

Chapter 5/ P u b l i cs a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 101

The Iss ues Management Process

Performance evaluation

Implementation

Judgment and priority setting

Policy and strategy selection

Source: Reprinted with permission from IPRA from International Public Relations Review, 13(4), 1990, p. 23.

More than any other executive (except the chief executive), the PR practitioner must know what is going on inside and outside the organization and how the organization's activities and functions inter­ relate and relate to those of others. He or she also is expected to bring awareness and objectivity to the job and to inject unvarnished, usable facts into the decision-making process.

The PR person learns about what is happen­ ing outside the organization by being exposed to pressures generated by various groups seeking sup­ port. The role of the practitioner here is sensitive and complex. Sometimes the PR practitioner must play devil's advocate, raising all salient arguments against a proposed course of action and explain­ ing which decisions will adversely affect certain groups. Sometimes actions must be taken that will offend a major public, and management should be warned in advance and offered some way of

successfully explaining to the public why the action is necessary.

Years ago, no one foresaw the role public relations now plays in relation to current issues and social crises. No longer primarily a communicator, the PR practitioner must act as an intervener and relationship-builder who tries to prevent a poten­ tial problem from getting out of hand. Indeed, the most valuable public relations activity consists of formulating plans and convincing management to take steps designed to prevent problems or at least to solve them while they are small.

Some of the tools the PR practitioner uses remain the same, such as personal contact and mass media. The proper measure of performance is not how ef­ fectively the client's message gets across, however, but whether a flare-up that can stop a client's business can be avoided. The public relations practitioner has an obligation to help employers or clients conduct their business in a way that responds to the new de­ mands made by concerned scientists, environmental­ ists, consumerists, minority leaders, underprivileged segments of the community and employees.

102 Part Two I Research for PR

Management's perception of priority publics-both internal and external-is not always accurate. Know­ ing who your target publics are implies lmowing what to say to them and how to say it (see Figure 5.3). You need to know how your messages are likely to affect the various publics you depend on for goodwill.

to back up their advice with scientific evidence. As Wayne Danielson summarizes:

The point is simply this: Interest in science and in ask­ ing the scientific question is part of the spirit of our times. Professional communicators cannot avoid these questions. They encounter them all the time. They fre­ quently ask them themselves. And they cannot indefi­ nitely avoid giving a scientific as opposed to an artistic answer.

Awareness of publics and their responses requires heightened sensitivity, constant alertness and a lot of guessing, unless you have and regularly update a statistical profile of these publics. There has been a trend in public relations away from the artistic to the scientific. More and more clients ask practitioners

This is basically what communication research is all about. It is an attempt to give scientific answers to scientific questions about communication. 19

Internal and External Publics and Media

Internal External

Management (top and middle) Direct (marketing Indirect (institutional Staff and employees (union and communications) communications)

employee organizations- Customers Potential customers nonunion) Sales representatives Potential investors (stockholders)

Publics Stockholders Traders and distributors Financial community Directors Suppliers Special community of institution

Competitors Government (local, state, federal) Community (environmental)

Personal (person to person/person Personal (person to person/person to group) to group) Audiovisual (Web pages with art and sound, films, slides,

Audiovisual (specialized media: videotape, mass media, specialized media available to films, slides, videotape, closed- external audiences such as externally distributed circuit Tv, computer networks- CD-ROMs, videos, etc.) that is, on intranet) Publications (mass and specialized, including controlled

Publications (specialized media: and uncontrolled publicity as well as institutional and books, magazines, newspapers, commercial advertising) newsletters). Direct Mail (personalized, institutional and sales promotion)

Media Direct mail Exhibits (mass and specialized externally displayed and Exhibits (including posters and product packaging, graphics, including point-of-sale

bulletin board materials internally promotions) displayed as well as personalized CD-ROMs items such as pins and awards) Broadcast fax

CD-ROMs ListServe (email) Em ail Internet site (on World Wide Web) Fax (or facsimile) CD-ROMs Web pages

Source: Reprinted from Doug Newsom andJim Haynes, Public Relatiom Writing, Fonn and Style, 8th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2008), p. 8, an adaptation of a model used in pr reporte1; 33(30),July 30, 1990. Public Relations Writing Copyright© 2008. Reprinted with permission ofWadsworth, a division of Cengage.

Cha pter 5 I P u b l ics a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 103

Being aware of publics and their opinions depends on having ready access to information that helps give an accurate picture of where they stand on issues fac­ ing an organization. Institutions accumulate a wealth of information in their daily operations. Unless some thought is given to how that information might be used, it is useless.

Research for sound public relations planning can be built into a record-keeping system, provided that retrieval is also carefully considered. Information about PR audiences is critical. (See Chapter 4 on research.)

Perceptions

One important aspect of an organization's inter­ .nal publics is their perception of the organization: its image in their eyes. The collective perceptions bf all publics for an organization_:_based on what it says and does-constitute its image. A word needs to be said about "image" in connection with public relations. Most PR practitioners would gladly ban ;use of the word image because it's so often misused and misunderstood and because they don't like be­ .;ing depicted as "image makers." Nonetheless, image :does describe the perception of an organization or individual, and this perception is based largely on ''What the organization or individual does and says. IQf course, the organization seldom is perceived in exactly the same way by all of its publics at any given time, but we will return to this aspect of the subject a bit later.

A major contributor to virtually every public's ·perception of an organization is the organization's ;:employees. To complicate matters, employees are £hemselves an organizational public that has its own perceptions of the organization. The role of employ­ ees is a significant concern in most PR efforts. . The lack of homogeneity in any public poses fp.roblems for the public relations practitioner trying 'to evaluate it. This is especially true of employees, £because they exist on many different levels: salespeo­ �ple, clerks and receptionists, technicians, profession­ ials, administrators. Moreover, within each group, ;some people see themselves as embarked on a career �while others see their work only as a job. Beyond zthat, subgroups exist in all of the main categories; }professionals, for instance, may include engineers, ',researchers and lawyers. .. ·· The way these people work together and the .way the administration works with them create a

corporate or organizational culture, which strongly affects how employees behave in relationships with each other and with outsiders. This in turn affects how the organization is perceived. Furthermore, with increased diversity in the workforce and with increas­ ing international ownership and operational linkages, such differences among employees can be profound.

Although the best way to find out what various publics think is by conducting scientific research, you can also ask a few questions: ( 1 ) If the institu­ tion has an image, does it live up to it? Or does it say one thing and do another? (2) If the organization has a favorable image, can employees live up to it? Or do conflicting demands, low pay or other factors render this impossible? (3) When an image change is necessary, have the employees been helped to make the change through participative management? (4) If the company has no recognizable image, does this result in confusion, limited identification and disparate values?

Internal publics are likely to be particularly sensi­ tive to how an institution is presented to an exter­ nal public because, as a part of that institution, their ego is involved. All sorts of communication from the organization to other publics must reflect most em­ ployees' experiences as closely as possible, especially the institutional presentations such as Web pages and advertising. Furthermore, all internal publics are seen as authorities on the organization, which is the reason they need to have access to as much informa­ tion as possible.

Realizing that each member of an internal pub­ lic is a potentially significant public relations asset could make most public relations directors' jobs easier. The best way to promote the use of internal publics as PR's front line is to make employees feel involved. PR researcher J ames E. Grunig says that a person involved in a situation seeks information, and that a person motivated to communicate about a situation is also motivated to develop a solution for it.

Internal surveys to find out what employees think of their organizations are now as common as exter­ nal ones. Evidence suggests that labor strife can be reduced by regular employee attitude surveys. Such surveys often influence organizational decisions on personnel policies, work practices, communication, productivity, compensation, organizational structure and physical plant improvements.

The organizational behavior of employees, who produce the corporate or organizational culture, contributes significantly to the organization's image.

104 Part Two I Research for PR

"Is there any way you PR people can improve our image without our being able to tell you anything about ourselves?"

Source: Reprinted with permission of Punch Ltd.

J oseph F. Coates has described the concept of cor­ porate culture as recognizing that every stable hu­ man organization has consistent patterns of behavior reflecting implicit and explicit beliefs and values. Coates says that the cultural characteristics of an organization are usually expressed in positive terms by employees, who often fail to see how outsiders may perceive the same company behavior or policy in negative terms-for example, as "paternalistic," "moralistic" or "intrusive into personal matters," rather than as "offering counseling" or "genuinely concerned."

Coates identifies two widely held beliefs regarding the corporate culture. One is that the culture comes from the top down. The other is that it determines or strongly influences a corporation's willingness to embrace change, promote innovation, tolerate dissent, encourage criticism, experiment and allow for other qualities that characterize a competitive firm. Organizations with especially strong corpo­ rate cultures may enjoy a more cohesive image, but they tend to be less flexible and don't adapt well to change. Furthermore, the influence of the corporate culture is also shaped by its environment (location), its business (for example, TV or manufacturing) and the primary societal culture of its employees (for ex­ ample, American or Japanese).

Ty pically, PR practitioners are not asked t o persuade employees that they should accept the corporate culture. People usually try to work in a place where they are comfortable. The more com­ mon problem public relations must deal with is changing a corporate culture when new leadership arrives.

Coates recommends that employees be "brought along" with a change in corporate culture through discussions and requests for their input, although he concedes that the job is not easy. Philip Lesly ex­ pressed more pessimism. He said it is akin to "turning over an elephant with a shoe horn."20 People are more likely to change their jobs than to change their values.

External Publics and Perceptions of the Organization

External publics are not the exclusive property of any institution. Any external public may become a target for public relations activities. Prospective candidates, for example, might be students in community col­ leges and working people who might want to return to school or enroll for the first time.

Looking at the different subsets of people who constitute an organization's external publics helps PR practitioners avoid the fallacy of considering ex­ ternal publics as a "mass public." There is no such thing as a mass audience or public. External publics

Chapter 5/ P u b l i cs a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 1 0 5

Persuasion i s a major component o f p u b l i c relations efforts, a n d i nformation i s the tool. Alth o u g h most

p ractitioners w i l l agree that it's not as easy as it sounds, what m i g ht cause further d i smay i s that people

w i l l bel ieve whatever they want to, even if it's clearly false and they know that it is.

We believe what we want to believe, and a 2005 international study reinforces the fact that we also

choose to remember what fits o u r beliefs. People b u i l d m e ntal m o d e l s, says Stephan Lewandowsky,

psychology p rofessor at the U n iversity of Western Australia, by way of explanation.

T h e study took five "events" from the invasion of l raq-three had occurred and two hadn't, but they

had been reported as fact and then later correcte d . Even people who recalled the retractions or correc­

tions stil l contended that the events did happen as i n itially reported because that bel ief fit their m e ntal

m o d e l .

P R practitioners, especially those atte mpting t o respond t o false accusations o r trying t o c orrect

r u mor, might l o o k at who among their publics is likely to believe the m .

Source: Sharon Bagley, "People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views Even I f it's Clearly False," i n Science Journal,

The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2005, B1. Reprinted with permission.

usually consist of larger segments of people than do internal publics, but never should external publics be thought of as an undifferentiated "mass."21

E x t e r n a l p u b l i c s m a y b e a s u p p o r t i v e constituency-like t h e residents o f cities that have a professional sports team-or they may be adversarial-as antinuclear advocates are to electric utilities that use nuclear energy. Both types must be considered in public relations planning and com­ munication strategies. External publics also have a great deal to do with an institution's image. When external publics and internal publics share similar perceptions of what the institution is and what it should be, the institution's image is likely to be sound because it is consistent.

T he perception of an organization's image may vary from public to public, and it may change over time, owing to significant economic, technological and demographic changes in the business environ­ ment. Organizations should always monitor percep­ tions of their identity, but they must reexamin\! their identity under the following circumstances:

When public perceptions of a company do not reflect reality. Vestiges of past management mis­ takes, poor earnings, environmental problems and the like may still be having a negative impact. When external forces such as a new competitor, a breakthrough product, deregulation or an existing competitor's new identity require identification countermeasures.

W hen competitors are slow to form clearly defined and effectively projected corporate and/ or product presentation. In this sense, identity is opportunistic and can become a competitive ad­ vantage in itselfP

In looking at relationships with external audi­ ences, keep in mind the differences between attitudes, opinions and beliefs. Although some people use the terms attitudes, opinions and beliefs interchangeably, social scientists generally define each of them differ­ ently. Attitudes are tendencies or orientations toward something or someone-a state of mind, a manner, a disposition, a position. Opinions are expressions of estimates or judgments-generally something not as strongly held as a conviction, but articulating a senti­ ment or point of view. Beliefs are convictions firmly fixed in the bedrock of one's value system, embody­ ing one's sense of truth.

and

Tailoring public relations programs to fit various pri­ ority publics requires careful and specific identifica­ tion of the publics and their characteristics (through both formal and informal research methods), transla­ tion of this information into a sensitive understand­ ing of each public's needs and knowledge of how to communicate with each. To develop a program that is both real and realistic-not merely a facade of imagery that produces disillusionment and alienation

106 Part Two '/ Research for PR

when its insincerity is detected-you must have re­ spect for and empathy with the target publics.

A public is a priority, not only when it is centrally affected by a PR recommendation, but also when it is the group most influential in determining whether an idea, policy, event, decision or product recom­ mendation will be accepted. Once identified as a pri­ ority public, the group must be studied for its other relationships. Insensitivity to the composition of publics, their interrelationships, their relationships with members of other publics (as well as to your organization), their ideals and their attitudes may lead an organization to waste much time, effort and money on public relations programs that bore or of­ fend the intended recipients or have a negative effect on unintended recipients.

The news media are often overlooked as a target public by PR practitioners in their planning. Those who regard the press as "the enemy" generally find this attitude reflected in news coverage of their or­ ganization. In contrast, consider a corporation that had always cooperated with the news media and that continued to do so when its plant was wracked by explosions. The explosions received front-page cov­ erage, but only for one day-and the coverage was generally sympathetic to the business. Media reports described what the company was doing to help the victims and how it was attempting to discover the cause of the explosions. Clearly, PR practitioners can benefit from keeping in close contact with both mass and specialized media such as trade, industry and as­ sociation publications.

An important but seldom mentioned public is the competition. The competition is an important public to know, communicate and work with. Insti­ tutions that maintain fair and honest dealings with their competitors usually establish this relationship through trade or association organizations. It is harder to insult someone you lmow personally. In ad­ dition, mutual respect within an industry or profes­ sion helps prevent open hostilities that could damage everyone.

An American Airlines pilot training manual con­ tained copy that proved embarrassing when it was made public in 1 997 during a pretrial hearing in a lawsuit over the crash of one of the airline's planes in Cali, Columbia, in 1 99 5. The manual said that Latin

American passengers are frequently unruly and in­ toxicated. Some Latin American passengers, it said, may even call in a false bomb threat to delay a plane if they are running late. On the other hand, it also claimed that Latin Americans generally don't expect to depart on time. To make matters worse, the Latin America Pilot Reference Guide contained instructions for flying into Latin American airports that fell be­ low U.S. safety standards.

For an airline that is the leading carrier in the Latin American market, this was an unfortunate dis­ closure. The airline's senior vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, Peter Dolara, himself a Latino, said he was offended by the manual, which he noted got its bad information from Eastern Airlines when American acquired Eastern's Latin American routes in 1 98 9 ! A spokesperson for the airline ex­ pressed regret over the generalizations and promised that they would rewrite the guidebook to delete any inaccuracies and misrepresentations.

That was seen as superficial action by some members of the offended communities who flew on the airline to Latin America and the Caribbean. ""When we caught them, they supposedly apologized. How many other stereoty pical beliefs do they have in place that haven't been revealed? " asked Rosa Martha Zarate, eo-manager of Quetzal Travel in San Bernardino, California. 23

Public relations can help develop the proper man­ agement philosophy by listening and responding ef­ fectively. "When listening and responding effectively go together, the conscience of management takes on a new perspective. In an institution whose policies are inconsistent and whose management lacks integ­ rity, no public relations effort can be effective.

American Airlines' problem with its pilot train­ ing manual came to light in a pretrial hearing for a lawsuit brought against it. Often before and during a trial, the case is taken by the lawyers to the court of public opinion. This has been called, variously, litiga­ tion journalism (because the media are used) or litiga­ tion public relations (because the lawyers are acting as spokespersons for their clients and talking to news media in a media relations role).

"What this means for those involved in the con­ flict is a battle for the minds and hearts-because the appeals are often emotional-of a variety of publics. (For more on litigation journalism/public relations, see Chapter 8.) All media are used in these battles, and the Internet is becoming increasingly impor­ tant. Attempts to influence public opinion are made in formal settings such as news release postings on

Chapter 5 / P u b l i cs a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 107

Transnational corporations long ago learned that their actions i n one part of the world can easily and

q u i ckly create negative public opinion elsewhere, and this i s particularly true in this age of i nstantaneous

g l o bal c o m m u n icat i o n . Whole nations are not exempt either. G lobal c o m m u n i cation that c o m p resses

time and space helps create empathy among people around the world. Acti ons in d istant Garners of the

world o n ly a few decades ago might have gone by-and-large u n n oticed elsewhere. Today those same

actions can q u ickly become part of the news agenda worldwide as well as s u bjects of public discussion

that h e l p s create o r change public opinion that, in turn, can affect goodwill toward the company as wel l

as sales of its p ro d ucts and services.

After recalls of pet food, h u man food and toys that had been made in China for export, that c o u ntry

has a j o b of untan g l i n g internal pro b lems that created the situations as well as external difficulties as

they work to reassure i m p o rters of its prod u cts that safety issues have been addressed. The nation

faced a p ro b l e m of changing an image created by t h i s series of problems, a l l in 2007, that the Made in

C h i na label i s not a cautionary warni n g not to b u y o r use.

D ifficulties such as the recalls of C h i nese-made products can occur to a country, an i n d ustry o r a n

organization-profit o r non p rofit. Each situation offers learning examples that can be part o f pol icy and

procedure changes.

I n 2001 stu d e nts on U . S . c o l l ege campuses were organizing "teach-ins" to p rotest d ru g c o m pa­

n i es' p r i c i n g and patent practices; states were th reate n i n g p rice-control l e g islation; l o ngti m e b u s i ­

n e s s a l lies w e r e o rganizing campaigns to s e e k redu ce d d r u g prices; a n d federal prosecutors were

i nvestigati n g an a l leged i n d ustry-wide scheme to defraud t h e federal government health care p la n s

M e d i care a n d M e d i c a i d . F u rth e r, t h e F e d e ra l Trad e C o m m i s s i o n w a s p r o b i n g w h e t h e r the i n d u stry

had engaged in anticom petitive practices by b l ocking access to generic d rugs, and s o m e m e m bers

of Cong ress were discussing whether new M e d i care benefits s h o u l d contain price restrictions. These

p u b l i c relat i o n s p r o b l e m s , many bel ieved, were to a g reat extent because of the African A I D S c ri s is

two continents away.

I n t h e previous two years, t h e p h armaceutical i n d u stry h a d responded to international c a l l s for

lower AIDS d ru g prices i n poor nations with several actions that had created negative public o p i n i o n ,

damagi ng d ru g c o m panies' reputations i n the U SA and elsewhere. The pharmaceutical i n d u stry's ac­

tions also d ra m atized the companies' p rofit m a rg i ns when d ru g man ufacturers lowered prices to the

p o i nt where they clai m ed there was "no p rofit"-reveal i n g that some m e d i ci nes were priced 8 to 1 0

times what they cost to man ufacture and d istrib ute. Also, activists were drawing attention to the South

African lawsuit i n which 39 drug makers were trying to b l ock a law that would facil itate the p u rchase of patented d rugs from generic makers. I n what was called o n e of the industry's " m ore v i s i b l e p u b l i c­

relatio n s stu m b l e s , " the lawsuit named as a defendant Nelson Mandela, the antiaparthe i d h e ro w h o

was president o f t h e cou ntry when the l a w was passed . These actions in o n e part o f t h e world created

negative p u b l i c o p i n i o n elsewher.e throughout the wo r l d , a lesson that no p u b l i c relations p ractitioner

should forget.

Source: Gardiner Harris, "AIDS Gaffes i n Africa Come Back to Haunt Drug I n d ustry at Home," The Wall Street Journal,

April 23, 2001, pp. A1 and AB. Reprinted with permission.

108 Part Two I Research for PR

established Web sites, on special Web sites often with links to media Web sites, and informally in chat rooms. A guide for evaluating the impact of Internet news outlets and Web. sites on perception of an or­ ganization is available from the Institute for Public Relations on its Web site (http:/ /www.instituteforpr. corn). A Primer in Internet Audience Measurement was written by Bruce Jeffries-Fox, whose firm con­ ducts media studies and a range of public relations research.

Keeping information available and monitoring the media are essential in these cases that are tried in the court of public opinion. T his is true not only for particular cases; issues can be tried in the court of public opinion too. As noted in pr reporter, "When unfair, greedy or antisocial actions or policies be­ come sufficiently widespread to cause outrage, the public turns its wrath onto institutions. T his contrasts with attacks on specific organizations, which is per­ petual and more immediate."24

a 0 11 ic

Public relations practitioners function in a cli­ mate 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 lead­ ership in an arms race or as narrow as that of secu­ rities 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 com­ plex of preferences expressed by a significant num­ ber of persons on an issue of general importance."2 5 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 relevant public on all the proposals about the issue over which that public has come into existence." T he fourth factor, the expression of opinion, may involve any form of

expression-printed or spoken words, symbols (such as a clenched fist or stiff arm salute) or even the gasp of a crowd. T he fifth factor is the number of per­ sons involved. T he number of people in a public can be large or small, as long as the impact of their opinion has a measurable effect. T he effect may be as much determined by the intensity of opinion and the organization of effort as by the size of the pub­ lic. Hennessy's definition of public opinion does not deal with what could be called "latent public opinion." He reserves 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 is­ sue." In any case, public opinion has to be expressed to be measured. 26

Public opinion expresses beliefs based not nec­ essarily on facts but on perceptions or evaluations of events, persons, institutions or products. In the USA, many people assume that "public opinion 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, nineteenth-century essayist Charles Dudley Warner said, "Public opin­ ion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the Ten Commandments."

Obviously, public opinion can be misused or manipulated-as Adolf 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 ap­ plauded Mussolini's efforts at "straightening out the Italians" (tourist translation: getting the trains to run on time), while many Italians were beginning to live in fear of the black-shirted fascist militia.

Public opinion also is notably unstable. T hat is why the "bottom line" for political strategists is election day itself, when the actual votes are tal­ lied, not public opinion poll results from earlier in the campaign. Public opinion's reliability as a mea­ surement resembles that of body temperature. For accuracy, doctors say, "T he patient's temperature was 1 0 1 degrees at 7 a.m.," not "the patient's tempera­ ture is 1 0 1 degrees" (unless the thermometer has just been read). PR people would be a lot safer in their judgments if they would take the same precautions. Exposure to new information or events can quickly change public opinion, rendering recent polling research obsolete.

To keep pace with constantly changing pub­ lic opinion, you must accept a few basic precepts.

Cha pter 5 / P u b l ics a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 1 0 9

Not everyone i s going t o b e on your side a t any one time. The best you can hope for is a majority consensus. To achieve this, you need to retain the partisans you have, win at least provisional support from the undecided or uncommitted bloc and neu­ tralize or win over the opposition.

Winning over the opposition is the most difficult part. Most of us read and listen for reinforcement of our own ideas. We do not like to hear ideas that con­ flict with our own, and we make every effort to re­ ject them. For example, we may simply tune out and fail to hear or remember what we have been exposed to. We may discredit the source, without objectively determining the legitimacy of its evidence or argu­ ment. We may reduce the conflicting argument to a crude caricature whose fallacious elements we have no difficulty pointing out. We may distort meanings so that what we hear or read conforms to what we believe. No doubt you have seen letters to the edi­ tor of a magazine from two different people, each complimenting the publication for an editorial they interpreted in opposite ways; the readers simply read into the editorial what they wanted the publication to say.

as a

The importance of the private, individual "opinion" (attitudes and beliefs) that underlies public opinion was described as follows by Daniel Katz:

The study of opinion formation and attitude change is basic to an understanding of the public opinion process even though it should not be equated with this process. The public opinion process is one phase of the influenc­ ing of collective decisions, and its investigation involves knowledge of channels of communication, of the power structures of a society, of the character of mass media, of the relation between elites, factions, and masses, of the role of formal and informal leaders, of the institu­ tionalized access to officials. But the raw material out of which public opinion develops is to be found in the attitudes of individuals, whether they be followers or leaders and whether these attitudes be at the general level of tendencies to conform to legitimate authority or majority opinion or at the specific level of favoring or opposing the particular aspects of the issue under consideration. The nature of the organization of at­ titudes within the personality and the processes which account: for attitude change are thus critical areas for the understanding of the collective product known as public opinion. 27

The capriciousness of public opinion is due to its fragile base in perceptions. Celebrities know (or soon learn) how ficlde public opinion is. Influencing it requires constant effort directed toward viable­ that is, credible and supportable-positioning of the organization (or person) vis-a-vis the competition. Positioning can sell a product, as Bernays proved when a promotional campaign he developed made smoking in public socially acceptable for young women-a feat he later felt less proud of. P osition­ ing can also sell a person, as many elected officials can testify.

Ideas can be sold, too. During World War II, a massive PR effort by government and industry con­ vinced the American public that the international situation made it appropriate for large numbers of single and married women to enter the paid la­ bor force.28 That effort put women in jobs never before imagined as "women's work," but it also re­ turned them to hearth and home when those jobs were needed b y returning veterans. In moving from one major model of American womanhood to another-each based on American myth-the tide of public opinion was manipulated each time to suit the government's perceived needs.

Because public opinion changes so often and can be influenced so easily, measuring it is big business. Most public relations people make use of published public opinion surveys, and many buy public opinion research. Published surveys, for instance, are avail­ able by subscription from both Gallup and Roper. For Gallup, go to The Gallup Organization's Web site, which charges now but soon may be offering its services free. For Roper, go to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Issues of its The Public Persp ective are also available online in Nexis (file PUBPER). It often includes polls, such as those taken by Louis Harris, George Gallup or news organiza­ tions, which sample the nation's moods and pass on the information through public outlets. Other public opinion research is offered by a variety of groups for a fee. Some studies-many done by academics or re­ search institutions-are available without charge, or at minimal cost.

P ublic relations practitioners often perform similar research themselves, although this is usually proprietary-owned by the organization paying for it, and unavailable to other firms or clients. Even when no original research is done, however,

1 10 Part Two I Research for PR

familiarity with research methodology is essential to be able to successfully apply the many published surveys to a particular company, market or client.

Waiter K. Lindenmann, a prominent researcher, observed that the most sophisticated public relations practitioners measure outcomes-that is, changes in opinion, attitude and behavior. Practitioners rely on such techniques as before-and-after polls; experi­ mental research designs; observation, participation and role-playing; perceptual mapping; psychographic analysis; factor and cluster analysis; and multifaceted communication audits.29

Although attitude research must be used promptly because opinion is so unstable, old data should not be discarded. Information from old polls can be used later in developing simulated tests that will yield some probable responses. For instance, when John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1 960, his campaign strategists used cards from the Roper Public Opinion Research Center in Williamstown, Massachusetts (depository for the old cards of the Gallup and Roper polls) to design a program simu­ lating how people around the USA would react to various critical questions and issues, based on how they had reacted in the past. In fact, the simulation came closer to predicting the November election outcome than did the public opinion polls taken in August. The reason, Philip Meyer explains, is that the simulation, designed by Ithiel de Sola Pool,

was acting out how the voters would react to a [cam­ paign} strategy that had not been fully implemented. After it was implemented and the voters began to re­ act, the polls began to reflect the results and came into closer correlation with both the simulation and the final outcome.30

The reliability of polls has from time to time been questioned. Nevertheless, both the Gallup and Harris organizations claim that polls are generally accurate. The Gallup organization claims that, since 1 948, it has, on average, been off the actual ballot. ing in important elections by a little less than one percentage point.

The problem with public understanding of any poll, but particularly political polls, was stated suc­ cinctly by authors and researchers Charles Roll and Albert Cantril:

There is nothing immutable about the results of a poll. The way polls are treated by the press and politicians, one might be led to think otherwise. However, what

a poll provides is a picture of the public's view at only one point in time and on only the questions that were asked. Yet, inferences of sweeping proportion are fre­ quently drawn from a poll, leading to fundamental misunderstandings of what the state of public opinion really is. 3 1

' Something else may be going on as well. The very

act of communicating an opinion has consequences on public opinion. For example, a male candidate for governor in one U.S. state appeared to be lead­ ing until the final hours of the election, but his op­ ponent, a woman, won without a runoff. What was going on with the pre-election polling? Two factors may have come into play. First, early polls had asked how the respondent was going to vote and what he or she thought others would do. While many women said they intended to vote for the woman candidate, they doubted that other women would. Mispercep­ tion of others' opinions is a common phenomenon. People often see themselves as holding opinions that are different than those of their friends and neighbors. 3 2

The second element that skewed the early pro­ jections involved social relationships theory. 3 3 Not only were women talking with other women about the election, but they were getting more ideas from these discussions than from the mass media. People often won't talk about how they feel or are going to vote if they think their friends, family, neighbors and others close to them will disagree. Many women were not saying openly (in mixed company) that they intended to vote for the woman candidate because they didn't want to argue with male family members, office colleagues or bosses.

Some might say that another contributing factor is embodied in the Noelle-Neumann "spiral of si­ lence" theory.34 This theory, which assumes a "pow­ erful effects model" for media, states that media can suppress public expression of opinions opposed to those presented in the media, creating a "spiral of silence" that grows until the media's picture of reality becomes reality itself.

The difference between public opinion researchers and PR people was stated many years ago by Fred Palm er, a partner in the PR firm of Earl N ewsom

Cha pter 5 / P u b l i cs a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n. 1 1 1

and Company: "The public opinion researchers' function is to know, measure, analyze, and weigh public opinion. The practitioners' function is to help people deal constructively with the force of public opinion."35

there. Anyone who questions this sort of correlation might find some adequate, if unscientific, support in simple observation. Read the front-page headlines of the newspaper, and check the Dow Jones aver­ ages. Any securities analyst or stockbroker will tell you that a correlation exists between news on the AP wires and subsequent information on'the Dow J ones ticker.

on

The study of public opinion ties public relations research to both behavioral psychology and econom­ ics. Opinion research reflects seasonal and other types of trends in attitudes that raise questions about ;behavior patterns, and these in turn often require :researchers to look at the economic picture to de­ termine whether the roots of the problem might be

The study of public opinion is particularly impor­ tant to public relations people for another reason. Information and opinion are fundamentally differ­ ent. Appreciating that difference means recognizing how understanding and knowledge differ, Hadley Cantril, public opinion authority and pollster, ob­ served that public understanding is "knowledge that

A broad col lection of theories support the idea of changing o p inions to change behavior, but h o w to d o

that i n a g l o bal society i s a complex u ndertakin g . C u lture bequeaths a collection o f assumptions a b o ut

reality from a person or g roups of people that are passed along from generation to gene rati o n , even

though environments and situations m ay change.

What this m eans i n terms of p u b l i c o p i n i o n i s that u n d e rstan d i n g reactions to events, p r o d u cts

or p o l icies has to b e anticipated by u s i n g e m pathy to i magine someone experienc i n g them t h r o u g h a

d ifferent " l e n s , " or m i nd-set. In counse l i n g corpo ratio n s on p reparing for a crisis when management

s e e m s rel u ctant to consider it, one q u estion usually g ets managem ent's attention: "If yo u wanted to

wreck this company, what would you do?"

That i s the k i n d of trai n i n g the U.S. m i l itary i n Afg h a n i stan i s now receiving i n counte r i n s u rg e n cy

classes. In the fall of 2007, groups of 60 m i litary personnel at a time began atte n d i n g intensive 5-day

sessions trai n i n g them to "think l ike the Tali b a n . " I n April 2007, the U . S. Army gave the teac h i n g j o b to

a 26-year-old R h odes Scholar, Capt. Dan H e l me r. Capt. H e l m e r tells his students of all ranks, e n listed

and officer, that the i m portant battles are 80 p e rcent political and just 20 percent m i litary.

The Wall Street Journal reporter M i chael M. P h i l l i p s s u m m e d up the job in the foll owi n g m a n n e r.

T h e academy's p r i n c i pa l message: The war t h at began to oust a reg i m e has evolved into a p o p u larity

contest where i n s u rgents and counterinsu rgents vie for p u b l i c s u p port and the right to r u l e . The i m ­

p licit critiq u e : "Many U . S . and allied soldiers stil l arrive i n t h e country (Afghanistan) well trained t o k i l l ,

b ut n o t to persuade."

Writer C la i re V i llareal, a stydent of Asia a n d parti c u larly B u d d h i s m , has noted that it i s i m portant

to use a "culture map" to u n d e rstand people " l iv i n g in t h e i r u ni q u e c u ltural space." W h i l e V i llareal i s

writing t o i m p rove u nderstanding a n d e m p athy, a n d t o e n c o u rage respect for other traditions, s h e re­

i nforces the concept of the necessity of looking at the world and what is going on in it t h ro u g h the lens of others.

Yo u can't persuade people y o u don't u n d ersta n d . Persuasion always has been the instru ment of p u b l i c d ip l omacy.

Sources: Claire Villareal, "Cultural Relativity: My World, Yo u r World, O u r World," Journal of General Semantics, July 2007,

pp. 230-234; Michael M . Phillips, "Course Correction: I n Counterinsurgency Class, Soldiers Think Like Taliban," The Wall

Street Journal, November 30, 2007, pp. 1 , A 1 3.

1 1 2 Part Two I Research for PR

is functional, that has been built up from experience, that has been tested by action."36 Public knowledge, on the other hand, is more in the nature of intellec­ tual data that do not play a role in concrete percep­ tion. Cantril suggested that public opinion surveys should watch for occasions when "knowledge" is used for "understanding" and should inquire into the reasons for its being linked to purpose and brought to bear on decision making.

The first three of Cantril's "laws" deal with the impact of events on public opinion and provide guidance not only for researchers who need to lmow that an "event" is going to condition responses, but also to spokespeople responding to issues and crises. Their responses also are "events" that can sway the opinions of publics, especially those stakeholders most involved and impacted. That is reinforced by Cantril's fourth and sixth laws about the potential for what they say to have greater force while pub­ lic opinion is yet unstructured and that self-interest is a major component in responses of publics. But the eighth law about when self-interest is involved opinion is less likely to change suggests that the response of a spokesperson is likely to "set" opin­ ion on an issue for those publics. The fourteenth opinion fits somewhat with self-interest because it says that when opinion is based mostly on desire, it tends to move sharply with events. The seventh law, which says only self-interest or continuing events are likely to sustain public opinion, can be good news except that self-interest groups may sustain an issue by continuing events, especially if they want change. However, the ninth law about public opinion usually being ahead of official policy offers an opportunity to have a greater impact by changing policy in response to the situation, and if it is government policy that needs changing, having some influence on that change. The tenth law sug­ gests that an organization needs to move quickly when an issue arises or a crisis occurs because when an opinion held by a slight majority is unstruc­ tured, an accomplished fact moves opinion toward acceptance.

The idea presented in Cantril's fifth law that people react to emergencies, rather than anticipate them, has a connection to the eleventh law that at critical times people are more sensitive to the ade­ quacy of their leadership at these times. The twelfth law that people are more inclined to go along with policy changes if they have a role in decision-making also is a factor here as well as in times when there's not a crisis.

Finally, the thirteenth law states that people have an easier time forming opinions that relate to goals than to the means to reach them. And the fifteenth law points out that the important psychological di­ mensions of opinion are direction, intensity, breadth and depth-an important point to remember in con­ sidering polls and other opinion measurements.

There is still no continuing system of measure­ ment for the "climate of public opinion." Specific tests measure public opinion on a particular issue at a given time, but no continuing study of a public's state of mind exists to reveal, for example, how much they are willing to sacrifice in craftsmanship in return for less expensive, mass-produced products. Who knows what the real religious temper of the nation is, what spiritual values are held and by whom and why and when these values change? Such attitudes can have political consequences, as the Italians demonstrated in 1 974, when they finally voted to provide a legal process for divorce in that Roman Catholic country.

How much freedom are people in the USA will­ ing to relinquish in return for security? This question has become even more critical since the terrorist at­ tacks on September 1 1 , 2 00 1 , as Americans have had to consider how to balance homeland security with the personal freedoms and security they previously enjoyed throughout their history. This question also was raised repeatedly in 1 994 political campaigns throughout the USA, in discussions on topics rang­ ing from gun ownership to teenage curfews. It is a question politicians and businesspeople alike would benefit from knowing the answer to.

In recent years, the advertising industry has shown an awakened responsiveness to public opinion. The ad agencies have been forced to meet the mood of consumerism, which demands that ads tell what a public wants to know about a producer or service, rather than what the company wants to tell.

i c

Many publics share lmowledge o r work together on various issues. Hence, organizations sometimes find, to their dismay, coalitions of unlikely political partners involved in a boycott or other hostile ac­ tion against them. Computerized information banks, electronic mail (email), facsimile (fax), video telecon­ ferencing and special interest organizations create loosely affiliated publics with strong emotional ties to particular issues. Because of crossover of commu­ nication among these loosely connected publics, it pays to malce sure that a message designed to respond

Chapter 5/ P u b l i c s a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 1 1 3

I f you l ive a n d attend c o l l e g e i n the USA, what i s y o u r u n ivers ity's ranking by s u c h p u b l i cations as

U.S. News & World Report, one of the most respected news p u b l i cations?

it seems that some u n i versities are "cooking the books," so to speak, i n counting thei r a l u m n i do­ nor contributions, one of the major ranking i n d i cators. The a l u m n i-giving rate i s being inflated faster

than g rades, accord i ng to a 2007 The Wall Street Journal report that offered s u c h m an i p u l at i o n s as extend i n g a d on o r on the list beyond an orig i nal gift by spreading the one-time g ift over several years

to keep the d o n o r on the l ist. Another g ui s e i s i nc l u d i n g g raduating s e n i o r g ifts with those of actual

a l u m n i d o nors. Yet another device is to s i mply not count a l u m n i with whom the u n iversity has lost con­

tact. W h i l e that i s generally seen as reasonable and a p p roved by rankers, what i s not is to d e l i b e rately

i g n o re locating a l u m n i whom it is assumed w o u l d not give.

N o n p rofit institutions, like u niversities, have a g reater risk than commercial for-profit institutions in

l o s i n g favorable o p i n i o n over questionable ethical behavior because m o n ey given to them i s given i n

trust. A n u m b e r o f n o n p rofit i nstitutions-such a s the A m e rican Red Cross, which was criticized for its

9/1 1 b l ood do nati on decisions-can testify to the problems of resto ring trust and credi b i l ity.

Source: Daniel Golden, "Math Lessons: To Boost Donor N u m bers, Colleges Adopt New Tricks," The Wall Street Journal,

March 2, 2007, pp. 1 and A9.

to one public doesn't offend another. 37 Many subsets of very tightly woven communities are tied together by common experiences (for example, children of alcoholics, or CoAs) or situations (for example, dis­ abilities or illnesses) or interests (for example, animal rights). These webs of relationships are interlocking even for a single individual.

Even though different publics often share some common interests and values, it is increasingly dan­ gerous to assume that people share common sets of values. Thus, an organization trying to deter­ mine a socially responsible course of action must simultaneously try to respond to special inter­ est groups interested in changing broader public opinion. An example is a revision of a high-school history textbook that discusses Abigail Adams's role in the American Revolution at greater length than that of her husband. The book's author, Henry F. Groff, says the changes resulted from his having raised two daughters and from scholarship that has illuminated the historical role of women (women's studies and the women's movement).38

The PR manager often feels caught in a force field of special interest groups. But allegiance to a mission statement can keep PR efforts from being scattershot and can work, instead, to strengthen the organization's image and the public's perception of its organizational values.

In dealing with public opinion, the organization counts on maintaining credibility, accomplished through trust. People trust people, not organiza­ tions, according to advice on trust from PR Week. That trust comes from experience-direct contact from an organization not when using its products or services, but with its employees. Trusted employ­ ees are those who feel that they can speak with au­ thority for a company and do so knowledgeably and confidently. Publics are also very forgiving when an organization has a crisis, as long as it acts honestly and communicates often. And they are more likely to trust information from news, rather than ads, espe­ cially when the same news content comes from mul­ tiple sources. 39

D i s c u s s i on

1 . What do you think of when you hear the word public? How do you define public opinion? Can you think of ways your opinion as part of some public has been formed around certain issues? What about the opinions of your friends? How many publics do you belong to?

2. Think o f three or four publics at your school. What are the best ways to communicate with these publics, that is, what media is best? What else influences these publics' opinion?

1 1 4 Part Two I Research for PR

3 . How do you think culture could affect an opin­ ion of a public? Gender? Race and ethnicity? Religion?

4 . How much influence d o y o u think public relations practitioners have on public opinion? Defend your answer with examples.

The term public ("active audience") encompasses any group of people tied together, however loosely, by some common bond of interest or con­ cern and who have consequences on an organiza­ tion. No "general public" exists. External publics exist outside an institution; internal publics share the institutional identity. An audience is a group of people who are recipients of something-a mes­ sage or a performance.

11 A "mass audience" is a myth, and the scattershot approach is both foolish and uneconomical. Publics can be described in three ways: nomina­ tively, demographically and psychographically. Priority publics are those most important to an organization in terms of their potential impact on the organization. Certain priority publics are stable, such as em­ ployees (who are always important), but others may change as issues or situations develop. Psychographies are increasingly important for describing diverse publics. One system for anal­ ysis of U.S. consumers is VALS™ (values, at­ titudes and lifestyles), which puts consumers into eight categories. An international study by Roper Starch Worldwide uses six psychographic categories and identifies a list of "top ten global values."

·

Increasingly people are not using traditional media, which furthers the fragmentation of publics. The "tuning out" of traditional media, mass and specialized, is partly the result of saturation, in­ cluding messages that people perceive as viola­ tions of their privacy. Organizations are trying to reach some frag­ mented communities by using intranets and list­ servs to benefit from interactive participation. The new.est medium, the Internet, is drawing more use because it is participatory, offers anonymity and affords the development of "communities."

Many of the communities develop into constitu­ encies that can be online critics of organizations, even to the extent of setting up rogue Web sites and otherwise using the Web to legitimize their criticism. Employees are always an important public because they often have direct cont:act with a number of other publics. With their insiders' experience and information, they are perceived as knowledgeable and credible. Keeping employees informed and loyal is crucial for maintaining this PR "front line." Women in the workplace and women customers can create serious problems with an institution's reputation if they are victims of harassment or discrimination and make that case publicly. Minorities can be ethnic or religious, and it should not be assumed that they represent any sort of homogeneous public. Failure to recognize that they can be in the nation or represented by a constituency abroad is also a serious mistake. Sensitivity to a minority culture is as important as being aware of and using the language of that mi­ nority effectively.

11 Identifying issues that are likely to create prob­ lems for a company or nonprofit organization is the first step in the process of monitoring not only issues but also the socioeconomic and political climate for events and developments that could affect any of the organization's publics. Handling issues demands an integrated approach to communication. The issue, the public and the situation in which an issue develops all require that an evaluation consider strategies that use any and all available communication tools. Issues are cyclical in nature. Understanding that cycle helps to determine at what stage it is impor­ tant to act. The catalytic model aims to seize the opportunity to frame the issue and to guide it through its life cycle toward resolution in the organization's favor. One of the most difficult parts of handling issues is convincing management to address an issue in a timely way. More than any other executive, other than the president or chief executive officer (CEO), the staff public relations practitioner needs to know what is going on both inside and outside the or­ ganization and how the organization's actions and plans will relate to its publics.

Cha pter 5 / P u b l i cs a n d P u b l i c O p i n i o n 1 1 5

The job of the P R person is to bring awareness and objectivity to the job and to inject unvarnished, usable facts into the decision-making process. This is not always a popular position, but it is essential for the PR person's role in strategic planning. The type of information known about internal and external publics and the media used to reach them must be as verifiable as possible, which means using research that employs a mix of scien­ tific measurements. Image describes the collective perceptions of an organization or individual by all of its publics, based on what it says and does, which constitute its image. The way employees and management work to­ gether creates a corporate or institutional culture that strongly affects how employees behave in re­ lationships to each other and to outsiders. This, in turn, affects how the organization is perceived. The corporate culture has an impact on the im­ age that external publics have of an organization. Mergers and acquisitions can, consequently, cre­ ate some confusion about the new entity. An external public may be a supportive or ad­ versarial constituency. The perception of the or­ ganization varies from public to public and may change over time due to significant changes in re­ lationships or in the environment. A ttitudes are tendencies or orientations toward something or someone-a state of mind, a man­ ner, a disposition or a position. Opinions are ex­ pressions of estimates or judgments-generally something not as strongly held as a conviction but articulating a sentiment or point of view. Beliefs are convictions firmly fixed in the bedrock of one's value system, embodying one's sense of truth. Public opinion is a collective opinion-that is, what most people in a particular public think. Public opinion expresses beliefs based not neces­ sarily on facts but on perceptions or evaluations of events, persons, institutions or products. Tailoring public relations programs to fit various priority publics requires careful and specific iden­ tification of the publics, an understanding of their needs and knowledge of how best to communicate with them. A public is a priority not just because the organi­ zation says so, but because the public is influential in the success or failure of an idea, policy, event, decision or product.

Attempting to influence publics means being sen­ sitive about their reaction to imagery, going to them instead of expecting them to come to you, not assuming attitude change is necessary for behavior change, using moral arguments only as adjuncts and not as main points, embracing the attitudinal public mainstream and JlOt offending the people you want to change. Insensitivity or unawareness of the interconnect­ edness of publics is a formula for failure. Knowledge is power. That is why fact finding is so important, and why understanding how orga­ nizations and institutions work is critical. Often overlooked in research about publics are the news media and competitors, two publics that have the potential to do the most harm. Not everyone is going to be on your side at any one time. The best you can hope for is a majority consensus. There is still no continuing system of measure­ ment for the "climate of public opinion." Specific tests measure public opinion on a particular issue at a given time, but no continuing study of a pub­ lic's state of mind exists. Internal communications can become public com­ munications, so these should always be prepared with a consideration for the sensitivities of all publics, not just those for whom they are written. Perception is the reality for publics, so when image and experience conflict, opinion of the institution takes a nosedive. Public relations people who think they can be only image-makers or spokespersons for what­ ever management wants to say are borrowing trouble and abdicating their role as institutional strategists. Public opinion is what most people in a pm·ticu­ lar public think-a collective opinion. Groups of those publics can be seen as having an opinion about an organization or institution. In order to be measured, however, public opinion has to be expressed. Public opinion is unstable and is only as good as the information involved in its formation. Pollster Hadley Cantril developed some concepts about public opinion that have stood the tests of time and theoretical assessment. Public relations practitioners measure outcomes, changes in opinion, attitudes and behaviors to de­ termine the effectiveness of persuasive efforts.

1 1 6 Part Two I Research for PR

One of the ways to measure opinion is by using polls. But to interpret results correctly, public re­ lations people must understand the mechanics of polling as well as communication theories that af­ fect gathering information. Some information about public opinion is avail­ able in public sources, and other information can be bought; but research done by firms for-clients or done by companies for their own use is propri­ etary and is generally not available. Public opinion researchers know, measure, ana­ lyze and weigh public opinion; but the PR prac­ titioners' job is to help their organizations and clients deal with the impact of public opinion. Information and opinion are different. Appreciat­ ing that difference means recognizing how under­ standing and lmowledge differ, and being careful about which are used in decision-making. Different publics may share some common inter­ ests and values, but it can't be assumed that there is enough homogeneity in a public to make as­ sumptions about how fully values are shared. Organizations depend on the opinions of their publics, so they need to be sure that these publics get accurate information and can communicate with the organization, especially about decisions that may have an impact on them.

Reprinted with pernlission of King Features Syndicate.

Go to the Web site for this book at www. c e ngage . c o m /m asscomm/newsom/ thisispr l Oe to find more Web links on this subject.

S i tes to

EUROPA Public Opinion Analysis http:! I europa.eu.int/ comm/public_opinion/

The Gallup Organization http:/ /www.gallup.com/

International Journal of Public Opinion Research ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/

PollingReport.com http:/ /www.pollingreport.com/

Public Agenda Online http://www. publicagenda.org

Public Opinion Strategies (POS) http:/ /www.pos.org/

The Roper Center for Public Opinion http:/ /www.ropercenter. uconn.edu/