Public Relations 1 1/2 page paper due in 1 hour
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Week2CommunicationsTheoryReviewonPersuasionOpinionandtheAudience.pptxPersuasion, Opinion and the Audience
A communications theory review
Communication Theory Helpful in PR
1930s Bullet Theory or Hypodermic Needle Theory - theory of direct effects, introduced after WWI, believed that media messages had a direct universal and massive influence on the malleable and impressionable audience.
Communication Theory Helpful in PR
1960s “Limited effects”
Klapper shifted the attention from media messages to the role of the audience.
He said that there are a variety of sociological and psychological factors that mediate and reduce the effects of any mass communication message.
He believed that the major impact of mass media was to reinforce existing opinions rather than change new ones.
Communication Theory Helpful in PR
Today The general consensus today is a Theory of Moderate Media Effects: “Some messages affect some people some of the time to some degree.”
Understanding Gatekeeping
David Manning White was a research assistant under a social scientist who was looking at ways to change social behavior. Kurt Lewin developed the concept of gatekeeping, but it was White who applied it to theory of communication. Definition: process by which countless messages are reduced to the few we see in the media.
Understanding Gatekeeping
90% of the material Mr. Gates received in a one week period of 1949 did not go onto wire.
1/3 was rejected for subjective reasons based on his personal evaluation of the merits of each story’s content.
Other reasons involved space constraints or that similar stories just ran.
How important is gatekeeping today?
Diffusion of Innovations
Diffusion of Innovations is also important to PR This was based on the Ryan and Gross Hybrid Corn Study in Iowa in 1943 - it was looking to see how quickly a new method for growing corn would be adopted.
It determined that there were four stages:
awareness and knowledge
attitude change
decision making
implementation
Diffusion of Innovations
As people changed, there was a pattern in how people changed:
innovators changed first
followed by early adopters
the early majority
the late majority
then the laggards
Why is this important to understand for PR professionals?
4 Models of PR
Four classic models of PR
Press Agentry/Publicity
One-way/hype
P.T. Barnum
Public Information
One-way /informational
Ivy Lee
Two-Way Asymmetric
Feedback from audience helps to better persuade it
Edward Bernays
Two-Way Symmetric
Aims to gain mutual understanding for relationship building
Current model used today
Two-Way Communication
Two-way symmetrical model – talks with publics
relies on honest and open two-way communication and mutual give-and-take rather than one-way persuasion;
focuses on mutual respect and efforts to achieve mutual understanding;
emphasizes negotiation and a willingness to adapt and make compromises;
requires organizations engaging in public relations to be willing to make significant adjustments in how they operate in order to accommodate their publics;
Transactional Communication
Transactional model achieves mutually beneficial results
the exchange of messages between sender and receiver where each take turns to send or receive messages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_of_communication
Meta-model
The model of models allows us to look at mass mediated messages as a four-step process: Selection, Creation, Dissemination, Reception Understanding this process helps the PR professional do his or her job better.
Public Opinion
Public opinion is the sum of individual opinions on an issue affecting those individuals
Public opinion is a collection of views held by people interested in the subject.
It’s all about self-interest.
Need to be affected by an issue to be interested or care. Atlanta is next spot for a nuclear power plant. Rate of foreclosures increasing. Tuition is increasing.
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Public Opinion
The problem is that the public is basically passive.
Public opinion research shows that opinion does not remain piqued for long periods of time, which is another reason why PR campaigns are sustained over a long period of time.
Research also indicates that events help to initially form and subsequently arouse opinion. But we also know that unless people know about a topic or have a personal interest in that topic an event alone will not help to form opinion.
Once an opinion is formed, it is not easily changed.
Event doesn’t have to be a planned special event but an experience they had. Health care reform impt to people w/o coverage
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Public Opinion
Which is why PR campaigns usually incorporate an informational objective as well as a motivational objective.
Here are the facts: I hope after hearing them you will develop the opinion I want you to have on this issue. I hope my facts have persuaded you.
Now, here’s what you can DO, i.e. call, buy, donate, stop smoking, exercise, etc.
Public Opinion
We talked a great deal about opinion leaders when we discussed Edwards Bernays. What were some examples of opinion leaders from our Bernays discussions?
Public Opinion
What are some other types of opinion leaders?
Politicians, presidents of companies, experts in any given field – these can be called power leaders
Other types of opinion leaders exert social power because they are role models – well-educated about a subject, with a high degree of credibility, and well-spoken. These are social leaders.
Within the social media realm, we have “influencers.”
Public Opinion
A survey shows that only about 10-12 percent of the general public are opinion leaders. They are:
Active in the community
Are college educated
Earn a relatively high income
Regularly read newspapers and magazines
Actively participate in recreational activities
Recycle
Some other important people to know about
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell came out in 2000 with a second edition issued in 2001
The title of the book comes from a term sociologists use to describe the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point when something changes - sort of like the very last drop of water that causes a full glass to spill over.
The Tipping Point
Sharp introduced the first fax machine in 1984 and sold about 80,000 machines that year. It wasn’t until 1987 that enough businesses had them that is made sense for everyone to get one.
1987 was the fax machine tipping point. A million machines were sold that year and by 1989, 2 million were in operation.
Cell phones followed the same path. 1998 was the tipping point for cell phones when they were small enough and cheap enough and service was good enough.
The Tipping Point
The Tipping Point looks at the factors that contribute to these idea epidemics and tries to answer the questions:
Why is it that some ideas or behaviors or products start epidemics and others don’t?
And what can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own?
The Tipping Point
You’ve heard of the 80/20 rule - 80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people. With epidemics, it is even smaller than 20 percent. Discovering who these people are is important in public relations, because of the growing importance of word of mouth communication.
The Tipping Point
Is Word of Mouth communication still relevant in a Web 2.0 world?
The Tipping Point
In a world of technology-assisted communication, it is very easy to develop immunity to mass mediated messages like advertising, emails, telemarketers.
How do consumers vet businesses, products or services today?
Connectors
You’ve heard of the six degrees of separation - the idea that we can all be connected by six or less people - the Kevin Bacon exercise is similar to this.
Researchers were able to find out that a disproportionately small number of people are responsible for most of the connections.
In other words, in the six degrees of separation, not all degrees are equal. That a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few.
Connectors
The author illustrates this example by making a list of the 40 people you would call your friends, excluding family and co-workers.
For each person, work your way backward until you can ID the person responsible for setting in motion the series of connections that led to this friendship.
He found that 30 of his 40 friends were the result of one person, a guy named Jacob.
In essence the author’s social circle was not a circle at all, it is a pyramid and at the top is Jacob. He further asserts that his social circle is not really his, either - it is Jacob’s.
In this instance, Jacob is seen as a connector, a person with a special gift for bringing people together, people with a knack for making friends and acquaintances.
Connectors
Sociologists call acquaintances “weak ties” - friendly, yet casual social connections.
Yet there is strength in these weak ties: research shows that when people get jobs through personal contacts, it is more likely to be a weak tie than a close one.
Acquaintances represent social power and the more acquaintances you have, the more power you have.
How does this play out in SM platforms like FB, MySpace and LinkedIn?
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Connectors
Connectors also occupy many different worlds, subcultures and niches, a product of their curiosity, self-confidence, sociability and energy. Connectors, as the name implies, also like to connect their connections - it gives them pleasure. So you can see why a connector would be important in creating a social epidemic, but they are not the only people who matter.
Mavens
It is not enough to connect people, but in the spreading of ideas, we need information, and the important people here are called information specialists, or Mavens.
A Yiddish word for one who accumulates knowledge, Maven describes a person who enjoys - and is even compelled - to acquire specialized, even insider info.
Believe it or not, Mavens are a subject of study in the business and marketing world.
Mavens
But Mavens don’t just collect information for their own benefit, they also enjoy sharing it with others. They like to be helpers in the marketplace.
Mavens
Lexus, a car company that promoted itself as a high-quality manufacturer, faced a minor recall only one year into its new business.
Lexus called each car-owner personally and made arrangements for the repair, arranged for pick ups in some cases, and delivered each car freshly washed and with a full tank of gas.
Why?
Mavens
Because the people who bought Lexuses in that first year, were Car Mavens and thus, a very influential segment.
By providing high-end customer service, Lexus, knew their customers would speak highly of the company to their friends, hopefully passing on knowledge in a word of mouth campaign that would result in more sales.
Salesmen
But Mavens, the data banks, don’t have the social connections to start an epidemic, so they need the Connectors, the social glue.
However, neither of these groups has the inherent ability to persuade, making the third group discussed in The Tipping Point, just as critical.
Salesmen
Salesmen, as Gladwell calls them, also like helping people - but they also have some unique traits that enable them to be persuasive.
Studies of newscasters’ positive and negative facial impressions has revealed that non-verbal nuances can make a big difference in how information is perceived and has an impact on the process of persuasion.
ABC’s Peter Jennings was noted to have smiled more often when he spoke of Ronald Reagan than when he spoke of Walter Mondale and when ABC viewers were polled on who they voted for, a majority voted for Reagan. The study was repeated four years later during the Dukakis- Bush with similar results.
Salesmen
Salesmen also have the ability to make people fit into their conversational rhythm, making the interaction harmonized and allowing the salesman to dictate the terms of the interaction.
It sounds manipulative, but in a natural salesman, it is far from coercive - it just cannot be resisted.
In one study, charismatic people were found to be able to influence the moods of inexpressive people.
Using this model it is easy to see that a good salesman is important in spreading messages.
Two-Step Flow Theory
The theory that we are working towards in this discussion is called the two-step flow theory of communication.
In this theory, opinion leaders are the people who assimilate media messages, evaluate them and form an opinion. They then share that opinion with others, who adopt that opinion because they look up to or trust the source.
Two-Step Flow Theory
PR message to opinion leader
Opinion leader to the public
Message Development
So now we know who we have to reach.
The next step is figuring out what to tell them.
How do we develop messages to reach our intended audiences?
Message Development
Let’s go back to a question from our first class: How does PR differ from journalism?
The A+ answer is that they differ in objective, scope and audience.
What is the objective of PR?
Message Development
To persuade!
Definition: trying to change a belief, attitude or behavior through a planned message
Used to:
Change or neutralize hostile opinions
Crystallize latent (there but not fully expressed) as well as positive attitudes
Conserve/reinforce favorable opinions
Persuasion
So how do we persuade?
One of the oldest topics in communication is called rhetoric.
Aristotle was the first person to define components of rhetoric, the art of using language effectively and persuasively.
Rhetoric
Three parts:
Ethos
the credibility of the source
Logos
the facts or logic of the message
Pathos
emotional appeal
Ethos
Ethos
Known as Source Credibility
Based on a number of things:
Expertise, i.e. is the person/organization an expert on the subject
Is the person/organization sincere – can you believe them?
Does the source have charisma
Celebrities often serve as spokespersons because they are well-recognized and serve as role models.
Transfer occurs when the good feelings they have for a celebrity are associated with the endorsed product
Ethos
Also, simply by having material appear in the media, a PR message can gain credibility because of the implied third-party, objective endorsement.
Logos
Logos – facts or logic of argument
can be helped by statistics and surveys, which are seen as objective
examples and testimonials – often called application stories or case studies: how did an individual benefit from applying the message.
Pathos
Pathos – emotional appeal
assisted by humanizing an issue
Using drama, which is really just telling a story
Other types of persuasion
Appealing to self-interest, understanding lifestyles, attitudes and beliefs.
Answer these questions/objections:
How can my life be made easier
How can I be a better person
How can I get a good deal
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Basic level needs: food water shelter
Security needs: secure in job, life, relationships
Belonging needs: fit into a group
Love
Self-actualization: fulfilling ones’ potential
Understanding at which level an audience exists is important in developing tailored messages.
Appeals that Move People to Act
Make more money
Save money
Save time
Avoid effort
More comfort
Better health
Cleaner
Escape pain
Gain praise
Be popular
Be loved/accepted
Appeals that Move People to Act
More enjoyment
Satisfy curiosity
Protect family
By stylish
Have beautiful things
Satisfy appetite
Be like others
Avoid trouble
Avoid criticism
Be an individual
Be safe
Be secure
Laswell’s 8 Basic Appeals
People are motivated by:
Power
Respect
Well-being
Affection
Wealth
Skill
Enlightenment
Physical and mental vitality
Persuasion vs. Propaganda
But how does persuasion differ from the four-letter word often associated with PR messages – propaganda?
Propaganda
Jacque Ellul, Propaganda, The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
Defines propaganda as a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.
Propaganda
Ellul says propaganda could not exist without the mass media, or without a society which values the individual. Because messages are directed toward each individual, in a society in which each person remains alone even though he is part of a crowd – because the audience is not integrated, the message cannot be compromised by a group analysis or interpretation. It relies on a passive audience – which we know is pretty much the status quo.
Propaganda
Statistics are used to overwhelm the recipient of the message, drown them in undigestable amounts of information so that all that remains is an impression.
The idea is to tap into a well-known myth of human nature, the American dream, marriage, children, college education and create a simplified message that evokes that myth and repeat the message ad nauseum.
Because the message resonates with a human need, the response to propaganda is willing.
Differences between PR and Propaganda
In PR we rely on two-way communication for important feedback – there is only one-way communication in propaganda.
PR messages have clearly stated messages – Propaganda messages are obscured – the intent is different from the message
In PR individual thinking is encouraged – not in propaganda.
PR appeals primarily to fact, propaganda to emotion
PR is responsible, ethical; propaganda is not
Homework
Written Assignment: Pick one theory and find a campaign that illustrates that theory. Summarize the campaign and explain how the theory is incorporated or exhibited in the campaign..
