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Summary Online Public Relations Msc CIS
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Summary of all lecture slides, notes and relevant book chapters required for the exam of Online PR.
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Lecture Notes & Article Summary - Online Public Relations
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Online Public RelationsLectures, seminars and articles
Lecture 1: Introduction PR (Ch. 1+ 2)
Public relations definition by Harlow (1976): public relations is a distinctive management function,
which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and
cooperation between an organization and its publics; involves the management of problems or issues;
helps management to keep informed on and responsible to public opinion; defines and emphasizes the
responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and
effectively utilize change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses
research and ethical communication techniques as its principal tools. Key words in this definition:
• Management: PR is deliberate (intentionally, planned)
• Mutually: PR is not one sided
• Publics: PR has multiple types of audiences around which relationships need to be built
• Responsibility and public interest: PR have a wider duty of care inside and outside the
organization
Public relations definition by the first World Assembly of Public Relations Associations (1978): PR is
the art and social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organizational
leaders and implementing programmes of action that will serve both the organization and the public
interest. Key words in this definition:
• PR is an art: because of the importance of showing empathy and understanding, the role of
storytelling and creativity.
• PR is a social science: because it uses tools from psychology including persuasion and is
grounded in research and evaluation.
Guth & Marsh (2006) established five core concepts that help to define PR:
1. PR is a management function: the relationship between an organization and the public is
important to its success and must be a top concern of the organization’s leadership.
2. PR involves two-way communication: not just sending, but also receiving. It is an interaction
of listening to the needs and concerns of people and provide information of organizational
needs.
3. PR is a planned activity: actions taken on behalf of an organization must be carefully planned
and consistent with the organization’s values and goals.
4. PR is a research-based social science: formal and informal research is conducted to allow an
organization to communicate effectively, possessing a full understanding of the environment in
which it operates and the issues it confronts.
5. PR is socially responsible: as an organization/company, you have an impact on society. A
practitioner’s responsibilities extend beyond organizational goals. Practitioners and the people
they represent are expected to play a constructive role in society.
1
,Reputation = the beliefs and opinions someone has about another person/organization/object. The
reputation of an organization is based on how an organization behaves, communicates and the type of
relationship the organization has with others. The reputation of an organization important, as is the
foundation on which an organization builds its PR activities (helps create barriers to competitive threats;
strategic value through relationships; financial value; competitive advantage). Image and identity are
important parts of reputation.
• Image = the external focus of an organization (what your public and stakeholders think about
you as an organization). It’s how the public perceives the organization; difficult to control.
• Identity = the internal focus of an organization (what your own employees think of you as an
organization and how they behave). It’s the organizations ‘personality’ and includes tangible
and intangible elements.
The PR industry structure consists of:
• Organizations: private sector, public sector or third sector. They define the strategy, can be
inhouse PR or use of agencies/freelancers.
• Channels/platforms/mode: used to communicate between public and organisations (social
media/owned media/print/photography/events).
• Publics: Target audience and can be dependable on what you want to achieve
(partners/employees/inverstors/customers).
The history of PR goes back a long way. It is entwined with social, economic and political developments
and changes. Because of this, it was not evolving in the same way in every country. It was very culturally
specific; there is not one universal history of PR, it depends on the country. A key date is 1984, when
Grunig & Hunt (the leaders of research within PR) did a study on PR and they described four categories
of communication relationships and put it in a historical model.
- Press agentry/publicity: most basic form of PR, focusses on generating publicity. Here, we
see PR as a pure form of promotion. You promote something, and the truth is not important or
essential. You just try to persuade people with a certain idea (aka propaganda). Focused on one-
way communication (e.g., sports, theatre, product promotions).
- Public information: the flow of information coming from the sender to the receiver (one-way),
but this time it is focused on the truth and providing information. Focus is not on persuasion or
propaganda; it’s providing useful and reliable information to a certain audience (e.g.,
government messages).
- Two-way asymmetric: organizations try to build relationships with publics, and they listen to
them. But they still want to persuade them/change their behavior. Feedback is important (two-
way communication) but the feedback is used to persuade the public more. It consists of a
formative research and can provide information such as facts/statistics to persuade the audience
(e.g., government information on plastic reduction).
- Two-way symmetric: building true relationships, providing reliable information but also
listening to your audience and take their feedback into account. Goal is not to persuade, but to
learn and communicate better. This is often described as the most ideal form of PR.
Today, all of these models are still present, and the public information model is used most. Criticism
towards the model is that the relation would not be of complete mutuality as power tends to reside with
the organisation.
2
, PR is not always done by organizations themselves, so often they make use of PR agencies.
The PR process – four key steps (Guth & Marsh, 2006):
- Research and insight: understanding the organizational challenges, issues an public necessary
for success.
- Planning: the strategy phrase looking at solving the problems and/or building the relationships
and involves the concept of objective setting and messaging.
- Communication: the implementation phase that executes the ideas using a variety of channels
or platforms from face to face to social media.
- Evaluation: measuring the effectiveness of activities.
Corporate communications = PR plans which look across the whole organization.
Overview of communication theories that can be used for PR
• Basic communication models:
o Lasswell, 1948: who says what, via which channel
to whom with what effect?
o Shannon & Weaver, 1949: they took Laswell’s formula and developed into a linear model
showing a sender communicating a message to a
receiver. They introduced the idea of interference
in communication (noise) which could lead to the
message being distorted or misunderstood.
Noise = anything which can get in the way of
transmission (exposure to a lot of messages,
physical and mental state of receiver). Feedback is important to PR, as it provides an
opportunity for the sender to modify the message to improve understanding.
o Schramm, 1954: circular model that better addresses
the idea of communication as a two-way process.
They suggest the sender and receiver are engaged in a
continuous and active form of communication
(communication doesn’t start and finish somewhere,
it’s an endless process).
3
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