Render the text in English and say what the author’s main message is and whether you share his viewpoint.

THE “4 MODELS” OF PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTICE:

              HOW FAR HAVE YOU EVOLVED?

By Bill Sledzik, associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University where he teaches courses in public relations, writing and ethics.

While preparing to teach my first PR class back in ’85, I happened upon “Managing Public Relations,” by Jim Grunig and Todd Hunt. Though I lost track of my copy long ago (never loan textbooks to students — never), one element of that book influenced how I taught and practiced PR for the past 23 years.

Grunig & Hunt’s “4 Models” of public relations practice went on to become the most talked-about theory in the discipline. The “4 Models” describe distinct approaches to public relations in the context of a 130-year timeline that shows how public relations have evolved. In the process, Grunig & Hunt identify an “ideal” approach to public relations — something they call the 2-way symmetrical model — and place it at the top of the evolutionary pyramid.

For me, the 4 Models became more than a teaching tool. When Grunig & Hunt published their theory, I was a full-time PR practitioner working for marketers who saw PR as promotion and publicity, period, and with no ethics component. The 4 Models helped me see the potential of public relations and, in part, inspired me to open my own shop so I could get beyond marketing and do some serious PR.

Here’s a summary of the models. If you’re like most of us, you’ve spent a little time in each of them.

The Press Agentry Model With roots in the 19th century, press agents worked to influence public opinion by creating news. P. T. Barnum was a master of the art form, weaving fantasy and half-truths into his messages. Press agents were liars — at least some of the time — but it got their clients into the headlines, and that’s what mattered. Press agentry is alive and well in the entertainment business to this day. I mean, how else do you explain Paris Hilton?

The press agent invests no time in research and even less in the discussion of ethics. The aim is behavior manipulation.

It’s curious, though not surprising, that Seth Godin used a form of press agentry to position his book, “All Marketers are Liars”. At least he admits it from Chapter One, so don’t be too hard on the guy. You probably bought his book. I did.

The Public Information Model Somewhere in the early 20th century enlightened PR types shifted toward truth and accuracy in communication, but they did little more than distribute information. Acting in the role of “journalist in residence,” a PR person under the public information model used no formal research to guide his work. But the move away from pseudo events and half-truths was a significant shift toward more ethical practices.

One-way communication is the focus of the public information model. Press releases, brochures, even static Web content, are tools used by these information dispensers. They tell the story and hope someone is paying attention. I see a lot of this model in higher education, including at my own university. Government PR folks also do a lot of one-way storytelling to “get the word out.”

The 2-Way Asymmetrical Model The post World War II rise in consumer products created a need for targeted, scientific marketing. PR played a role. Under the 2-way asymmetrical model, practitioners used research to get inside the heads of consumers and to help fashion the sell messages. Grunig and Hunt called it “scientific persuasion,” and it remains the stock-in-trade of advertisers everywhere.

While asymmetrical communication is two way, the goal is anything but balanced. It’s all about persuasion to trigger a transaction, thus its popularity with marketers.

The 2-Way Symmetrical Model Uses communication to negotiate with publics, resolve conflict, and promote mutual understanding and respect between the organization and its public.

The 2-way symmetrical model casts public relations in the role of mediator versus persuader. Under that model, PR pros listen to the concerns of both clients and key publics and help them adapt to one another. A utopian model? It seems so, since the PR professional must represent the interests of ALL parties while being paid by only one. It works well with enlightened management who take a long-term view, but they’re rare birds these days.

Can we realistically serve multiple stakeholders whose needs conflict? For example, can we represent the interests of loyal employee groups while our shareholders demand layoffs in favor of low-cost offshore suppliers?

If you view yourself as a client advocate, the 2-way symmetrical model may seem nonsensical, and that’s too bad. To be successful in business — one of my old bosses used to say — ALL parties must benefit — not just customers and investors.

 Not that long ago, business leaders actually worried about the long-term impact of their decisions. They planned for sustainability before it became a buzz word for the green movement. Some even showed a sense of ethics and social responsibility — a desire to act in the public interest although it cut into dividends or executive bonuses.

What happened?

Today’s amoral, profit-lusting business environment doesn’t leave much room for the 2-way symmetrical model, which, by definition, may not be self-centered. Makes it hard to justify shareholder greed and 7-figure bonuses when you have to worry about fairness, balance and the whole “relationship” thing.

Can public relations move American business toward a more balanced business model and a more ethical one? Maybe not, but someone has to try.

Points to ponder:

1. Ethics component as an indispensable part of modern PR.

2. It is necessary to lie or create false stories to get PR-practitioners’ clients into the headlines.

3. The role of publicity in gaining fame in show business.

4. The role of press releases, brochures, etc. in disseminating information.

5. The functions of government PR within the public information model.

6. The significance of public relations in creating a base for targeted scientific marketing.

7. The impact of “scientific persuasion” on the business of advertising worldwide.

8. The concept of sustainability in contemporary business environment.

9. The probability of modern businesses ever becoming ethical.

10. The functions of a PR-specialist within the two-way symmetrical model and difficulties they may come across implementing this theory in practice.

                                     TEXT 3

                 SITUATIONAL THEORY OF PUBLICS

The situational theory of publics, developed by Professor James E. Grunig in University of Maryland, College Park, defines that publics can be identified and classified in the context to which they are aware of the problem and the extent to which they do something about the problem. This theory explains when people communicate and when communications aimed at people are most likely to be effective.

Key Concepts:

Problem recognition is the extent to which individuals recognize a problem facing them. People do not stop to think about situations unless they perceive that something needs to be done to improve the situation

Constraint recognition is the extent to which individuals see their behaviors as limited by factors beyond their own control. Constraints can be psychological, such as low self-efficacy; self-efficacy is the conviction that one is capable of executing a behavior required to produce certain outcomes. Constraints can also be physical, such as a lack of access to protective gear.

Level of involvement is a measure of how personally and emotionally relevant a problem can be for an individual. Involvement increases the likelihood of individuals attending to and comprehending messages. Messages will be attended to only if the benefits or dangers associated with them have taken on some kind of personal reality or usefulness for the individual. In general, persons with high involvement analyze issues more often, prefer messages that contain more and better arguments, and attain greater knowledge levels.

Information seeking can also be called “active communication behavior.” Actively communicating members of publics look for information and try to understand it when they obtain the information. Thus, publics whose members seek information become aware publics more often than publics whose members do not communicate or who only process information.

Information processing can be called “passive communication behavior.” Passively communicating members of a public will not look for information, but they will often process information that comes to them randomly, that is, without any effort on their part.

The situational theory of publics originated in James E. Grunig's journalism monograph titled “The Role of Information in Economic Decision Making” in 1966. That was the first step in the development of a theory that today is known as the situational theory of publics. That monograph introduced the first variable in the theory, problem recognition, as an explanation of why people sometimes engage in genuine decision-making and sometimes engage in habitual behavioral.

In his doctoral dissertation on the economic decision making processes of large landowners in Colombia, Grunig developed the second variable of the theory, constraint recognition. Together, problem recognition and constraint recognition explained when and why people actively seek information. Later, Grunig added the concept of level of involvement to the theory to explain the difference between active communication behavior (information seeking) and passive communication behavior (information processing).

In his 1984 textbook, Managing Public Relations, and in a number of studies published before and after the textbook, Grunig further developed the theory from an explanation of individual communication behavior to a theory of publics.

Grunig developed statistical methods through which the theory could be used to segment different kinds of publics and to explain the likely effects of communication for each public. Since that time the theory has been used widely in academic studies and to some extent in professional practice and research.

The theory also resembles theories of consumer behavior, health communication, media exposure, and political communication popular in other domains of communication research. However, the situational theory of publics contains more variables and has a more developed system of measurement and analysis than these other theories. As a result, it is capable of subsuming many other theories.

Although the situational theory was well developed by 1984, it has continued to be a growing and developing theory. It has been extended to explain why people join activist groups; internal and external dimensions have been identified for problem recognition, level of involvement, and constraint recognition; and research has been conducted to determine whether information campaigns (which generally are passively processed) can create publics. Among them, some research on the situational theory has examined external and internal dimensions of the three independent variables. If the three concepts (problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement), are internal (only perceived), then they could be changed by communication, and if they are external (real/actual), then “changes must be made in a person’s environment before his or her perceptions … and communication behavior will change” (Grunig, 1997).

 

                                VOCABULARY PRACTICE

1.  Give synonyms of the following words:

to define, to perceive, constraint, outcome, gear, relevant, issue, to attain, to originate, exposure, to subsume

 

2.   Find in the text the English equivalents:

степень, эффективность, убеждение, вероятность, понимать, обрабатывать, усилие, напоминать (быть похожим), расширить, измерение

 

3. Translate into English paying attention to the use of prepositions:

осознавать что-либо (быть в курсе), в некоторой степени, быть нацеленным на что-либо, столкнуться с проблемой, за пределами контроля, быть способным на что-либо, доступ к чему-либо, заняться (уделить внимание), в целом, со стороны кого-либо, добавить к чему-либо, разница между, исследование по какой-либо теме

 

4. Explain the difference in the use of these words:

recognize-learn-find out-get to know, protect-defend, seek-search-look for, resemble-remind 

5. Do the vocabulary quiz given below:

Fill in the gaps with the words given below: