THEORIES OF PUBLICS, AUDIENCES AND STAKEHOLDERS: THE SITUATIONAL THEORY OF PUBLICS

The class lecture on the theories of audiences, publics and stakeholders really allowed me to explore my role in a lot of things around me that affect me.

I find Grunig and Hunt's situational theory of publics incredibly fascinating - the examination of why and when publics are formed and most likely to communicate, how their predicted communication and behaviour can be used to segment publics in order to provide a basis for deciding what strategy is most likely to achieve cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural effects in the publics.

The idea that as a stakeholder of Tesco, I can become a public if I recognise that an issue or problem affecting my family exists which I can see as worth getting involved with the issue or problem.

In recent months, hurdles of young teenagers congregate in front of my neighbourhood Tesco store for hours during and after school hours often harassing by-passers. As you can imagine, in a relatively quiet area this is slightly unusual. I have been puzzled on what to do next however using the Grunig model, I have better understood what type of audience myself and my neighbours are.



I have also learnt further that it is in Tesco's best interest to address this situation whilst its audiences are still latent and aware. If we become active, we could switch to other nearby corner stores.

PROPAGANDA AND PR: THE NEVER-ENDING BATTLE

The role of public relations in political, military and corporate communications, not just for publicity will continue to be seen as fuelling propaganda.

As long as people continue to lose trust for corporate and government institutions, all efforts by their 'propagandist' to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics will always be categorized as propaganda.

I will have to refer to Taylor (1992) alternative description of propaganda as "....a practical process of persuasion....it is an inherently neutral concept. Taylor brilliantly suggests that the industry should discard any notions of propaganda being "good" or "bad" and use those terms merely to describe effective or ineffective propaganda. Taylor further demonstrates that the issue of intent is important in propaganda - not just who says what to whom, but why?

This is a straight response which should be adopted by the PR industry and encourage decision makers to re-examine rather than demonise the term in public relations text.

The reality is as practitioners we are burdened with the negativity of propaganda which has prevailed since the 2nd world war and the power of Nazi propaganda: the use of film to promote anti-Semitism and the horrific consequences of that message.

It is refreshing (at least in the 1st world) to know the industry's reference to fight the pejorative connotations of propaganda on our profession. Things are slightly different in some African countries (particularly West African) where propaganda is hugely debated however it is not frowned upon and most practitioners believe it is vital to formulating public opinions and agendas mostly in government relations.

Personally, I feel the industry spends too much energy on fighting the battle of propaganda; this draws me back to Taylor's definition which clearly states that e should focus on 'effective' not 'ineffective' propaganda. Simply because they are too many similarities with the functions of our profession and the aims of propaganda.

The best the industry can do is ensuring that all other sectors of public relations i.e. financial, technology are charged propaganda-free.