2. Pr Models

Principles and methods of relations between public and organization as communicative technologies were formed gradually. This process was reflected in PR models, developed by American scholar James Grunig. The model has evolved to meet the changing needs of clients and to reflect changes in society.

I. Press Agentry / Publicity Model

The earliest model to appear was press agentry or publicity. It emerged in the late XIX century and was characterized as one-way communication source-to receiver, absence of feedback. It was also called propagandistic or manipulative model.

Press agents use persuasion and manipulation to influence public to behave as the organization desires. Accuracy, ethics, and credibility are not very important. Press agents did little research, they were only interested in monitoring the media, in which they sought to place favourable articles about their clients. The prototype practitioner of this model was an American impresario P.T. Barnum who promoted circuses and other entrainments. Public in this model is passive receiver of information and is under a certain pressure. This model was in the beginning of PR and in wild market development. Publicity continues to be a component of PR and is used in sports, entertainment and product publicity.

II. Public Information Model (journalistic)

By the early 1920s the press agentry model lost credibility with journalists largely because they were deceived by press agents too many times. Ivy Lee, a former journalist turned PR practitioner, recognized this problem and sent his Declaration of Principles to journalists. He stated that they could expect no less then factual and accurate information from his PR agency. This practice gave rise to the public information model. It continues to characterize communication as one-way, source-to-receiver, but now adhering to the truth is important.

The purpose of this model is dissemination of information , and it is predicated on the idea that if the public has sufficient information and that information is truthful, then the public will believe and behave in ways that are helpful to the clients. Information is only positive, negative information is concealed, but facts are truthful.

This model uses press-releases and one-way communication techniques to distribute organizational information. PR practitioners operating in this model conduct some research.

Today the public information model can be found in government agencies and in some businesses.

III. Two-Way Asymmetric Model

This model needs to receive feedback but aims to change attitudes not organizational practices.

One of the limitations of the public information model is that sometimes the public failed to believe or to behave in the desired way, even after they had be given all the accurate and truthful information they might need. The model failed to take the attitudes and motivations of the public into account. By the late 1920s and early 1930s a new model began to emerge. It took advantage of advances in psychology and public opinion polling to understand the attitudes of the public. E. Bernays was the leading PR practitioner to apply this model. He understood that the problems could not be solved only by providing more information to the public. E. Bernays had some additional insights into the operation of the human mind, which allowed him to practice “scientific persuasion”.

This model relies on 2-way communication: from source to receiver and back to source. Grunig and Hunt use the term “asymmetric» to describe the effects of the communication: it is more beneficial to organization than to public. The client is seeking to change the behavior of the target public, but not its own. Unlike its predecessor models, the two-way asymmetric model of PR relies heavily on research about the target publics. Methods of public opinion studying are widely used, reaction of public on sent information is studied. But it does not research to find out how the public feels about the organization. This model is practiced today by many businesses and PR agencies.

IV. Two-Way Symmetric Model

This model gets feedback with view to change practices. In the 1970s new social and political movement developed in the USA; they demanded changes in the methods of leadership both nationally and internationally. The earlier models became ineffective as organizations sought to counter these movements. Out of these failures, the 2-way symmetric model arose.

This model argues that the purpose of PR was not persuasion, as suggested by earlier models. Instead, it posited the notion of creating mutual understanding and accommodation between organizations and their publics. The communication in this model is 2-way, and the affects are balanced. Both the organization and its publics need to find ways of changing to accommodate one another. This model placed greater emphasis on the use of dialogue and negotiation between organizations and their publics. Functions of PR-specialists shift from journalistic, propagandist to researching, communicative, managerial. Organizations recognize the importance of mutual understanding and respect with public, are ready to changes in their activity, to resolutions of conflicts. The model requires far more research to understand the issues.

This model was initially practiced by businesses that were heavily regulated by the government, e.g., energy companies, because they needed the approval of various publics to carry out their business activities. This model requires the best qualifications of PR specialists, because of that it is less spread than the others, it is not dominant in practice.

In practice these 4 models are used in combination, in addition to each other.

The Contingency Approach

The usage of models depends on the client and the nature of the client’s problem or opportunity. Some practitioners are adept at moving from one model to another, others limit their practice to a specific model.

Glossary

Source- источник

Feedback- обратная связь

Persuasion – убеждение

Manipulation- манипулирование

Accuracy- точность

Dissemination- распространение (информации )

References

Mandatory

Аги У,КамеронГ. Самое главное в PR, Питер, 2008

Recommended

http://www.prmuseum.com