ComStrat 312 Exam 1
Employee Communication/Internal Relations
Management must attend to those who do the work Builds/maintains a mutually beneficial relationship between managers and employees
Where do lower paid Communication Technicians and Communication Facilitators work?
as promotional publicists for media and advertising agencies for educational/religious/nonprofit orgs
What is the definition of Public Affairs?
the specialized part of public relations that builds and maintains organizational relationships with governmental agencies and community stakeholder groups to influence public policy
What are the 2 points that capture the essence of Issues Management?
1. early identification of issues with potential impact on an organization 2. A strategic response designed to mitigate or capitalize on their consequences
Lobbying
A direct attempt to influence legislative and regulatory decisions/efforts
What are examples of Publicity?
A story in a newspaper's financial section about a corporation's increased earnings A feature in the city magazine about a new cancer research center
Public Affairs
A substitute for Public Relations in the armed services, governmental agencies, and some corporations
What is the difference between Publicity and Advertising?
Advertising gives the source control over content and placement
What does the book define PR as?
An organizational management function
What must a practitioner do before they are invited to the management table?
Be actively gathering information useful in decision making
Why is Publicity an uncontrolled method of placing messages in the media?
Because the source does not pay media outlets for placement
How do practitioners hope to attain the respect of their clients, media and general public?
By reestablishing and upholding the highest ethical standards
What are the Federal Citizen Information Centers?
Centers that give citizens a single place to get info about federal programs and services
What three roles are correlated and which is not?
Communication Facilitator, Expert Prescriber and Problem Solving Facilitator are correlated. Communication Technician is not
What are the 4 major PR roles?
Communication Technician Expert Prescriber Communication Facilitator Problem-Solving Process Facilitator
Much change, little threat
Communication facilitator
Little change, little threat
Communication technician
Issues Management
Concerned with issues and their potential impact on an organization and its options
What are PR Technicians?
Concerned with writing, producing and disseminating communications (press releases, speeches, websites) Creative, artistic, technically proficient Not into strategic planning/research Writing mediated communications and doing media relations
What should all public relations practioners strive to develop to combat pigeon-holing?
Cultural competence
What gender is the majority in public relations?
Female
What are the stages of crisis?
Detection Prevention/Preparation Containment Recovery Learning
How does a practitioner ascend to the executive levels of PR?
Diversity of work experience Dont stay with just one organization
What are the main parts of the definition that Rex F Harlow developed?
Maintain mutual lines of communication Management of problems/issues Helps management keep an eye on public
What is the goal of a Communication Facilitator?
Effective two-way communication
What departments do Internal Relations specialists work in?
Employee Communication Employee Relations Internal Relations
What are the parts of the function of PR?
Employee Communication Publicity Advertising Press Agentry Public Affairs Lobbying Issues Management Crisis Management Investor Relations Development
Much change, much threat
Expert Prescriber
Who dominates in a rapidly changing setting?
Expert Prescribers Firms that specialize in crisis comm
What are some of the challenges that PR practitioners face?
General misunderstanding about what they do The glass ceiling Gendered pay gap Diversity and Cultural competence Professionalism Ethical conduct
What is the working definition of PR?
Good performance, well communicated
What is the Glass Ceiling?
Historically women were regulated to the technician role and couldnt advance, but lately women have caught up to men in the manager role
Investor Relations
IR/Financial Relations The specialized part of corporate public relations that builds and maintains mutually beneficial relationships with shareholders and other in the financial community to maximize market value
Where do Communication technicians tend to work?
In organizations with relatively stable, low threat environments Nonprofit orgs
Line Functions
Include the product- and-profit-producing functions Engineering, production and marketing Giving orders
Advertising
Information placed in the media by an identified sponsor that pays for the time or space It is a controlled way of placing messages in the media
What is Publicity?
Information provided by an outside source that is used by media because the info has news value.
Press Agentry
Is creating newsworthy stories and events to attract media attention in order to gain public notice Getting your client's name in the paper
What does it mean that PR is one of several staff functions?
It advises and supports line managers who have responsibility and authority to run the organization
What is pigeon-holing?
Minority practitioners are restricted to working with minority clients or dealing with minority publics, even when they want to work on mainstream accounts
What is a Communication Technician?
Most practitioners enter the field as a Communication Technician Brought it later in the process to do the writing work Do not participate much in management and decision/strategic making process "Last to know"
What is the main analysis of Advertising?
Organizations use advertising to place and control content, position and timing of public relations messages in the media
Where do problem-solving process facilitators/ expert prescribers tend to work?
Organizations with threatening environments
where do communication facilitators tend to work?
Organizations with turbulent settings, little threat School districts, government agencies
Where do high paid Expert Prescribers and Problem-Solving Process Facilitators typically work?
Orgs threatened by competition,Government reg, Labor conflicts such as financial/insurance companies
Which role should the top excec have?
PR Manager
What are results of the Expert Prescriber role?
PR becomes compartmentalized and isolated from the mainstream of the enterprise. Managers are dependent on the practitioner Dissatisfaction by expert prescriber
Publicity
PR sources provide news and media sources with what they think is newsworthy info with the expectation that the info will be used.
What are PR Managers?
Part of organizational management Research skills, strategic thinking Think in terms of outcome and impact
What is possibly the most important challenge faced by PR practitioners?
Personal choice: to behave ethically or to choose to behave unethically
Good communication
Plan a comm program Execute a program Evaluate program in terms of its effetcs on PO/SE
What are Coombs' three macrostages of Crisis Management?
Precrisis Crisis Postcrisis
Little change, high threat
Problem solver process facilitator
Who dominates in a stable setting?
Problem-solver process facilitators
What are the strengths of PR people?
Program execution (sometimes still a challenge) Execution-related area or specialty Note the potential for challenges to overcome strengths
What two major predominant roles occur in practice?
Public Relations technician Public Relations manager
What is Press Agent's main strategy?
Publicity
What do all those who engage in lobbying have to do?
Register with the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of State
What is the Public Relations Process?
Research Action planning Communication Evaluation
What is the public relations process?
Research Action planning communication evaluation
What is an Expert Prescriber?
Seen as authority on PR problems and solutions Define the problem, Develop the program, take responsibility for implementation
What is social marketing?
Selling pro social ideas, not products
Good performance
Senses public opinion/social expectations Communicates public opinion/social expectation to management Influences org to meet public opinion/social expectations
What are the Challenges for PR people?
Sensing public opinion (time, money, ability are factors) Communicating public opinion to managers Influencing organizational behavior Planning programs Evaluating PR programs
What is a Communication Facilitator?
Sensitive listeners and information brokers Liaisons, mediators, interpreters Information sources and official contacts
What is a flack?
Slang for a Press Agent
What is a subset of all marketing activities that is easily confused with PR?
Social Marketing
What do people assume about PR agencies?
That their real business is to bury the truth
When people say "its just public relations", what does that mean?
That they think it was an insincere public gesture
Who is the largest employer for public relations?
The Federal Government
Crisis management
The PR specialty that helps organizations strategically respond to negative situations and dialog with stakeholders affected by perceived and actual consequences of crises
What is the Agenda-Setting Theory?
The amount of mass media coverage determines public perception of the relative importance of topics and people
Where is a organization's public reputation derived from?
The behavior of its senior officials
What is the major predictor of public relations success excellence?
The extent to which the organization's top PR executive was able to enact the manager's role versus the technician role
What does it mean if women have caught up to men in the manager role?
The glass ceiling could be broken
What is Public Relations?
The management function that builds and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on who its success or failure depends.
What is Marketing?
The management function that identifies human needs and wants, offers products and services to satisfy those demands and causes transactions that deliver products and services to users in exchange for something of value to the provider Two parties exchanging something
What is another definition for PR?
The management of the relationship of an organization and its stakeholder publics
Where did the line-staff management distinction originate and what does it mean?
The military Those who fight the battle versus those who support the fighters
Development/Advancement
The specialized part of pr in nonprofit organizations that builds and maintains relationship with donors, volunteers, and members to secure financial and volunteer support
What is an organization's "number one public"?
Their employees
What is a Problem-Solving Process Facilitator?
They collaborate with managers to define and solve problems Part of the strategic planning team
What are the 5 qualities of those on the fast track to the top?
They get results/are goal oriented Conceptualizer- quick study Human relations Style- can-do attitude/constructive competitiveness Intangibles- the other things ( know what your boss expects of you)
Staff Functions
Those that advise and assist line executives: finance, legal, human resources and PR Giving advice
What practitioners are most likely to operate in management roles?
Those who use all types of research and information gathering
What is the first and continuing task for public relations?
To earn and hold support from top management
What is the role of lobbyists?
To ethically advocate the interests of their clients in the public policy debate
What is said to be one of the best crisis strategies?
To maintain good relationships
True or false: Advertising is often used in PR and PR is often used in Advertising?
True
True or false: Lobbying is even more specialized and criticized than Public Affairs?
True
True or false: Minorities are severely underrepresented in the Public Relations practice?
True
True or false: PR tools and techniques are used in marketing communications?
True
when is an expert prescriber preferred?
When immediate action is imperative
When is a problem-solving process facilitator preferred?
When there is time to go through a process of collaboration and joint problem solving
When do organizations use advertising for PR purposes when they want to address criticism in the media?
When they feel they have no control or when they feel that their point is not being fairly reported, when they are trying to voice their opinion.
Gendered pay gap
Women's salaries are below men's
What is the common denominator in Public Relation tasks?
Writing
What can the wide range of salaries be explained by?
Years of experience Type of employer Geographic location
What are the common notions of the ideal PR function?
o Involves a planned, sustained program as part of an organizations management o Deals with the relationship between an organization and its stakeholder publics o Monitors awareness, opinions, attitudes and behavior, inside and outside the organization o Analyzes the impact of organizations policies, procedures and actions on publics o Identifies and adjusts policies procedures and actions that conflict with public interest and organizational survival o Counsels management on the establishment of new policies, procedures and actions that are mutually beneficial to the organization and its publics. o Establishes and maintains two way communication between and organization and its publics o Produces measureable changes in awareness, opinions, attitudes and behaviors inside and outside of organization o Results in new and or maintained relationships between an organization and its publics.
What determines the likelihood of a practitioner getting a management role?
the amount of research they do
