Title: Public Relations Notes
1Public Relations Notes
- Instructor
- Dr. Ilias Hristodoulakis, Ph.D
- Athens, Greece
2What is Public Relations
- What is this thing called public relations?
- The term public relations is often confusing
because it is frequently used inaccurately. - According to many self-called PR practitioners as
well as to managers publicity, like public
relations and corporate advertising, consists of
promotional program elements that may be of great
benefit to the marketing. Continuing, they
recommend that the use of public relations in the
promotion mix is a very good idea taking into
consideration that - public relation is a cheap mean of communication,
because mostly is coming free through publicity,
and - it is perceived by consumers as a more credible
source than other media of promotion such as
advertising.
3What is Public Relations
- As a result public relations is related to the
promotional activities, and is one technical
activity used by marketing to promote the image
of corporations and products. - Public relations is a unique management function
which helps organizations to establish and
maintain mutual lines of communications,
understanding, acceptance, and cooperation with
their public(s). It involves the management of
problems or issues helps management to keep
informed on and responsive to public opinion
defines and emphasizes the responsibility of the
management to serve not only the organization but
most important the public(s) interest(s) helps
management to stay familiar with environmental
changes serving as a warning system to help
predict trends and uses research and
symmetrical communication techniques as its
principal tools.
4What is Public Relations
- 1) Public relations is a unique management
function - Public relations practitioners need to be part of
the total organization, in surveying the
environment and in helping to define the mission,
goals, and objectives of the organization. - participation of the head of the public relation
department in the dominant coalition, for
defining the mission and planning the present and
future strategy of the organization. - The boundary role they function as a liaison
between the organization and its external and
internal publics. To put it in different words,
public relation managers have one foot inside the
organization and the other outside. - Public relations departments help organizations
maintaining mutual lines of communications,
understanding, acceptance, and cooperation with
their public(s)
5What is Public Relations
- The first step of strategic management of public
relations is to - make a list of the people who
are linked to or have a stake in the organization
- after thoroughly researching their public(s)
ranking them according their impact on the
organization or the extent to which the
organization believes it should moderate its
consequences on them - plan ongoing communication programs with the most
important public(s). The communication activities
between organization and public(s), need to be
based on the principle of symmetrical
communication. - As a result communications, understanding,
acceptance, and cooperation with their public(s).
6What is Public Relations
- Public relations departments help organizations
to manage problems or issues - Organizations in which the public relations
department is part of their decision management
level, will have resolved most of the problems
with publics before they become issues. - Excellent public relations departments make sure
that they scan the environment around the
organization and balance their organization
mission with external and internal demands - On the one hand, they must interpreter the
philosophies, policies, programs, and practices
of their management to the public(s) and on the
other hand, they must translate the attitudes and
reactions of the public(s) to their management. - Even when they are not represented in the
dominant coalition, as environmental scanners,
public relations practitioners are sensitive to
changes taking place in the larger environment
surrounding the organization that may influence
the public opinion.
7What is Public Relations
- Public relations serves not only the organization
but most important the public(s) interest(s) - Public relations practitioners must constantly
communicate with many different publics, each
having each own special needs and requiring
different types of communications. - Public relations practitioners role is to
identify with critical publics with whom the
organization must communicate on a frequent and
direct basis. - Under the quittance of public relations,
organizations learn of how to get more sensitive
to the self interests, desires, and concerns of
each public. - They understand that self interest groups today
are themselves more complex and with more power
than ever before. - They harmonizing actions necessary to win and
maintain support among each groups. - Emphasizing and achieving a win- win arrangement.
8What is Public Relations
- Excellent public relations departments must use
research techniques as its principal tools for
developing decisions - If communicators and public relations
practitioners are decision makers, then
operations research can contribute to public
relations management by helping to provide
decisions that produce efficient and/or effective
courses of action in a rigorous and demonstrable
manner. Operations research can be used to help
develop well formulated objectives, that is, - assist in goal setting
- discover states of nature (situation analysis)
- identify possible strategies,
- competitive strategies
- handle excessive numbers of strategies and states
of nature - determine outcome
- evaluate outcomes, that is quantifying the
outcome's desirability and - select a specific strategy that is the best or
the most efficient or both.
9What is Public Relations
- The three primary forms of public relations
research, as they have been suggested are
methods, mostly indirect, of observing human
behavior - surveys to reveal attitudes and opinions,
- communication audits to evaluate how an
organization is doing with respect to particular
public(s), and - unobtrusive measures such as fact finding,
content analysis, and readability studies. - As a result helps management to stay familiar
with environmental changes to predict trends
10What is Public Relations
- Organizations with good public relations
departments are always using two ways symmetrical
systems of communication Under an asymmetrical
communication system, organizations are striving
to convince their practitioners that the
organization knows best and that publics benefit
from cooperating with the organizations
decisions. Thus, the role of the practitioners to
persuade publics to follow decisions made by the
organization.
11What is Public Relations
- On the other hand, organizations that basing
their communication systems on symmetrical models
recognize that they cannot isolate themselves
from their environment. Acknowledging that
publics and other organizations operating in the
same external and/or internal environment
interrelated with the organization, and freely
exchanging information with those organizations
and publics, establishing an equilibrium state
that constantly move as the environment changes.
Symmetrical models of communication are conflict
resolution oriented rather than persuasion.
Conflicts are resolved through negotiation,
communication, and compromise and not through
force, manipulation, coercion, or violence.
12What Is Public Relations The four Models of PR
- Press Agentry/Publicity
- For Propaganda purpose , one way communication
complete truth is not essential, Source
Receiver as com. model, the initiative is always
strongly in the hands of the source/sender. The
means are usually strait forward advertising or
other promotional activities - Public Information
- For dissemination of information purpose, one
way communication but truth is important, source
receiver as communication model, it is one way
communication w/out usually the purpose of
persuasion. little research usually readability
and readership, is used for Government- nonprofit
associations, businesses
13The four Models of PR
- Two way Asymmetric
- For Scientific persuasion purposes, two way
imbalanced effects communication, source
receiver source com. Model, research is
formative with evaluation of attitudes, typical
use in competitive business and agencies - Two Way Symmetric
- For mutual understanding purposes, two way
balanced effects, symmetrical mod., formative
with evaluation of understanding, typical used in
regulated business and agencies
14 PR the Communication Management NATURE OF
COMMUNICATION
- Need for a common ground
- Feedback
- The role of the senses
- Source message encoding channel message
decoding receiver - Noise and Feedback
15THE GOALS OF COMMUNICATION
- Inform
- Persuade
- Motivate
- Mutual understanding
16A PUBLIC RELATIONS PERSPECTIVE
- Questions to Focus Materials Produced
- - Is it appropriate?
- - Is it meaningful?
- - Is it memorable?
- - Is it understandable?
- - Is it believable?
- Determine objectives
- Based on the Awareness Interest Desire Action
model - Informational
- motivational
17The Communication Process From Theory to Practice
- In Communication we are generally concerned with
persuading people in one way or another, even if
it's only persuading them that we're quite nice
people. - We therefore will often be concerned with
examining people's needs, in order that we can
respond to those needs in our communication.
People's needs motivate them to act if we can
identify those needs, we have a chance of
motivating them to do what we want them to do,
even if only attend to our communication in the
first place. - One humanist psychologist who is constantly
referred to in the study of Communication is
Abraham Maslow, who developed the 'hierarchy of
needs' shown in the graphic.
18(No Transcript)
19- Maslow emphasised the human need for
self-actualisation, the realisation of one's full
potential as a human being. According to Maslow,
before one can set about self-actualisation, a
person has first to solve the problems associated
with the four lower-level needs of the hierarchy
- Physical/survival needs you must satisfy your
physical wants before you can take the next step
up the motivational hierarchy - Safety needs once you have satisfied your basic
biological needs, you can get on with exploring
your environment. It is well known, however, that
a child will not begin to explore unless it feels
secure. But the drive for safety is in itself a
motivator for exploration - when you know 'what's
out there' in the world, your uncertainty is
reduced, the world s more predictable and 'safe'
20- Social needs these are 'belongingness' needs.
Maslow claims that we have an innate need to
affiliate with others in search of affection and
love. Through empathising with others we learn
also to see the world from different points of
view - Esteem needs the groups we affiliate with help
us to set our life's goals. They can provide us
with feedback on how well we are doing in pursuit
of those goals. The closer we get, the more
esteem we are likely to receive from others and
feel for ourselves - Self-actualization needs when we have acquired
sufficient self-esteem we are confident enough to
go on to realise our full potential, expressing
ourselves in our own unique way.
21- Maslow's hierarchy has the benefit of attempting
a holistic account of human motivation,
considering a range of influences on human
behaviour. It is questionable whether, in the
light of contemporary notions such as the
decentred self, humanistic psychology's
conception of the self is still tenable, though
it has to be said that many people who have
experienced Rogerian counselling will testify to
its efficacy. - Maslow's hierarchy has also been criticised for
being based on Maslow's study of successful
individuals in Western society. To what extent it
might apply to non-Western societies or to
non-middle- or upper-class individuals is not
clear. Nor is it clear why there should be five
stages rather than sixty-eight and it is
certainly not clear why he believes that we must
progress through the stages - one could think of
artists, for example, who have shown scant regard
for their survival needs, or even esteem needs,
appearing to jump straight to working on their
self-actualisation.
22- Certainly, it is hard to see how any but totally
isolated people could satisfy their survival
needs independently of, say, social needs.
Hunter-gatherers live together, hunt and forage
together, their survival is entirely dependent on
society. So is mine of course in the sense that
my ability to buy things from shops depends on
certain infrastructures in society, but it's also
the case that I can't buy things from shops
without engaging in an at least a rudimentary
form of social intercourse. To separate out each
of these needs in the way that Maslow does seems
highly artificial.
23- Nevertheless, there is some empirical evidence
from Harlow's experiments with monkeys which
tends to support Maslow's ideas. - Whatever criticisms may be made of Maslow, the
notion that something like these needs seems to
motivate people has been taken on by marketers.
Think of the way that house insurance companies
offer free smoke or burglar alarms as incentives
(safety needs) - all those adverts which show the product at the
centre of groups of happy people (social needs) - marketing which pushes the high status of the
product (esteem needs) - Microsoft's current emphasis on exploration of
ideas and one's self through modern technology,
their slogan 'Where do you want to go today?'
(self-actualisation needs)
24The Communication Process Source
- Communicator Source
- Credibility
- The principal characteristic of the Communicator
affecting his or her persuasiveness is his or her
credibility. Credibility itself is made up of a
variety of factors - Trustworthiness
- Is this person honest?
- Can I believe what he's telling me? If Bill
Clinton has had an affair and not told his wife,
then how do I know he won't lie to me as well?
25- Politicians will also try to undermine their
opponents' credibility by pointing to
self-contradictions in their past - if (former
Labour Party leader) Neil Kinnock was vehemently
opposed to Britain's membership of the European
Union and in favour of unilateral nuclear
disarmament, how can you believe him now that
he's a fervent supporter of European union and
opposed to disarmament? - Advertisers will sometimes use 'trustworthy'
people to endorse their product the jazz critic
George Melly to endorse Sony's headphones, former
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Robert Mark to
endorse Goodyear tyres and so on
26- In a 1953 experiment conducted by Kelman and
Hovland subjects were played a message which
recommended more lenient treatment of juvenile
offenders. In the one case, the source of the
message was said to be a judge in a juvenile
court, in the other case an alleged drug dealer.
Unsurprisingly, when the subjects were assessed
immediately after hearing the messages, they
found the high-credibility source (the judge) to
be more persuasive). Three weeks later they were
again assessed. This time, half the subjects were
reminded who the source was. It turned out that
where there was a reminder, the subjects
maintained their original position, but, where
there was none, there was a significant decrease
in the persuasion of the high-credibility
condition. (There was also a very minor, but
insignificant, increase in the low-credibility
condition.) Hovland argued that over the course
of time the connexion between the 'cue' (i.e. the
communicator's credibility) and the message
became dissociated. He termed this the sleeper
effect.
27- Sorokin and Baldyreff played listeners two
records of a classical music piece, each bearing
exactly the same performance. Listeners were told
in advance that one of the performances had been
judged as significantly better by music critics.
96 of subjects considered the performances were
different and 59 agreed with the alleged opinion
of the experts. - Orson Welles's War of the Worlds broadcast was
doubtless also effective in part because of the
perceived prestige of those allegedly commenting
on the 'invasion' - the fictitious Prof. Farrell
of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Prof. Morse of
McMillan University, General Montgomery Smith,
commander of the Trenton state militia and others
28- Expertise Does this person know what he's
talking about? Hence the tendency of politicians
to spout statistics at the slightest provocation
and the tendency of computer consultants to use
computer jargon to people they know don't
understand it. - The perceived expertise of the source is likely
to be more persuasive if the audience have no
particular commitment to the subject under
discussion. If people have some knowledge of the
subject, then they probably have some arguments
or counterarguments already prepared. If not,
then they'll probably use some general rule of
thumb, like 'This bloke's paid to teach
Communication Studies, so I suppose he knows what
he's talking about.' (!)
29- Attractiveness We know from our studies of NVC
that physical attractiveness often works in a
person's favour. Judges give attractive people
lighter sentences, college lecturers give them
better marks and so on. Presidential and Prime
Ministerial candidates have themselves remodelled
by image consultants. One presidential hopeful is
even rumoured to have had plastic surgery. - Attractiveness is not only a matter of physical
attractiveness, though. Other factors such as
similarity and familiarity are important - 'Is he my sort of person?',
- 'I've never heard of her before.'
- 'Does he look like my sort of person?'
- 'He sounds like a complete idiot' and so on.
30- So, a leader from specific local area might use a
strong accent when addressing a rally in this
area, though he uses a regular one when being
interviewed on TV. - There are numerous factors which influence
attractiveness, for example the paralinguistic
aspects of speech, which led Prime Minister
Thatcher to take lessons in voice control, so
that she appeared less strident and developed the
sound of measured, breathy sincerity which became
her hallmark. Humour is another factor, which
explains why we find comedians being used for the
voice-overs on a variety of commercials.
31- There is an exception to this general rule of
attractiveness, though. If a liked communicator's
recommendations are seen as stemming from
internal factors (e.g. her special interests, her
bias, her self-interest), but those of a disliked
communicator are seen as stemming from external
factors ('that's the way things are'), then the
disliked communicator can be more persuasive - If the source of a message was perceived as
having low credibility, then the message would be
interpreted as biased and unfair. That effect
could probably be explained by the need to
maintain cognitive consistency. High credibility
sources were shown by Hovland and his colleagues
to be likely to have a significant effect on the
positive reception of the message. However, the
effects of high and low credibility sources were
demonstrated to disappear after a period of some
weeks - a potential problem for the propagandist.
However, Hovland's research does suggest that a
rational presentation of the arguments for or
against a particular. position might be less
important than who presents them. More recent
investigations into cognitive response theory may
also shed some light on this.
32- Power Under the heading of 'power' Hovland and
his colleagues considered the amount of control
the Communicator has over Receivers. Clearly,
this will have some persuasive effect. If
Hitler's Brownshirts are likely to beat you up if
you don't do what they tell you, then there's a
good chance they'll do what they tell you.
Further Education colleges up and down the
country are introducing major changes to their
employees' working conditions. Very many
employees consider these entirely unreasonable,
but, since the college managers have the power to
deny them a pay increase ever again unless they
sign the new contracts, many employees sign up. - Forcing people to do what you want may bring
about compliance, but does not guarantee
internalisation. In other words, people comply
with your demands, but they retain the values
they had before and continue to see your
behaviour as wrong and therefore comply
grudgingly or attempt to subvert your demands or
even revolt.
33The Communication Process Message
- Message
- Is it important to argue your case?
- To any rational person, it may seem self-evident
that the best way to persuade someone of your
point of view is to present them with a reasoned
argument. In fact, it seems quite clear that much
depends on the audience. If people are unable, or
unwilling, to pay close attention to your message
and evaluate it, then there is no point in
developing a thoughtful, reasoned argument in
such a case its better to try to use, say,
classical conditioning (see the section on
conditioned reflex) as a means of persuasion. It
does seem to help if you give a reason in support
of your views, but research suggests that it
doesn't necessarily have to be a particularly
good reason. - In an experiment by Hellen Langer (unfortunately,
I've lost the reference), she arranged with her
college librarian that all of the photocopiers
but one would be 'out of order'. This rapidly
produced long queues in front of the one
remaining photocopier. Her confederates then
approached those in the line qith a request to
jump the queue. Not surprisingly, 'Can I use the
photocopier?' was a good deal less successful
than 'Can I use the photocopier? I'm late for my
class.' Amazingly, though, 'Can I use the
photocopier? I have to make some copies' was only
marginally less successful than 'I'm late for my
class'.
34- Type of Appeal
- Fear
- An appeal to fear is often thought of as being an
effective persuasive device. Of course, it can be
if you're actually threatening the Receiver, but
that's not what is meant here. What is meant here
is that the message appeals to fear, perhaps
showing the Receiver what will happen to her if
she persists in her current behaviour. In
advertising, direct appeals to fear of this sort
are strictly limited by the ASA, though they do
tend to be tolerated more in public information
advertising, e.g. an AIDS campaign. - You might expect that an appeal based on fear has
to be hard-hitting to be effective. However, a
study conducted by Janis and Feschbach in 1954
suggests that a minimal appeal is likely to be
more effective. They used three different
versions of a lecture on dental hygiene. The
strong appeal provoked the most tension in the
audience, but the greatest change in behaviour n
conformity with the message was produced by the
minimal appeal to fear.
35- This probably suggests that when people feel they
can do nothing about the threat then they are not
likely to change their behaviour. They may well
repress their anxiety (see defence mechanisms).
An appeal to fear should probably be
counterbalanced by the reassurance that it is
possible to do something about it. It's probably
worth mentioning also that Leventahl and others
found in a 1956 study that a high degree of fear
did indeed lead to higher attitudinal change, in
contrast to what Janis and Feshbach found. In
their case, however, they were dealing with
tetanus rather than oral hygiene, which suggests
that the question of fear arousal cannot be
divorced from the subject matter of the message. - The 1992 drink-driving campaign at Christmas was
particularly hard-hitting, in fact provoking a
number of complaints. It showed a close-up of a
young woman with a ventilator in her mouth, her
eyes wide open in a glassy stare. The ambulance
crew could be heard busying themselves around
her, as the blue lights flashed constantly across
her face. In the background we could hear an
anguished motorist asking for reassurance that
she would be all right and protesting that he
hadn't intended to do anyone any harm. Great
things were expected of the campaign, but it
seems in fact to have been less effective than
others. A possible explanation is that the motor
car is seen as an essential part of everyday
life, just as essential as walking. Cars kill, as
all motorists know, but there is nothing they can
do about it. Conceivably, the ad was perceived as
stating strongly that cars kill people, rather
than differentiating between the causes of
accidents.
36- Consequently, drivers would see that they could
avoid such horrendous accidents only by stopping
driving, something they of course 'can't' do. - It's perhaps worth remarking in passing that a
general atmosphere of fear may also contribute to
the success of a message. This of course is a
factor extraneous to the message and thus does
not properly belong here under 'message', but
should rather be under a heading such as
'context'. For example, Orson Welles's War of the
Worlds broadcast may have owed some of its
success to the general atmosphere of fear and
confusion which prevailed in world affairs at the
time.
37- Vocabulary
- If we are persuaded by an 'expert' communicator,
then the chances are that some technical jargon
will increase the apparent expertise. The ability
to use certain kinds of vocabulary is also
associated with the 'elaborated code' identified
by Bernstein and valorised by the education
system, so that may also contribute to the
apparent expertise of the communicator. - Accent
- You'll be aware no doubt of the relationship in
Britain between accent and social class, an RP
accent being suggestive of status and a high
terminal level of education. The use of accent
has to be balanced against source attractiveness
(see the section on the Communicator), avoiding ,
for example, the possibility of being seen by
certain audiences as a 'toff'.
38- Humour
- It's not at all clear whether it works or not.
British advertisers achieved an international
reputation for their humour, but research studies
show contradictory results. - Speed
- You might think, as I would, that the
communicator should decrease speed in order to be
persuasive, especially if dealing with a complex
topic. However, the research shows that an
increase in speed is likely to be more persuasive
- anything up to 50 faster, in fact! This
probably connects with the notion of 'expertise'.
If a communicator can speak fast about a complex
issue, then they must know what they're talking
about. It also has the advantage of shutting
other people out, denying them the opportunity to
interrupt before you've finished what you have to
say. It's not necessarily as simple as that,
though, since a range of variables have to be
taken into account. I, for example, tend to be
put off by suits, so someone wearing a suit and
talking fast might well be dismissed by me as
merely 'slick' rather than 'expert'. Speaking
fast can be helpful if you're arguments are weak,
because it doesn't give your audience time for
cognitive processing of your arguments. However,
if you have strong arguments, it can be useful to
slow down precisely in order to allow cognitive
processing to take place.
39- Selection
- I would have thought, as with speed above, that
you would increase your apparent expertise by
packing in as many arguments as possible. In
fact, it seems that you're more likely to be
persuasive if you limit yourself to the most
important and strongest arguments only. - From the point of view of cognitive response
theory, though, this does make sense. If you
present your weaker arguments, you give the
receiver the opportunity to formulate negative
cognitive responses. By giving your audience,
say, six weak arguments and two strong ones, you
give them the opportunity to form six negative
responses and only two positive ones. Remember
that it is not the arguments themselves which are
normally later recalled by receivers, but their
own reactions to those arguments (i.e. their
cognitive responses), so you would be best
advised to limit yourself to the two strong
arguments. - To an extent, this will depend upon the
audience's sense of involvement in the issue. As
we have seen with the question of expertise, they
will tend to use some general rule of thumb if
their involvement is not high, saying something
like, 'she's got a lot of arguments, so I suppose
she must know what she's talking about. An
uninvolved audience won't even bother to
distinguish between weak and strong arguments,
so, in such a case, your best bet would be to
produce all your arguments, whether weak or
strong.
40- Ordering
- If you can't avoid giving the bad news, then,
according to research, it's best to give the good
news first. - This may be connected with the general perception
that 'first impressions count'. However, it's not
entirely clear that they do. In an experiment
conducted by Tomorrow's World on March 25 1995,
viewers were shown a man being interviewed for an
ambulance driver's job. In fact, without the
viewers' knowledge, two different versions of the
interview were shown in the east and west of the
country. In the east, the interviewee began by
giving the 'good news', namely that he had been
in the army medical corps where he had learnt
various skills and ended with the bad news,
namely that, since leaving the army he had never
held down a job for long. In the west exactly the
same information was given, but with the 'bad
news' first. In the east 45 of viewers would
have given him the job in the west 54 would
have given him the job. This strongly suggests
that first impressions do not count for much and
that it's best to end with the 'good news'.
41- This question of ordering revolves around what is
known as primacy and recency effects. The adage
that 'first impressions count' states that the
primacy effect is likely to dominate, whereas the
Tomorrow's World experiment suggests that the
recency effect is dominant.
42- For and against
- Whether or not you should include arguments for
and against your case depends very much on your
audience. If you know that they already agree
with you, a one-sided argument is quite
acceptable. If they are opposed to your point of
view, then a one-sided message will actually be
less effective, being dismissed as biased. Even
if your audience don't know much about the
subject, but do know that there are
counterarguments (even if they don't know what
they are) will lead them to reject your views as
biased. Hovland's investigations into mass
propaganda used to change soldiers' attitudes
also suggests that the intelligence of the
receivers is an important factor, a two-sided
argument tending to be more persuasive with the
more intelligent audience. - It is possible to inoculate audiences against
certain views. If you present them with a
weakened version of the arguments against your
case, then they are likely to be resistant to
stronger versions of those arguments that they
may come across later. Again, this seems to be
explained by cognitive response theory, since, by
giving them a weakened version, you allow them to
formulate negative cognitive responses.
43- Conclusion drawing
- Hovland's research results are unclear here.
Hovland tends to assume that you should draw the
conclusions for your audience where complex
issues are involved. He also seems to believe
that it depends on your assessment of the
audience's intelligence. - Timing
- The time delay between your presentation of your
case and the audience's having to reach a
decision on it is of some importance. - The first side has the advantage when the second
side immediately follows and there is a delay
before the receivers reach a decision. - The second side has the advantage if the
receivers are to reach a decision immediately
after presentation of the two cases, if there is
a gap between presentation of the first and
second sides.
44- Repetition
- Research (following up Zajon's findings in the
60s) has shown again and again that repeated
exposure to a stimulus will increase subjects'
liking for that stimulus. It doesn't seem to
matter whether the stimulus is one which would
normally be judged positively or negatively, nor
even whether subjects are aware that they are
more familiar with the stimulus than they are
with others. The research seems to suggest that
this is more likely to be the case with complex,
rather than simple, stimuli. - So it does seem that, say, a political party with
plenty of money for the campaign has a better
chance, simply because it stands more chance of
using the media to increase exposure to its
messages and its candidates. - Repetition, then, will certainly strengthen a
message, but you can soon reach the point of
diminishing returns and that, of course, is
something that advertisers have to bear in mind.
We all know from seeing the same ad for what
seems like the thousandth time that too much
exposure can lower our liking of a message. The
problem, naturally, is to be able to gauge where
the point of diminishing returns lies.
45The Communication Process Channel
- Mass Medium
- There is no very clear evidence as to which
medium is likely to be the most effective. Lenin
and Goebbels both considered film to be the most
powerful propaganda medium. TV today has much the
same reputation and radio was considered in its
early days to be particularly powerful.
Television and radio are perhaps considered so
effective because they are in our own homes, but
there's not much evidence to show that that makes
much difference, even though it's one important
factor in the BBFC's decisions on how to censor
videos. TV and film may be considered especially
powerful because they incorporate both sound and
vision, but there is some evidence that that may
in fact reduce effectiveness. TV is often also
considered especially powerful because it is a
mass medium, delivering the same message to
around 20 million people at a time for the major
soaps. However, that may work to its disadvantage
when compared with, say, newspapers and
periodicals which have highly differentiated
markets, allowing much more precise targeting.
46- Research tends to show relatively little effect
of any of the mass media - the so-called 'limited
effects' paradigm, which emerges quite strongly
from the empirical research tradition in the USA.
However, it is possible that that is a deficiency
of the research rather than of the media. It is
often argued that since the American researchers
were looking for clearly measurable effects they
tended to concentrate on the short-term and thus
may have missed the longer term and more diffuse
effects. - A very important piece of research was conducted
by Katz and Lazarsfeld into the effects of radio
propaganda in the 1940s. Their research led them
to formulate their Two-Step Flow Model of mass
media communication, which still underlies much
communication practice today. - In essence, it emphasises the importance of the
influence of our social contacts in influencing
our interpretation of media messages.
Sophisticated political 'spin doctors' continue
to recognise today that the best form of
advertising is word-of-mouth advertising. They
don't only need to persuade us as individuals of
the validity of what they have to say. They must
also persuade the people we come into contact
with, especially the 'opinion leaders' in our
lives.
47- Selective exposure
- The Labour Party spin doctors know that
Conservative Party voters will switch off when
the Labour election broadcast is on and
vice-versa. We will tend actively to seek out
those messages which support the view we already
have and avoid those which may challenge it. This
applies not only to the mass media, but also to
interpersonal communication. For example, it is
well known that those with a positive self-image
will tend to remember positive comments made
about them, and those with a negative self-image
will tend to remember the negative ones. (See
also the sections on Selective Attention and
Cognitive Consistency). - Selective attention
- We maybe can't avoid being exposed to messages we
don't like, but there is plenty of evidence that
in such a case we won't pay much attention to
them
48- Selective interpretation
- Even if we are exposed and do attend to messages
which conflict with our views, the chances are
that we will interpret them in such a way that
they do fit what we already believe. However good
the Labour Party's arguments might be, the
chances are that the Conservative voter will
dismiss them as a load of nonsense. - An excellent example of this is provided by
Kendall and Woolf's analysis of reactions to
anti-racist cartoons. The cartoons featured Mr
Biggott whose absurdly racist ideas were intended
to discredit bigotry. In fact 31 failed to
recognise that Mr Biggott was racially prejudiced
or that the cartoons were intended to be
anti-racist (Kendall Wolff (1949) in Curran
(1990)).
49- Interpersonal communication
- Visual channel
- Physical attractiveness of the Communicator is
certainly important and there are other factors
we can be fairly certain of. - The following seem to undermine the
persuasiveness of a message - narrow pupil dilation
- a closed and symmetrical posture
- self-touching ('self-grooming')
- very high and very low levels of eye contact
50- In public speaking, we expect rather higher
levels of eye contact than in ordinary
interpersonal interaction, where we expect the
speaker's eye contact to be intermittent and the
listener's to be high. In public speaking, we
expect the speaker to keep looking at the
audience. Our impression of the speaker's
expertise is increased if we see them able to
speak without constantly referring to their
notes. It may also have some impact on their
apparent sincerity, since we know that many
public speakers' speeches are written for them.
Thus, it is not at all uncommon nowadays to see
public speakers using the 'truth machine', also
known as the 'idiot box', perhaps because
President Reagan was the first to use it
extensively. The speaker has in front of her an
autocue, whose image is projected on the two
screens to left and right, thus allowing the
speaker to read the speech off the screens while
at the same time appearing to look straight
through them at the audience.
51- Auditory channel
- In the auditory channel, a high pitch, lots of
hesitations, erm's, like's, sort of's and tag
question like 'won't he?', 'didn't he?' etc. will
tend to reduce credibility.
52The Communication Process Receiver
- Intra-personal factors
- By definition, intra-personal factors such as the
receiver's attitude to the subject matter and the
extent of her personal involvement may well be
largely unknown to the communicator. Sherif and
Hovland attempted to summarize the effect of
these two factors by saying that the person's
position on an attitude scale provides her with
an anchor from which she evaluates other
positions on the attitude scale and that
evaluation will be the firmer and more difficult
to shift the greater the degree of
ego-involvement. They concluded that if the
positions of the communicator and of the receiver
are so far apart that the communicator's position
falls within the receiver's latitude of
rejection, then the only way that the
communicator can have an effect is by adopting a
step-by-step approach, starting from messages
which fall within the receiver's latitude of
acceptance and gradually working outward from
there.
53- Age
- Age is an important variable. People reach
maximum persuasability around the age of nine.
Hence the Hitler Youth, East Germany's Young
Pioneers and, for that matter, the Cubs and
Brownies. - Sex
- Sex appears to be of some limited significance,
women apparently being more easily persuadable
than men. However, this research was conducted a
long time ago when women saw themselves and their
rtle differently, so this may well have changed. - Personality
- Personality variables such as self-esteem,
anxiety and depression have an influence on
persuadability. Janis's research suggests that
people with low self-esteem are likely to be
relatively easily persuaded - which may partly
explain the success of Hitler's propaganda and
the success of right-wing parties today in
another era of mass unemployment. See especially
the section on the authoritarian personality.
54- Group norms
- The norms of a group apparently serve to protect
members from outside influence. The more
important group members consider their membership
of the group to be, the less likely they are to
be persuaded by messages which undermine the
group norms. - Beliefs ('self-schemata')
- The pattern of the receiver's beliefs will in
part determine whether the message is given
serious attention in the first place. (For
further information, see the sections on
Selective attention, Consistency theory and
Attitudes.) - The persuasive impact of a message can be
increased if it is anchored in the system of
beliefs and values of the receiver. - This seems to be evident in the close parallels
between Nazi symbolism and ceremony on the one
hand and Christian rituals on the other. The
swastika replaced the cross on Christmas trees
and in public squares and on fountains at
Christmas time just as the Christian cross had
been before. Hitler was also careful to ensure
that his rhetoric echoed the values of the 'old
guard'. In a not dissimilar way, Mrs Thatcher,
whose programme was entirely revolutionary in its
impact, was careful to refer back to Churchill,
the British Empire, Victorian values and family
values.
55- Social groups
- Katz and Lazarsfeld's Two-Step Flow Model makes
it clear that, whether we receive media messages
in isolation or not, their effect will be
mediated by the social groups we belong to. The
pattern of our social relationships will
determine how we ultimately interpret the
messages we have received. - If the Communicator has some way of influencing
those groups, notably the opinion leaders within
the, then she will increase her chances of
success. Education programmes based on the media,
such as those aimed at farmers in third world
countries, are often coupled with group meetings.
In the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, propaganda
messages were often broadcast into factories or
public squares where people would gather together
to listen to them. - A public commitment before a group to a
particular belief or point of view is also more
likely to be durable than a private commitment -
see for example Alcoholics Anonymous or various
religious groups.
56- Active Participation
- Janis and King demonstrated that people who
participate actively in disseminating a message
are more likely to be persuaded by it. - Resistance
- The notion of cognitive responses suggests that
it should be possible to inoculate people against
a message. For example, when you give people your
arguments, you should also give the
counterarguments to your position and at the same
time provide refutations of those
counterarguments. You will thus be providing your
audience with cognitive responses which can be
generated when they hear those counterarguments.
It doesn't matter much whether they remember your
refutations or not. The important thing is that
they should remember their reactions, namely 'Oh,
yes, I remember that that argument's rubbish.'
57- Psychologist William McGuire tested this idea
further. He selected a number of generally
accepted truths such as 'It's a good idea to
brush your teeth after every meal if possible' -
the sort of thing which few people would disagree
with. He demonstrates that attacking such a
belief with strong arguments did actually weaken
it - for example quoting evidence form the
American Dental Association that it was
misguided. Having confirmed that such beliefs
could be weakened by strong attacks, he went on
to see if people could be inoculated. He
demonstrated that people who were first subjected
to a mild form of attack and then read or wrote
an essay refuting it were later able to resist
the strong attacks better. (in Atkinson et al.,
(1990)).
58- Even forewarning an audience that they are about
to receive a message they will disagree with will
tend to 'protect' them against it. - Inoculation has been used in a school programme
in the USA to help pupils resist peer pressure to
smoke. High-school students conducted group
sessions in which they taught younger pupils how
to construct counter-arguments. For example, if
they were called 'chicken' for refusing a
cigarette, they were taught to answer, 'I'd be a
real chicken if I smoked just to impress you.'
They were taught to respond to ads suggesting
that women smokers were liberated with 'She's not
really liberated if she's hooked on tobacco.' It
seems simple, but it worked. These schoolchildren
proved to be half as likely as their peers to
smoke.
59- Boomerang effect
- Finally it may be worth mentioning the boomerang
effect, where, despite the best intentions of the
communicator the message is rejected. I have
chosen to list it under 'receiver' since it is
clearly the receiver who rejects the message,
though the boomerang effect is not solely due to
characteristics of the receiver herself. Merton
(1949) suggested the following as possible causes
of the effect - the communicator, in forming the message, makes
false assumptions about, or has misleading data
about the audience and therefore misses her
target - the communicator faces the dilemma of dealing
with an audience which is so heterogeneous that
she cannot form a meaningful message for all of
them nor possibly formulate enough messages to
reach all the subsidiary target groups - to a receiver who is not fully attending various
parts of the message seem to contradict others - the examples the communicator uses to illustrate
her message do not correspond to the receivers'
experiences
60THE IMPORTANCE OF TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION
- Feedback obtained in research and evaluation
phases - Feedback equates with two-way communication
- Two-way is arguably The key to excellent practice
- Two-way is usually lower in the hierarchy of
communication channels
61ACTING ON THE MESSAGE
- Ultimate purpose of any message
- The five-stage adoption process According to
Adoption of Innovation Model - Awareness
- Interest
- Evaluation
- Trial
- Adoption
62 FACTORS AFFECTING ADOPTION
- Relative advantage
- Compatibility
- Complexity
- Trialability
- Observability
63 types of adopters
- Types of adopters - Innovators - Early
adopters - Early majority - Late majority -
Laggards
64PUBLIC OPINION
- WHAT IS PUBLIC OPINION?
- Is a collective expression of opinion of many
individuals bound into a group by common aims,
aspirations, needs, and ideals - People who are interested or have a vested self
interest in an issue - Self-interest is one of the common denominator,
the other is - The Event Opinion is highly sensitive to events
that have an impact on the public at large or a
particular segment of the public - By an large, PO does not anticipate events. It
only reacts to them - Unless people are aware of an issue, they are not
likely to be concerned or have an opinion - Events of unusual magnitude are likely to swing
PO temporarily from one extreme to the other. - WHAT IS AN OPINION LEADER?
- Highly interested in the subject or issue, better
informed on the issue than the average person,
avid consumers of mass media, early adopters of
new ideas, able to get other people to act. - Formal elected officials
- Informal those having clout with peers because
some special characteristics
65THE FLOW OF OPINION
- - Two step flowSource message-channel
message - receiver - - Multi-step modelsource message channel
Opinion Leader message receiver.
66- The role of mass media - Agenda-setting theory
people tend to talk about what they see on the
6.00 oclock news - - Media dependency theory people are highly
dependent on the media for information - - Framing theory (journalist oriented) how
journalists select certain facts, themes,
treatments, and even words to frame a story - - Cultivation theory the new content of mass
media can be called as media reality since events
are repackaged to be more succinct, logical, and
interesting to viewer or reader.
67- HOW TO GAUGE PUBLIC OPINION - Personal contact
- Media reports - Field reports - Letters and
telephone calls - Advisory committee - Staff
meeting - Polling and sampling
68 PERSUASION
- What is persuasion?Is an activity or process in
which a communicator attempts to induce a change
in the belief, attitude, or behavior of another
person or group of persons through the
transmission of a message in a context in which
the persuade has some degree of free choice - Use of Persuasion
- - Change or neutralize hostile opinion -
Crystallize latent opinions and positive
attitudes - Conserve favorable opinions
69- Factors Influence Persuasion's success
- Audience analysis
- Source credibility
- Appeal to self-interest
- Clarity of message
- Timing and context
- Audience participation
- Suggestions for action
- Content and structure of messages (drama,
statistics, emotional/rational appeal, etc) - Persuasive speaking
70LIMITATION FACTORS
- Lack of penetration
- Competing message
- Self-selecting
- Self-perception
71PROPAGANDA
- What is propaganda?It is the deliberate and
systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognition, and direct behavior to
achieve a response that furthers the desired
intend of the propagandist. - Techniques - Plain folks - Testimonial -
Card-stacking - Transfer - Glittering
generalities - Name-calling
72Propaganda
- "The first casualty when war comes is Truth" --
U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917 - "It is easier to dominate someone if they are
unaware of being dominated. Colonised and
colonisers both know that domination is not just
based on physical supremacy. Control of hearts
and minds follows military conquest. Which is why
any empire that wants to last must capture the
souls of its subjects." -- Ignacio Ramonet - "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should
always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." --
Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister during
World War II)
73Propaganda
- It may seem strange to suggest that the study of
propaganda has relevance to contemporary
politics. After all, when most people think about
propaganda, they think of the enormous campaigns
that were waged by Hitler and Stalin in the
1930s. Since nothing comparable is being
disseminated in our society today, many believe
that propaganda is no longer an issue. - But propaganda can be as blatant as a swastika or
as subtle as a joke. Its persuasive techniques
are regularly applied by politicians,
advertisers, journalists, radio personalities,
and others who are interested in influencing
human behaviour. Propagandistic messages can be
used to accomplish positive social ends, as in
campaigns to reduce drunk driving, but they are
also used to win elections and to sell malt
liquor.
74Propaganda
- As Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson point
out, "every day we are bombarded with one
persuasive communication after another. These
appeals persuade not through the give-and-take of
argument and debate, but through the manipulation
of symbols and of our most basic human emotions.
For better or worse, ours is an age of
propaganda. - With the growth of communication tools like the
Internet, the flow of persuasive messages has
been dramatically accelerated. For the first time
ever, citizens around the world are participating
in uncensored conversations about their
collective future. This is a wonderful
development, but there is a cost.
75Propaganda
- The information revolution has led to information
overload, and people are confronted with hundreds
of messages each day. Although few studies have
looked at this topic, it seems fair to suggest
that many people respond to this pressure by
processing messages more quickly and, when
possible, by taking mental short-cuts. - Propagandists love short-cuts -- particularly
those which short-circuit rational thought. They
encourage this by agitating emotions, by
exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the
ambiguity of language, and by bending the rules
of logic. As history shows, they can be quite
successful.
76Propaganda Devices Word Games Name Calling
- "Bad names have played a tremendously powerful
role in the history of the world and in our own
individual development. They have ruined
reputations, stirred men and women to outstanding
accomplishments, sent others to prison cells, and
made men mad enough to enter battle and slaughter
their fellowmen. They have been and are applied
to other people, groups, gangs, tribes, colleges,
political parties, neighbourhoods, sections of
the country, nations, and races." - The name-calling technique links a person, or
idea, to a negative symbol. The propagandist who
uses this technique hopes that the audience will
reject the person or the idea on the basis of the
negative symbol, instead of looking at the
available evidence. - The most obvious type of name calling involves
"bad names." For example, consider the following
- Commie Fascist Pig Yuppie Scum
- Bum Queer Feminazi ultra liberal
77Propaganda Devices Word Games Name Calling
- A more subtle form of name-calling involves words
or phrases that are selected because they possess
a negative emotional charge. Those who oppose
budget cuts may characterize fiscally
conservative politicians as "stingy." Supporters
might prefer to describe them as "thrifty." Both
words refer to the same behaviour, but they have
very different connotations. Other examples of
negatively charged words include - social engineering - radical - stingy -
counter-culture - The name-calling technique was first identified
by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) in
1938. According to the IPA, we should ask
ourselves the following questions when we spot an
example of name-calling. - What does the name mean?
- Does the idea in question have a legitimate
connection with the real meaning of the name? - Is an idea that serves my best interests being
dismissed through giving it a name I don't like? - Leaving the name out of consideration, what are
the merits of the idea itself?
78Propaganda Devices Word Games Glittering
Generalities
- "We believe in, fight for, live by virtue words
about which we have deep-set ideas. Such words
include civilization, Christianity, good, proper,
right, democracy, patriotism, motherhood,
fatherhood, science, medicine, health, and love. - For our purposes in propaganda analysis, we call
these virtue words "Glittering Generalities" in
order to focus attention upon this dangerous
characteristic that they have They mean
different things to different people they can be
used in different ways. - This is not a criticism of these words as we
understand them. Quite the contrary. It is a
criticism of the uses to which propagandists put
the cherished words and beliefs of unsuspecting
people. - When someone talks to us about democracy, we
immediately think of our own definite ideas about
democracy, the ideas we learned at home, at
school, and in church. Our first and natural
reaction is to assume that the speaker is using
the w