Publics are the most important part of PR:
· All stakeholders are publics but not all publics are stakeholders
· Includes people who help make the organization run
Resource Dependency Theory
1. To fulfill values organizations need resources
2. Some of these resources are not controlled by the organization
3. To get resources organizations must build good relationships with the publics that control the resources
Categories of Publics
· Traditional and nontraditional publics
· Latent, aware, and active publics
· Intervening publics
· Primary and secondary publics
· Internal and external publics
· Domestic and international publics
**Things to know about publics:
1. How much can the public influence our organization’s ability to achieve our goals?
2. What is the public’s stake, or value, in its relationship with our organization?
3. Who are the opinion leaders and decision makers for the public?
a. Opinion leaders: publics turn to for advice i.e. stakeholders turn to investment analysts
b. Decision makers: people who have the authority to dictate actions and establish policies for publics i.e. producers for news media outlets
4. What is the demographic profile of the public?
5. What is the psychographic profile of the public?
a. Data about what the members of a public think, believe, and feel
6. What is the public’s opinion of the organization?
7. What is the public’s opinion (if any) of the issue in question?
Coorientation a PR research process that can help us discover where our organization agrees and disagrees with an important public on a particular issue
1. What is our organization’s view of this issue?
2. What is the particular public’s view of this issue?
3. What does our organization think the public’s view is? (Does this agree with reality?)
4. What does the particular public think our organization’s view is? (Does this agree with reality?)
TRADITIONAL PUBLICS
· Employees important to have employees on the side of the organization
o there have been many changes to the employee public
1. distributed workforce: working at home or locations around the world means that face-to-face communication of work related news has become less
2. increasing use of temps: do not have time to fully embrace organization
3. growth of information managers: technology changes so fast that employees need continuing education to stay competitive, the U.S. lags behind many countries in this area
4. growth of diversity
5. aging of the baby boomers: need motivation and training for the aging workforce
· News Media
o Gatekeepers: editors or producers who decide which stories to include and reject
o Convergence of media: blending of media made possible by digital technology
o Independent endorsement or third party endorsement
· Governments
o Federal Government
o State and local governments
· Investors
o Financial analysts
o Financial news media
o Mutual fund managers: supervise “investment clubs”
o Institutional investors: large companies or institutions that buy large amounts of stock
o Employee investors
· Consumers/Customers
· Multicultural Communities
· Constituents (Voters)
· Businesses
o Business-to-business communication (B2B): i.e. vendors who supply materials
