Chapter4

Chapter 4

Stakeholders and Interactions

This is PR 11th Edition
Newsom, Turk and Kruckeberg

Objectives
• To appreciate the similarities and distinctions among the public
relations terms; stakeholder, public and audience
• To recognize and be able to identify and prioritize organizational
relationships
• To understand how priority publics can be described nominatively,
demographically and psychographically
• To develop sensitivity toward minority publics based on gender, age,
nationality, ethnicity, beliefs – value or faith-based
• To be able to identify potential issues for the organization within and
among different individuals, groups or other types of communities
that may create problems
• To understand the complexity of opinion formation and the fragility of
public opinion


Stakeholders
• Another term for “publics”
• Like stockholders, they have a vested
interest in an organization
• But they may or may not own stock
• Employees, suppliers, customers,
government, investors, local community,
special interest groups
• Have expectations of organization and the
organization is accountable to them

Publics
• More commonly used term than
“stakeholder”
• Any group that has involvement with an
organization: neighbors, customers,
employees, competitors, government
• Publics and organizations have
consequences on each other


Audience
• Not synonymous with “public”
• Passive recipients of something: message,
performance, etc.


Public as an Active Audience
• Each person is a member of many
definable, describable publics
• Members of a public share a common
interest and have shared consequences on
an organization
• External vs. internal publics


Target or Priority
Publics/Stakeholders
• Any public singled out as the focal point for
a public relations effort
• A definable audience for whom information
and advertising are specifically prepared
• “General public” notion is a myth


Identifying Priority
• Public Vulnerability Impact Index
• Key to proper prioritizing is research: Who
are they? What do they think?
• Priority publics may also be primary publics,
depending on issue; a primary public can
become a priority public


Describing Priority
• Nominatively: giving them a name
– Stockholders
– Neighborhood residents
– Employees


Describing Priority
Publics/Stakeholders (cont.)
• Demographically: statistical characteristics
– Age
– Gender
– Education


Describing Priority
Publics/Stakeholders (cont.)
• Psychographically: defining emotional and
behavioral characteristics
– Interests
– Attitudes
– Beliefs
– Behavior


Prioritizing
• Demographics may be easy, but not very
reliable
• Psychographics look at core personality
traits, values, attitudes, lifestyles, so
capture essence of people


VALS 2 Psychographic
Casting
• Actualizers
• Fulfillers
• Believers
• Achievers
• Strivers
• Experiencers
• Makers
• Strugglers


Roper Starch Worldwide
• Determined top 10 global values
• Used these values to create six
psychographic categories


Cross-Referencing Data
• Best understanding of publics comes from
cross-referencing data
• Demographics plus psychographics plus
media characteristics plus media use


Employees as a Public
• Are important as organization’s “front line”
• Have great credibility with outsiders
• Are expected to have information only an
insider would have
• Will respond with loyalty when made to feel
valued


Women as a Public
• Are majority of the world’s population, but a
minority in terms of economic, social and
political power
• An organization stands to lose a great deal
if it is seen as abusing, ignoring women
• An organization has a great deal to gain if it
treats this public fairly


Minorities as a Public
• Can be ethnic or religious groups
• Can be physically present or represented
by a constituency abroad
• While linked by religion or ethnicity, there is
a lack of homogeneity among religious and
ethnic groups


Issues: identification
• Identifying issues is the first step in the
process of monitoring an organization's
socio-economic and political climate for
developments that could have impact
• Helps foresee when opinion is likely to build
around an incident
• Emergence of issue creates opportunity to
avoid a crisis and engage in beneficial
communication


Issues: management
• Sensing the problem: research
• Defining the problem: setting priorities
• Deriving solutions: selecting strategies
• Implementing solutions
• Evaluating outcomes


Mahon’s Issues Strategies
• Choose appropriate strategy depending on
life cycle of issue
• Contain an emerging issue
• Shape an issue that has media attention
and is on the public agenda
• Cope with issues that face legislative,
regulatory or interest group action


Convincing Management to
Address an Issue
• State the issue or problem specifically and
describe specific effects
• Identify adversaries and friends
• Develop a strategy that includes deciding
whether to take the initiative
• Determine whether to involve coalitions or
go it alone


Issues and the Role of the PR
Practitioner
• PR plays biggest role beyond role played
by CEO
• Expected to know what is going on
• Expected to bring facts and objectivity to
decision making
• Not just a communicator but an intervener
and relationship builder


Image and Perception
• A public’s perception of an organization is the
organization’s image in that public’s eyes
• This perception/image is based on what the
organization says and does
• This perception/image is often not the same for one
public as it is for another
• Collective perceptions about an organization by its
various publics, based on what it says and does,
constitute its image
• When external and internal publics share perceptions of
what an institution is and should be, the institution’s
image is likely to be cohesive because it is consistent

Probing an Image
• If the institution has an image, does it live up to it,
or does it say one thing and do another?
• If the organization has an image, can employees
“deliver” on it?
• When an image change is necessary, have
employees been involved through participative
management?
• If the company has no recognizable image, does
this result in confusion, limited identification and
disparate values?


Image and Corporate Culture
• Culture comes from the top down, but every employee
contributes
• Culture is set by the organization’s traditional communication
environment and new leaders are chosen who fit that mold
• Culture determines or strongly influences an organization's
willingness to embrace change, promote innovation, tolerate
dissent, encourage criticism, etc.
• Organizations with strong cultures may have a more
cohesive image, but they tend to be less flexible or able to
change
• Corporate culture is also shaped by its environment, its
business and the primary societal culture of its employees


Priority Publics and Planning
• Require careful, specific identification of
each priority public and its characteristics
• Require translation of this information into a
sensitive understanding of needs
• Require studying such a public for its other
relationships


Public Opinion
• Public opinion is what most people in a
particular public think (collective opinion)
• It is the preferences expressed by a
significant number of people on an issue of
general importance


Hennessey’s Five Basic Elements
of Public Opinion
• Public opinion must be focused on an issue
• The public must consist of a recognizable group of
persons concerned with the issue
• The opinions and nuances of opinion of every
member of the public are aggregated to form public
opinion
• The opinion may be expressed in a variety of ways:
printed or spoken words, symbols, etc.
• A group of persons is involved, large or small. The
key is that their opinion must have a measurable
effect.


Public Opinion
• Expresses beliefs not necessarily based on
facts but on perceptions or evaluations
• Can be based on inaccurate, or a lack of
accurate, information
• Is notably unstable, usually a “body
temperature” at a particular moment in time


Measuring Public Opinion
• It changes so often it can be influenced easily,
making measurement of it big business
– Public opinion surveys: Roper Center for Public
Opinion Research
• Some studies available free or at minimal cost from
academic or research institutions
• Pollsters such as Harris, Gallup, etc. often release
their data through the news media
• It is hard to capture: influenced by way questions
are asked, the very act of asking, the sensitivity of
the subject, etc.


Public Opinion Research and PR
• Public opinion researchers: function is to
know, measure, analyze, and weigh public
opinion
• Public relations practitioners: function is to
help people and organizations deal
constructively with the force of public
opinion
• PR practitioners must know the difference
between information and opinion


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