"It must be said that it is dangerous to move into a program without first establishing current opinions" (Tymson & Lazar, p.82) This quote relates to research about audience opinion, but the underlying concept I found is that of research, planning and organisation. To run a successful campaign/activity/event, PR practitioners need to do their home by researching what the audience want, and what would be most effective for that given audience. This research can also be conducted within an organisation, not just the wider community.
Johnston & Zawawi (2006) discuss organisation strategy and the importance of PR practitioners to think and practice strategically. Johnston & Zawawi's simple definition of strategy is "a series of planned activities design and integrated to achieve a stated organisational goal" (Johnston & Zawawi, 2006). This quote demonstrates not only how important it is that organisations have a mission/vision statement, but that they also implement strategies in order to achieve the goal of the statement.
Five main characteristics of Grunig's study are included in Johnston & Zawawi's chapter. I found it interesting that three out of the five characteristics included management or managers. It is my opinion that managers are crucial in effecting organisation goals/strategies.
If there is constant communication, not only between management themselves, but also between management and staff, the organisation will prove successful. As Tymson and Lazar comment "management needs to be able to communicate effectively with all its stakeholders." (Tymson et al, p.76). This type of communication would no doubt conceptualise Grunig and Hunt's two-way communication model, and emphasises why this form of communication is so important.
Research is another aspect of successful strategic planning within PR. Tymson and Lazar mention various techniques, one being the postal technique. I agree with Tymson and Lazar that this technique could bear the most problems. In my opinion, some people are included to simply discard mail which they feel is "junk" and irrelevant to them. Tymson and Lazar suggest asking for the respondent's name and title would assist in identifying the respondent but how would we know if the identity is a hoax, someone supplying another persons details instead of their own.
I think the key point to remember from this weeks readings is just how important research, planning and organisation are for PR practitioners.
(I have posted comments on:
http://www.cmns1290davidelliott.blogspot.com/,
http://www.cmns1290laurie alexander.blogspot.com and http:www.cmns1290brookejohnson.blogspot.com)
References
Johnston, J. & Zawawi, C. (2006) Public Relations Theory and Practice, 2nd edn, Allen&Unwin, Sydney, pp. 287-297.
Tymson & Lazar, (2006) 'A Typical Public Relations Program' in "The new Australian and New Zealand public relations manual, 5th edn.
1 comment:
Kellie's blog for this week provided insight for me into the Tymson & Lazar reading, which was helpful because I didn't get around to reading that second reading. It was good to read that planning and research are thought of as crucial to the PR function.
And crucial to that are the managers. A level of understanding of how communication is disseminated within the organisation is also critical to the success of planning. The suggestion of models such as Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard in this mornings workshop provides manages with the tools necessary to create potentially successful plans.
Kellie's blog not only stated that planning was important in the PR function but also conveyed a level of understanding why it is so....
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