public relations.doc

In an organization, a public relations practitioner will work from communication technician, writing news releases and feature stories, if he does well in this role, he will get promoted to be a communication facilitator to ensure the information to be known between organizations and their publics by providing strategic programs. Then he may be a problem-solving facilitator to be involved in the management and decision making. If he often does some researches and knows better about public relations as well as totally have the ability to deal with the public relations problems, he will be a expert prescriber. So communication technician and communication facilitator belong to technicians, problem-solving facilitator and expert prescriber belong to managers. However , most practitioners work as communication technician and communication facilitator, some practitioners work as problem-solving facilitator, only a few practitioners work as expert prescriber. Whats more, expert prescribers will also write some news releases, communicate with other organizations, although their major job is to deal with the public relations problems by themselves. Also problem-solving facilitator will do some jobs that communication technician and communication facilitator do.Communication technician, its entry-level job description call for someone with communication and journalistic skills, such as writing and editing employee newsletter, dealing with the media. In this role, practitioners are not present when management defines problems and select solutions. Rather than being part of the management team, they produce the communications and implement the program, sometimes without full knowledge of either the original motivation or the intended results. When limited to this role, practitioners typically do not contribute significantly to management decision making and strategic planning.Communication facilitators sever as mediators between the organization and its publics. They maintain two-way communication and facilitate exchange by removing barriers in the relationship and keeping channels of communication open. The goal is to provide both organizational management and publics the information they need for making decisions of mutual interest, but they still dont involve in management decision making.When practitioners assume the role of problem-solving facilitator, they collaborate with other managers to define and solve problems. They become part of the strategic planning team, and get invited to join the management team when decisions are being made.Expert practitioners are seen as the authority on both public relations problems and solutions. Management leaves public relations in the hands of the expert and assumes a relatively passive role. Expert practitioners define the problem, develop the program, and take responsibility for its implement, with management content to get back business as usual. In a word, expert precribers deal with the problems and make decisions totally by themselves. 2. Closed systems have impermeable boundaries so they cannot exchange matter, energy or information with their environments. Open systems, on the other hand, exchange inputs and outputs through boundaries that are permeable.Closed systems do not adapt to external change and eventually disintegrate. On the other hand, open systems are responsive to environmental changes, adjust and adapt to counteract or accommodate environmental variations. So there are increasing organizations using the open systems to make adjustment and adaptation to new conditions.(organizations with open systems have many sophisticated options available for dealing with variations in their environments, for example, the cuttlefish indiscriminately squirts an inklike fluid when it encounters something in its surroundings. In fact, open systems have the capacity to adjust and adapt to constantly changing environments.)Simple, relatively closed systems react to outside events only if the change pressure is sufficient to penetrate the system boundary, while sophisticated open systems anticipate changes in their environments and initiate corrective actions designed to counteract or neutralize the changes before they become problems.There are some ways to describe open and closed systems approaches to public relations:proactive programs versus reactive programs Proactive programs use their early-warning “radar” to gather information, to make adjustments and to generate internal and external output to prevent or avoid problems. Reactive programs activates only when disturbed.functional approach versus functionary approach A functional approach, changing both the organization and the environment, has the potential to act in an advisory capacity and to have impact in decision-making. Functionaries are only concerned with supplying information about organization to the environment and not supplying information to the organization about the environment.expert prescriber versus communication technician The functional approach casts public relations practitioners in the manager role. The functionary approach casts public relations practitioners in the technician fessional public relations versus craft public relations Practitioners of professional public relations rely on a body of knowledge as well as technique and see public relations as having a strategic purpose for an organization. Practitioners of craft public relations seem to believe that their job consists solely of the application of communication techniques and as an end in itself.Advantages: Applying the open systems approach to public relations first and foremost calls for purposeful sensing of the environment to anticipate and detect changes that affect organizational relationships with publics. The open systems model of public relations calls for reach skills to monitor publics and other environmental forces, as well asforces within organizations. Open systems public relations also has the capacity to initiate corrective actions within organizations and direct programs to affect knowledge.3. In my opinion, this communication process models prototype is Schramms concept of communication. In other words, this is drawn according to Schramms concept of communication which requires a two-way-process model in which sender and receiver operate within the contexts of their respective frames of reference, their relationship and the social situation. And this model reflects the connotation of communication: communication is a reciprocal process of changing signals to inform, instruct, or persuade, based in shared meanings and conditioned by the communicators relationship and the social context. The process of informing involves fours steps: attracting attention to the communication achieving acceptance of the message having it interpreted as intended and getting the message stored for later use. The more demanding process of instruction adds a fifth step: stimulating active learning and practice. The process of persuasion goes beyond active learning to the sixth step of accepting change: yielding to the wishes or point of view of the sender.The senderCharacteristics of message sources (the sender) affect receivers initial acceptance of the message, but have little effect on long-term message impact. For example, according to the theory of source credibility and attractiveness, safe-sex messages promoting prevention of HIV infection among college students are more readily accepted as believable when presented by highly credible sources, such as a recognized medical authority,than when presented by peers. In a few weeks, however, recipients of the message will retain about the same amount of information whether they got it from a credible source or from a fellow college student.Whats more, source credibility amplifies the value of information, and the perceived status, reliability and expertness of the source add “weight” to messages. And although the source characteristics affect the communication process, their impact varies from situation to situation, topic to topic, and time to time.The message As we all know, message characteristics have an impact in the communication process, but what we should more clearly know is that “meaning is in people, not in words”: different people receiving the same message may interpret it differently, attribute different meanings to it, and react to it in different ways. Because of the obstinate audience, frustrating the search for “rules” that apply in all communication situations. Given the situation, here are some recommendations: If receivers oppose your position, present arguments on both sides of issue. If receivers already agree with your position, your message will have greater impact - probably reinforcement - if you present only arguments consistent with the receivers views. If receivers are well educated, include both sides of the argument. If you use messages containing both sides of the argument, do not leave out relevant arguments on the opposing side, or receivers who notice the omission will grow suspicious of your presentation.The medium or channelNew technologies for delivering messages challenge conventional wisdom and have an impact on the way people communicate. Now, for the increasing number of people who work with computers, E-mail is changing communication within organizations and across other networks. And the employees at Unisys, ranked the Unisys News Network. as their preferred information source; ranking it over their bosses, over printed newsletters, and even over the ever-popular grapevine. However, practitioner historically have considered face-to-face interpersonal communication the most direct, powerful, and preferred method for exchanging information. So, obviously, physical proximity can be less important than the nature of the relationship between communicators.Extending time and distance, however, often requires using message delivery systems other than in-person presentations. In much of contemporary society, face-to-face contacts give way to mediated transmissions. Spoken words give way to written communication. Individuality addressed letters give ways to printed messages. Choosing the “right” medium or media requires an understanding of media and media effects.The receiversCommunication models and public relations programs often position the audience as passive recipients at the end of a message transmission process. And receivers are not uniformly influenced by messages designed to change attitudes. For example, receivers who value group membership are relatively unaffected by messages espousing positions counter those of the group. On the other hand, receivers with low self-esteem and feelings of social inadequacy are influenced more by persuasive messages than are people with high-esteem and feelings of indifference toward others.Context of the relationshipCommunication occurs within the context of the communicators relationship. Take friendship, one theory if friendships suggests that four dialectical factors influence the nature and amount of communication between friends, the first is independence versus dependence. Communication between friends occurs under contradictory pressures: to let each other make his or her own decisions while at the same providing support an help. The second is affection versus instrumentality. Friends communicate within the contest of giving affection as an end in itself,versus using the friendship to achieve some other end. The third dialectic is judgment versus acceptance. For example, friends are supposed to accept each other without conditions, but what kind of friend are you if you do not provide “constructive criticism” to help your fri