The Publics in
Public Relations
Chapter 4
Public Relations:
A Values-Driven Approach
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What Is a Public?
§ Public: Any group whose members have
a common interest or value in a
particular situation.
§ Stakeholder: A person, or public, that has
a stake or an interest in an organization.
§ (Or in an issue that involves the
organization.)
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Why Are Relationships
Necessary?
Resource dependency theory
And values-driven public relations
And two-way symmetrical public relations
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The Publics in Public Relations
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Traditional and nontraditional publics
Latent, aware, and active publics
Intervening publics
Primary and secondary publics
Internal and external publics
Domestic and international publics
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What Do We Need to Know
about Each Public?
• How much can the public influence our
organization’s ability to achieve our
goals?
• What is the public’s stake, or value, in its
relationship with our organization?
• Who are the opinion leaders and decision
makers for the public?
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What Do We Need to Know
about Each Public?
• What is the demographic profile of the
public?
• What is the psychographic profile of the
public?
• What is the public’s opinion of our
organization?
• What is the public’s opinion (if any) of the
issue in question?
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Co-orientation
• Discovering where an organization agrees
and disagrees with a key public:
• What is our view of this issue?
• What is the particular public’s view of this issue?
• What do we think the public’s view is? Does this
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agree with reality?
What does the public think our view is? Does
this agree with reality?
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Employee Publics
• Executives say employee and internal
communication is their top priority.
• The challenge of establishing good
employee relationships is increasing.
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Changes Reshaping Workforce
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A distributed workforce
The increasing use of “temps”
The growth of information managers
The growth of diversity
The aging of the baby boomers
Generation X
Generation Y
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Job Satisfaction
• Employees around the world say bad
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communication affects their workplace.
Employees around the world have varying
degrees of job satisfaction:
• 61 percent of Danish workers are satisfied.
• In urban Mexico: 44 percent.
• In Japan: 16 percent.
• In the Ukraine: 10 percent.
• In Hungary: 9 percent.
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News Media Publics
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Newspapers
Magazines and other periodicals
Radio stations (AM and FM)
Television (network and cable)
The World Wide Web
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News Media Publics
• The news media serve as gatekeepers to
larger publics.
• While U.S. media face few limitations,
that is not true everywhere.
• Minority journalists and managers are
underrepresented in most news media.
• Convergence of media is changing news
media.
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Government Publics
• Government officials play an important role
in the success of public relations efforts.
• Governments exist at several levels (local,
state, and federal).
• Advice from lobbyists: Be well-prepared
and work fast.
• The number of state and local government
workers is on the rise.
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Investor Publics
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Individual shareholders
Financial analysts
Financial news media
Mutual fund managers
Institutional investors
Employee investors
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The Christian Science Monitor:
Why Stock Ownership Is Booming
• The decline of communism and growth of
capitalist democracies
• Privatization of government-owned
properties
• Higher returns over the long-term
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The Christian Science Monitor:
Why Stock Ownership Is Booming
• Baby boomers’ retirement funds
• Available funds through lower interest
rates
• The increased marketing of stocks
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Investor Confidence
• Half say they’ll keep stock even during
market declines.
• They held their stocks during the 2000-2001
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recession.
They held stocks after the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks.
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Investor Profile
• 51 percent are women.
• 82 percent are white; 10 percent are
black; 5 percent are Hispanic; 1 percent
are Asian American.
• 48 percent have incomes of less than
$50,000.
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Consumer/Customer Publics
• Consumer spending is the most powerful
force in the U.S. economy.
• The spending power of black, Hispanic,
and Asian Americans is growing.
• Online shopping is expected to grow.
• Customers demand quality at a fair
price.
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Multicultural Communities
• Practitioners need to develop key
contacts with community groups.
• Categories of influential publics
(Hendrix): community media, community
leaders, community organizations.
• The diversity of U.S. communities will
continue to increase.
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Constituent (Voter) Publics
• Voters are important to government
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practitioners.
Voters are important to anyone seeking to
influence public policy.
Not all eligible voters vote.
Age is the greatest indicator of who votes in the
United States:
• Age 65 and older vote in the highest percentages.
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Who Votes?
• In the 2000 U.S. presidential election,
• 82 percent of voters were white.
• 10 percent of voters were black.
• 4 percent of voters were Hispanic.
• 2 percent of voters were Asian American.
• Women are more likely to vote than men.
• Top factors: Age, education, income.
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Business Publics
• B2B: Business-to-business
communication.
• B2B communication is booming.
• Image problem?
• Some practitioners find it the “least
glamorous part” of public relations.
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