ENGL 354 English for

Public Relations
 
Week 1 Introduction to Public Relations

Carol Yu
Office: AG425
Email: [email protected]
 Course objectives
 To broaden the understanding of public relations
in workplace
 to develop linguistic/writing skills relating to
image building as applied to corporate
communication
 to develop your skills relating to
• personal image building
• personal communication
• corporate image building
• corporate communication
 (in other words from personal to corporate)
Schedule
 Course Highlights
o PR Concepts
• theories and case studies

• personal PR

o Personal Image & Corporate Image

o Press Releases
o Feature Articles
o Media & PR
o Press Conferences
• arranging a press conference
• delivery, taking questions
• checklist, role-play
 Assessments

Assignment Due date Marks (%)

Assessment 1: 15% Week 6 & 7 5% Group
Short Presentation & (seminars) 10% Individual
Discussion 3 pax: 20 mins
Assessment 2: 25%
In-class exercise: Press Week 7 (lecture) 25% Individual
release

Week 10 20% Group (3

Assessment 3: 20% pax)
Feature Article
Weeks 12 & 13 (lecture
Assessment 4: 30% and seminars) 15% group
Press Conference 15%individual
6 pax: 30 mins
Assessment 5: 10% throughout the semester
Participation 10% Individual
No Examination
 Assessment 1
Short Presentation and Discussion
(15%)
Week 6 and 7
Work in groups of 3.

Evaluate a presenter or speaker (e.g. celebrity/

politician) based on credibility theories. In
other words what elements would
speaker/presenter use to represent
themselves.

Prepare about 20 minutes (maximum) among

your group members. Class members and
 Assessment 2
 Writing Press Release (25% Individual)

 Week 7
 In-class exercise
 500 words
 90 mins
 Assessment 3
Feature Article (20%) (3 people/ group)

Due: week 10

You are working for a PR consultancy Firm. An

established and reputable company is currently having
a crisis (a scenario will be given to you in Wk 3) in the
Hong Kong market. They have approached your firm
and asked you to do the publicity for them.

Your task: work in groups of 3-4 to design a PR

programme, media kit and press conference for the
company. You can decide on the strategy according to
 Assessment 4
 Final Assessment: Press Conference (30%)
o 15% Individual+ 15% Group
 Week 12 and 13
 6 people/group
 Purpose: This assessment is designed to give you
practical experience in handling real-life crisis in the
public relations world. You will be given the opportunity to
develop your expertise through the following scenario by
applying the knowledge (in particular analysis of publics,
persuasive strategies, and personal and organizational
image building) learned in the course.
 The assessment also serves to sharpen your
communication skills in working in cross-functional teams
as well as engaging in public speaking.
 The initial Ds of Public Relations

 Demystify
o “Public relations is mostly writing, in the form of news
releases or advertising.”

o“Public relations is about smiling at your customers and

asking, ‘How are you doing?’”

o“Public relations means good products and a money-back

guarantee.”

o“Public relations means getting the company name

mentioned in the media as much as possible.”
 The initial Ds of Public Relations

 Distinguished
o PR as distinguished from
advertising
o PR as distinguished from marketing
o PR as distinguished from
promotions
o PR as distinguished from publicity
 Public Relations: Some history
 Public relations has been with us for thousands of
years.
 The Greeks had a word for it: sematikos: to
signify, to mean.
 Semantikos means semantics, which can be
defined as how to get people to believe things
and do things.
 War propaganda in America

Ivy Lee Edward Carl Byoir

 Public Relations Definitions
 Public relations (PR) is used in a huge range of industries
 Academic definitions
 Harlow (1976) found 472 definitions of PR between 1900
and 1976. He built his own definition from theses findings,
o “Public relations is a distinctive management function which helps
establish and maintain mutual lines of communication,
understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an
organization and its publics; involves the management of
problems or issues; helps management to keep informed on and
responsive to public opinions; defines and emphasizes the
responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps
management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change;
serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and
uses research and ethical communication techniques as its
principal tools” (Harlow, 1976: 36).
 Public Relations Definitions
Gru • “The management of communication between an organization
nig
and and its publics”
Hun
t(19
84)

Gru • “An organization’s managed communication behaviour”

nig
(199
7)

Kitc • “Communication with various publics”

hen
(199
7)
• “Public relations is the management function that establishes
Cutli and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an
p et organization and the publics on whom its success or failure
al.
(200 depends”
0)
 Public Relations Definitions
 General Public definitions
 PR is a means by which people are persuaded to
think or behave in a particular way
 PR = deception = media coverage
 Practitioner definitions
 Reality day-to-day job
 PR = corporate communication = organizational
communication = media relations
(Tench and Yeomans,
2009)
 Public Relations Definitions
 “About the reputation- the result of what you do,
what you say and what others say about you.
Public relations is the discipline which looks after
reputation, with the aim of earning understanding
and support and influencing opinion and
behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort
to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual
understanding between an organization and its
publics”
(Institute of Public Relations,
2004).
 Who are the publics?
 How we plan and do PR depends on our
understanding of the nature of audiences,
stakeholders or publics
 Communication and PR are directed at people via
mass media
 Mass not only in terms of numbers but also
isolated and unorganized individuals
 Typology of publics
o The passive audience
o The active audience
o Stakeholders and publics
(Tench and Yeomans,
2009)
 Who are the publics? Passive
audience
 How can we understand the passiveness of the
audience?
 Audience who passively responds to and accepts media
content, rather than actively engaging intellectually and
emotionally with it (Tench and Yeomans, 2009).
 Linear model of communication (Shannon and
Waever, 1949)
 Who are the publics? Active
audience
 In what sense are audience active?
 Uses and gratification theory (Katz et al. 1974)
 Attention is focused on not what media do to
audiences but rather what audiences do with
media.
 Audience has motives for using particular media
and communication technology, and can expect
to fulfill specific outcomes for that interaction
 Think about: Passive and active
audiences
 Have you ever been so engrossed in your
favourite TV programme that you are dead to all
around you? Does that make you a passive
audience?
 How much do you challenge what you read or
hear in the news?
 Viewers get to vote in reality TV shows like Big
Brother. Is the audience that votes an active
audience?
 Who are the publics? Stakeholders
and publics
 Stakesholders are
those who have a
stake or interest in
a particular
organization
 Suppliers
 Employees
 Managers
 …….

(Letza et al. 2004: 243)

 Stakeholder mapping
 Stakeholders should be the first stage of strategic
management of PR
 Communication at the stakeholder stage
develops a stable and long-term relationships
 Possible impact on organization, expectations,
needs and power
 If stakeholders have high power and high interest,
…
 If stakeholders have high power but low interest,
….
 If stakeholders have low power but high interest,
…
Applying stakeholder mapping: Case

 In the past few years, government and the health

professions have raised concern about the
growing obesity problem in the UK and the role of
fast food companies. Concern has centred on the
food products sold and how they have been
promoted in advertising.
 How would a fast food company PR map and
decide the relative importance of its various
stakeholders in the obesity?
 Case: McDonald and obesity issue
(2004)

Level of interest
Low
High

Non-customers not Health and diet-conscious non-

conscious about health and customers (-)
Low diet Food Commission (-)

Power Other food companies

Department of Health (-)
(Potential) customers not Health and diet-conscious
conscious about health and (potential) customers (-)
High diet
 Analysing Publics
 WIN (wants,
interests and Self-
Actualizati
needs) to gain on Needs
Esteem/
public’s support Personal
Needs
 Maslow’s pyramid Love/Social Needs
(1943)
 Another category Safety/Security Needs

of need important Physiological Needs

to PR is altruism
 Situational theory of publics
 Grunig and Hunt (1984: 145)
 The theory sees stakeholders developing into
publics when they recognize that an issue or
problem affecting them exists and they see it as
worth their while getting involved
 Examine why and when publics are formed
Latent publics Groups that face a problem as a
result of an organization’s
action, but fail to recognize it
Aware publics Groups that recognize that a
problem exists

Active publics Groups that organize to discuss

and do something about the
problem
 Who are the public relations
practitioners?
 Job descriptions
 Titles? Criteria?
Personality?
 hk.jobsdb.com
PR practitioner as ‘communicator’

Expert
Communication prescriber
manager
(plans and
manages PR
programmes, Communicati
advises on facilitator
management,
make
communication Problem-
PR roles
policy decisions) solving
process
facilitator
Communication
technician
(implement PR
programmes, such as
writing press release,
organizing events,
producing web
content), They are the
‘doers’
(Tench and Yeomans, 2009)
Cutlip et.al’s categorization of public
relations work (2000)
 What PR people do
Public relations Explanation Examples of
activity discourse
Internal Communicating with
communication employees
Corporate PR Communicating on
behalf of whole
organization
Media Relations Communicating with
journalists and media
Business to business Communicating with
other organizations
Investor relations Communicating with
financial
organisations/individu
als
Events management Organisation of
complex events and
 HKPolyU PR
 http://www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/services_3.html
 Context of the
relationship
 Highly involved in managing the relationships
between various types of stakeholders
 Controlled media
o the organisation maintains total control over how and
when the message is delivered.
 Uncontrolled media
o press conferences, and media tours. The most recent
media are electronic and they are both controlled and
uncontrolled.
 Context of the
relationship
 Communication occurs within the context of
communicator’s relationship
 All relational communication reflects four basic
dimensions
1. Emotional arousal, composure and formality
2. Intimacy and similarity
3. Immediacy or liking
4. Dominance – submission
(Cutlip et al. 2006:
202)
 Context of the
relationship
 Nonverbal behaviours play important roles in
relational communication
o Proximity
o Smiling
o Touching
o Eye contact

1. Emotional arousal,
composure and formality
2. Intimacy and similarity
3. Immediacy or liking
4. Dominance – submission
 Barriers to effective PR
communication
Kotler (1984: 605) lists three barriers
 Selective attention
 Selective distortion
 Selective recall