Transcript LU 2 Need for Strategic Role in Public Relations

The need for Public Relations to
have a strategic role
ROLES AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
Learning Unit 2 pp 71-77
31 March 2011
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• Learning Unit 1 revision test
• Status on Project Legacy
• Status on Project Lead SA
(recently launched)
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 Concept of role and types of roles PRP
fulfils within strategic management
 Functional responsibilities of PR
 Recognise redefined role of strategist
 Recognise redefined role of manager
 Recognise redefined role of technician
 Apply PR role at macro, meso and micro
levels
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Roles and Public Relations [1]
• Roles research identifies the many activities in
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PR and how PRPs can deal with them
1970s: PRPs seen as consultants to dominant
coalitions with each role type providing distinct
forms of assistance (Glen Broom)
PRP roles essential to understanding PR function
Roles impact on achievement and enable
performance measurement
Roles determine how PRPs interact with their
environments and those with whom they
cooperate
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Roles and Public Relations [2]
Historically, Broom identified four roles.
Expert prescriber as the PR expert who:
 Best informed about communication and PR issues
 Best qualified to answer questions about these issues
 Conducts research, defines communication problems,
develops and implements PR programmes
 Has little/no influence on strategic decisions
 Has passive management involvement
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Roles and Public Relations [3]
Communication facilitator
 Interpreter or communication link between management and
stakeholders
 Sensitive listener and information broker who removes
relationship barriers between organisation and clients
Problem-solving process facilitator
 Assists in solving corporate communication problems
 Works with top management, part of strategic team
Public Relations Technician
 Provides communication and journalistic skills to implement
communication programmes
 Does not conduct research to plan or evaluate work
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Functional responsibilities of PR with a
strategic mandate
• Develops communication strategy
• Addresses emerging societal and stakeholder issues
identified through environmental scanning
• Formulates PR strategy to achieve PR goals
• Develops, implements and evaluates communication
plan to support deliberate and emerging strategies
• Counsel organisational leaders on communication
responsibility toward employees
• Manages activities of a support function
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Class activity
• Read through case study on pp 73-74 about:
“Communication challenges for the next decade – are
we taking our role seriously?”
• Identify five key words that describe the role of the
PRP in the case study
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Differentiating between PR roles [1]
• PRP as strategist
▫ Assists organisation to adapt to its societal and
stakeholder environment
▫ Takes place through feeding information to strategy
formulation process as regards strategic stakeholders,
societal issues and publics that emerge around these
issues
• PRP as manager
▫ Performs duties of middle management position
▫ PLOC, staffing, budgeting
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Differentiating between PR roles [2]
• Functional responsibilities of
PRP as strategist
▫ Monitors relevant environmental
development
▫ Anticipates consequences for
policies and strategies
▫ Fulfils boundary spanning role
▫ Forms part of strategy
formulation team
▫ Performed at macro/top
management level
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Differentiating between PR roles [3]
• Functional responsibilities of PRP as manager
▫ Formulates PR strategy (deliberate and emergent)
▫ Develops strategic PR plan
▫ Develops communication policy for organisation
▫ Councils leaders/managers on communication
responsibility
▫ Oversees PR function’s support to other functions
▫ Performed at departmental/divisional level
▫ Decides what to communicate to stakeholders to solve
problems with stakeholder relationships or capitalise on
opportunities
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Differentiating between PR roles [4]
• Functional responsibilities of PRP as technician
▫ Performed at implementation/programme level
▫ Responsible for implementing communication plans/
campaigns directed at stakeholders
▫ Traditional role performed by most practitioners
• Refer to three tables on pp 75 to 77 for three
different roles
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Framework for strategist [1]
• Strategic PR or strategic communication management or
corporate communication assumes PR to be a strategic
management function with a mandate to function at a
strategic level
• PR is a dynamic and developing field of study
• One of most prominent and growing industries in SA market
• Development of technology and new approaches to doing
business has led to a metamorphosis in PR as well
• Strategist functions at top management level with
responsibility for strategic PR management
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Framework for strategist [2]
• Accomplished through:
▫ environmental scanning, gathering information about
stakeholder concerns and expectations, identifying societal
issues and feeding consequences into organisational stratgies
• PR strategy conceptualised as (Mintzberg, 1987):
▫ Deliberate – pattern of decision to use communication as a
strategic opportunity to achieve organisational goals
▫ Emergent – pattern of important decisions to use
communication to solve organisational problems in
unstructured situations or capitalise on opportunities
• Conceptualisation of strategic PR role
▫ Macro, meso and micro levels
▫ Roles through boundary spanning and environmental scanning
provides input to strategy formulation processes
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• Read through the Lyme Bay case study on
pp 81 – 86
• Answer the two questions as the end of
the case study to hand in and discuss in
class
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