Chapter 10 Determine the Appropriate Methods

“Who says What to Whom in What Channel with What Effect? (Harold Lasswell, 1949)

After setting purposes and goals (dealing with communication effects), we continue to another step: pick up the right channels. The main idea of this chapter is discussing how to use communication tools properly to reach communication goals and objectives. I guess this is not a hard chapter for most of us because we have learned how to design basic communication materials (e.g. brochures, newsletters, news releases, fact sheets…etc.) in PR Foundation class. Besides, it reminds me of an old Chinese saying explaining the importance of tools. It goes: “A workman must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well. Good tools are prerequisite to the successful execution of a job.” Indeed, inappropriate channels and presentation methods just waste our time and efforts.

These tools include all kinds of information materials, visual presentation, face-to-face communication, work with the media, stakeholder participation. The advantages for information tools lie in quick and large dissemination and “economically meeting the needs of various segments of your audience (P. 158)” However, it is too easy to resort a jargon and overly technical language. That means information materials should play a role in bridging the knowledge gap between the organizations and their audience. How do we draw a line between being over technical and over simplistic information? Or, the amount of source may depend on the social-economic status and their level of involvement of the risk/crisis situation.

When it comes to face-to-face communication, it has been the most interactive way for human communication in that it offers the opportunity if immediate audience feedback. Although high level of interactivity carries lot of advantage, the book said face-to-face communication is not satisfactory when you have a particularly angry audience. Does anybody disagree with this point of view? I may think face-to-face communication is somehow effective to mitigate the hostility when it is compared to information materials or press conference through TV. If organizations are willing to take fact-to-face communication, the audience may think the organization are going to take the responsibility, willing to listen to their concerns and work on the solutions.

Another effective method is working with media. Media has been one of the most significant public regarding risk/crisis communication. Why? It is because the conflict of news interests between companies and reporters. When organizations run their daily operation smoothly, they don’t have any attribute of news interest from reporters’ side. But, when a crisis happened, corporations often got large amount of negative exposure through mass media for a period of time. The book suggests “developing mutually productive working relationship is an ongoing effort for many organizations. (p. 163)” How to working with the media may differ from culture to culture. I just read one journal article examining the dimension of media relations in South Korea and their impact on how public relations is valued (Sarusup and Kim, 2004). The study affirms the personal influence model of public relations. Establishing personal relationships with journalists is a critical task among public relations practitioners. If public relations practitioners do not possess personal relationships with appropriate journalists, they often have difficulty getting media coverage. In particular, personal relationships play a critical role in the event of minimizing unfavorable media coverage. The situation could be probably the same in Taiwan. So, I wonder if personal influence model would work effectively in the U.S. public relations industry, especially in risk/crisis situations.