Step right up and get some risk attenuation!
Wes Jamison PUR 6934 Reaction blog #5 Lundgren and McMakin chapter 15
Chapter 15 reinforces the truism from chapter 13, noting that “The farther away we get from individual contact, the more room there is for confusion and misunderstanding” (pp. 193). The authors provide a template for face-to-face communications regarding risk, advocating a spokesperson who is acceptable to both the audience and organization, and who has been trained and is competent to implement the task.
Face-to-face (F2F) communication bridges the gap between risk rhetor and risk recipient by emphasizing communications proximity via direct interaction. It differs from stakeholder communications in that F2F communications follows a one-way model rather than Grunig’s two-way symmetrical model. The key consideration is the acceptability of the rhetor to the audience and organization, and factors included in determining the proper rhetor are credibility, responsiveness, and acceptability to the audience. The risk communicator should be credible, which involves the marriage of credentials, experience, and empathy. Likewise, they should be responsive in that they can actually address the audience’s concerns; in this context, either single or multiple communicators who fit the criteria can be used. In addition, risk communicators should be acceptable to the audience, and this involves the ability to speak the actual language of the audience, as well as to communicate the risk using appropriate idiosyncratic phrases, e.g. present information at a level that is understandable. Also, the communicator should be able to use appropriate body language, and be particularly aware of how their social presence affects the content and resonance of the message.
The authors also note that the risk communicator must be acceptable to the organization that they represent. This makes intuitive sense because internal political concerns often drive external communications efforts. Hence, the choice of a proper risk communicator is as much a political one as a pragmatic one. Interestingly, the authors list a number of attributes of organizationally-acceptable risk rhetors, and make a prescient observation that line managers---those who actually encounter the risk and understand the risk creation process---make effective communicators if they fit the other criteria. Nonetheless, the authors also make a paradoxical and unexamined comment on pp. 253: “…in many cases, they [public affairs and PR people] will have no credibility in the eyes of a hostile audience because of the unfortunate stereotype of the public affairs person as the manipulative Madison Avenue type.” The authors let that zinger fly, and yet the pregnancy of their comment seems to elude them. What is the source of public skepticism other than the manipulative effects demonstrated by the authors? Furthermore, how can the authors identify a problem without addressing either its causes or its cures? Likewise, have they disengaged from the philosophically pragmatic process they advocate long enough to contemplate the effect of their efforts on other risk rhetors, e.g. if PR practitioners who train other risk rhetors concerning how to communicate risk are viewed as sleazy, then eventually won’t the other risk rhetors come to be viewed as tainted, a kind of “sleaze by association,” by publics that are increasingly sophisticated and cynical?
The rest of the chapter involves the practical aspects of F2F, and includes useful checklists and hints regarding getting “the locals” to accept the risk. Indeed, given visual reinforcements is appropriate because it reflects good pedagogical skills. But as we all know, heuristics are a little more complicated than the authors note. I would have liked to see a further discussion of visual, aural, and tactile learning styles and how risk rhetors could use techniques and materials to address and stimulate all three learning styles. Excellent technique involves presenting information in all three formats, but the implications of tactile learning on risk communications go without discussion. In other words, in lectures on orange production, the communicator presents the verbal information along with slides and actual oranges, and then allows the audience to manipulate an orange, smell it and taste it. But can one really accomplish that with many modern risks? Union Carbide can't really let the audience smell the cyanide, can they? But this does up an interesting point about risk communications in areas where urban and rural agricultural areas interface: some counties around the US have begun giving realtors scratch-and-sniff materials and requiring them to present those materials to potential home buyers as demonstrations of agricultural production smells.
Finally, the authors drive home perhaps the most salient point of “selling” risk: don’t promise what you can’t deliver! It’s interesting that many of the techniques that the authors advocate are derived from sales and marketing. In effect, they are selling a product (risk perception) using methods that aim to tailor the product (risk) to the needs of the consumer. Certainly we can all agree that proper communication is important, but I wonder if we all accept the tacit viewpoints of the authors. The tendency among all sales people is to over-promise and under-deliver, and that’s because they really want the sale. But it’s noteworthy that at least the authors counsel self-discipline, even if they use the language of persuasive selling. Perhaps more important, I wonder about the impact of such a reliance on persuasive selling on the public discourse of risk itself. Although not pragmatic, what’s wrong with telling people “we really don’t know the long-term consequences of the risk”? In other words, I completely understand the rationale of persuasion in risk communication---my unease is more about what such a perspective means for society and what such pragmatism, such tacit acceptance of capitalism, implies about us.
Chapter 15 reinforces the truism from chapter 13, noting that “The farther away we get from individual contact, the more room there is for confusion and misunderstanding” (pp. 193). The authors provide a template for face-to-face communications regarding risk, advocating a spokesperson who is acceptable to both the audience and organization, and who has been trained and is competent to implement the task.
Face-to-face (F2F) communication bridges the gap between risk rhetor and risk recipient by emphasizing communications proximity via direct interaction. It differs from stakeholder communications in that F2F communications follows a one-way model rather than Grunig’s two-way symmetrical model. The key consideration is the acceptability of the rhetor to the audience and organization, and factors included in determining the proper rhetor are credibility, responsiveness, and acceptability to the audience. The risk communicator should be credible, which involves the marriage of credentials, experience, and empathy. Likewise, they should be responsive in that they can actually address the audience’s concerns; in this context, either single or multiple communicators who fit the criteria can be used. In addition, risk communicators should be acceptable to the audience, and this involves the ability to speak the actual language of the audience, as well as to communicate the risk using appropriate idiosyncratic phrases, e.g. present information at a level that is understandable. Also, the communicator should be able to use appropriate body language, and be particularly aware of how their social presence affects the content and resonance of the message.
The authors also note that the risk communicator must be acceptable to the organization that they represent. This makes intuitive sense because internal political concerns often drive external communications efforts. Hence, the choice of a proper risk communicator is as much a political one as a pragmatic one. Interestingly, the authors list a number of attributes of organizationally-acceptable risk rhetors, and make a prescient observation that line managers---those who actually encounter the risk and understand the risk creation process---make effective communicators if they fit the other criteria. Nonetheless, the authors also make a paradoxical and unexamined comment on pp. 253: “…in many cases, they [public affairs and PR people] will have no credibility in the eyes of a hostile audience because of the unfortunate stereotype of the public affairs person as the manipulative Madison Avenue type.” The authors let that zinger fly, and yet the pregnancy of their comment seems to elude them. What is the source of public skepticism other than the manipulative effects demonstrated by the authors? Furthermore, how can the authors identify a problem without addressing either its causes or its cures? Likewise, have they disengaged from the philosophically pragmatic process they advocate long enough to contemplate the effect of their efforts on other risk rhetors, e.g. if PR practitioners who train other risk rhetors concerning how to communicate risk are viewed as sleazy, then eventually won’t the other risk rhetors come to be viewed as tainted, a kind of “sleaze by association,” by publics that are increasingly sophisticated and cynical?
The rest of the chapter involves the practical aspects of F2F, and includes useful checklists and hints regarding getting “the locals” to accept the risk. Indeed, given visual reinforcements is appropriate because it reflects good pedagogical skills. But as we all know, heuristics are a little more complicated than the authors note. I would have liked to see a further discussion of visual, aural, and tactile learning styles and how risk rhetors could use techniques and materials to address and stimulate all three learning styles. Excellent technique involves presenting information in all three formats, but the implications of tactile learning on risk communications go without discussion. In other words, in lectures on orange production, the communicator presents the verbal information along with slides and actual oranges, and then allows the audience to manipulate an orange, smell it and taste it. But can one really accomplish that with many modern risks? Union Carbide can't really let the audience smell the cyanide, can they? But this does up an interesting point about risk communications in areas where urban and rural agricultural areas interface: some counties around the US have begun giving realtors scratch-and-sniff materials and requiring them to present those materials to potential home buyers as demonstrations of agricultural production smells.
Finally, the authors drive home perhaps the most salient point of “selling” risk: don’t promise what you can’t deliver! It’s interesting that many of the techniques that the authors advocate are derived from sales and marketing. In effect, they are selling a product (risk perception) using methods that aim to tailor the product (risk) to the needs of the consumer. Certainly we can all agree that proper communication is important, but I wonder if we all accept the tacit viewpoints of the authors. The tendency among all sales people is to over-promise and under-deliver, and that’s because they really want the sale. But it’s noteworthy that at least the authors counsel self-discipline, even if they use the language of persuasive selling. Perhaps more important, I wonder about the impact of such a reliance on persuasive selling on the public discourse of risk itself. Although not pragmatic, what’s wrong with telling people “we really don’t know the long-term consequences of the risk”? In other words, I completely understand the rationale of persuasion in risk communication---my unease is more about what such a perspective means for society and what such pragmatism, such tacit acceptance of capitalism, implies about us.
posted by Wes Jamison at
2/10/2007 01:54:00 PM
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