The Utility of Situational Theory of Publics for Assessing Public Response to a Disaster Prediction

Ann Marie Major looked at the situational theory of publics in relation to earthquake preparedness. For those unfamiliar with the situational theory of publics, it’s a PR theory that separates members of a population into groups (“publics”) based on variables such as level of involvement, problem recognition, and constraint recognition. It’s an essential tool when planning a campaign of any kind, as it helps you develop and tailor messages according to each public’s needs.

The first variable, problem recognition, is exactly how it sounds – it refers to the level on which the public recognizes the problem facing them. Constraint recognition refers to the level on which the public believes they can do something to solve the problem. The final variable, level of involvement, refers to the level on which the public feels a personal connection and investment in the problem.

The author used different terminology for each of the publics than I’ve seen before, but the essence of the theory is still intact. The four publics as defined by Major are:

• Problem-facing public (active) – this group actively thinks about the problem and believe they can do something about the problem (high level of involvement, low constraint recognition)
• Constrained public (aware) – this group thinks about the problem, yet perceive constraints that would keep them from affecting the problem (high level of involvement, high constraint recognition)
• Routine public (latent) – this public does not think about the problem, but believes they could have an affect on the problem if it happens to them (low level of involvement, low constraint recognition)
• Fatalistic public (nonpublic) – this public doesn’t think about the problem, nor does it believe it could do anything about the problem (low level of involvement, high level of constraint recognition)

The concepts of active information seeking and passive information processing are also included in the author’s model. Information seeking is the “planned scanning of the environment for messages about a specified topic” (p.492). This would be a characteristic present in both the problem-facing and constrained publics, as they are actively involved in the situation. Passive information processing is the “unplanned discovery of a message, followed by continued processing of it” (p.492). Any of the four publics could utilize this method; the difference would come when the member of the public would decide if this is information to be concerned with or not. Then again, it could also vault an individual into another category of public, if the information was enlightening about the state of the problem.

This particular study looked at the response to a predicted earthquake in the New Madrid seismic region of the Central United States (a more exact location was not given). The following were among the conclusions the researchers came to:

• The level of high personalized risk had an impact on the high constraint recognition publics (constrained & fatal) – the higher the level of problem recognition, the lower perception of personalized risk. In other words, the more the public understood about the problem, the more equipped they felt in regards to dealing with it
• High involvement was associated with high problem recognition – those who understood the problem the most were the most motivated to get involved
• Interpersonal discussion was a critical form of communication amongst all groups, as people turned to their friends and family for clarification and further information regarding messages given by the news media

(There were more results that dealt more specifically with the earthquake situation – I encourage you to check out the article for more information on those, as it’s useful information to consider when planning public education campaigns – in the interest of time, I just mentioned the more generalizable results)

Questions
- If you were designing a public education campaign, which public(s) would you be most interested in targeting? How come?
- What methods would you use to reach out to the publics with low levels of problem recognition, but high levels of constraint recognition?