The utility of situational theory of publics

Grunig’s situational theory helps public relations managers or crisis managers identify their organization’s publics by categorizing who people communicate with and the rationales behind their choices of publics. The theory uses independent and dependent variables to determine the types of publics an organization faces. The theory uses three independent variables, problem recognition, constraint recognition and level of involvement, to predict two dependent variables, information processing and information seeking There are three types of publics with various communication behaviors. Latent publics face a shared problem but do not recognize it; aware publics detect the problem but do not take action; and active publics take measures to address the problem. These publics have various communication behaviors that should be considered when determining effective strategies for a communication plan or crisis situation. The article mentioned, “In past studies, Grunig has found that high problem recognition and low constraint recognition are more likely to be associated with communication behavior” (p. 493). It is easily expected that the person who is directly related to the problem and with less constraint would be the most active public to solve their problem. In this article, social factors were also tested to find out publics’ different response to the crisis. Social factors include discussions with friends and family members. The article concluded that situational theory provides a useful framework for examining public response to an earthquake prediction.
Situational theory demonstrates that there is not a single, general public for disaster predictions. Therefore, it must be very useful for public relations managers or crisis managers. This article used the example of earthquake, unpredictable natural disaster and concluded that high involvement was associated with high problem recognition and interpersonal discussion was related to problem recognition. The perceived influence of interpersonal discussion and news media use were associated with problem facers. Societal-level constraint recognition was related to personal constraint recognition. I believe those results will be different if we use different case such as AIDS. In case of AIDS, it is possible that the person who has AIDS, which would be considered as high problem recognition, can not actively be a problem facer because he or she wants to protect his or her privacy. So I’d like to raise a few questions here. First, do you believe situational theory can help practitioners in real world? Secondly, if you believe it can help practitioners’ making strategic plan, how can we make practitioners use the theory? Thirdly, how can we make an effort to relate theory and the real world? I’m a doctoral student in public relations, and believe to develop a theory, which is useful in real world, is very significant.
.