MODELS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AND THEIR APPLICABILITY

 By Lawrence Sunday Ogwang

Definitions

Public relations (PR) are the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends. According to Grunig & Hunt (1984, p. 6), PR is simply management of communication between an Organization and its publics.

To support our comprehension of the multiplicity of public relations (PR) practices, Grunig developed four models of public relations. These include: press agency/publicity, public-information model, two-way asymmetrical model, and two-way symmetrical model (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, p. 407).

These 4 Models describe distinct approaches to public relations in the context of a 130-year timeline that shows how public relations has evolved (Bill, 2008). It helps one to see the potential of public relations and, in part, can inspire a PR practitioner to open new avenues that can stimulate one to go beyond marketing and do some serious PR.

The four models

• Press Agency/Publicity

Press Agency Publicity model is also called P.T Barnum model. Professional agents seek media coverage for a client, product, or event. It follows one-way communication where the flow of information is only from the sender to the receiver. The sender is not much concerned about the second party’s feedback, reviews and so on.

In Press Agency publicity model, public relations experts enhance the reputation of the organization among the target audiences, stakeholders, employees, partners, investors and all others associated with it through manipulation, persuasions, little truth and does not use formal research to guide communication tactics.

According to this model, organizations hire public relations experts who create a positive image of their brand in the minds of target audiences through arguments and reasoning. They influence their potential customers by simply imposing their ideas, thoughts, creative stories of their brand, and so on. Flow of information takes place only from the public relations experts to the target audiences through one-way communication (Juneja, 2015).

This model is applicable and very common in Uganda especially with the forces like the police spokesperson. They are usually not interested in the feedback from the public but are after passing the information and convincing the people to believe in them even if truth is being suffocated.

• Public Information Model

As the name suggests, public information model, emphasizes on maintaining and enhancing the image of an organization simply by circulating relevant and meaningful information among the target audience/public. Public relations experts depend on press release, news release, video release or any other recorded communication often directed at the media to circulate information about their brand among the public. Newsletters, brochures, magazines with information about the organization, its key people, products, benefits of the products, testimonials, success stories are distributed at regular intervals among target audiences for brand positioning.

In such a model, public relations experts need to be creative and ought to have ability for writing. They should be really good at putting their thoughts into meaningful words which influence the customers and end-users. Public information model also revolves around one-way communication where information primarily flows from sender (organization and public relations experts) to the receiver (target audience, employees, stake holders, employees, investors and so on).

This model is also applicable here in Uganda and commonly found with the different ministries like Ministry of Health (MoH), Example (Cfr. MoH Press release on results of COVID-19 of 2nd March 2020. Ministry of Works and Transport and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). They aim at giving information to the public by giving relevant and meaningful messages. Some times they also use press release, video release or any other.

• Two Way Asymmetrical Model

Two-way asymmetrical model of public relations revolves around two-way communication between both the parties but the communication is somewhat not balanced. In this type of model, public relations experts position their organization and brand on the whole in the minds of their target audiences through manipulation and force the public to behave the same way they would want them to do. In two-way asymmetrical model of public relations, organizations do not utilize much of their manpower and resources to find out the reaction of the stakeholders, investors or for that matter public.

In Uganda, this kind of model is common and applicable to private schools who are mainly profit-making entities but they give little avenues to the public to give reaction. Even if reactions are given, they don’t labor to find it out and see how it can be dealt with or reacted to.

• Two-way Symmetrical Model

According to Bill (2008), The two-way symmetrical model casts public relations in the role of mediator versus persuader. It is an ideal way of enhancing an organization’s reputation among the target audience. According to two-way symmetrical model, public relations experts depend on two-way communication to position their brand among end-users. Free flow of information takes place between the organization and its stake holders, employees, investors and vice-a-versa. Conflicts and misunderstandings are resolved through mutual discussions and communication. A two-way communication takes place between both the parties and information flows in its desired form. The feedback from stakeholders and target audiences are also taken into consideration.

This model is mostly applicable in most of the media houses here in Uganda. Private media houses love feedbacks to help adjust and fit in the competitive market. To enhance this, most of them have online platform like Facebook, tweeter, Blog, YouTube channels and others where their PR gives information and takes feedback from the target audience.