|
Printable
PDF
Article No. 4
Applying the General
Process Model of Content
Homogenization to Public Relations and Public Information
David
M. Dozier
San Diego State University,
San Diego CA USA
Keywords
Mass
media theory, gate-keeping, information subsidies, public relations,
ethics, media content homogenization
Abstract
The
model of media content homogenization propounded by Payne integrates
several extant theories of media processes and effects into a single model
that predicts homogenous news content that reflects interests of elites.
This article poses several arguments for the application of Payne’s model
to theories of public relations practices. This article suggests that
Payne’s rather linear model does not adequately address the emerging
“shadow” model of news dissemination through digital and especially social
media. The article concludes with normative and pragmatic arguments for the
ethical practice of public relations.
Introduction
Payne
(2009) presented a General Process Model of Content Homogenization that
combined extant theories regarding gate-keeping, agenda-setting, and
homogenization of news content. Taking a critical stance, Payne argued,
“gatekeeping controls over the agenda setting process produce a homogenized
news product that curtails opportunities for robust public discourse” (p.
199). Although not flagged specifically by that label, public relations is
included as a mechanism used by the “relatively few who dominate news
production operations, including the very rich, chief executives, the
corporate rich...” (p. 204).
After
Gandy (1982), public relations professionals provide information subsidies
to the media. Information subsidies are efforts by public relations
practitioners to reduce the cost to the media of information favorable to
the organization or issues important to the organization. This is
accomplished by providing news releases to the media, arranging interviews
with people inside the practitioner’s organization, and giving access to
other forms of newsworthy information that the organization controls. By
reducing the cost of favorable information to the media, the relative cost
(to the media) of information unfavorable to the practitioner’s
organization increases. As journalists seek to reduce uncertainty, they are
more likely to utilize subsidized information rather than engage in
expensive and uncertain enterprise reporting. As such, public relations
practitioners operate in concert with primary-level gatekeepers in Payne’s
model to set the media’s agenda by “controlling information available to
the media” (p. 201).
The
purpose of this article is to (1) extend Payne’s model to include
antecedent constructs of information subsidies and public relation
strategies in a more detailed manner, (2) suggest ways in which activist
public can use digital media to counteract the homogenization of media
content by elites, and (3) suggest an ethical approach to public relations
that ameliorates some aspects of the “insular and parochial news product,
characterized by a mendacious topical, thematic, and ideological sterility”
(Payne, 2009).
Indeed,
public relations practitioners do provide information subsidies for certain
types of information that is generally favorable to the organization.
However, the strategic approach to public relations practices suggests that
a smart public relations program includes an action strategy as well as a
communication strategy. Whereas the communication strategy (combining
message content and media distribution) involves information subsidies to
the media, an action strategy is the deliberate attempt of the
public relations practitioner to change behaviors of organization that
produce conflicts with key publics on whom organizational success or
failure depends (Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 2006). According to the
strategic management approach to public relations, conflicts between
organizations and publics cannot be resolved by communication alone.
Mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and publics cannot
be established or maintained if the practitioner’s organization is
unwilling to alter behaviors that contribute to conflicts with publics.
This is the first element of a larger ethical argument addressed later.
The
General Process Model of Content Homogenization
The
first step in Payne’s (2009, p. 201) model occurs when gatekeepers control
information available to the media (see Figure 1). In keeping with Gandy’s
original conceptualization of information subsidies, public relations
practitioners—as players in the public media system—do not control
the flow of information so much as they subsidize certain information to
reduce its cost to the media. Indeed, practitioners sometimes do withhold
information detrimental to their organizations. Often, however, such
practices backfire on the organization when the public learns of
organizational efforts to suppress the information. Rather than worries
about the suppression of unfavorable information, Gandy’s (1982) larger concern
was the subsidizing of favorable information (e.g., product promotions
disguised as news stories) that contributes to the sterility that Payne
faults in homogenized media content.
Figure
1. Payne’s General Process Model of Content
Homogenization (from Payne, 2009, p. 201)
However,
that space occupied by the primary-level gatekeepers at the front end of
the manufacture of news is contested. One of the enduring preoccupations of
the public relations profession is activist publics. Alternatively
described as pressure groups, social movements, or special interest groups,
L. Grunig (1992) defined activist groups as “collections of
individuals organized to exert pressure on an organization in behalf of
cause” (p. 504).
The
primary-level gatekeepers in Payne’s model include public relations
practitioners and activists, as well as reporters and editors. With regard
to information subsidies, the clear advantage goes to elite organizations
with the size and budgets to hire professional public relations
practitioners. Karlberg (1996) suggested that even the good intentions of
large corporations couldn’t offset the resource advantages of the
corporation.
However,
according to the theory of collective action, activists are often driven by
motivation and fervor (Olson, 1971). This intense dedication to the cause
among activists sometimes trumps the larger PR budget and staff of the
elite organizations that employ public relations practitioners. For
example, Murphy and Dee (1992) conducted a case study of the ongoing
conflict between Greenpeace (an environmental activist organization) and
Dupont (a large chemical manufacturer). Murphy and Dee described
Greenpeace’s strategy with Dupont as a zero-sum game: any victory by
Greenpeace was at the expense of Dupont. Greenpeace tactics included
extreme action, unilateral demands, and intolerance for compromise. In
1989, for example, Greenpeace activists trespassed on Dupont property to
climb a 180-foot water tower to drape a ribbon banner that declared (and
denounced) Dupont as the worst offender in depleting the planet’s ozone
layer. As Dozier and Lauzen (2000) commented in an analysis of activist
publics, one would be “hard pressed to find a Public Relations Society of
America member willing to climb to such heights in pursuit of media
placements!” (p. 14).
Conflicts
between organizations and activists satisfy journalistic routines of news
media. Stories involving organizations and activists contain the news value
of conflict. As such, a small, dedicated activist organization can
provide information subsidies of their own through special events that
bring desired media attention to their cause. Rubin’s (1970) DO IT!
Scenarios of the Revolution provided suggestions for the creation of pseudo-events
(Boorstin, 1971), events or activities conducted or staged by American
activists opposing the Vietnam War to garner media attention.
Pseudo-events
are not just tools of activists. Public relations practitioners routinely
organize events that exist largely for the media coverage that they will
generate: press conferences, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, politicians touring
disaster areas, etc. None of these activities would occur if the news media
didn’t cover them. With extensive human and financial resources, public
relations practitioners working for elite organizations have a distinct
resource advantage over activists in orchestrating pseudo-events. Activists
may have an advantage in the areas of commitment and imagination.
Digital
Media and Activism
As
noted above, public relations practitioners working for elite organizations
that can afford them have a distinct advantage with regard to providing
information subsidies to media gatekeepers. The use of digital media by
activists, however, reduces the resource advantages of elite organizations.
New digital media can assist activists in their struggle for safe passage
past the gatekeepers onto the media’s agenda. Digital media include blogs,
online bulletin boards, video file-sharing sites like YouTube, and social
media like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. The rapid diffusion of these
technologies through both developed and developing nations serves as a
counter-balance to the homogenized content generated by Payne’s model.
The
key difference between the older media and digital media is the
proliferation of the number of channels of communication and the ability of
most people to become information sources or providers. Whereas traditional,
centralized corporate media favor information subsidies from professional
public relations practitioners and the corporations and other organizations
they represent, digital media in general, and social media in particular,
favor activists. Social media enable anyone to identify a piece of
information in the sea of information available via the Internet, pass it
on to like-minded friends, who in turn forward it on to their like-minded
friends.
This
permits an organic, grassroots form of media content that has certain
advantages over traditional homogenized media content. First, the message
carries the implicit endorsement of an often trusted albeit digital
“friend,” boosting its credibility. Even a virtual Facebook “friend” can
take on attributes of a real friend over time, as messages are exchanged
and relationships between virtual friends are established and take root
(Flanagin, Tiyaamornwong, O’Connor, & Seibold, 2002; Postmes, Spears,
Sakhel, & De Groot, 2001). Second, because people seem to build social
networks with like-minded people, mutual involvement with the same issues
can lead to rapid formation of activist publics via the Internet.
According
to Grunig’s (1984) situational theory of publics, corporations and other
organizations do things that affect people’s lives, which is the key
conceptual link between organizations and publics. Organizational behavior creates
publics. However, latent publics are not aware that an organization
is affecting them. They become aware publics when they realize they
are being affected by behaviors of organizations; they begin to
communicate. Active publics represent the maturity of a public; in
the extreme, active publics pose the greatest threat to organizations.
Because they must maintain their internal cohesion and high involvement,
activist publics tend to be very unyielding and uncompromising. Thus, the
savvy practitioner seeks to develop mutually beneficial relationships with
publics earlier in the process (e.g., at the latent or aware stage).
As a
result, there is a passionate interest in digital media among public
relations practitioners. At the least, social media serve as a distant
early warning system, alerting practitioners that an issue involving the
organization is being discussed in cyberspace. Because communicating with
each other is the first step toward activism, sophisticated practitioners
use social media to monitor organizational environments.
Two-way
communication is the golden ring of best practices in public relations. The
best practitioners serve as the eyes and ears of the organization, as well
as its mouthpiece (Broom & Dozier, 1990). But genuine one-on-one
communication between an individual and a multinational corporation is only
a metaphor. Large organizations use research tools such as focus groups,
surveys, caravan studies, and public opinion polling to provide the vital
feedback loop from publics. Emails and Web posting of customer complaints
is simply another tool for closing the feedback loop.
Social
media, therefore, pose an enormous challenge to the practice of public
relations. Although PR practitioners complain about journalists, media
relations programs were much easier to manage when practitioners dealt with
a few established professional gatekeepers in traditional corporate media.
Beyond those gates were concentrated audiences, with reach and frequency
documented by Nielsen ratings and the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Key
contemporary questions facing the technical side of the practice are: 1)
How much human resources should an organization invest in social media
efforts? 2) How do you evaluate the value of those investments? In any
case, the changing media landscape has implications for best practices in
public relations, as well as implications for Payne’s model of content
homogenization.
Specifically,
the proliferation of new digital media and the concomitant demassification
of mass audiences pose challenges to Payne’s model. Parallel to Payne’s
relatively linear General Process Model of Content Homogenization is
another shadow model of digital media content. Rather than an assembly-line
structure to gather, package, and transmit information products, the
digital media network looks more like social networks, a spider web of nodes
and linkages, with large but diffuse numbers of individuals (nodes)
connected to dozens or even hundreds of “friends” via digital media. While
social media such as Facebook and MySpace are the most obvious exemplars of
such digital networks, electronic mailing lists (listserv), electronic
bulletin boards, and video file-sharing sites (YouTube) predate so-called
social media and served similar functions. Prior to that, activists used
phone trees to communicate information to large numbers of people in a
short period of time.
Much
information circulated via social media remains provincial and localized
within a small circle of friends. Information that might alarm or concern
some may not be of interest outside the small communication clique that
shares it. However, some information runs the “risk” of “going viral.” That
is, information that strikes a resonant cord can be passed from one
communication clique to another, using the strength of weak ties
(Granovetter, 1973) across seemingly dissimilar cliques, and spreading
rapidly through the blogosphere. Millions can share such information before
the traditional media have an opportunity to collect, package, and transmit
that information through traditional channels.
Often,
the traditional media treat such “viral stories” as “events” on the
Internet, covering the dissemination of information via the Internet as a
story unto itself. On other occasions, traditional media will provide a
follow-up story to information already widely distributed over the Internet.
Increasingly, however, traditional media are seeking to corral the
enthusiasm of bloggers by allowing commentary to traditional media
coverage, especially on their websites. However, all such phenomena are in
rapid flux. Perhaps the only thing that one can say for certain is that the
media landscape will look quite different in the near and distant future.
Does
the digital media revolution make Payne’s model obsolete? Probably not.
From the audience’s perspective, gatekeepers perform an important function.
Of the millions of events that occur each day in the world, audiences
relinquish responsibility to shift through all that information to
professional gatekeepers. While Payne is correct to excoriate traditional
media content as insular and parochial, characterized by a mendacious
topical, thematic, and ideological sterility, social media content—on
balance—is much worse. The quintessential question posed by social media to
every participant is this: “What are you doing right now?” The
quintessential and obvious answer is, of course, “who cares?” The capacity
to generate messages and share them with others does not necessarily imply
that every source, every node in a social media network, has something
useful, interesting, and timely to say.
Thus,
gatekeepers are gatekeepers not because they control the channels of
communication but because they protect audiences from the banal, the
trivial, the self-serving braying of millions of sources of information to
provide reliable and credible information of use to audiences. Information
subsidies reduce the quality of this important and valuable gatekeeping
function. Digital media in general, and social media in particular, keep
gatekeepers more or less honest by providing an undisciplined, narcissistic
“shadow” media system that sporadically does something better than
traditional media. But in the end, audiences need gatekeepers that are
reliable and credible. The overarching concept, which subsumes reliability
and credibility, is ethical gatekeeping. As elite organizations are
provided opportunities to communicate directly to their constituent publics
via digital media, public relations practitioners have roles to play as
ethical gatekeepers.
Public
Relations and Ethical Gatekeeping
In
the practice of public relations, forward-thinking practitioners and
scholars are beginning to realize the ascendance of public relations,
relative to the other players in the public information system. As elite
organizations utilize their considerable resources to communicate with their
publics directly, bypassing gatekeepers in the traditional media, public
relations practitioners must assume the role of gatekeeper and they should
do so ethically. In doing so, the practice of public relations can evolve
from its current status as a pejorative—that is, public relations as spin,
as self-serving trivia, as misleading, as deceptive—to a true profession
that, above all else, serves the public interest. To do so, the practice of
public relations needs to clean up its own house. Issues that must be
addressed include...
Garbage
In, Garbage Out
Broom
and Dozier (see Dozier & Broom, 2006, for a full review) have studied
the roles of practitioners in organizations. The public relations
technician role focuses on message dissemination, implementing the
strategic decisions made by others. Much of the work of public relations
practitioners is tactical, emphasizing message dissemination. The more
messages the better. This results in an avalanche of news releases, media
advisories, news conferences, and a plethora of information subsidies. Much
of this information is self-serving trivia of little or no news value—in a
word, garbage. If public relations practitioners are going to bypass
gatekeepers of traditional tradition media to communicate directly with
publics, they need to develop the discernment and news judgment of
gatekeepers.
Advocates
of the Public Interest
The
three-nation Excellence Study (J. Grunig, 1992; Dozier, L. Grunig, & J.
Grunig, 1995; L. Grunig, J. Grunig, & Dozier, 2002; J. Grunig, L.
Grunig, & Dozier, 2006) provides normative arguments and empirical
support for the proposition that the most efficacious and ethical approach
to the practice of public relations is the two-way symmetrical model.
According to this model (see J. Grunig & Hunt, 1984), the public
relations department serves as the eyes and ears of the organization, as
well its mouthpiece. That is, the public relations department uses various
forms of research to close the loop, making communication between
organizations and publics a two-way enterprise.
Regarding
symmetry, best practices suggest that the public relations function seeks
to find a middle ground that balances the interests of the organization
with the interests of publics affected by the organization, what Dozier et
al. (1995) described as the “win-win zone.” To do so, the public relations
function as a go-between, advocating the organization’s interests when
communicating with publics. More significantly, the two-way symmetrical
model requires the public relations practitioner to be the public’s
advocate when communicating with the dominant coalition (e.g., top
management) of the organization that employs them. This means that public
relations practitioners should advocate truth, trust, and transparency.
Admiral T. McCreary, former Chief of Information for the United States
Navy, popularized the Three T’s in the public relations community; the
Three T’s serve as an appropriate set of principles for ethical
gatekeeping. If “bad news” is generated by the behavior of an organization,
the public relations function for that organization ought to be the first
source of disclosure. That’s transparency. The information disseminated
should be truthful. Over time, such truthful disclosures builds trust in
the organization. That is, an organization can become a reliable and
credible source of information about itself.
Pragmatic
Idealism
Lest
the above suggestions be treated as ivory-tower idealism, consider the
pragmatics of what has been proposed. When organizations waste valuable
resources disseminating self-serving trivia about themselves, they clog the
channels of communication with garbage. They place an unreasonable burden
on audiences (publics) to sort through the trivia for information useful to
the publics. One function of gatekeeping is to pre-sort garbage from useful
information. As gatekeepers, strategic public relations practitioners that
communicate directly with publics must learn the discipline and discernment
of gatekeepers. In other words, it is simply pragmatic for practitioners to
disseminate less information of a higher utility to the audience, in order
to attract and retain an audience. Regarding advocacy of the public
interest to management, ethical conduct is also pragmatic conduct. If an
organization is opaque, if it lies to the public, if it engages in behavior
that takes advantage of the public in pursuit of its own selfish interests,
it is the public relations department that has to clean up the mess.
Organizations must adapt to constantly changing organizational
environments; the function of public relations is to facilitate that
adaptation. A powerful tool in such facilitation is to provide reliable,
credible information about the organization to publics, as well as provide
the same about publics back to dominant coalitions within organizations.
Conclusion
This
article seeks to apply Payne’s General Process Model of Content
Homogenization to the practice of public relations. As noted, public
relations fits into the front end of Payne’s model, providing information
subsidies to traditional media gatekeepers. Whereas Payne’s model provides
a rather linear model for the collection, packaging, and dissemination of
news products, activist publics can use digital media—and especially social
media—to create a shadow system for the dissemination of information.
However,
the very decentralized character of social media that makes it so difficult
for journalists and public relations practitioners to harness is also its
core weakness. With everybody playing the role of information provider in
social media, nobody is providing the essential service of gatekeeping:
sifting through millions of pieces of disaggregated information to identify
information that is useful and informative to audiences. Occasionally,
useful and truthful information first “discovered” through social media
“goes viral” and spreads to millions of users, serving as a check and
balance on traditional media. However, information that goes viral in
social media can be false or useless. The absence of competent gatekeeping
in social media permits the viral dissemination of both good and bad
information.
Thus,
social media can be treated as an unreliable shadow system for
disseminating information outside the traditional media system, as modeled
by Payne. Further, traditional media are monitoring the Internet and social
media as sources of information for traditional packaging and
dissemination. The digital revolution and the popularity of social media
can be incorporated into Payne’s model.
One
aspect of the digital revolution is that organizations, through their
public relations departments, can disseminate information directly to
publics, bypassing gatekeepers in traditional media. With this new power
comes a professional responsibility to act as ethical gatekeepers. This
means that public relations practitioners must resist the temptation to
disseminate trivia about the organizations they represent. Practitioners
must be advocates of the public interest to management within their
organizations. Practitioner conduct should be driven by the core principles
of truth, trust, and transparency. This is not only an ethical imperative;
it is also the most pragmatic strategy as well.
References
Boorstin, D. J. (1971). The image: A
guide to pseudo-events in America. New York : Atheneum.
Broom, G. M., & Dozier, D. M. Using
research in public relations: Applications to program management.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Dozier, D. M., Grunig, L. A., &
Grunig, J. E. (1995). Manager's guide to excellence in public relations
and communication management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dozier, D. M., & Broom, G. M. (2006).
The centrality of public relations roles to public relations theory. In C.
Botan and V. Hazleton (Eds.), Public relations theory II (pp.
137-170). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dozier, D. M., & Lauzen, M. M.
(2000). Liberating the intellectual domain from the practice: Public
relations, activism, and the role of the scholar. Journal of Public Relations
Research, 12(1), 3-22.
Flanagin, A. J., Tiyaamornwong, V.,
O’Connor, J., & Seibold, D. R. (2002). Computer-mediated group work:
The interaction of member sex and anonymity. Communication Research, 29(1),
66-93.
Gandy, O. H., Jr. (1982). Beyond agenda
setting: Information subsidies and public policies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Publishing.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of
weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.
Grunig, J. E. (Ed.). (1992). Excellence
in public relations and communication management. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Grunig, J. E., Grunig, L. A., &
Dozier, D. M. (2006). The Excellence Theory. In C. Botan and V. Hazleton
(Eds.), Public relations theory II (pp. 21-62). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Grunig, J. E., & Hunt, T. (1984). Managing
public relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Grunig, L. A., Grunig, J. E., &
Dozier, D. M. (2002). Excellent public relations and effective
organizations: A study of communication management in three countries.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Grunig, L. A. (1992). Activism: How it
limits the effectiveness of organizations and how excellent public
relations departments respond. In J. E. Grunig (Ed.), Excellence in
public relations and communication management (pp. 503-530). Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Karlberg, M. (1996). Remembering the
public in public relations research: From theoretical to operational
symmetry. Journal of Public Relations Research, 8(4),
263-278.
Murphy, P., & Dee, J. (1992). Du Pont
and Greenpeace: The dynamics of conflict between corporations and activist
groups. Journal of Public Relations Research 4(1), 3-20.
Olson, M. (1971). The logic of
collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Payne, G. A. (2009). Information control
and imperiled public discourse: A general process model of gatekeeping,
agenda setting, and news content homogenization. Journal of Global
Communication, 2(1), 199-208.
Postmes, T., Spears, R., Sakhel, K.,
& De Groot, D. (2001). Social influence in computer-mediated
communication: The effects of anonymity on group behavior. Personal and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(10), 1243-1254.
Rubin, J. (1970). DO IT! Scenarios of
the revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster.
About
the Author
David M. Dozier is a professor in the School of Journalism
& Media Studies, San
Diego State University, where he heads the undergraduate program in
public relations, and coordinates the graduate program in military public
affairs. His research includes studies of the processes and effects of
mediated communication.
He
can be reached at ddozier@mail.sdsu.edu.
|
