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Planning and evaluation in PR practice
D a ~ d M. D o z i e r
Planning and E v a l u a t i o n in PR Practice Pseudo-planning and pseudo-evaluation are too often tlre response of practitioners to management demands for accountability, says tlre author of this article. Such steps are stopgaps that do little to advance public relations as an emerging profession. The difficulty lies in tlre differing orientations of "nezv wave" and "old wave" practitioners. The latter, says this writer, eschew planning and issue management for the technical reahn of producing communication about an organization. He suggests that foundations that support public relations should pursue a strategic plan to stimulate the evolution of true planning and evahlation practices. David M. Dozier is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism, San Diego State University, San Diego, Calif.
A
t countless gatherings of public relations practitioners, near the nohost bars at professional meetings, one can overhear testimonials to the virtues of public relations planning and evaluation. Some will say that they have "incorporated long-range and short-range planning throughout the communication program." Others will claim that they "use survey research extensively; we go for impact and then we measure it. ''I Program planning and evaluation, however, are too often the grist for social conversations rather than tools of the practice. For example, in an analysis of Silver Anvil Award entries in 1980, Don Hill found that 70 percent did not plan for any explicit, desired behavior change among publics. Further, 70 percent failed to provide any measures of results. None of the 1980 entries provided what Hill described as "complete measurement" of program impact. 2 The failure of practitioners to integrate research and evaluation into public relations practice has drawn the following lament from James Grunig: 3 Lately, I have begun to feel more and more like the fundamentalist minister railing against sin; the difference being that I have railed for evaluation. Just as everyone is against sin, so most public relations 17
Public Relations Review people I talk to are for evaluation. People keep on sinning, however, and PR people continue not to do evaluation research. The situation is made all the more serious by the key role that planning and evaluation play in the emergence of public relations as a profession. Pseudo-Planning and Pseudo-Evaluation True public relations planning links specified program activities to specified outcomes regarding attitudes, knowledge levels and behavior of targeted publics. True evaluation measures changes in attitudes, knowledge levels, and behavior of targeted publics. Further, true evaluation involves measures where the cause of changes in publics can be reasonably attributed to program efforts. The two are inexorably linked. A program that fails to specify informational, attitudinal, or behavioral objectives for publics has nothing to measure. Measurement of programs without goals is form without substance; true evaluation is impossible. True planning and evaluation must be distinguished from pseudo-planning and pseudo-evaluation. Pseudo-planning is simply the allocation of organizational resources to various communication activities, where the goal of program activities is conmumication itself. Practitioners parody true program planning w h e n they set overall goals like: "GOAL #1: To place 200 news releases in the metropolitan media during the current budget year." Practitioners who do so may genuinely mistake process for outcome. Organizations engage in public relations activities in order to nurture desired relationships with key publics. While newspapers and broadcast stations may regard communication as the end product, practitioners err w h e n they see themselves as "journalists in residence." Pseudo-evaluation is wedded to pseudo-planning, because such evaluation is simply counting news release placements, publications, and other communications. While measures of message dissemination help evaluate a necessary condition of program impact, these "clip file statistics" are often substituted for true measures of outcomes. Hill's analysis of 1980 Silver Anvil winners underscores the widespread nature of this problem. A third of the Silver Anvil winners and 73 percent of the losers cited media coverage as a favorable result. 4 This style of evaluation can become quite sophisticated, using advanced analytic techniques. I have described such,measures of distribution as "scientific dissemination" evaluation; such measurement plays an important role in overall program evaluation, s Hill underscores this point w h e n he notes that "clips may be valid as a partial measurement. ''~ The problem with pseudo-planning and pseudo-evaluation is that means and ends are confused. The outcome of a successful public relations program is not a hefty stack of news releases that fatten the practitioner's clip file, nor an employee publication acclaimed for its aesthetics by other practi18
Planning and Evaluation tioners. In Hill's study of 1980 Silver Anvil entires, one practitioner claimed that a public relations event "was successful and I was awarded a silver bowl for planning, coordinating and directing the open house effort." Another entrant wrote that "the bottom line was a 'torrent of praise' for the program. ''7 Communication products are essential components of a successful public relations program. They are necessary but rarely sufficient conditions of program success. Communication is not the outcome, tile measurable impact, of a successful public relations program. Communication is important only in the effects it achieves among publics. Specifying effects and measuring them are the interrelated contributions of true planning and evaluation to the emerging public relations profession. The implications of conducting true planning and evaluation are profound.
The Context of Program Planning and Evaluation Cutlip, Center and Broom correctly argue that public relations is an emerging profession, but they say that "public relations still stands short of public acceptance as a true profession." This is because the "field lacks maturity, effective regulation, full-fledged devotion to the public interest, and an extensive research program of its own" [emphasis added]. 8 The issue of professional ethics is substantial and essential to public acceptance of public relations as a profession. Regulation (licensing by the state or unified professional certification) and restriction of access to the practice is also a key hurdle that must be cleared for emergence as a true profession. However, professional ethics and regulation are of concern only w h e n a more fundamental attribute of professional status is acquired by public relations: a body of public relations theory developed through research. The primary importance of this activity is illustrated in Figure 1. Established professions, like medicine and law, can be viewed as "pyramids," wherein the professional activities of the practitioner rest on a foundation of an underlying body of knowledge, a structure of scientific theory that guides professional practice. In public relations, the underlying foundation, the base of the professional pyramid, is shaky and unstable. Part of this is because of the relative immaturity of communication theory itself, the scientific understanding of the processes and effects of mass and interpersonal communication. There is no quick fix for the immaturity of communication theory. The social scientific study of something as complex as h u m a n communication cannot expect to mature as rapidly as less complex areas of inquiry, such as physics, chemistry, and the biological sciences. But the profession does not have to wait for further social scientific breakthroughs. The evolving of professions can and does parallel the sciences that serve as their underpinnings. With an emerging profession, one can easily confuse the "'how-to" skill cluster at the top of the pyramid with the true underlying theory. Imagine medical practitioners spending their years in medical school honing those 19
Public Relations
Review FIGURE 1
The Professional Pyramid for Public Relations
Skills Cluster (writing, photography, coordination of special events, etc.)
Scientific Substructure (attitude formation, attitude change, communication effects, open systems theory, organizational development theory, etc.)
technical skill clusters that make up daily practice. Skill with the hypodermic needle and stethoscope are secondary to the practitioners' understanding of the biological sciences that guide and dictate the use of those skills. Yet just such confusion leads some public relations practitioners to demand that universities training future practitioners adopt a "trade school" orientation. Practitioners frequently d e m a n d that university curricula teach public relations majors to "write, write, write!" In terms of preparing public relations undergraduates for their first six months in public relations work, the prudent university would immerse public relations undergraduates in nothing but writing. Indeed, writing is an important technical skill. However, such "prudence" would condemn public relations to death as a profession. Encroachment and Exclusion from Decision Making
It's been said that practitioners who demand writing technicians from universities "must change the practice or see public relations relegated to a low-level support function reporting to others who can demonstrate program impact. ''9 The same practitioners who view public relations as a cluster of technical communication skills are also among those who lament 20
Planning and Evaluation other crises in public relations. Those crises involve encroachment and practitioner exclusion from decision making. In 1980, Philip Lesly formed a blue-ribbon Task Force on the Stature and Role of Public Relations. After a year's study, the panel found many positive signs regarding the evolution of public relations, but noted the growing tendency to fill top management positions in public relations units with professionals from outside public relations. 1° At the same time, practitioners frequently lament that they are asked to justify and defend organizational decisions and actions after the fact. These practitioners argue that they ought to be included in decision-making sessions with senior management, in order to spell out implications of various options affecting relations with key publics. ~ The public relations function, when it is excluded from decision making, is relegated to a narrow technical role. If the technical role "fits" the practitioner's day-to-day conduct, then management is correct in excluding such practitioners from decision making and strategic planning. ~2 The reason for these two distinct problems can be seen when one reviews Broom's research on practitioner roles.13 The role of communication technician, the lowest paid of practitioners, is concerned with the production of public relations communications. These technicians write news releases, handle production of brochures and pamphlets, and edit the writing of others. In short, they are involved exclusively in output functions; they implement decisions made by others. A strong case can be made for systematically excluding such technicians from decision making. A stronger case can be made for putting such technicians under the supervision and management of true managers, professionals who make communication policy decisions and take overall responsibility for the success or failure of public relations programs. 1~ The Task Force on the Stature and Role of Public Relations found that management increasingly looks outside public relations for competent managers of the public relations function. ~5
Program Planning and Evaluation These alarming conditions in the practice of public relations can be directly linked to public relations planning and evaluation. The professional literature is saturated with articles exhorting public relations practitioners to set measurable goals and objectives for public relations programs--and then measure them. TM Why is this so important? Because public relations is too often perceived as "'functionary," as irrelevant to the organization's survival and growth, its "'bottom line." The process of setting public relations goals and objectives in measurable form serves two purposes. First, the prudent and strategic selection of public relations goals and objectives linked to organizational survival and growth serves to justify the public relations program as a viable management activity. Public relations, in this context, is not the static, technical production of employee publica21
P u b l i c R e l a t i o n s Red'Jew tions or mountains of news releases. Rather, public relations activities are dynamic and selective. Communication and action strategies (including organizational changes as well) are designed to solve problems that affect the organization's survival and growth. Second, the specification of public relations goals and objectives in measurable form makes public relations accountable and makes program success or failure concrete and objective. Clearly, this is a double-edged sword. By making public relations accountable, the true organizational value of public relations programs fails under the glare of management scrutiny. There was some protection in the old practitioner line that public relations deals with "intangibles" that can't, in principle, be measured. However, that "'protection" results in systematic exclusion of practitioners from management decision making and senior management positions. The benefits of accountability are also apparent: the stature and role of public relations within an organization is clearly tied to the ability of public relations units to solve significant organizational problems--and provide evidence of achievement of desired outcomes. The process of setting measurable public relations goals and objectives and then measuring them for evaluation purposes also serves the profession-building imperative in public relations. Certain skills are required to measure public opinion, to be the organization's expert on knowledge, predispositions, and behavior of publics toward the organization. These skills are rooted in the social sciences, the underlying foundation of public relations as a profession. Further, these tools are well developed. Survey sampling techniques, trend studies and panel designs, small laboratory and field experiments, as well as such qualitative techniques as focus groups and depth interviews, are relatively mature methodological tools available to practitioners. As a new wave of public relations practitioners emerges from the better university public relations programs, the practitioner community will be enriched with heretofore misunderstood and under-used social research tools. The problem with old-wave practitioners is more problematic. Many reasons are given for the failure to plan and evaluate public relations programs: budgets, time constraints, emergencies, and so forth. But Center and Broom cut to the core of the problem w h e n they suggest that "'most of the practitioners positioned by age or authority to be influential in these matters simply do not know h o w to provide the leadership to use research in planning. ''17 While rarely mentioned, the reason for such continued "sins of omission" is simple: Senior practitioners simply do not know how to set measurable outcomes for public relations programs, nor do they know how to evahtate or measure program hnpact. While practitioners have developed a "cocktail party proficiency" at saying a few appropriate words about planning and evaluation, the content of the practice reveals the practitioners do not actually do true program planning and evaluation? 8 22
Planning and Evaluation
Once practitioners incorporate true program planning and evaluation into their practice, a chain reaction of some magnitude is set in motion. As they realize that technical communication skills are only part of the public relations function, they aspire to the management role. ~9 In a very real sense, the management function in public relations is program planning and evaluation. When practitioners become managers, the practice of public relations takes a giant step toward becoming a profession. For at that point, the practitioner (perhaps for the first time) looks to social scientific theory-including communication effects theory, open systems theory, and theories of organizational development--to guide practice. At that point, the practitioner sees the need to access the rapidly-growing substructure of social scientific theory relevant to the practice. Another important event occurs when practitioners become serious about true program evaluation. When reliable and replicable methods of program evaluation are applied to public relations programs, the practitioner fundamentally alters the practice of public relations. What is the relationship between a given action and communication strategy, on the one hand, and changes in specific publics' knowledge, predispositions, and behavior, on the other? How much impact can be achieved through the commitment of known human and material resources to the solution of a specified public relations problem? Real public relations planning, unlike pseudo-planning, needs the answers to such questions. Specifying reasonable and "do-able" program goals and objectives is premised on an understanding of expected program impact for a given program effort. Real program evaluation, unlike pseudo-evaluation, provides the answer to those questions! Truly, answers are likely to be situation-specific; findings are not easily generalized to other organizations, other problems, and other publics. But public relations begins to collect a body of practical theory about what works and what doesn't work, in terms of program impact, when public relations programs are implemented. Over time, over repeated evaluations of many public relations programs under different conditions, the "state of the public relations art" is systematically improved. The emergence of public relations as a true profession is inexorably linked to the development of genuine program planning and program evaluation as the basis for performing the public relations function. What Research Foundations Can Do Working practitioners, locked in the daily scurry to meet tight deadlines with limited resources and handling a multitude of crises, can't be expected to bring about true planning and evalution by themselves. Such widespread evolution in the practice requires a dedicated change agent following a clear change strategy. That's where foundations in support of public relations research and education can play such a vital role. 23
Public Relations Review Foundations can fund demonstration projects. Academics dedicated to development of the practice make up a pool of available consulting talent. Organizations as well must dedicate resources of their own to true planning and evaluation efforts. Such financial commitment indicates organizational readiness for change. Generalizations from a number of such projects cotild be summarized in "synthesis'" documents that draw conclusions from a series of specific demonstrations. Foundations could use professional development seminars of professional organizations to diffuse techniques of true planning and evaluation. Respected professional publications provide another diffusion channel. The impact of such diffusion efforts should be studied systematically. That is, longitudinal studies of changes in planning and evaluation practices among large samples of practitioners should be undertaken. Factors impeding diffusion could be identified. Reporting the findings of such studies could be used as a further mechanism to stimulate planning and evaluation among still other practitioners. Change is not likely to occur quickly. Current practices are deeply rooted in the educational and professional experiences of practitioners. The emergence of public relations as a profession is tightly linked to these professionbuilding innovations, however. Needed strategic changes in the practice ought to begin now.
References
1The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Dr. Glen Broom, San Diego State University, whose insights into the evolution of public relations as a profession served as a foundation for this work. 2Don Hill, "In Search of ExceIlence," Public Relations Journal 38 (May 1982), p. 36. 3James Grunig, "'Basic Research Provides Knowledge That Makes Evaluation Possible,'" Public Relations Quarterly 28 (Fall 1983), p. 28. 4Hill, op. cit., p. 36. SDavid Dozier, "Program Evaluation and Roles of Practitioners," Public Relations Review 10 (Spring 1984), pp. 35-39. 6Hill, op. cit., p. 37. rlbid. 8Scott Cutlip, Allen Center, and Glen Broom, Effective Public Relations, 6th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), p. 449. 9Glen Broom and David Dozier, "An Overview: Evaluation Research in Public Relations," Public Relations Quarterly 28 (Fall 1983), p. 5. 1°PhilipLesly, "The Stature and Role of Public Relations," Public Relations Journal 37 (January 1981), p. 15. nlbid., p. 14. ~2Broom and Dozier, op. cit., p. 5. ~Glen Broom, "A Comparison of Sex Roles in Public Relations," Public Relations Reviezo 8 (Fall 1982), pp. 17-22. "David Dozier, op. cir., p. 37. ~SLesly,op. cit., p. 15. 16See H.W. Close, "Public Relations as a Management Function," Public Relations Journal 36 (March 1980), p. 11-14; R.J. Coyle, "Why Practitioners Should Master Sampling and Survey Research," Public Relations Journal 36 (March 1980), pp. 11-14; R.F. Harlow, "Management,
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Planning and Evaluation Public Relations and the Social Sciences," Public Relations Review 1 (1975), pp. 5-13; J.F. Jones, "Audit: A New Tool for Public Relations," Public Relations Journal 31 (July 1975), pp. 6-8; J.A. Kopec, "The Communications Audit," Public Relations Journal 38 (May 1982), pp. 24-27; O. Lerbinger, "Corporate Use of Research in Public Relations," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 11-19; P.M. Lewis, "Public Relations--An Applied Social Science?" Public Relations Journal 30 (April 1974), pp. 22-24; R.K. Marker, "The Armstrong/PR Data Measurement System," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 51-59; L. Marshall, "The New Breed of PR Executive," Public Relations Journal 36 (July 1980), pp. 9-13; M. McElreath, "Public Relations Evaluation Research: Summary Statement," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 129136; B. Pennington, "How Public Relations Fits Into the Puzzle," Public Relations ]ournal 36 (March 1980), pp. 18-20; E.J. Robinson, Public Relations and Survey Research: Achieving Organizational Goals in a Communication Context (New York: Meredith Corporation, 1969);K.R. Stature, "Strategies for Evaluating Public Relations," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 120128; J.B. Strenski, "New Concerns for Measurement," Public Relations Journal 37 (May 1981), pp. 16-17; D.K. Wright, "Some Ways to Measure Public Relations," Public Relations Journal 36 (July 1979), pp. 17-18. ~TAllenCenter and Glen Broom, "Evaluation Research," Public Relations Quarterly 28 (Fail t983), p. 2. ~sCutlip, Center, and Broom, op. cit., pp. 449M73. ~gBradford Sullivan, David Dozier, and Susan Hellweg, "A Test of Organizational Role Hierarchy Among Public Relations Practitioners," paper presented to the Public Relations Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass CommunicationAnnual Convention, Gainesville, Florida, August 6, 1984.
NOTICE TO C O N T R I B U T O R S HOW TO Submit a Manuscript
Submit three copies, typed doubled-spaced on one side of the page, to the editors for review. Each article will be screened by the editors for relevance to the Review. Those judged relevant will be submitted to a panel of two referees chosen from the Editorial Review Committee. An article maybe accepted in existing form, accepted subject to revisions, or deferred for rewriting. All tables, figures, and footnotes should be typed on separate pages, but their location should be noted in the manuscript. Footnotes should be numbered sequentially in the text and written according to the following style: 1. Article: Joseph P. Jones, "Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy," Journal of Public Relations 45(1975), pp. 66-79. 2. Book: Joseph P. Jones, Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy (New York: Public Relations Press, 1975), pp. 6-10. 3. Chapter in Book: Joseph P. Jones, "Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy," in Henry R. Smith (ed.), Contemporary Public Relations (New York: Public Relations Press, 1975), pp. 79-96. 4. Unpublished Paper: Joseph P. Jones, "'Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy," paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism, San Diego, August 1974. 5. Second citation when it immediately follows the first: Ibid, p. 10. 6. Second citation when it does not immediately follow the first: Jones, Op. cit., p. 10.
25
Planning and E v a l u a t i o n in PR Practice Pseudo-planning and pseudo-evaluation are too often tlre response of practitioners to management demands for accountability, says tlre author of this article. Such steps are stopgaps that do little to advance public relations as an emerging profession. The difficulty lies in tlre differing orientations of "nezv wave" and "old wave" practitioners. The latter, says this writer, eschew planning and issue management for the technical reahn of producing communication about an organization. He suggests that foundations that support public relations should pursue a strategic plan to stimulate the evolution of true planning and evahlation practices. David M. Dozier is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism, San Diego State University, San Diego, Calif.
A
t countless gatherings of public relations practitioners, near the nohost bars at professional meetings, one can overhear testimonials to the virtues of public relations planning and evaluation. Some will say that they have "incorporated long-range and short-range planning throughout the communication program." Others will claim that they "use survey research extensively; we go for impact and then we measure it. ''I Program planning and evaluation, however, are too often the grist for social conversations rather than tools of the practice. For example, in an analysis of Silver Anvil Award entries in 1980, Don Hill found that 70 percent did not plan for any explicit, desired behavior change among publics. Further, 70 percent failed to provide any measures of results. None of the 1980 entries provided what Hill described as "complete measurement" of program impact. 2 The failure of practitioners to integrate research and evaluation into public relations practice has drawn the following lament from James Grunig: 3 Lately, I have begun to feel more and more like the fundamentalist minister railing against sin; the difference being that I have railed for evaluation. Just as everyone is against sin, so most public relations 17
Public Relations Review people I talk to are for evaluation. People keep on sinning, however, and PR people continue not to do evaluation research. The situation is made all the more serious by the key role that planning and evaluation play in the emergence of public relations as a profession. Pseudo-Planning and Pseudo-Evaluation True public relations planning links specified program activities to specified outcomes regarding attitudes, knowledge levels and behavior of targeted publics. True evaluation measures changes in attitudes, knowledge levels, and behavior of targeted publics. Further, true evaluation involves measures where the cause of changes in publics can be reasonably attributed to program efforts. The two are inexorably linked. A program that fails to specify informational, attitudinal, or behavioral objectives for publics has nothing to measure. Measurement of programs without goals is form without substance; true evaluation is impossible. True planning and evaluation must be distinguished from pseudo-planning and pseudo-evaluation. Pseudo-planning is simply the allocation of organizational resources to various communication activities, where the goal of program activities is conmumication itself. Practitioners parody true program planning w h e n they set overall goals like: "GOAL #1: To place 200 news releases in the metropolitan media during the current budget year." Practitioners who do so may genuinely mistake process for outcome. Organizations engage in public relations activities in order to nurture desired relationships with key publics. While newspapers and broadcast stations may regard communication as the end product, practitioners err w h e n they see themselves as "journalists in residence." Pseudo-evaluation is wedded to pseudo-planning, because such evaluation is simply counting news release placements, publications, and other communications. While measures of message dissemination help evaluate a necessary condition of program impact, these "clip file statistics" are often substituted for true measures of outcomes. Hill's analysis of 1980 Silver Anvil winners underscores the widespread nature of this problem. A third of the Silver Anvil winners and 73 percent of the losers cited media coverage as a favorable result. 4 This style of evaluation can become quite sophisticated, using advanced analytic techniques. I have described such,measures of distribution as "scientific dissemination" evaluation; such measurement plays an important role in overall program evaluation, s Hill underscores this point w h e n he notes that "clips may be valid as a partial measurement. ''~ The problem with pseudo-planning and pseudo-evaluation is that means and ends are confused. The outcome of a successful public relations program is not a hefty stack of news releases that fatten the practitioner's clip file, nor an employee publication acclaimed for its aesthetics by other practi18
Planning and Evaluation tioners. In Hill's study of 1980 Silver Anvil entires, one practitioner claimed that a public relations event "was successful and I was awarded a silver bowl for planning, coordinating and directing the open house effort." Another entrant wrote that "the bottom line was a 'torrent of praise' for the program. ''7 Communication products are essential components of a successful public relations program. They are necessary but rarely sufficient conditions of program success. Communication is not the outcome, tile measurable impact, of a successful public relations program. Communication is important only in the effects it achieves among publics. Specifying effects and measuring them are the interrelated contributions of true planning and evaluation to the emerging public relations profession. The implications of conducting true planning and evaluation are profound.
The Context of Program Planning and Evaluation Cutlip, Center and Broom correctly argue that public relations is an emerging profession, but they say that "public relations still stands short of public acceptance as a true profession." This is because the "field lacks maturity, effective regulation, full-fledged devotion to the public interest, and an extensive research program of its own" [emphasis added]. 8 The issue of professional ethics is substantial and essential to public acceptance of public relations as a profession. Regulation (licensing by the state or unified professional certification) and restriction of access to the practice is also a key hurdle that must be cleared for emergence as a true profession. However, professional ethics and regulation are of concern only w h e n a more fundamental attribute of professional status is acquired by public relations: a body of public relations theory developed through research. The primary importance of this activity is illustrated in Figure 1. Established professions, like medicine and law, can be viewed as "pyramids," wherein the professional activities of the practitioner rest on a foundation of an underlying body of knowledge, a structure of scientific theory that guides professional practice. In public relations, the underlying foundation, the base of the professional pyramid, is shaky and unstable. Part of this is because of the relative immaturity of communication theory itself, the scientific understanding of the processes and effects of mass and interpersonal communication. There is no quick fix for the immaturity of communication theory. The social scientific study of something as complex as h u m a n communication cannot expect to mature as rapidly as less complex areas of inquiry, such as physics, chemistry, and the biological sciences. But the profession does not have to wait for further social scientific breakthroughs. The evolving of professions can and does parallel the sciences that serve as their underpinnings. With an emerging profession, one can easily confuse the "'how-to" skill cluster at the top of the pyramid with the true underlying theory. Imagine medical practitioners spending their years in medical school honing those 19
Public Relations
Review FIGURE 1
The Professional Pyramid for Public Relations
Skills Cluster (writing, photography, coordination of special events, etc.)
Scientific Substructure (attitude formation, attitude change, communication effects, open systems theory, organizational development theory, etc.)
technical skill clusters that make up daily practice. Skill with the hypodermic needle and stethoscope are secondary to the practitioners' understanding of the biological sciences that guide and dictate the use of those skills. Yet just such confusion leads some public relations practitioners to demand that universities training future practitioners adopt a "trade school" orientation. Practitioners frequently d e m a n d that university curricula teach public relations majors to "write, write, write!" In terms of preparing public relations undergraduates for their first six months in public relations work, the prudent university would immerse public relations undergraduates in nothing but writing. Indeed, writing is an important technical skill. However, such "prudence" would condemn public relations to death as a profession. Encroachment and Exclusion from Decision Making
It's been said that practitioners who demand writing technicians from universities "must change the practice or see public relations relegated to a low-level support function reporting to others who can demonstrate program impact. ''9 The same practitioners who view public relations as a cluster of technical communication skills are also among those who lament 20
Planning and Evaluation other crises in public relations. Those crises involve encroachment and practitioner exclusion from decision making. In 1980, Philip Lesly formed a blue-ribbon Task Force on the Stature and Role of Public Relations. After a year's study, the panel found many positive signs regarding the evolution of public relations, but noted the growing tendency to fill top management positions in public relations units with professionals from outside public relations. 1° At the same time, practitioners frequently lament that they are asked to justify and defend organizational decisions and actions after the fact. These practitioners argue that they ought to be included in decision-making sessions with senior management, in order to spell out implications of various options affecting relations with key publics. ~ The public relations function, when it is excluded from decision making, is relegated to a narrow technical role. If the technical role "fits" the practitioner's day-to-day conduct, then management is correct in excluding such practitioners from decision making and strategic planning. ~2 The reason for these two distinct problems can be seen when one reviews Broom's research on practitioner roles.13 The role of communication technician, the lowest paid of practitioners, is concerned with the production of public relations communications. These technicians write news releases, handle production of brochures and pamphlets, and edit the writing of others. In short, they are involved exclusively in output functions; they implement decisions made by others. A strong case can be made for systematically excluding such technicians from decision making. A stronger case can be made for putting such technicians under the supervision and management of true managers, professionals who make communication policy decisions and take overall responsibility for the success or failure of public relations programs. 1~ The Task Force on the Stature and Role of Public Relations found that management increasingly looks outside public relations for competent managers of the public relations function. ~5
Program Planning and Evaluation These alarming conditions in the practice of public relations can be directly linked to public relations planning and evaluation. The professional literature is saturated with articles exhorting public relations practitioners to set measurable goals and objectives for public relations programs--and then measure them. TM Why is this so important? Because public relations is too often perceived as "'functionary," as irrelevant to the organization's survival and growth, its "'bottom line." The process of setting public relations goals and objectives in measurable form serves two purposes. First, the prudent and strategic selection of public relations goals and objectives linked to organizational survival and growth serves to justify the public relations program as a viable management activity. Public relations, in this context, is not the static, technical production of employee publica21
P u b l i c R e l a t i o n s Red'Jew tions or mountains of news releases. Rather, public relations activities are dynamic and selective. Communication and action strategies (including organizational changes as well) are designed to solve problems that affect the organization's survival and growth. Second, the specification of public relations goals and objectives in measurable form makes public relations accountable and makes program success or failure concrete and objective. Clearly, this is a double-edged sword. By making public relations accountable, the true organizational value of public relations programs fails under the glare of management scrutiny. There was some protection in the old practitioner line that public relations deals with "intangibles" that can't, in principle, be measured. However, that "'protection" results in systematic exclusion of practitioners from management decision making and senior management positions. The benefits of accountability are also apparent: the stature and role of public relations within an organization is clearly tied to the ability of public relations units to solve significant organizational problems--and provide evidence of achievement of desired outcomes. The process of setting measurable public relations goals and objectives and then measuring them for evaluation purposes also serves the profession-building imperative in public relations. Certain skills are required to measure public opinion, to be the organization's expert on knowledge, predispositions, and behavior of publics toward the organization. These skills are rooted in the social sciences, the underlying foundation of public relations as a profession. Further, these tools are well developed. Survey sampling techniques, trend studies and panel designs, small laboratory and field experiments, as well as such qualitative techniques as focus groups and depth interviews, are relatively mature methodological tools available to practitioners. As a new wave of public relations practitioners emerges from the better university public relations programs, the practitioner community will be enriched with heretofore misunderstood and under-used social research tools. The problem with old-wave practitioners is more problematic. Many reasons are given for the failure to plan and evaluate public relations programs: budgets, time constraints, emergencies, and so forth. But Center and Broom cut to the core of the problem w h e n they suggest that "'most of the practitioners positioned by age or authority to be influential in these matters simply do not know h o w to provide the leadership to use research in planning. ''17 While rarely mentioned, the reason for such continued "sins of omission" is simple: Senior practitioners simply do not know how to set measurable outcomes for public relations programs, nor do they know how to evahtate or measure program hnpact. While practitioners have developed a "cocktail party proficiency" at saying a few appropriate words about planning and evaluation, the content of the practice reveals the practitioners do not actually do true program planning and evaluation? 8 22
Planning and Evaluation
Once practitioners incorporate true program planning and evaluation into their practice, a chain reaction of some magnitude is set in motion. As they realize that technical communication skills are only part of the public relations function, they aspire to the management role. ~9 In a very real sense, the management function in public relations is program planning and evaluation. When practitioners become managers, the practice of public relations takes a giant step toward becoming a profession. For at that point, the practitioner (perhaps for the first time) looks to social scientific theory-including communication effects theory, open systems theory, and theories of organizational development--to guide practice. At that point, the practitioner sees the need to access the rapidly-growing substructure of social scientific theory relevant to the practice. Another important event occurs when practitioners become serious about true program evaluation. When reliable and replicable methods of program evaluation are applied to public relations programs, the practitioner fundamentally alters the practice of public relations. What is the relationship between a given action and communication strategy, on the one hand, and changes in specific publics' knowledge, predispositions, and behavior, on the other? How much impact can be achieved through the commitment of known human and material resources to the solution of a specified public relations problem? Real public relations planning, unlike pseudo-planning, needs the answers to such questions. Specifying reasonable and "do-able" program goals and objectives is premised on an understanding of expected program impact for a given program effort. Real program evaluation, unlike pseudo-evaluation, provides the answer to those questions! Truly, answers are likely to be situation-specific; findings are not easily generalized to other organizations, other problems, and other publics. But public relations begins to collect a body of practical theory about what works and what doesn't work, in terms of program impact, when public relations programs are implemented. Over time, over repeated evaluations of many public relations programs under different conditions, the "state of the public relations art" is systematically improved. The emergence of public relations as a true profession is inexorably linked to the development of genuine program planning and program evaluation as the basis for performing the public relations function. What Research Foundations Can Do Working practitioners, locked in the daily scurry to meet tight deadlines with limited resources and handling a multitude of crises, can't be expected to bring about true planning and evalution by themselves. Such widespread evolution in the practice requires a dedicated change agent following a clear change strategy. That's where foundations in support of public relations research and education can play such a vital role. 23
Public Relations Review Foundations can fund demonstration projects. Academics dedicated to development of the practice make up a pool of available consulting talent. Organizations as well must dedicate resources of their own to true planning and evaluation efforts. Such financial commitment indicates organizational readiness for change. Generalizations from a number of such projects cotild be summarized in "synthesis'" documents that draw conclusions from a series of specific demonstrations. Foundations could use professional development seminars of professional organizations to diffuse techniques of true planning and evaluation. Respected professional publications provide another diffusion channel. The impact of such diffusion efforts should be studied systematically. That is, longitudinal studies of changes in planning and evaluation practices among large samples of practitioners should be undertaken. Factors impeding diffusion could be identified. Reporting the findings of such studies could be used as a further mechanism to stimulate planning and evaluation among still other practitioners. Change is not likely to occur quickly. Current practices are deeply rooted in the educational and professional experiences of practitioners. The emergence of public relations as a profession is tightly linked to these professionbuilding innovations, however. Needed strategic changes in the practice ought to begin now.
References
1The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Dr. Glen Broom, San Diego State University, whose insights into the evolution of public relations as a profession served as a foundation for this work. 2Don Hill, "In Search of ExceIlence," Public Relations Journal 38 (May 1982), p. 36. 3James Grunig, "'Basic Research Provides Knowledge That Makes Evaluation Possible,'" Public Relations Quarterly 28 (Fall 1983), p. 28. 4Hill, op. cit., p. 36. SDavid Dozier, "Program Evaluation and Roles of Practitioners," Public Relations Review 10 (Spring 1984), pp. 35-39. 6Hill, op. cit., p. 37. rlbid. 8Scott Cutlip, Allen Center, and Glen Broom, Effective Public Relations, 6th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), p. 449. 9Glen Broom and David Dozier, "An Overview: Evaluation Research in Public Relations," Public Relations Quarterly 28 (Fall 1983), p. 5. 1°PhilipLesly, "The Stature and Role of Public Relations," Public Relations Journal 37 (January 1981), p. 15. nlbid., p. 14. ~2Broom and Dozier, op. cit., p. 5. ~Glen Broom, "A Comparison of Sex Roles in Public Relations," Public Relations Reviezo 8 (Fall 1982), pp. 17-22. "David Dozier, op. cir., p. 37. ~SLesly,op. cit., p. 15. 16See H.W. Close, "Public Relations as a Management Function," Public Relations Journal 36 (March 1980), p. 11-14; R.J. Coyle, "Why Practitioners Should Master Sampling and Survey Research," Public Relations Journal 36 (March 1980), pp. 11-14; R.F. Harlow, "Management,
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Planning and Evaluation Public Relations and the Social Sciences," Public Relations Review 1 (1975), pp. 5-13; J.F. Jones, "Audit: A New Tool for Public Relations," Public Relations Journal 31 (July 1975), pp. 6-8; J.A. Kopec, "The Communications Audit," Public Relations Journal 38 (May 1982), pp. 24-27; O. Lerbinger, "Corporate Use of Research in Public Relations," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 11-19; P.M. Lewis, "Public Relations--An Applied Social Science?" Public Relations Journal 30 (April 1974), pp. 22-24; R.K. Marker, "The Armstrong/PR Data Measurement System," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 51-59; L. Marshall, "The New Breed of PR Executive," Public Relations Journal 36 (July 1980), pp. 9-13; M. McElreath, "Public Relations Evaluation Research: Summary Statement," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 129136; B. Pennington, "How Public Relations Fits Into the Puzzle," Public Relations ]ournal 36 (March 1980), pp. 18-20; E.J. Robinson, Public Relations and Survey Research: Achieving Organizational Goals in a Communication Context (New York: Meredith Corporation, 1969);K.R. Stature, "Strategies for Evaluating Public Relations," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 120128; J.B. Strenski, "New Concerns for Measurement," Public Relations Journal 37 (May 1981), pp. 16-17; D.K. Wright, "Some Ways to Measure Public Relations," Public Relations Journal 36 (July 1979), pp. 17-18. ~TAllenCenter and Glen Broom, "Evaluation Research," Public Relations Quarterly 28 (Fail t983), p. 2. ~sCutlip, Center, and Broom, op. cit., pp. 449M73. ~gBradford Sullivan, David Dozier, and Susan Hellweg, "A Test of Organizational Role Hierarchy Among Public Relations Practitioners," paper presented to the Public Relations Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass CommunicationAnnual Convention, Gainesville, Florida, August 6, 1984.
NOTICE TO C O N T R I B U T O R S HOW TO Submit a Manuscript
Submit three copies, typed doubled-spaced on one side of the page, to the editors for review. Each article will be screened by the editors for relevance to the Review. Those judged relevant will be submitted to a panel of two referees chosen from the Editorial Review Committee. An article maybe accepted in existing form, accepted subject to revisions, or deferred for rewriting. All tables, figures, and footnotes should be typed on separate pages, but their location should be noted in the manuscript. Footnotes should be numbered sequentially in the text and written according to the following style: 1. Article: Joseph P. Jones, "Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy," Journal of Public Relations 45(1975), pp. 66-79. 2. Book: Joseph P. Jones, Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy (New York: Public Relations Press, 1975), pp. 6-10. 3. Chapter in Book: Joseph P. Jones, "Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy," in Henry R. Smith (ed.), Contemporary Public Relations (New York: Public Relations Press, 1975), pp. 79-96. 4. Unpublished Paper: Joseph P. Jones, "'Public Relations in the Corporate Hierarchy," paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism, San Diego, August 1974. 5. Second citation when it immediately follows the first: Ibid, p. 10. 6. Second citation when it does not immediately follow the first: Jones, Op. cit., p. 10.
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