- Email: [email protected]
Applied organizational communication
Book Reviews
replete with stilted scholarly jargon, e.g. “social schemata.” I fear students and practitioners will have a hard time with much of the author’s prose. A pragmatic question: Will this innovative approach with seven chapter of theory and six chapters on actual case problems meet the needs of most case study courses in public relations? I applaud this innovation. Scott M. Cutlip University of Georgia
Thomas E. Harris Applied Organizational Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence 1993, $34.50
Communication Erlbaum Associates,
477~~.
,
The approach ramp to the much-touted super information highway promises to be smooth enough, but traversing the highway itself, while promising to be efficient and fast, looks to be all too mechanistic, sterile and dehumanizing. Mind you, that Aldous Huxley-plus-10 premise is by no means the central message Thomas Harris wishes to communicate in his book. As a matter of fact, judged by the minimal amount of space and attention he gives it, the quality of communication between and among humans and human communities-as opposed to that between and among robotic work stations-doesn’t appear to rate highly among Mr. Harris’ concerns. The book-essentially a recapitulation of others’ views on the subject-focuses its emphasis on the hightech bells and whistles of conveying information-ever more speedily and efficiently-but essentially without the juice and zest and, indeed, the frustration of people interacting with each other-by means of two-way communication, in other words; and not merely by one-directional dissemination ofinformation. As a matter of fact, the book treats all too casually, almost in passing, the elemental question ofwhether conveyance of information can be said to constitute meaningful communication. Mr. Harris’ failure to address this question in a balanced way is, of course, a choice he is free to make. But since the trend in contemporary society is ever more to the systems approach to the super information highway, the book’s seeming reluctance to discuss the pernicious consequences of the breakdown in two-way communication causes the work to seem more superficial that it ought. After all, in this day and age few of us need to be sensitized to the promised wonders of living more and more of our lives electronically. But what about the physical and spiritual isolation which we are too ready to accept as a characteristic of our life style? At least this one of Mr. Harris’ readers would have been gratified had he chosen to balance in his text the convenience and speed of the super information highway with an expression of concern about our mechanistic communication as a major contributor to our increasingly isolated lives.
spring 1994
101
Public Relations
Revkw
As it is, he seems too willing to project a near-future communicating more but enjoying it less.
in which Americans
will be
Stephen H. Baer, APR Fellow, Communications Consultant Pasadena, CA. John W. Hill The Makirg of a Public Relations Edition Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business $29.95
Man, 30th Anniversary Books,
273 pp., 1993,
The Making of a Public Relations Man first appeared in 1963, when John Hill was 73 years old and the firm he founded was 35 years old. Its re-publication in a special 30th anniversary edition gives a new generation of PR people the chance to study the career of a pioneer of the profession. The beginning of the book is largely autobiographical. Like nearly all of the early practitioners, Hill got his start as a newspaper reporter, in Indiana, studied journalism at Indiana University, and then worked for a series of papers in Indiana and Ohio. A desire to publish his own paper led him to start the “Business Bulletin” for the Cleveland Trust Bank, and it was in Cleveland, in 1927, that he opened an office to do “corporate publicity” work after being encouraged by a small book of speeches by Ivy Lee. His first client was the Union Trust Company, another bank, followed by the Otis Steel Company. In 1993, he moved to New York City to serve the American Iron and Steel Institute, leaving his Cleveland office in the hands of his new partner, Don Knowlton. It was the beginning of a long relationship between Hill and Knowlton and a number of trade associations in steel, aeronautics, and oil and natural gas. Hill’s life reads like a catalog of government leaders, industrial figures, and prominent public events from the 1930s to the 60s. However, the book is more than just a memoir. Hill believed strongly that the free enterprise system must be protected from government interference, and that to do this, simply, “business must tell its story.” Managers, he argued, must be prepared to speak to the groups that comprise their constituents, just as any public officeholder. Much of the book is devoted to discussing how public relations can help them here. and Corporate Enterprise,” Hill In a thoughtful chapter on “Public Opinion suggests that the approach to creating a favorable climate for business begins with the attitude of top management, out of which comes policy decisions which must be made in the public interest. Sound policy, he claimed, must pass the public approval test along with the profit-producing test, and this requires policies of intrinsic human value. “The rightful purpose of public relations,” he wrote, “is openly to confirm, stuff in an age when public relations strengthen, and defend these values” -strong
102
Vol. 20, No. 1
replete with stilted scholarly jargon, e.g. “social schemata.” I fear students and practitioners will have a hard time with much of the author’s prose. A pragmatic question: Will this innovative approach with seven chapter of theory and six chapters on actual case problems meet the needs of most case study courses in public relations? I applaud this innovation. Scott M. Cutlip University of Georgia
Thomas E. Harris Applied Organizational Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence 1993, $34.50
Communication Erlbaum Associates,
477~~.
,
The approach ramp to the much-touted super information highway promises to be smooth enough, but traversing the highway itself, while promising to be efficient and fast, looks to be all too mechanistic, sterile and dehumanizing. Mind you, that Aldous Huxley-plus-10 premise is by no means the central message Thomas Harris wishes to communicate in his book. As a matter of fact, judged by the minimal amount of space and attention he gives it, the quality of communication between and among humans and human communities-as opposed to that between and among robotic work stations-doesn’t appear to rate highly among Mr. Harris’ concerns. The book-essentially a recapitulation of others’ views on the subject-focuses its emphasis on the hightech bells and whistles of conveying information-ever more speedily and efficiently-but essentially without the juice and zest and, indeed, the frustration of people interacting with each other-by means of two-way communication, in other words; and not merely by one-directional dissemination ofinformation. As a matter of fact, the book treats all too casually, almost in passing, the elemental question ofwhether conveyance of information can be said to constitute meaningful communication. Mr. Harris’ failure to address this question in a balanced way is, of course, a choice he is free to make. But since the trend in contemporary society is ever more to the systems approach to the super information highway, the book’s seeming reluctance to discuss the pernicious consequences of the breakdown in two-way communication causes the work to seem more superficial that it ought. After all, in this day and age few of us need to be sensitized to the promised wonders of living more and more of our lives electronically. But what about the physical and spiritual isolation which we are too ready to accept as a characteristic of our life style? At least this one of Mr. Harris’ readers would have been gratified had he chosen to balance in his text the convenience and speed of the super information highway with an expression of concern about our mechanistic communication as a major contributor to our increasingly isolated lives.
spring 1994
101
Public Relations
Revkw
As it is, he seems too willing to project a near-future communicating more but enjoying it less.
in which Americans
will be
Stephen H. Baer, APR Fellow, Communications Consultant Pasadena, CA. John W. Hill The Makirg of a Public Relations Edition Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business $29.95
Man, 30th Anniversary Books,
273 pp., 1993,
The Making of a Public Relations Man first appeared in 1963, when John Hill was 73 years old and the firm he founded was 35 years old. Its re-publication in a special 30th anniversary edition gives a new generation of PR people the chance to study the career of a pioneer of the profession. The beginning of the book is largely autobiographical. Like nearly all of the early practitioners, Hill got his start as a newspaper reporter, in Indiana, studied journalism at Indiana University, and then worked for a series of papers in Indiana and Ohio. A desire to publish his own paper led him to start the “Business Bulletin” for the Cleveland Trust Bank, and it was in Cleveland, in 1927, that he opened an office to do “corporate publicity” work after being encouraged by a small book of speeches by Ivy Lee. His first client was the Union Trust Company, another bank, followed by the Otis Steel Company. In 1993, he moved to New York City to serve the American Iron and Steel Institute, leaving his Cleveland office in the hands of his new partner, Don Knowlton. It was the beginning of a long relationship between Hill and Knowlton and a number of trade associations in steel, aeronautics, and oil and natural gas. Hill’s life reads like a catalog of government leaders, industrial figures, and prominent public events from the 1930s to the 60s. However, the book is more than just a memoir. Hill believed strongly that the free enterprise system must be protected from government interference, and that to do this, simply, “business must tell its story.” Managers, he argued, must be prepared to speak to the groups that comprise their constituents, just as any public officeholder. Much of the book is devoted to discussing how public relations can help them here. and Corporate Enterprise,” Hill In a thoughtful chapter on “Public Opinion suggests that the approach to creating a favorable climate for business begins with the attitude of top management, out of which comes policy decisions which must be made in the public interest. Sound policy, he claimed, must pass the public approval test along with the profit-producing test, and this requires policies of intrinsic human value. “The rightful purpose of public relations,” he wrote, “is openly to confirm, stuff in an age when public relations strengthen, and defend these values” -strong
102
Vol. 20, No. 1