Developing economic education programs for the press

J a m e s E. Grunig

Developing Economic Education Programs For The Press The "'business-press conflict" which heated up during ttre 1970s has generated a host of business-sponsored education programs designed to enlighten journalists and media consumers about tire higher aims of free enterprise. Because business and the media are interested in different issues, this author suggests that the best form of economic education for journalists, or persons studying to be journalists, would be a "dialogue" about the "public affairs" in which business is involved. James E. Grunig argues here that tire most effective form of communication by these businesses is one that begins when a corporation attempts to learn from the public zvhat adverse consequences it is h~ving on the public, and then explains to the public why those events have occurred and what the corporation is doi,g to eliminate them. Dr. Grunig is a professor in tire College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.

1 / ' R i g Business Has a 'Black Eye,' Pollster Gallup Says. m This recent L J r Lewspaper headline typifies the negative attitude toward large corporations that is supposedly rampant among the American public, especially among young people. 2 Partly in an attempt to improve the public's attitude toward big business, many large corporations and associations have developed economic education programs aimed at the public-at-large, employees, students, and journalists. Journalists and student journalists have been targeted frequently, primarily because of a supposed conflict between business and the press. Economic education programs typically are built upon the assumption that members of the public with knowledge of business and economics also will have positive attitudes toward business, an assumption that has been supported by economic education research 3 but not by other communication research. 4 Although surveys show that the public has little khowledge about business and economics,s they also show that people typically have favorable attitudes toward free enterprise. 6 Thus, there is reason to question the typical economic education program that atteml~ts to correct factual mis43

Public Relations

Red-Jew

understandings and to develop an understanding of basic economic principles in the hope of developing a more positive attitude toward business. A survey by Barlow and Kaufman showed that chief executive officers of major corporations regard students as the top priority public for economic education. 7 Thus, it is not surprising that m a n y recent economic education programs have been developed for journalism students? This study attempted to learn whether such programs for journalism students meet their object i v e s - b y first examining the interests, attitudes, and communication behaviors of comparable groups of journalism and business students. The study not only illuminated the nature of an effective economic education program, but also shed light on the nature of the business-press conflict and on the nature of effective public relations. Summary of Results and Conclusions This comparative study of 294 journalism and business students at the University of Maryland suggests, in broad terms, that the widely discussed conflict between business and the press may be less of a conflict than a difference in perspective as to what is interesting and relevant. The study shows that journalism students are only interested in business issues that directly affect the public, such as pollution or the prices and quality of products. Business students, on the other hand, also have an interest in issues that are not as likely to affect the public directly, such as government regulation, taxation, or size of corporate profits. If we can make the logical jump from students to business and media practitioners, this study suggests that corporate executives, instead of feeling that business is treated unfairly by the media, should realize that the media and business are interested in different issues. The media want to report the consequences of business actions on the public, whereas business executives want to educate the public about the free enterprise system through the mass media. Thus, the study suggests that the best form of economic education--at least for journalism students--would be a dialogue about the "public affairs" in which business is currently involved. Don't talk to students about the glories of free enterprise, the evils of government regulation, or the size of corporate profits, this research suggests. Instead, talk about what you are doing to develop alternative energy sources, or why someone's automobile or television set doesn't work, even though its price increases every year. Theoretically, these results should be viewed as a challenge to the "domino theory" of communication, knowledge, attitudes, and behavior that seems to be assumed in most economic education programs and, indeed, in most public relations practice. Traditional economic education programs have been based on the assumption that the public, students, or the media have "bad attitudes" about business that cause them to oppose business. Public relations practitioners have assumed that accurate knowledge of business will change these bad attitudes and that the new attitudes will 44

Economic Education Programs result in more favorable public or media behavior. This domino theory can be described as: Message ~

Knowledge

~ Attitude

9 Behavior

The model assumes that if the message domino successfully topples the knowledge domino the others will automatically fall, too. In place of this underlying model, this article argues that a person makes up his mind about each individual issue or situation and that he frequently develops new attitudes for new situations. Evidence from this and other communication studies shows that the most knowledgeable people generally have an attitude about an issue and that their behavior will reflect their attitude about that issue. But there is little evidence that the knowledgeable 9person's attitude or behavior will consistently be that advocated by someone communicating any particular message. Telling students, employees or the media that government regulation is costly or that imports hurt domestic enterprise may help these groups understand the business point of view, but there is no guarantee that they will accept that point of view as their o w n and act upon it to support business. The results of this study refuted the knowledge-attitude linkage. The student public with the most business knowledge--which consisted mostly of business s t u d e n t s - - h a d a strong anti-business position on some issues, had no strong position on other issues, and took both positions on still others. A broad measure of attitudes toward business and government also did not predict attitudes on specific issues. The business students, w h o were pro-business and anti-government on the broad attitudinal measure, were anti-business and pro-government on some specific issues. The lack of support for the domino theory thus suggests that the best economic education program--and the best public relations program in general--should be a two-way program in which the corporation attempts to learn from the public what adverse consequences it is having on the public and tells the public what the corporation is doing about those consequences. The results of the attitude part of the study show that the public will be open-minded in such a dialogue, taking a business position when it is reasonable, an anti-business position w h e n that is reasonable, and both positions when both are reasonable.

Theoretical Background of the Study The domino theory of communication, attitudes, and behavior has rapidly been abandoned by communication researchers who now believe it to be an inadequate model of human behavior, 9 yet it lives on almost as a truism for most public relations practitioners. The domino model represents an unrealistic account of human behavior because it fails to recognize that human beings can exert control at each of the four stages of the model. 1~ They may select only messages they deem to be relevant, retain only relevant knowledge, construct and reconstruct attitudes as the situation changes,

45

Public Relations Review and behave in seemingly inconsistent ways w h e n one situation is compared to another. Research over the last 30 years has gradually shown the weakness of two of the three links in the model. The strongest link lies between messages and knowledge. Stamm, for example, found support for the proposition that information campaigns can increase public knowledge about environmental issues, but found little support for the linkages between knowledge and attitudes and attitudes and behavior." More than 40 years ago, LaPiere found no support for the assumption that attitudes predict behavior. ~2Both Festinger and Seibold reviewed studies relating attitudes and behavior and failed to find a consistent relationship. ~3Crespi has argued that the attitudebehavior relationship is stronger when attitudes are more specifically defined9 He added that "attitudes change, develop, and atrophy in reaction to socially-defined situations and experiences. "'~ Thus, Crespi and many other attitude researchers have conceded that attitudes must be defined as judgments people make about different situations if the concept is to be realistic. Is Research has also shown the weakness of the knowledge-attitude linkage. For example, several studies have found that knowledge about ecology sometimes correlates with pro-environmental attitudes, which represents much the same relationship as that assumed between economic knowledge and pro-business attitudes. But they also have found that knowledge of ecology just as often correlates with anti-environmental attitudes. ~6Grunig and Stamm also found that people would "hedge" their environmental attitudes in many situations--that is, hold two seemingly incompatible attitudes at the same time. 17Their research indicates that Barlow and Kaufman, w h o found a correlation between economic knowledge and probusiness attitudes, might also have found a similar correlation between knowledge and anti-business attitudes had they looked for it. To replace the domino model, I have developed a situational model of communication behavior that places people into publics based on the similarity of their situational perceptions and behaviors. It also predicts the communication behaviors of these publics and describes the situation-specific attitudes that these publics hold. I have already used the theory to describe the communication behavior of employee publics of two business firms and a large government research agency, TM community publics of a suburban hospital, ~9 consumer publics of a supermarket chain, 2~ publics arising from issues of corporate social responsibility, ~ and publics arising from environmental issues. 22 In other~research, Stamm and I have developed a situational theory of attitudes tO go along with the situational theory of commumcahon behavior. ~ I have used the situational theory of attitudes in studies of public opinions toward corporate social responsibility 2~ and toward the environment. 25 The theory uses four i n d e p e n d e n t - - o r predictor--variables to explain how publics will communicate and when they will have attitudes about 9

46

9

~

/

Economic Education Programs specific situational issues. 26These four independent variables include problem recognition (whether a person stops to think about an issue), level of involvement (whether the person connects himself with the issue), constraint recognition (whether the person thinks he can exert any personal control that might help to resolve the issue), and presence of a referent criterion (whether the person thinks he has a solution for the issue). These four variables predict the expected communication behavior of target publics. Communication behavior may either be active information seeking or passive information processing. Actively communicating audiences help the communicator get his message across. They look for information and try to understand it w h e n they obtain the information. A passively communicating audience, on the other hand, does not look for information and generally will do little to understand the information if it comes to the audience randomly. 27In addition, the style and creativity of a message have more of an effect on passive audiences than on active ones. Active audiences seek the message. Passive audiences must be lured into processing it--by photos, illustrations, writing style, catchy phrases, etc.

In general, people will both seek and process information more often w h e n they have a high level of problem recognition and level of involvement, a low level of constraint recognition, and no referent criterion. However, level of involvement has less of an effect upon information processing than the other variables and less of an effect upon information processing than upon information seeking. People generally do not actively seek information about situations that do not involve them. Yet, they will often randomly process information about low-involvement situations when they are not looking for specific information. I have also used the combinations of the four predictor variables, measured for different situational issues, to define types of publics. People who fit into the same combination'of the four variables can be called "publics" because they will have approximately the same communication behavior for an issue. The four variables, split into high and low categories, yield 16 possible combinations. To define these 16 combinations, I have begun by naming the four combinations of problem recognition and constraint recognition: "problem-facing behavior" (high problem recognition, low constraint recognition); "constrained behavior" (high problem recognition, high constraint recognition); "routine behavior" (low problem recognition, low constraint recognition); and "fatalistic behavior" (lowproblem recognition, high constraint recognition). Each of these four categories can then be divided by level of involvement and presence of a referent criterion--e.g., high-involvement problem-facing behavior with a referent criterionmto yield the 16 categories of publics. In several studies, I have calculated the probability, or relative frequency, of information seeking and processing for each of these 16 categories. I have then used these probabilities to choose appropriate communication strategies for each public.

47

Public Relations

Review

Recently, Stature and I have used Stamm's theory of cognitive strategies to add an attitudinal component to this situational theory. :s Stamm identified two cross-situational attitudes toward conservation that he expected people to apply consistently for different conservation issues. Stamm found that people often applied the same attitude across issues. But he also found that individuals sometimes held both attitudes for an issue, even though the attitudes seemed incompatible. 29 In other cases, individuals switched their attitudes from one issue to another. To explain these anomalies, Stamm defined two types of "cognitive strategies," hedging and wedging. A person hedges when he supports more than one solution to a problem. He wedges when he supports one solution consistently across issues.

Research relating these strategies to the four concepts of the situational theory shows that problem recognition, level of involvement, constraint recognition, and presence of a referent criterion can predict when a person will have "a" cognitive strategy but not "which" cognitive strategy he will have. 3~Thus, the accumulated research on the situational theory seems to show the four independent variables of the theory to be necessary conditions for the presence of all four parts of the domino theory. They explain w h e n a person will seek or process a message, which is necessary before he can retain the message as knowledge. They also explain when the person willdevelop "an" attitude and design "a" behavior. But the research also shows that each person controls "the" attitude or behavior that he uses in each situation and that specific attitudes and behaviors cannot easily be predicted. We were able to apply the cognitive strategy concepts to attitudes toward" business in this study after recognizing that people could express both proand anti-business positions on the same issue if we constructed attitude statements somewhat differently than usual. Most researchers who construct attitude scales assume that a person cannot be both for and against something at the same time. Thus they express pro- and anti-business positions as opposite ends of a continuum. Situational attitudes, however, usually represent beliefs that certain objective consequences have occurred. Thus, one could believe that a given business behavior has had both positive and negative consequences and thus hold a pro- and anti-business attitude at the same time. For example, a person could agree that "free enterprise results in more efficient allocation of resources than does socialism" and that "socialism results in more equitable income distribution than does capitalism." A person w h o agrees with both statements would hedge his attitudes toward free enterprise, a person w h o agrees with only one would wedge. In addition, cognitive strategies often change as situations change. A person may wedge in favor of business on some issues, such as the effects of free enterprise; hedge on others, such as the effects of government regulation; and wedge against business on others,-such as pollution. 48

Economic Education Programs The Study Design 3~ An applied public relations study using the situational theory of communication and attitudes begins by identifying those issues--or situat i o n s - t h a t affect or that an organization could discuss with a given public. We developed a list of issues frequently discussed in economic education programs by reviewing published overviews of economic education and interviewing public relations professionals working on economic education in the Washington, D.C., area. 3~ We concluded that economic education issues could be placed into three categories: 1) basic economic principles, 2) consequences on the public from business actions, and 3) business relations with government. We then chose three specific issues within each of these categories to actually measure in this study. The three basic economic principles included size of corporate profits, free enterprise vs. socialism (alternative economic systems), and the law of supply and demand. Business consequences included quality of goods and services, prices of goods and services, and pollution. Business-government relationships included governmental regulation of business, taxation of business, and amount of government spending. The next step in such an applied study is to measure the variables in the theory on a representative sample of people w h o might be included in the public relations program. In this case, we measured the variables on a representative sample of journalism students at the University of Maryland, We also included a matched sample of business students at the University to determine whether journalism students would fit into different publics and use different cognitive strategies than students who could be expected to have more interest in and more favorable attitudes toward business. After these variables are measured for a representative sample of a potential public, multivariate statistical techniques can be used to group issues into categories of issues to which groups of people react in the same way. The statistical analysis, that is, can identify the publics that different types of issues bring about. Then we use demographic and cross-situational attitude measures to describe and identify the publics isolated by the situational variables and to test the situational vs. cross-situational nature of communication and attitudes. In this study, these variables included the students' major, number of business and economics courses taken, gradepoint average, attitude toward business, attitude toward go.vernment, political philosophy, political party affiliation, o w n or parent ownership of corporate stock, readership of business publications, readership of the n e w s p a p e r business page, age, parent education, sex, and race. We also constructed scales to measure basic economic knowledge and exposure to recent economic news in the mass media. Finally, we'designed the study around three hypotheses (predicted relationships between variables) and two research questions (descriptions of a single variable). The hypotheses tested the premises of the theory. The research questions sought practical information suggested by the theory

49

Public Relations Review that could be used to design an economic education program. The hypotheses were: H1: The probability of information-seeking behavior will increase with an increase in problem recognition, level of involvement, and presence of a referent criterion, and decrease with an increase in constraint recognition. Ha: The probability of information processing behavior will increase with an increase in problem recognition and presence of a referent criterion and decrease with an increase in constraint recognition. Level of involvement will have a minimal effect upon information processing because information processing, to a large extent, occurs randomly. H3: The situational variables will define publics arising from the nine business and economic situations and explain the commhnication behavior of these publics.

The research questions were: Q~: Will a student's major, educational and demographic background and crosssituational attitude toward business and government discriminate the publics defined by the situational variables from one another? Q~: What cognitive strategies will the publics defined by the situational variables use to resolve different business and economic issues? Methodology A sample of business and journalism students at the University of Maryland was drawn by administering a questionnaire to all students taking courses required of majors in their respective professional colleges. The questionnaire was completed by students in all sections of the business law course in, the College of Business and Management and by students in four historical, legal, and theory courses required of journalism students. The total sample size was 294, of which approximately half were business and half journalism students. The four independent variables of the situational theory were measured by asking respondents, for each of the nine situations: 1) Do you stop to think about the issue often, sometimes, rarely, or never (problem recognition)? 2) Do you see a strong, moderate, or weak connection between yourself and the issue (level of involvement)? 3) Could you do a great deal, something, very little, or nothing personally to affect the way the issue is handled (constraint recognition)? and 4) Do you have a very clear idea, somewhat clear idea, hazy idea or no idea of what to do about the situation (presence of a referent criterion)? Each of these question wordings had been developed, tested, and improved in previous studies. To measure information seeking, respondents were presented with a hypothetical booklet or report title related to each of the nine situations and asked (on a four-point scale) how likely they would be to send for the booklet or report if they saw an announcement or advertisement offering the material. (In fact, many economic education advertising campaigns have 50

E c o n o m i c Education P r o g r a m s offered such material.) To measure information processing, respondents read opening lines from a television news story related to each situation and were asked (on a four-point scale) how much attention they would pay to the rest of the story. The two longer-term communication variables, exposure to economic news and economic knowledge, were both measured by asking five multiple-choice questions and summing correct responses into a five-point scale. The demographic variables used to discriminate publics were measured through straight-forward questions. Cross-situational attitude toward business was measured with a five-point scale asking if respondents supported or opposed business in the United States. Cross-situational attitude toward government was measured with a similar scale asking if government had too much or too little power in the United States. Because of the limitation of questionnaire space, the cognitive strategy variables were measured for only three of the nine situations, one from each of the basic categories. Respondents indicated on a five-point scale the extent to which they agreed with a pro-business statement and an antibusiness statement related to each situation. On government regulation, for example, the pro statement read, "Government regulation increases the prices of goods and services produced by business" and the con statement read, "Without government regulation, corporations would be less likely to make socially-responsible decisions.'" Wedging scores were the absolute value of the difference between the scores on the two statements. Hedging scores were computed by adding the two scores and subtracting the absolute value of their difference. The first two hypotheses, which predicted that probabilities of information seel~ing and processing would be.consistent ;,vit'h the situational theory, were tested by dichotomizing the situational and communication variables and calculating cohditioiI~l probabilities of information seeking and processing associated with each of the 16 kinds of communication behavior which result from combinations of the four variables. Each situation was treated as a single unit of analysis in calculating the probabilities. Thus, they were based on 2,646 situations (nine situations x 294 respondents). Hypothesis 3--that the situational variables would isolate publics,and explain their communication behaviors--was tested through the u~e of factor analysis and canonical correlation. The factor analysis grouped the nine situations into categories which bring about similar publics. Canonical correlation simultaneously relates a set of independent variables (the factor scores of the situational variables) to a set of dependent variables (the factor scores of the communication variables). The result was a set of canonical variates which were used to identify publics and explain their communication behaviors. The two research questions were addressed by placing respondents into publics based upon the canonical variable for which they had the highest canonical variate scores. Respondents below the mean on all canonical

51

Public

Relations

Re~qew

variates w e r e placed into a no-public category. To a n s w e r the first research question, discriminant analysis was u s e d to d e t e r m i n e w h i c h d e m o g r a p h i c variables a n d cross-situational attitudes w o u l d discriminate o n e public f r o m a n o t h e r . To a n s w e r the s e c o n d research question, r e s p o n d e n t scores on the cognitive s t r a t e g y variables w e r e b r o k e n d o w n b y publics, a n d o n e - w a y analysis of variance w a s u s e d to d e t e r m i n e significant differences b e t w e e n publics. Results H y p o t h e s e s 1 and 2

Table 1 p r e s e n t s the set of conditional probabilities calculated in this s t u d y for the 16 c o m b i n a t i o n s of the situational theory. The probabilities in Table 1 are consistent with the p r e d i c t i o n s of the theory as specified in H y p o t h e s e s 1 a n d 2, n a m e l y that b o t h i n f o r m a t i o n seeking a n d p r o c e s s i n g

TABLE 1 Conditional Probabilities of Information Processing and Information Seeking High hwolt,ement Information Processing

Information Seeking

Low Involvement Information Processing

Information Seeking

Problem Facing Behavior"

Referent Criterion No Referent Criterion:

85% 77%

70% 66%

69% 46%

61% 31%

77% 65%

58% ' 41%

64% 47%

42% 32%

68% 65%

42% 35%

44% 48%

44% 24%

61% 49~

33% 20%

60% 30%

25% 14%

65% 2,560

46% 2,547

Constrained Behavior b

Referent Criterion No Referent Criterion Routine Behavior"

Referent Criterion No Referent Criterion Fatalistic Behaviora

ReferentCriterion No. Referent Criterion All Situatio~zs

Probability N"

qtigh problem recognition, low constraint recognition. ~High problem recognition, high constraint recognition. 'Low problem recognition, low constraint recognition. dLow problem recognition, high constraint recognition. 9Sample sizes differ because of missing data.

52

Economic Education P r o g r a m s will increase with increases in problem recognition and presence of a referent criterion and decrease with an increase in constraint recognition. Level of involvement was predicted to increase information seeking but not to affect information processing. These probabilities are also remarkably consistent with those calculated in four other studies. ~ The only deviation from the theory in Table 1 is a tendency for information processing to drop off more from high to low involvement than it has in previous studies. In line with the theory, however, information processing does remain relatively high under all low-involvement conditions. Hypothesis 3 Hypothesis 3 stated that "the situational variables will define publics arising from nine business and economic situations and explain the communication behavior of these publics." Tables 2 and 3 present preliminary data relevant to testing that hypothesis. Table 2 presents mean scores on the four situational perception variables, indicating which issues are most likely to bring forth communicating publics. These data indicate that problem recognition and level of involvement are highest for the business consequences issues and lower, in order, for the governmental relationship issues and basic economic situations. The student respondents also were less likely to perceive constraints and more likely to have a referent criterion for the business consequences than for 9the other two sets of issues.

TABLE 2 Mean Scores on Situational Variables for Economic Situations'

Problem Recognition

Level of Involvement

Constraint Recognition

Referent Criterion

2.6 2.6 2.7

2.4 2.5 2.8

3.2 3.1 ' 2.9

2.3 2.3 2.5

3.5 3.7 3.2

3.5 3.6 3.3

2.5 2.5 2.4

2.9 2.9 3.0

2.8 2.5 2.9

2.7 2.3 2.9

3.1 3.1 3.0

2.5 2.3 2.6

Basic Economic Situations Size of Corporate Profits Alternative Economic Systems Supply and Demand

Business Consequences Quality of Goods and Services Prices of Goods and Services Pollution

Governmental Relationships Government Regulation of Business Taxation of Business Government Spending 'Range = 1 - 4

53

Public Relations

Review

Table 3 presents the results of the factor analyses which were conducted separately for each of the six variables in the situational theory to group the nine situations into a smaller number of categories. For each variable, two factors resulted, with an eigen value greater than 1.0. These factors were called the high-involvement situations factor and the low-involvement situations factor. The three business consequences situations--the situations with the highest levels of involvement in Table 2--loaded consistently highest on the high involvement factor for all variables. The other six situations loaded consistently highest on the low-involvement factor. Factor scores of the two factors for each of the six situational variables and the scales for exposure to economic news and basic economic knowledge then were used as input to a canonical correlation analysis, which provided the principal test of Hypothesis 3. Table 4 shows that two statistically significant variables resulted from the canonical correlation analysis. The first of these variates describes a set of situational perceptions and communication behaviors that would be characteristic of a public communicating about both sets of business/economic situations. The second variate describes the perceptions and communication behaviors of a public communicating only about the high-involvement business consequences. The public described by the first variate would fit into a high-involvement, problem-facing category on both sets of situations, with a referent criterion for both sets. The probabilities of information seeking and processing are high for this public on both sets of issues, and the correlations of the communication variables with the canonical variates in the bottom half of Table 4 confirm these probabilities. 3~ Actual exposure to economic news and economic knowledge also are high for this public. Variate 2 describes a high-involvement, problem-facing public with a referent criterion on the high-involvement situations and a low-involvement, fatalistic public without a referent criterion on the low-involvement situations. The probability of information seeking and processing is high for the high-involvement business situations and low for the low-involvement business situations; the coefficients in the bottom half of Table 4 confirm these probabilities. The scores for the exposure to economic news scales and the economic knowledge scale were low for this variate, however. These last two scales consisted mainly of items related to the low-involvement issues, thus confirming the expected communication behavior of the high-involvement-only public represented by the second variate. In summary, we can conclude that Table 4 provides strong support for Hypothesis 3; the situational perceptions do explain the communication behaviors of the publics.

Research Question 1 Given these two types of student publics, Research Question 1 asked what kinds of students make up these publics. The discriminant analysis reported in Table 5 shows which characteristics of the students best discriminated one public from another. As discussed above, those respondents 54

Economic Education P r o g r a m s gu!ssaaoJ d uo!leuaaojuI ~uplaas uo!leuJ.mjuI "~

uo.ual.uD lUa~aJa~l

~ uo.mu~oaa~I "~

lu!e~IsuoD

I

luawa,+.lOAUI .to IOAa'I uo!l!ugo~o~l tualqOJd

I I I

.

.

.

.

m~

~

~.

.

.

.

m~

~

.

gu!ssa3o~ d uo!leuJaojul guHaaS uoqeu-uojuI

1-

~

.

. ~

~

.

uo.ual.uD lUOaajaH

lull~ii~uoD I

II

luamoAIO.~Ul jo Ia^~"l uo!l!ugo3aH walqo~d

~ o ~

~ .~ . ~ o,~

.~, ~ o ~ ~o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~-o ~: ~ "~,

~ ~,

.~ ~

"~ ~

~,.=

~ ~" 0 ~

r~

0

ww

Public Relations Re,~iew TABLE 4 Canonical Correlation of Situational Variables With Communication and Knowledge Variables

High~Low hwoh,ement Variate Pearson Correlation

Predicted Probability"

High hwoh,ement Variate Pearson Correlation

Predicted Probability'

Situational Factors High Involvement: Problem Recognition Level of Involvement Constraint Recognition Referent Criterion Low Involvement: Problem Recognition Level of Involvement Constraint Recognition Referent Criterion

.46 .31 -.53 .32

-

.78 .66 -.46 .66

.65 .36 .37 .51

- .41 - .19 .40 - .51

Communication~Knowledge Factors High Involvement: Information Seeking Information Processing Ldw Involvement: Information Seeking Information Processing Exposure to Economic News Economic Knowledge Canonical Correlation Chi Square

.44 .36

70% 85%

.78 .56

70% 85%

.68

70% 85%

- .33 - .35

14% 2O%

.75 .57 .33 .62 212.73 48dr,.000

- .19 -.17

.47 93.17 35d f,.000

9Taken from Table 1

with scores below the mean on both canonical variates were placed into a third, no-public group. The maximum number of discriminating functions in a discriminant analysis is always one less than the number of groups; in this case, the maximum is two functions. The second function in Table 5 does not explain a significant amount of variance left unexplained by the first function. There is enough new information in the second function, however, to make its interpretation informative, even though it is not statistically significant. The first function essentially separates a high- and low-involvement issues public from the high-involvement-issues-only public and the no-public group. The second function helps to describe somewhat more the high-involvement-issues-only public. The high- and low-involvement-issues public consists more of business students than journalism and public relations students. Members of this public are not Republicans, are both blacks and whites, are males, have 56

Economic Education P r o g r a m s TABLE 5 Discriminant Analysis of Economic Education Publics

Discriminant

Function

I

II

Standardized Coefficient of Discriminating Variables Business/Economics Courses* Grade Point Average Attitude Toward Business** Attitude Toward Government* Liberal Political Philosophy Self/Parent Ownership of Stock Readership of Business Publications** Readership of Newspaper Business Page** Age** Parent Education Male Sex** White Race Republican Party'* Public Relations Major** Journalism Major* Business Major**

- .33 .10

.07 -.27

.28

- .25

- .16

- .27

.25

- .08

- .25

.26

.25

.25

.59 .33 .16 .24 .04 -.16 -.13 .02 .11

.16 .01 -.26 -.09 -.33 .42 .17 .46 -.17

.51

.01

-.35 -.28

.15 -.30

Centroids of Publics ! tigh/Low Involvement Issues (n =96) High Involvement Issues (n=98) Neither Public (n = 53)

Canonical Correlation' .41" * p < .05 **p < .01 9 The discriminant functions correctly placed 55% of the cases into original publics.

.17

educated parents, are older, neither they nor their parents own stock, and have higher grade-point averages. Further confirming their expected communication behavior, they report reading business publications and the newspaper business page. When asked what their general attitude is toward business and government, this public says it supports business and thinks government has too much power. The only surprising score for this public

57

Public Relations

Review

is the negative relationship with the number of business and economics courses taken. Function II describes the high-involvement-issues-only public as consisting of more journalism and public relations students than business students. Most of this public's characteristics are opposite those of the other public: Republican party, black race, female, lower parent education, lower age, more stock ownership, lower grade point average, and less support of business. The characteristics which are not opposite are readership of business publications and the business page, and the attitude that government has too much power. We can conclude from "Fable 5, then, that business students are more likely to communicate about both high- and low-involvement situations and journalism and public relations students only about high-involvement, business-consequences, issues. The high/low involvement public also supports business more than the high only public, but both have negative attitudes toward government. The high/low public also consists of better students who tend to be male and white and whose parents have more education. Thus, major in the university does affect a student's interest in business and economics. More importantly, perhaps, the interest of the high/low public in both kinds of issues may be better explained by the educational background and intellectual ability of these students than by their major. Research Question 2 The second research question asked what cognitive strategies the publics defined by the situational issues will use to resolve business and economic issues. The data relevant to that question should indicate whether publics have consistent attitudes for or against business on different issues, whether students oppose business points of view in general, and whether journalism students are more or less biased against business than business students. Many opinion polls have shown that the public supports business and free enterprise in general but opposes m a n y specific business actions which have negative consequences for the public. This is also evident in Table 6 for the business consequences issue, pollution. The total sample is most likely to take an anti-business position on this issue, agreeing that governmental pollution controls are necessary to protect the environment and to wedge this position against the pro-business position that government pollution controls reduce the productivity of business. This pattern is strongest for the high- and low-involvement issues public, which has the most business students and the most knowledge about business. The differences between publics are not significant, however, and all fit the same pattern. For the basic economic situation, supply and demand, all publics have low scores on all four cognitive strategies. In this case, however, the high/ low public has the lowest scores on all variables, significantly lower on the hedging variable. The two attitude statements on supply and demand were controversial: "In a free enterprise system, the law of supply and demand 58

E c o n o m i c Education P r o g r a m s '

~

~ "

~

. o ~

.

~

.

.

~

r.8~ ,*.

~m

~o oo.00 ~ ooo.oo

i. ~ 0o.0.0 ~~

~9

Public Relations

Review

guarantees that consumers receive the highest quality goods and services at the lower possible prices" vs. "Large corporations can set their own prices free of the law of supply and demand." Yet, most of the students seemed to be neutral about the system, especially those who know the most about it. The government regulation of business issue brought both high pro- and anti-business positions, and as a result the highest hedging scores, especially by the high/low involvement issues public. Those who knew the most about economics agreed with both sides of the issue: Government regulation increases prices and also that it forces businesses to make socially responsible decisions. Thus, as speculated earlier, knowledge may be correlated with opinions on both sides of an issue. Conclusions Two primary conclusions seem warranted from this study, one for the theories involved and the other for economic education and public relations in general. Theoretically, the situational theory received greater support than the domino theory, as the data clearly supported its predictions. The first link in the domino theory, between message exposure and knowledge, found support in this study, as it has in other studies. Those students who sought or processed the most information had the most economic knowledge. But the linkage between knowledge and attitude again was refuted. The public with the most knowledge sometimes had a strong anti-business position and sometimes took both positions. The study also refuted the cross-situational definition of attitudes. The public that was pro-business and antigovernment on broad attitudinal measures was anti-business and pro-government in some specific situations. The implications of the study for economic education seem best summarized by the "knowledge gap" hypothesis developed by Tichenor, et al. a5 When an issue does not directly involve most people--such as most business and economic issues--only those people with more education and knowledge will seek, or even process, the information. As a result, a campaign to increase knowledge levels on low-involvement issues will generally widen the knowledge gap between the information-rich and the information-poor. As this study showed, most traditional economic education programs about profits, free enterprise, and the like will be sought or processed only by those who already know the most about business and economics and thus will do little to solve the problem for which the program was designed. On the other hand, w h e n a situation involves most people, the knowledge gap generally disappears because people then are motivated to seek o u t - - o r at least to process--information related to the issue. That seems to be the case for situations in which business has direct consequences upon people. I have found similar results in a study of public opinions toward 60

Economic Education Programs corporate social responsibility. Both studies thus suggest that the best econ o m i c e d u c a t i o n - - a n d p u b l i c r e l a t i o n s in g e n e r a l - - i s a t w o - w a y d i a l o g u e in w h i c h a c o r p o r a t i o n a t t e m p t s to l e a r n f r o m t h e p u b l i c w h a t a d v e r s e c o n s e q u e n c e s it is h a v i n g u p o n t h e p u b l i c a n d tells t h e p u b l i c w h y t h o s e c o n s e q u e n c e s h a v e o c c u r r e d a n d w h a t t h e c o r p o r a t i o n is d o i n g to e l i m i n a t e those consequences.

References ~Washington Star, February 16, 1979, p. E-5. ~Gallup also cited the negative attitudes of young people in ibid. For another recent study of attitudes toward business, see U.S. News and World Report," The Study of American Opinion: 1978 Summary Report," Washington, D.C. 3Walter Barlow and Carl Kaufmann, "Public Relations and Economic Literacy," Public Relations Review 1 (Summer 1975), pp. 14-22. 4For a review of much of this research, see James E. Grunig, "Review of Research on Environmental Public Relations," Public Relations Review 3 (Fall 1977), pp. 36-58 and James E. Grunig, "Communication Behaviors and Attitudes of Environmental Publics: Two Studies," Journalism Monographs, in progress. 5Washington Star, op. cit. ~eymour Martin Lipset and William Schneider, "'] tow's Business? What the Public Thinks," Public Opinion 1 (July/August 1978), pp. 41-47; Washington Star, op. cit; Barlow and Kaufman, op. cir. 7Barlow and Kaufman, op. cit. eEor examples of such programs, see National Association of Manufacturers, "Covering the Economics/Business Beat: Current Issues and Future opportunities," Special Report on Pilot Project Workshop held at the University of Maryland College of Journalism, Washington, 1976, and "Business and the News Media, What are the Roles of Each?", 1979 General Motors Business Understanding Program, Detroit: General Motors, Inc., 1979. 9For a review of such literature, see Steven Jay Gross and C. Michael Niman, "AttitudeBehavior Consistency: A Review," Public Opinion Quarterly 39 (1975), pp. 358-368. ~~ further discussion of this idea, see James E. Grunig, "The Status of Public Relations Research," IPRA Review 3 (April 1979), pp 9-16. Tirone has also argued that it is impossible to discover laws in the behavioral sciences. James F. Tirone, "Education, Theory, and Research in Public Relations," P,~blicRelations Review 5 (Spring 1979), pp. 15-25. ~tKeith R. Stamm, "Environment and Communications," in F. Gerald Kline and Phillip J. Tichenor (eds.), Current Perspecti~,es in Mass Communication Research (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1972), pp. 265-294 and Keith R. Stamm, "Conservation Communications Frontiers: Reports of Behavioral Research," in Clay Schoenfeld (ed.), Interpreting Enviromnental Issues (Madison, Wis.: Dembar Educational Research Services, Inc., 1973), pp. 227-236. ~2Richard T. LaPiere, "'Attitudes vs Actions," Social Forces 13 (1934), pp. 230-237. '3Leon Festinger, "Behavioral Support for Opinion Change," Public Opinion Quarterly 28 (1964), pp. 404-417; David R. Seibold, "The Attitude-Verbal Report-Overt Behavior Relationship in Communication Research: A Critique and Theoretic Reformulation," paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism, San Diego, 1974. ~Irving Crespi, "Attitude Measurement, Theory, and Prediction," Public Opinion Quarterly 28 (1977), pp. 285-294. '~See, for example, Alien E. Liska (ed.), The Consistency Controversy (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1975). ~6Examples of such studies include Phillip J. Tichenor, G.A. Donohue, C.N. Olien, and J.K. Bowers, "Environment and Public Opinion," Journal of Environmental Ed,~cation 2 (Summer 1971), pp. 38-42; Lane Burrus-Bammel, "Information's Effect on Attitude: A Longitudinal Study," Journal of Environmental Education 9 (Summer 1978), pp. 41-50; and Gordon L. Bultena, David L. Rogers, and Karen A. Conner, "Toward Explaining Citizens Knowledge about a Proposed Reservoir," Journal of Environmental Education 9 (Winter 1977), pp. 24-36.

61

Public Relations Review ~TJames E. Grunig and Keith R. Stamm, "Cognitive Strategies and the Resolution of Environmental Issues: A Second Study," Journalism Quarterly 56 (1979), pp. 715-726; Keith R. Stamm and James E. Grunig, "Communication Situations and Cognitive Strategies in Resolving Environmental Issues," Journalism Quarterly 54 (1977), pp. 713-720. ~%mes E. Grunig, "Some Consistent Types of Employee Publics," Public Relations Review 1 (Winter 1976), pp. 17-36 and James E. Grunig, "Evaluating Employee Communication in a Research Operation," Public Relations Review 3 (Winter 1977), pp. 61-82. ~gJames E. Grunig, "Defining Publics in Public Relations: The Case of a Suburban t tospital," Journalism Quarterly 55 (1978), pp. 109-118, 124. ~~ E. Grunig, "A Case Study of Organizational Information Seeking and Consumer Information Needs," paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism, San Diego, 1974. 2~James E. Grunig, "A New Measure of Public Opinions on Corporate Social Responsibilities," Academy of Management Journal 22 (1979), pp. 738-764. Z~Grunig, "Communication Behaviors and Attitudes of Environmental Publics: Two Studies," op. cit. ~Grunig and Stamm, op. cit.; Stamm and Grunig, op. cit. 2~Grunig, "A New Measure of Public Opinions on Corporate Social Responsibility," op. tit. Z3Grunig, "Communication Behaviors and Attitudes of Environmental Publics: Two Studies," op. cit. 2~For a detailed description of this theory, see Grunig, "A New Measure of Public Opinions on Corporate Social Responsibility," op. cit. and ibid. 2TForempirical support of these ideas; see James F. Grunig, "Time Budgets, Level of Involvement, and Use of the Mass Media, Journalism Quarterly 56 (1979), pp. 248-261. ~sStamm and Grunig, op. cit.; Grunig and Stamm, op. cit. ~Keith R. Stature and John E. Bowes, "Environmental Attitudes and Reaction," Journal of Enviromnental Education 3 (Spring 1972), pp. 56-60. ~Grunig and Stamm, op. cit. 3~This study was conducted as part of the Seminar in Corporate Communication in the University of Maryland College of Journalism. Students in the seminar, who played an invaluable role in designing and executing the study, included Karla Rabin, Alison Lapetina, Ken Kalman, Debra Epstein, and Janet Cunningham. Statistical analyses were done at the University of Maryland Computer Science Center with financial assistance from the Center. 32Source materials included "Economic Education Programs and Resources," 2nd ed., National Association of Manufacturers, Washington, 1978; "Organizations Providing Business & Economics Education Information," Standard Oil Company (Indiana), Chicago, 1978; "Contact: A Directory of Interpreting Business/Economic Education Programs," U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, 1978; "Annual Message on Interpreting Business/Economic Education," U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington,, 1978. Personal discussions were held with John Sullivan of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Janet David and Lane Johnstone of the American Petroleum Institute. 3~James E. Grunig and James B. Disbrow, "Developing a Probabilistic Model for Communications Decision Making," Communication Research 4 (1977), pp. 145-168; Grunig, Communication Behaviors and Attitudes of Environmental Publics: Two Studies," op. cit.; and Freeman Miller, "A Nationwide Study to Determine Under What Conditions Administrators of Physical Education Programs Will Engage in Public Relations," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1978. UPearsonian correlation coefficients of the original variables with the canonical variates were used to interpret the canonical variates, rather than canonical variate scores, following the advice of Levine. Correlation coefficients do not have the problems of multicoUinearity that affect canonical variate scores. Mark S. Levine, Canonical Analysis and Factor Comparison (Beverly Hills: Sage University Papers, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, No. 6. ~Phillip J. Tichenor, G.A. Donohue, and C.N. Olien, "Mass Media Flow and Differential. Growth in Knowledge," Public Opinion Quarterly 34 (1970), pp. 159-170, and George A. Donohue, P.J. Tichenor, and C.N. Olien, "Mass Media and the Knowledge Gap: A Hypothesis Reconsidered," Communication Research 2 (1975), pp. 3-23.

62