Review of research on environmental public relations

James E. Grunig

Review of Research on Environmental Public Relations Pollution and the deterioration of the natural environment are problems affecting most public relations practitioners, both those charged with defending organizations charged with pollution and those promoting environmental awareness. In this study, which was commissioned by the Foundation for Public Relations Research and Education , James E. Grunig draws together existing knowledge on the behavior of public relations practitioners in environmental problems, on the extent to which the public is concerned with the environment and on whom they place the blame for pollution, and on the ways in which the media cover environmental problems. Finally, he reviews the theoretical literature which has attempted to explain communicator and public behaviors in relation to the environment and develops a situational explanation of these behaviors. That explanation is that people do not behave according to programmed environmental attitudes but develop their behaviors differently in different situations. Grunig is associate professor of [ournalism at the University of Maryland, where he teaches public relations, science writing, and communication theory and research.

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ublic relations practitioners may be found working on both sides .of environmental issues. Some may be in positions defending indusU1~ accused of polluting air and water or of wasting energy and valuable natura resources. Other practitioners, however, may represent activist organizatiOtlS or governmental agencies which seek support for preservation of the enviro tl ' ment. Often the second set of practitioners may communicate the accusa' tions which create an environmental public relations problem for the first group of practitioners. Review of the literature on environmental communications and public re!a tions, however, suggests that both types of practitioners should deal WIt environmental problems in the same way. Both should recognize that prese[d vation of man 's environment is an important social goal. and both sho u communicate this position to the public and-in the case of practitioners defending polluters-to the organizations which employ them. The central question to be posed here, then, is how can public relatiO tl practitioners develop among the public and the management of businesses art

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Environmental P ..bllc Relations other organizations an understanding of ecological problems. This article will review literature which sheds light on four environmental public relations questions: 1) How do public relations practitioners respond to environmental issues7 2) How concerned is the public with the environment? 3) How do the media cover environmental issues7 4) Can communication theories explain effective environmental communication7 It will then conclude with a disCussion of what this literature means for the practice of public relations and with a discussion of future research needs in environmental public relations. How do Public Relations Practitioners Handle Environmental Problems? Whereas the environmental communication literature often includes oblique references to instances of public relations people obstructing understanding of enVironmental issues, the public relations literature contains numerous articles in which professionals call for public relations people to become environmental activists in their own organizations. Rubin and Sachs provide several examples of the use of public relations to obstruct environmental understanding. Their most thoroughly documented example is a case study' of the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. during the hearing process on a unclear power plant site. They claim the company did not provide adequate information to the public on the siting issue. They also cite a utility company using press releases to camouflage the impact of a new plant On Lake Cayuga near Ithaca, New York.' Finally, they devote a chapter to abuses in environmental advertising, the most notorious example being an advertisement by Potlatch Forests, Inc. showing a photograph of "breathtaking natural beauty" with the headline "It cost us a bundle but the Clearwater River still runs clear." They add, "According to Newsweek of December 28, 1970, the photo was snapped some SO miles upstream from the Potlatch pulp and paper plant in Lewiston, Idaho. Newsweek sent its own photographer out to get a picture of the river just downstream from the plant ; It looked like a cessPool. ..• Public relations writers admit such abuses occur. For example, Thompson stated that PR people once thought environmental problems could be handled With "a few press releases and environmental advertisements."! Likewise, a member of the audience at a PRSA conference admitted: For too long, we did too little good and tried to take too much credit for it. Now we are doing some good, but we've been unable, by and large, to surmount the credibility gap that has developed over the years.' Whereas few practitioners openly lie about the effect their company has on the environment, the literature indicates that many withhold negative information about environmental damage and overpromote the positive aspects of new plants or facilities. Starn and Bowes, in a study of an Army Corps of Engineers project in North Dakota, found that people in a sample public who Perceived advantages of the project also perceived that the Corps would perceive those advantages.' The same was not true, however, for people who perceived disadvantages of the project. They generally could not say whether the Corps also perceived the disadvantages. Thus, the one-sidedness of most

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Pnblle Rdatlous Review public relations efforts led the public to believe that the organization did not perceive the disadvantages of its own program. In the case of off-shore drilling near Galveston, Texas, however, the Mitchell Energy and Development Corporation convinced hostile environmental and community groups that it could drill safely by tackling the negative consequences of the project head on. It demonstrated safety techniques, got thirdparty experts to testify, and produced films and brochures discussing the possible damage. ? Although this tangental evidence suggests that public relations practitioners often help the organizations which employ them to cover up the organization's environmental sins, most public relations professionals writing on environmental PR problems argue that public relations should advocate environmentalism within their organizations. Reeves argued, for example, that since private industry is responsible for many environmental problems, it should not "be permitted any longer to walk away from any messes it helps to create ." Burson, as quoted in Sales Management, argues likewise that the PR man must: ... impress on management the need to articulate genuine concern about the environment. It's not enough to issue positive papers and press releases. The public relations man must convince his management that communication with environmental crities should be a continuing activity, with much of it on a face-to-face basis. Other writers who take basically the same position include Brandt, Lerbingerand Truitt. 10 Other writers document examples of firms working responsibly on environmental problems. These include the Riegel Paper Corp., 11 W. R. Grace &. Co. IS Trans World Airlines, IS and the oil industry." In addition, Pastorious describes how to help technical personnel meet environmental reporting requirements," Paluszek describes how to work with environmental organizations, I' and Chambliss and Walsh describe how to work with the environmental press. I? Basically, these writers argue that PR people should assess environmental damage done by their firms and call it to the attention of local and organization-wide managers. Then they should communicate accurately to the public what the organization is doing about the environmental damage. In this sense the public relations person's role is much the same as if he were working for an organization which seeks public support for conservation programs and attempts to arouse public concern about ecology (for a description of this type of public relations, see Ross"). The basic difference is that the practitioner for the polluting firm may have more difficulty dealing with the internal management public than with the external public . Unfortunately, however, little research has been done on how concerned business firms and other organizations are with ecology. As Stamm has written : I' ... we are forever surveying private citizens to evaluate the effectiveness of mass media messages, but we never survey the government agencies or the media with a similar purpose in mind.

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Environmental P ..bllc Relatlons Most of the research on environmental communication has been devoted to finding out how much the public is concerned about ecology. The next section of this paper will summarize this research on the public. Later, we will suggest research on the organizations which hire public relations people to assess their concern with ecology. How Concerned is the Public? A number of commercial polls have been conducted to determine how concerned the public is with pollution and upon whom it places the blame for environmental damage. Eight of these polls were summarized in the "Polls" section of Public Opinion Quarterly. 10 Two of these polls are also summarized in documents published by the National Wildlife Federation" and the Public Broadcasting Environment Center. 12 Other Gallup and Minnesota polls are cited in Tichenor et al. IS In general, these polls indicate that the majority of the public agrees that pollution is an important national problem or that the environment receives too little financial attention from government. Likewise, they show that more people have become concerned with the environment over the years the polls been conducted. However, in polls in which people are asked, in an openended question, to list the most important national problems, the environment is mentioned less often than when people are asked to respond to closed-end questions. In the Public Broadcasting Center study, 34 percent mentioned pollution when asked to list important national problems. In that study, pollution was the most frequently cited problem, followed by crime (25 percent) and drugs (14 percent)." In a statewide Illinois sample. however, Simon found that 95 and 91 percent of the sample thought air and water pollution were important problems for the United States, but when respondents were given no specific cues to pollution only 13 percent mentioned any pollution or population problems as being of primary importance. U In the Public Opinion Quarterly Summary, however, Erskine pointed out that although few respondents volunteered pollution as a serious problem in 1970 polls, none did so in 1965 polls. 16 In results from a Durham, North Carolina, sample, Murch found that although 74% of the respondents believed pollution is a serious national problem, only 13 percent felt pollution was serious in Durham-even though POllution was as much a problem in Durham as in the country in general. 17 Murch's explanation was that the media report pollution as a national problem b~t seldom report it as a local problem. Murch also found that half the sample did not know of a solution to the pollution problem and half could not suggest ~nything they could do personally to help solve the problem. Others have ound public knowledge of ecology to be at a low level. Likewise, Simon found ' t~at practically no one made any connection between population and polluhan in her Illinois sample. 19 In general, then, the public seems concerned with the environment on an bbstract level but does not seem to associate it enough with their own lives to ecome knowledgeable about the environment or to take action to solve environmental problems. Over 16,000 people, for example, wrote letters 39

Public Rclatlons Review expressing concern over a vanishing species after a TV documentary on hunting of wolves from airplanes." And aircraft noise was found to contribute substantially to the decision to move away from an airport-although renting rather than owning a home was a better predictor. II Nevertheless, when people are asked how much they would personally pay to clean up pollution the sum is usually small. In the National Wildlife Federation poll, only 22 percent said they would be willing to pay $200 per year to clean up the environment. 12 A majority, however, said they would pay $20 per year. Only 14 percent would pay $2 more per month in electric bills, 28 percent would pay $1, and 61 percent would pay 25 cents. Similarly, Eastman, Randall and Hoffer found that survey respondents would pay $23 more in electricity bills and $85 in sales tax to pay for cleaning up damage from an electricity-coal complex." Few respondents, however, thought local residents or electricity users should pay alone. About a third said the company should pay and about half said both users and the company should pay. As this latter study also indicates, people do not take the blame themselves for pollution. Although people attribute littering to their own carelessness, laziness or indifference, U few associate population increases with pollution. II And in Murch 's Durham sample, 40 percent of the respondents assessed blame for pollution in human or personal terms-such as "man," "everybody," or "greed.'?" Another 26 percent attributed the blame to private industry and 10 percent to government. Thirty-five percent, however, failed to answer the question. The majority of the studies, however, show that the public places the blame on business or on governmental agencies charged with controlling pollution . The Public Opinion Quarterly summary of polls indicated that industry is most often blamed for air and water pollution and that the chemical and oil industries are the industries most often blamed. I? The polls also showed that the public is increasingly blaming the electric power and automobile companies. At the same time, these polls showed that 70 percent of survey respondents do not know what industry is doing to fight pollution. Simon's Illinois respondents placed the blame for air pollution on automobiles and industry, for water pollution on industrial waste and municipal sewage policies. II Cullen reported the results of a Gallup poll which showed that the majority of respondents believed the auto industry only makes changes to abate pollution when forced to do so. II The poll also showed that the majority gave negative evaluations to the efforts of government, utilities, the auto industry and the gasoline industry to clean up pollution. Finally, the Public Broadcasting Center study showed that 50 percent of a national sample gave negative ratings to the social concern of business, compared to 36 percent who gave positive ratings. 40 The picture that seems to emerge from these poll data is that although people agree, when asked, that pollution is a serious national problem, most do not think of it when asked to volunteer a list of problems, probably because they do not perceive pollution to affect them personally. Thus few have or seek knowledge about ecology and the causes of pollution. When asked to

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Environmental Pnblle Relations assess blame for pollution most suggest industry or government rather than themselves. In some types of pollution this assessment is accurate, in others it is not . Most do not believe that industry or government is doing much to clean up the environment. There is evidence, however, that those people who experience pollution feel that it involves them. For example, the Public Broadcasting study showed that 45 percent of urban dwellers said pollution has affected the way they live." Seed found that small-town dwellers-who no doubt experience less pollution-litter more than do big city and suburban dwellers. 41 Similarly, Madigan compared two types of interest groups on their perception of the importance of conservation issues-one set of groups organized to deal with environmental problems and the other to deal with non-environmental problems." He found that the non-environmental groups did not accept involvement in conservation matters, but that "their rating on the other scales indicated they were aware, in a general way, of the importance of the considerations implicit in the issues." Later in this paper, when we develop a theory to explain conservation awareness, we will examine the level of involvement of a -person or a group as a possible means of explaining why people communicate about the environment. In addition to the general poll data reported above, however, a number of studies have gone further to determine which segments of the public are most concerned about the environment. In general, those studies show that only a young and well-educated public and a public which has little to lose personally from pollution really support cleaning up the environment. Two studies of knowledge of Earth Day and an environmental fair, for example, showed that younger people, college-educated people, and people in higher occupational classes were most aware of Earth Day and gained the most environmental knowledge from that event. 44 In Bailey's words: "Earth Day Was an affair of the young, the college types, the upper classes, and the bandwagon activists." In the National Wildlife Federation study also, 29 percent of the sample said pollution affected them." But 43 percent of the respondents With incomes over $19,000 said it affected them, as well as 43 percent of those who live in suburbs, and 43 percent of the college educated. Likewise, the Young, the affluent, and the college educated were most likely to agree that more money should be spent on the environment and less on national defense. Tognacci, et al. found from a sample of residents of Boulder, Colo ., that the environmentally concerned individual was more liberal in his socio-political orientation, younger and better educated than people less concerned with e~vironmental issues. Costantini and Hanf studied 303 persons "who by Virtue of their activity, position, and reputation have a significant impact regarding Lake Tahoe.":" They found that the "opinion leaders" most concerned with environmental issues were better educated although they earned smaller incomes than those less concerned . The concerned individuals also Were more likely to be professionals or government officials than businessmen. They were also more likely to hold liberal views, to be cosmopolitan in orientation, to appreciate aesthetic and rural values, and to be critical of the impact f technology on society. Finally, they were less likely to be "anchored in the aho e area" -to be permanent residents, to be long-time residents, or to hold

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J·ublle Relations Review local political office. This last finding indicates the effect of self-interest on environmental attitudes, an effect we will return to later. In a similar study, Dunlap found that Democratic and liberal-left students at the University of Oregon had stronger pro-environment attitudes than did Republican or conservative students." However, he found that conservatives who viewed an "ecocatastrophe" as a definite possibility were as pro-environment as the liberal students. Swann found that although high school students in Detroit who were aware of air pollution were not always concerned about it, students of lower socio-economic status were less aware of air pollution than higher status students." Koenig, however, found that concern for the environment is only part of an overaIl concern with socio-economic issues.10 When the effect of concern for socio-economic issues was taken out in a multiple regression analysis, only political alienation (a negative relation), liberal party identification (positive relation), and being in a working class (negative relation) related to environmental concern . Thus he concluded that concern for the environment is part of an overall liberal concem for socio-economic issues and is not a separate concern in itself. The above results can perhaps best be summarized in terms of the knowledge gap hypothesis, which states that when new information is injected into a community or other social system that the most informed people will also gain the most new knowledge. Even though less-informed people may gain knowledge, they willleam less than those who were initially better informed. This hypothesis is used by Bailey, for example, to explain the effects of Earth Day.11 Tichenor, et aI. tested this hypothesis in several Minnesota communities and found a knowledge gap only on national issues which did not affect the community.12 When an issue directly involved the community, people of less education and lower status gained as much knowledge as those more predisposed to information seeking. Sometimes, however, this local involvement may cause people not to support pro-environmental issues, particularly if their own self interest is at stake. Sharma, Kivlin, and Fliegel, for example, sampled 3,000 residents of a city in northern Illinois where a meat packing plant-the largest employer in townwas overloading the sewage system causing raw sewage to be dumped into the river." They found that those most committed to solving the local problem were those who did not have much to lose if the plant were shut down. Tichenor, et aI. likewise reported studies conducted in four northern Minnesota communities on environmental issues. If They found that people were much less likely to support restrictive environmental measures that affect employment in their community than in other communities. For example, on the issue of a taconite plant in Silver Bay releasing tailings into Lake Superior, three fourths of Silver Bay residents, who depend on the plant for employment, opposed restrictive measures, whereas only 12 percent of Grand Rapids respondents opposed such measures. They also found the community of residence to be a more important predictor of a person's stand on the issue than educational status. Environmental knowledge also did not relate to proenvironmental attitudes. Those respondents who were most knowledgeable in

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Environmental Public Relations the communities affected were also most likely to oppose restrictive measures. One study which seems to contradict this conclusion was that of Rickson. n He found that high school students favored solutions to pollution problems even though their self-interest was involved. That study, however, was based on a much different population than the Tichenor et al. studies. Although high school students may, in a loose sense, have had self-interest at stake most still were not economically independent and thus would not seem as involved in an environmental issue as someone who might lose a job in a taconite plant. So we might ask again : Is the public concerned about the environment? In an a bstract sense, everyone is-probably because the mass media have defined the environment as an important issue. But only younger, educated, and higher occupational status people actively concern themselves with the environment and then only if they have nothing personally to lose from cleaning up pollution. Later we will return to the public relations implications of this conclusion. How do the Media Cover Environmental Issues? Evidence in the literature suggests that media coverage of environmental issues has gone hand-in-hand with increasing public concern with the environment. In fact , the reason the public seems concerned with the environmentbut mostly in a superficial way-is probably because the media have devoted more and more attention to it. But, as we will see here, the media cover the environment superficially and as a result those who are most concerned and most knowledgeable about the environment use specialized media rather than mass media for environmental information. Rubin and Sachs content analyzed the environmental news in San Francisco Bay area newspapers and wire services from 1965 to 1970 and in nine national magazines from 1961 to 1971. 56 They described their results as an indication of an environmental "information explosion." For example, in 1965 the San Francisco Chronicle carried 113 column inches of environmental news compared to 616 in 1970. Time, likewise, increased its coverage from four articles in 1961 to 19 in 1970. Not all magazines studied, however, increased their COverage of the environment. Clausing also studied the ecological content of Outdoor magazines and found that a "basic ecological concept was not absent from the magazines during the period from 1966 to 1968, but it did not Permeate their content.T" Rubin and Sachs also showed that the news media are creating specialized environmental beats-even though new environmental reporters generally are shifted from other beats and do not have a specialized background in ecology. 51 They also showed that the media are increasingly covering governmental agencies dealing with the environment. They found, too , that smaller newspapers have begun to cover these agencies, to such an extent that the wire services no longer cover them. Although these findings might seem ominous for those business firms and other organizations which hire public relations practitioners to keep their enVironmental sins out of the news media, Rubin and Sachs also showed that this environmental coverage is generally so poor that the polluters have little

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P ..bllc Relations Review to worry about. They concluded that the media are prisoners of the "pseudo event" system for environmental news and that unless an environmental group or governmental agency issues a report or stages a press conference environmental news does not get used. 5' In particular, they found that the media do not name local polluters, particularly if that polluter is among a newspaper's advertisers. Rubin and Sachs asked a sample of editors and environmental reporters if they would investigate whether a hypothetical new canning factory in their community might pollute nearby waters;" Three-fourths said they would, but none could cite specific instances of actually having done such an investigation. Of those who said they would investigate the situation, a third added that they would tum the results over to a government agency before reporting them so that they would have a news peg when the agency takes up the case. As one writer said, "When the Federal Trade Commission got after Standard Oil and F-310 then I was free to get after them too . Until then, there just wasn't enough to hang the story on." Rubin and Sachs concluded that news values or pressures from advertisers make reporters reluctant to cover "non-events." That environmental reporting is limited was also shown by Funkhouser's content analysis of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report during the 1960's.81 He found that pollution and ecology received heavy coverage in one year, 1970, and that much of this coverage stemmed from the single pseudo event of Earth Day. Rubin and Sachs supported their description of the pseudo event system by analyzing the performance of the press at a press conference in which a report on air pollution in the Bay area was released. Although the report named polluting companies, newspapers subsequently ignored names of companies in their circulation area. They also tended to place the story of the report in an obscure place in the paper, covered "generalities and polls," and wrote nothing that would "help the public to help itself," even though the report suggested how the public could improve air quality. Hungerford and Lemert found what they called "Afghanistanism" in environmental reporting, a term attributed to an editorial writer in 1948 who said, "You can pontificate about the situation in Afghanistan in perfect safety. You have no fanatic Afghans among your readers . "12 In this case, they found a tendency for newspapers in Oregon to write about environmental problems in "the community up the road. " Environmental news concerned areas outside the circulation area of the newspaper more than did other types of news. This finding would seem to support Murch's conclusion that the reason people in Durham, N. C.; believed pollution to be a national rather than local problem was because the media covered it that way. Hungerford and Lemert also found little of what they called "mobilizing information" in environmental reporting-information which people could use to do something about the problem. When the researchers did find mobilizing information in their content analysis it was most often simply a traditional meeting announcement. Not only do the media seem to avoid exposing local polluters, but there is also evidence from a study by Althoff, Greig, and Stuckey that "media mana-

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Envlronmentall-..blle Relations gers" (in Kansas) consider environmental problems to be relatively unnewsWorthy even though they consider the environment to be an important problem. 81 These media managers also believed industry was more serious than government in trying to solve the problem. And they also said they would accept environmental ads from polluters. All of these factors would seem to make the media susceptible to manipulat~on of press agents who might wish to protect the reputation of a polluting flrIn. There is evidence, at least, that environmental stories come more often from press releases and/or official sources than do other kinds of stories. Sachsman asked 11 reporters and editors in the San Francisco area to identify the sources of environmental news items published during an ll-day period. S4 They could identify the source of 200 of 474 items, of which 53 percent came from public relations sources. Half of the items were rewritten press releases. Sachsman said 53 percent compared to a 35 percent figure found by Cutlip for all news in 1962. Sachsman found, in addition, that business editors depended almost entirely on industry sources for environmental stories but that rePorters sometimes used pressure group releases. Hungerford and Lemert, similarly , found that government sources were more important for environmental news than for other types of news' (58 vs. 36 percent) . In that study, industry provided 14 percent of the news, conservationists-environmentalists 7 percent. What these studies show, then, is that the media seldom investigate environmental problems on their own and that they are quite willing to use press releases from industry sources. At the same time, they will print negative information about local firms only if it comes from governmental sources or from a Pseudo event created by environmental groups. Even then they tend to downPlay the information. Sachsman, for example, concluded that reporters generally presented official statements of official sources taken from press releases and that they did little interpretation on their own. Thus, "the Bay Area media provided a battlefield for the various sides of complex environmental questions." Supporting this conclusion is a study by Witt which showed that enVironmental reporters got most of their news from conservation clubs and organizations (95 percent used this source), government conservation agencies (95 percent), and business and industry (91 percent). ee There is additional evidence that serious environmentalists do not rely on the mass media for environmental information-probably for the reasons dOcumented here. Rubin and Sachs surveyed 301 members of the Sierra Club ?nd found that only 18 percent said they used the mass media for ecology Information. s1 More important sources for them were conservation groups and clubs, knowledgeable friends and other individuals, and the academic community. Likewise, Novic and Sandman found that college students who Used non-mass media more than mass media for environmental information ~onsidered themselves more informed, considered the environment a more ~mportant problem, and showed a stronger relationship between being in°rmed about the environment and making a personal commitment to do SOmething about it." We find then what is an apparent direct connection between superficial

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I-IIbUe Relations Itevlew public concern with the environment and superficial media coverage of the environment, a conclusion supported by the Funkhouser study on media coverage of important issues in the 1960s.&9 He found a strong relation between news coverage and Gallup data on what people believed to be the most important issues. But he found no relation between news coverage and what people think government should pay most attention to or to what affects them personally. He then suggested that opinion polls simply represent an indirect content analysis of the agenda set by the media. Thus, it would seem that public relations practitioners should neither expect to be harmed nor helped greatly by mass media coverage. Rather they should be more concerned with special interest media. For example, Rubin and Sachs state: 70 The wise public relations man recognizes that the model of special interest group to pseudoevent to mass media to unorganized public is not where the action is. For example. a Pacific Gas and Electric executive who has responsibility for governmental and public relations told us that he was not concerned about the quality or quantity of environmental information in the mass media. He is concerned only with where the eco-activists themselves get their information because their lobbying can affect his company's fortunes. Thus, he follows club publications. special interest magazines. and is himself a member of the Sierra Club.

The principle function of mass media coverage, they add, is to alert activistS to upcoming events and to indicate to politicians "the issues their constituentS are likely to be discussing" -if only in a superficial manner. Theoretical Explanations of Environmental Communication Much of the research cited to this point can be explained by two underlying theoretical assumptions: 1) that if the public has the "proper" attitude about the environment that it will behave in a way that will help preserve the environment and 2) that if the environment is covered sufficiently, and properly," in the mass media that the public will develop proper attitudes toward the environment. Public relations practitioners working for polluting organizations, however, may define "proper" in precisely the opposite way as do practitioners trying to promote environmental awareness. Erickson provided an example of such an attitudinal approach when he identified two types of attitudes toward wildlife, a protectionist attitude of wanting to get rid of nuisance animals. 71 His assumption was that if these types of attitudes could be isolated that communicators could construct messages appropriate to those attitudes. Stamm, in his early work on environmental communication, identified two types of orientations (or attitudes) toward scarcity: 1) reversal of trends-Le., that the trend toward depletion of a scarce resource should be reversed and 2) functional substitution-Le., that depleted resources should be replaced with a substitute that serves the same purpose. 7' He assumed that those people whose behavior indicated concern for the environment would have the reversal of trends orientation and those less concerned would have the functional substitutes orientation. The two assumptions about attitudes and communication are not limited to environmental communication theory but also apply to communicatiort theory in general (see, e.g., Kline", Stamm compared this approach to com-

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Envlronmentall·ublle Relations munication theory with that of the early alchemists in the physical sciences: 74 ... environmental communicators often arrive at a purpose closely parallel to that of early alchemists who sought to transform less desirable metals into gold . The environmental communicator, too. begins with a material of lesser desirability-the unlovely human mind. in many instances wholly lacking in environmental awareness and ecological values. The communicator hopes to add something to the cognitive material that will elevate it to a state of "ecological conscience .",«. The problem is to discover the manipulations. the treatments that bring this transformation about.

Stamm then adds, however, that the history of alchemy research (research on persuasion) in the field of mass communication has "taught us two things: 1) that salient attitudes are not subject to manipulation through short-term communication programs and 2) that attitudes are unreliable predictors of behavior."71 In two reviews of research on environmental communication, Stamm concluded that although there is evidence that environmental information campaigns can increase public knowledge and awareness about the environment that there is little support for the assumptions that increased knowledge changes attitudes or that attitudes predict behavior. 78 He cites the Tichenor et al. study discussed above, to show that when people's self interest is atstake ~hose with the most unfavorable attitudes may also be the most knowledgeaIe. The literature cited thus far in this paper support his conclusions. As we have seen, this literature indicates that people believe pollution is a problem, mostly because the media have told them that it is, but that few believe it affects them or are willing to do anything personally to solve environmental Problems. Those who have "attitudes" about the environment are those who are personally involved in situations where environmental problems occur or ~ho have become involved in environmental activist groups. These people, OWever, seek information to support their attitudes. Tichenor et al. showed that people opposed to restrictive measures needed to solve environmental ~roblems were knowledgeable about the issue-no doubt because they sought lnformation. Similarly, Lingwood found that students who attended an enVironmental teach-in "came not to learn but to gain support for beliefs they already had. "77 There is no consistent definition of "attitude" in the literature on communiC~tion theory. However, if we use the term evaluation rather than attitudesince attitudes are, in practice , usually defined as what an evaluative scale ~easures-then we can get a better perspective on the effects of communicat~on programs. Communication can help people to understand an issue or a Sltuation (get a singular picture of it), but it does not often affect the way People evaluate the alternative solutions to that issue or problematic situation. For example, Stamm's study of reversal of trends and functional substitution Otlentations showed that the distinction between the two kinds of evaluative criteria could not be explained by such variables as use of conservation media, ~embership in conservation groups and time spent in outdoor activities (huntng, fishing, camping, and hiking.") Stamm explained: 'What turned out to more significant is whether an individual regards scarcity as a problem at a and whether he sees a need to find a solution-by means of either reversal

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J-nblle Relations Review of trends or functional equivalents." He found, for example, that people who did not participate in outdoor activities made no attempt to evaluate environmental issues and more often said they had no idea what should be done about a given scarcity problem. In a later study conducted in North Dakota, Stamm and Bowes found that respondents high on a functional substitutes scale were more likely to agree with and support the Army Corps of Engineers-an organization with a policy of functional substitution. 78 The reverse was not true, however, for those high on a reversal of trends scale. Stamm and Bowes also could not place items measuring reversal of trends into a consistent scale, because people did not consistently apply that criterion in different environmental situations. What Stamm ~nd other communication researchers have now realized is that communication behavior and evaluations are situational rather than cross-situational phenomena-whether people communicate and the kinds of judgments they make will differ as the situation changes. Stamm, Dethman and Moran thus began to look at reversal of trends and functional substitution as strategies or criteria that could be applied separately, together, or not at all in different situations. 80 When both criteria were used together, Stamm termed the strategy hedging; when one was used but not the other he called it wedging. Stamm and Grunig used this new approach and found that people who are concerned about the environment tend to apply the reversal of trends criterion across different environmental situations until a situation involves them, at which time they also apply the functional substitution criterion and thus the hedging strategy. 81 This result could also explain the Tichenor et al. findings that people evaluated environmental issues differently in local as opposed to nonlocal situations. A situational theory of communicative and evaluative behavior thus seems to be a more logical explanation of the literature discussed in this paper than does an individual difference, or cross-situational explanation. In research supported by the National Wildlife Federation I have attempted to apply such a situational theory to an analysis of environmental communication behavior. The theory used in that study makes two assumptions that previous, attitudinal, theories have not made: 1) that the likelihood that people will communicate about a given issue or problem can be predicted better from situational characteristics than individual or cross-situational characteristics and 2) that the most important phenomenon to explain in communication theory is communication behavior itself and not attitude change. The second assumption is based on the finding that communication is effective in helping a person develop a picture in his mind of the nature of a situation but that it will be a relatively unimportant factor when he evaluates alternative solutions to a problem in that situation (see e.g., Wackman ).82 In fact, if a person sees nothing problematic about the situation or does not believe it involves him, he will probably not make an evaluation at all. Part of the reason communication has little effect on evaluations can be explained by a theory developed by Saltiel and Woelfel that attitudes (evaluations) represent the gradual accumulation of all information a person has received on an issue." Thus communication on unfamiliar topics can affect evaluations but

48

EnvlronlUentnll~ ..blle nelaUon~

communication on familiar topics would have little effect. My theory of communication behavior, therefore, concentrates on isolating variables which predict the situations in which people are most likely to communicate-to seek information at their own initiative or to process information given to them at someone else's initiative. The theory is particularly useful in public relations because it indicates the situations in which publics are most likely to exist-Le., in which some or all people are most likely to be actively seeking information about a situation of concern to an organization employing public relations. 84 The theory consists of four variables : 1) problem recognition-the extent to which a person recognizes that something is lacking in a situation so that he stops to think about it, 2) constraint recognition-the extent to which a person perceives that a situation allows freedom of choice without his behavior being constrained by physical, social, economic, or political forces which he, acting alone. cannot control, 3) level of involvement-the extent to which a person pictures himself in the situation, and 4) the presence or absence of a referent criterion in a person's mind as he observes a given situation, A referent criterion is a decision rule or a "rule-of-thunb." learned in previous situations which provides him a ready made solution for a current problematic situation. In general, recognizing a problem motivates a person to communicate in order to deal with that problem. When constraints are perceived, on the other hand, a person has less motivation to communicate because his behavior is determined by factors outside his control. Likewise, if a person has a referent Criterion, he is less likely to communicate because he carries a ready-made solution to the problematic situation and thus needs less information to deal With it. If a person is involved in a situation, he is motivated to communicate because the situation affects him directly and relevant information will help him to direct his own behavior within that situation. If a person is not involved he will not seek information at his own initiative, although he will process it if it comes to him at the initiative of another person or from a medium he happens to be using. To test whether my situational explanation of environmental communication behavior was better than existing attitudinal and demographic explanations, I entered the four variables of the model into a stepwise multiple regres-sion analysis along with a number of demographic and other cross-situational variables frequently used to predict environmental attitudes and behaviors. 85 One additional situational variable, a person's picture of eight environmental situations, was also included (scaled so that a low score meant a person did not think of the environment in a word association exercise and a high score meant he thought of environmental deterioration). A step-wise multiple regression allows a researcher to isolate, in order of importance, the variables most able to predict the occurrence of another variable. This analysis was designed to predict information seeking, information processing, and the likelihood of joining environmental organizations. III The relative importance of each of the predictor variables can be seen in the relative size of the bata weights as presented in Table 1.

49

l-ubUe Relatlon§ Review TABLE 1 Multiple Regression Analysis of Predictors of Information Seeking, Information Processing and Likelihood of Joining Organizations. Information Seeking Simple Beta Weight R

Information Processing Simple Beta Weight R .29** .34

Joining Organizations Simple Beta Weight R .30** .34

Problem Recognition a Constraints

.27

.25**

.32

.29**

.35

.30**

.37

.26**

Level of Involvement

.24

.13**

e

e

.31

.10**

Referent Criterion Picture b

.11

-.02

.11

-.08

.19

.08

.03

-.06

.07

-.04

.16

.05

Age

-.04

-.01

-.06

.04

-.10

Race c

-.01

-.05

-.04

-.10**

Education

-.12

-.39**

-.03

-.37**

-.07

.004

-.06 -.05 -.27**

Income

.03

.15**

.14

.21**

-.03

.02

Sexd

.003

.09

.01

.06

-.13

-.09*

Knowledge

.03

-.04

.19

.12**

.01

-.14**

Husband's Occupation

-.06

-.02

-.06

-.10** ,

-.11

-.06

Wife's Occupation

-.12

-.05

-.12

-.07

e

e

Time Hunting and Fishing

-.03

-.13**

-.03

-.13**

-.05

-.15**

Time Commuting

-.04

-.06

-.05

.01

.01

-.06

Time Hiking

.13

.07

.23

.16**

.11

-.03

Time Swimming

.os

-.06

.11

-.11**

.07

-.11**

Time Camping

.10

.02

.17

.06

.19

.14**

Time Biking

.09

.04

.17

.06

.19

.14**

Environmental Publications

.16

.10*

.18

.09*

.22

.19**

Environmental Organizations

.08

-.05

.10

-.09

.11

-.04

MuItipleR andR2

.53

.28

.58

.34

.61

.37

apositive scores indicate low constraints bpositive scores indicate picture of environmental deterioration. cPositive scores indicate non-whites. dpositive scores indicate males. eDid not enter step-wise regression.

50

* P ** P

.05 .01

Environmental Public Relatlon§ Table 1 provides strong support for the situational explanation of environmental communication behavior. Problem recognition, constraint recognition, and level of involvement were generally three of the first four variablesalong with education-to be entered in the step-wise procedure. The referent criterion had the predicted relationship, although it was not a strong predictor. As the theory predicted, level of involvement did not relate to information processing, although it did relate to information seeking and joining of organizations. In other words, these data support the hypothesis that people will process information if someone gives it to them whether the situation involves them or not, but that they will be less likely to actively seek information and join organizations if the situation does not involve them. Education was, however, a strong predictor for all three variables. Note, thOUgh, that it detracts from information seeking, information processing and joining of environmental organizations when the effect of the situational vari ables was controlled in the regression procedure. The best explanation of this result is that education stimulates communication behavior only when the four Situational variables are also present. If educated people do not perceive a Situation as problematic and if they feel constrained and uninvolved in that Situation then they are even less likely than uneducated people to communicate about the situation and to join organizations to do something about it. The only other significant predictors of information seeking are income, ~ubscription to environmental publications, and time spent hunting and fishIng (a negative relation) . For information processing, the same predictors are significant, as well as race (non-whites process more), knowledge, low-status husband's occupation, time hiking (positive relationship) and time swimming TABLE 2 Percentage of Respondents in Four Categories of Grunig Communication Theory, by Type of Environmental Issue Recognize Problem

Involved in Situation

Face Constraints

Have Referent Criterion

All Issues

76.4

60.2

53.4

48.3

Air Pollution

95.2

85.6

49.7

45.0

~Uperhighways In Urban Areas

67.2

61.9

61.6

41.5

Extinction of Whales

47.3

10.4

71.7

43.3

DisPosable Cans and Bottles

81.5

82.8

23.3

73.6

Energy Shortage

96.3

92.3

39.4

50.2

Strip Mining

53.4

25.6

70.2

30.7

Water Pollution

91.8

77.8

39.0

58.8

Oil Spills

79.7

45.4

70.2

43.3

51

Public Rt:latlons Rt:vlt:w (negative relationship) . Most of the cross-situational variables detract from joining organizations (e.g., education, knowledge , time hunting and fishing, and time camp ing), although time camping and subscribing to environmental publications relate positively to joining environmental organizations. The importance of this table, however, is that the situational variables are the best predictors of communication behavior. Table 2 gives further evidence of the situationality of environmental issues. This table shows the responses to the eight individual environmental items used in the study and summed for the analysis in the previous table. This table indicates , for example, that most people will communicate about the energy shortage, air pollution, and water pollution. While most recognize the problem of disposable cans and bottles and perceive themselves as involved and without constraints, they also think they know what to do about it (have TABLE3 Correlations of Four Variables in Grunig Communication Theory with Predictor Variables

Picture

Problem Recognition

Level of Involvement

Lack of Constraints

Referent Cr iterion

.33

.31

.25

.32

.05

-.13

-.16

-.01

.06

.05

.17

.11

a

Age Race

b

Educat ion

.45

.30

.32

.44

Income

.30

.11

.16

.26

Sexc

.09

-.01

.02

.27 .31

Know ledge

.42

.28

.32

Husband's Occupation

.27

.09

.11

.13

-.08

.09

Wife's Occupat ion

.05

-.06

Time Hunting and Fishing

.15

.18

.09

.16

Time Commuting

.17

.09

.12

.12

Time Hiking

.34

.29

.32

.12

Time Swimming

.23

.21

.31

.13

Time Camping

.26

.29

.29

.23

Time Biking

.16

.20

.23

.08

Environmental Publications

.27

,25

.16

.07

Environmental O rgan izations

.32

.23

.30

.26

apositive scores indica te picture of env ironmental deteriora tion bpositive scores indica te non-whites cPo sitive scores indicate males.

52

Environmental Publle Relations a referent criterion) and thus have less need for information. For the other issues, one or more of the four variables discourage communication by about half of the people and thus only more educated people appear likely to communicate about these issues-a conclusion which will be supported by the next table, Table 3. Although most of the cross-situational variables had only a weak relationship to the communication variables and the likelihood of joining environmental organizations, Table 3 shows that most of them have a relatively ~trong relationship to the four situational variables. This is particularly true or education and knowledge. Education, again, is the variable most consistently related to the four situational variables. Here, however, it has a positive relationship whereas it had a negative relationship to information seeking and processing when the effect of the situational variables was taken out. In other Words, these data indicate that educated people are most likely to perceive ~nvironmental situations in a way that makes communication behavior more likely. But when educated people do not perceive the situation in this way they are less likely than less educated people to communicate about environmental problems. In summary, these data show that people are not programmed to behave bonsistently with regard to different environmental problems. Rather, they ehave differently in different types of situations. The data also show, howe~er, that more educational people are most likely to perceive environmental SItuations in ways that motivate them to communicate about those situations. It is only when a situation involves nearly everyone personally (such as the energy shortage in this study) 0,' when there is a good deal of conflict in a situation87 that everyone-regardless of education or knowledge-pictures ~hemselves as involved in a problematic situation and thus communicates In order to find solutions to the problem. bA situational theory, then, seems to explain well the state of knowledge hI out, public concern for, and communication about environmental proems. Thus we turn to its implications for public relations practice. How to Design an Environmental PR Program First of aIL these results should make it dear that no simple public opinion PoU can tell a public relations practitioner whether his public is sufficiently concerned about ecology, or alternatively, is too concerned and identifies his h8anization as a polluter. People will give an opinion to a pollster, even when t ey have none. When the media cover an issue such as the environment people will say it is an important problem because they have heard about it in the media. .Except for the most educated and knowledgeable, most people do not perceIVe many environmental situations as issues which involve them-e.g., in ~Y study most people did not think about nor perceive themselves as involved ~n strip mining in West Virginia nor in the extinction of whales. Only when an ~hue directly involves a large number of people can a practitioner do more P ~I arouse a superficial consciousness that pollution is a problem. Thus, a Outer-unfortunately-need not worry too much about adverse publicity

53

Publle Relations Review directed at a general audience. Nor should a conscientious company expect toO much from a campaign to inform people about how it is rectifying environmental sins. The pollutor should, however, worry about the educated activist who may lobby against him and the conscientious firm should devote most of its efforts to communicating with the activists-since they are the ones seeking the information. The activist may in tum create an event which the mass media may cover. Large numbers of people may, in turn, process the information in the media and get a picture of a corporation as a polluter whether it is or not . These people will not, however, seek further information to clarify the picture. To reach activist audiences specialized media and personal contact are more impartant than the mass media. The polluter also cannot avoid the educated activists ; they will seek the information they need, if not from the polluter himself from others who may provide them with less accurate information. When an issue, such as the gasoline shortage, affects everyone, however, nearly everyone actively communicates about that issue and active public relations-as the oil companies realize-cannot be avoided. My theory and the literature reviewed also provide insight into the kinds of information which should be provided about environmental issues. Information can be provided about the problem itself, in order to get people to think about it and possibly to become involved in the situation. Information can also be provided about solutions to the problems-to provide referent criteria for specific problems. And information can be provided about ways grouP action can be used to eliminate constraints to solving environmental problems-Le., how to make it possible for people to do something personally. Most media coverage and environmental public relations campaigns appear to provide information about problems only. Activists, however, need information about solutions and means of eliminating constraints-for all environmental issues. When issues affect a larger audience, most members of thiS general audience also will need the same kind of information. What this review cannot tell us, however, is how the public relations practitioner can best communicate to the management of his own organization about environmental issues. Research is needed on organizations and their managements similar to the research that has been done on publics. For example, I have found that organizations can be classified into behavioral categories and that their communication behavior (through public relations) is very much like that of individuals in the same categories." Similar research, specifically on environmental issues, should be done on public relations and management subsystems of organizations so that we can better understand their behavior in regard to current pressing social problems such as pollution'. Finally, research seems to be needed on the "coorientation" between organIzations and publics on environmental issues. For example, the study of th Army Corps of Engineers showed that publics believed the Corps perceive advantages but not disadvantages of its programs. Other studies have shown that publics and agencies often perceive higher-or lower-agreement with one another than exists and that this adversely affects their communicatio fl and behavior toward one another.Ie Bowes and Stamm also applied the CO-

d

54

Envlronm~ntal

Public

R~latlo..s

orientation framework to an analysis of the effectiveness of community leaders as liaisons between agencies and publics on environmental issues." They found that the community leaders had a less accurate perception of the Publics'views than did the agency members themselves. In summary, research has provided a solid base of knowledge on which to develop a communication program with publics. But there is little knowledge on how to facilitate communication from public to management and little on ~hich to base an analysis of the effectiveness of public relations practitioners U\ coorienting (developing understanding) with either external or internal Publics.

footnotes S 'David M. Rubin and David P. Sachs, Mass Media and the Environment (New York: Praeger pecialStudies , 1973), pp .150-190 . %id, p.187. 'Ibid, p. 114. I 'Carl Thompson, "Communicators and Their Environmental Problems," Public Relations ournal29 (May 1973): pp.34-35. M'~ . Darden Chambliss, [r. , "Reports from the PRSA Conference : Ecology will Continue as aJor PR Problem:' Public Relations Journal 26 (November 1971): pp. 10-14. I 'Keith R. Stamm and John E. Bowes, "Communication During an Environmental Decision," Ournal of Environmental Education 3 (Spring 1972): pp. 49-55. 'Jack J. Yovanovich , "The Controversy Over Energy," Public Relations Journal 30 (December 1974): pp. 20-22. 'Clifford B, Reeves, "Ecology Adds a New PR Dimension," Public Relations Journal 26 (June 1970) : pp.6-9. 'Sales Management 106 (Jan. 15, 1971), "How Press Agents Handle Polluters," p. 56. IGEllis N. Brandt, "Wanted: Environmentalists:' Public Relations Journal 26 (August 1970): ~P. ~9-21; Otto Lerbinger, "PR Research-As Others View It: Reflections of an Academician," ubl1c Relations loumal u» (June 1970): pp , 29-31; Otto Lerbinger, "A Long View of the Environ~ent , ,, Public Relations 10urnal 29 (May 1973): pp. 20-21; Richard H. Truitt, "The Participative Pproach in Environmental Programs," Public Relations Journal 29 (May 1973): pp . 31-32, b II Andrew W. Weil, "Role of PR in Environmental Action ," Public Relations [ournal 26 (NovemEeT 1970): pp. 10-14; Richard Weichmann, "Pollution Control: The Role of Communication in cology:' Management Review 60 (April 1971): pp.43-45. 1 "Richard L. Moore, "Environment- A New PR Crisis," Public Relations Journal 26 (March 970): pp. 6-9. "John J. Corris, "Come Fly with Me," Public Relations Journal 27 (October 1971): pp. 61-64. 1 "Kerryn King, "Crisis of Concern : Air and Water Pollution, " Public Relations [ournal 23 (July 967): pp. 12-14. (J "James S. Pastorius, "New Ecology Rules Call for PR Moves," Public Relations Journal 27 ~ne 1971): pp . 10-11. 19 "John Paluszek, "The Eco Organizations: They are Legion," Public Relations loumal 29 (May pp. 25-27. PUb~ ' Darden Chambliss, Jr. and Daniel J. Walsh, "Working with the Environmental Press," "Ire Relations loumal 29 (May 1973): pp. 22-24. ~ John E. Ross, "Azimuths in Conservation Communications Research," Journal of Env iron~ta~ Education 1 (Spring 1970): pp. 88-92. 1" 'Keith R. Stamm, "Environment and Communication:' in F. Gerald Kline and Phillip J. I,.~~~nor (eds.), Current Perspectives in Mass Communication Research (Beverly Hills: Sage u Ications, 1972), p. 286.

??):

55

Pnblle Relations Review JOHazel Erskine, "The Polls: Pollution and Its Costs," Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972): pp. 120-135; Hazel Erskine, "The Polls: Pollution and Industry," Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972): pp.263-280. II National Wildlife Federation, "A Study of the Attitudes of the American Public Toward Improvement of the Natural Environment," Washington, D. C; mimeo. Ilpublic Broadcasting Environment Center, "A Survey of Public Attitudes Toward Urban Problems and Toward the Impact of Scientific and Technical Developments," Washington, D. C, mimeo. liP. 1. Tichenor, G. A. Donohue, C. N. Olien, and 1. K. Bowers, "Environment and Public Opinion," Journal of Environmental Education 2 (Summer 1971): pp. 38-42. "Public Broadcasting Environment Center, op. cit. "Rita lames Simon, "Public Attitudes Toward Population and Pollution," Public Opinion Quarterly 35 (1971): pp. 93-99. "Erskine, "The Polls: Pollution and Its Costs," op. cit. "'Arvin W. Murch, "Public Concern for Environmental Pollution," Public Opinion Quarterly 35 (1971): pp. 100-106. "Iudith Hoffman Moore, "Defining and Interpreting Ecology," in Clay Schoenfel (ed.), Interpreting Environmental Issues (Madison, Wis.: Denbar Educational Research Services, Inc.). pp. 249-252. "'Simon, op. cit. IODavid L. Erickson and G. Norman Van Tubergen, "The Wolf Men," Journal of Environmental Education 4 (Fall 1972) : pp. 26-36. . IIRalph 1. Herbert, "Environmental Stress and Moving: An Examination of the Effect of Alfcraft Noise on Residential Mobility in Metropolitan New York," Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1974. . '"National Wildlife Federation, op. cit. UClyde Eastman, Alan Randall and Peggy L. Heffer, "How Much to Abate Pollution?" PublIC Opinion Quarterly 38 (1974-75): pp. 574-584. . NAllen H. Seed, Ir., "Who Litters-and Why1" Journal of Environmental Education 1 (SpfltlS 1970): pp. 93-94. "Simon, op, cit. "Murch, op. cit. ''Erskine, "The Polls: Pollution and Industry," op. cit. uSimon, op. cit. 4 "Andrew 1. Cullen, "The Auto Makers and Public Opinion," Public Relations Journal 2 (October 1968): pp. 61-64. "Public Broadcasting Environment Center, op. cit. "Ibid. 41S eed, op. cit. f "Dennis P. Madigan, "New Publics in the Spectrum of a Conservation Agency," Journal 0 Environmental Education 2 (Fall 1970) : pp. 24-25. "George Arthur Bailey, "The Public, the Media, and the Knowledge Gap," Journal of Environ; mental Education 2 (Summer 1971): pp. 3-8; George H. Allen, "How Deep is Environmenta Awareness1" Journal of Environmental Education 3 (Summer 1972): pp. 1-3. "National Wildlife Federation, op. cit. "louis N. Tognacci, Russell H. Weigel, Marvin F. Wideen and David T. A. Vernon, "EnvifO~ mental Quality: How Universal is Public Concern1" Environment and Behavior 4 (1972): pp. 7

U.

~

''Edmond Constantini and Kenneth Hanf, "Environmental Concern and lake Tahoe: A StU of Elite Perceptions, Backgrounds, and Attitudes," Environment and Behavior 4 (1972): pp.2()9-

2~Riley E. Dunlap, "The Impact of Political Orientation on Environmental Attitudes and ""-

. of tions," Environment and Behavior 7 (1975): pp. 428-454. "James A. Swann, "Response to Air Pollution: A Study of Attitudes and Coping StrategIes e High School Youths," Environment and Behavior 2 (1970): pp. 127-152. IODanielI. Koenig, "Additional Research on Environmental Activism," Environment and B havior 7 (1975): pp. 472-485.

56

Environmental Pllblle Relations "Bailey, op. cit. "PhiIlip J. Tichenor, Jane M. Rodenkirchen, Clarice N. Olien, and George A. Donohue, "Com~unity Issues, Conflict, and Public Affairs Knowledge," in Peter Clarke (ed.), New Models for QSs Communication Research (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1973), pp. 81-118. T "Navin C. Sharma, Joseph E. Kivlin, and Frederick C. Fliegel. "Environmental Pollution: Is here Enough Concern to Lead to Act ion?' Environment and Behavior 7 (1975): pp. 455-471. "Tichenor, Donohue, Olien, and Bowers, op. cit. F"Ray E. Rickson, "Self Interest and Pollution Control." Journal of Environmental Education 4 ( all 1972): pp . 43-48. "Rubin and Sachs, op. cit., Chapter 3. E "Jane Clausing, "The Ecological Message of the Outdoor Magazines," Journal of Environmental dUcation 2 (Summer 1971): pp. 10-12. "Rubin and Sachs, op. cit., Chapter 2. "Ib id, Chapter 4. "Ibid, p. 49. "G . Ray Funkhouser, "T rends in Media Coverage of the Issues of the 60's," Journalism Quarterly 50 (1973): pp . 533-538. "Steven E. Hungerford and James B. Lemert, "Covering the Environment : A New AfghaniSt~nism:' Journalism Quarterly 50 (1973): pp . 475-481, 508. A ~Phillip Althoff, William H. Greig, and Francine Stuckey, "Environmental Pollution Control thtudes of Media Managers in Kansas," Journalism Quarterly 50 (1973): pp.666-672. A "D avid B. Sachsman, "Public Relations Influence on Coverage of Environment in San Francisco ~~a," Journalism Quarterly 53 (1976): pp. 54-60. .. H~n~erford and Lemert, op . cit. t I Wilham Witt, "The Environmental Reporter on U. S. Daily Newspapers," Journalism Quarer'y 51 (1974): pp . 697-704. ~Rubin and Sachs, op. cit., p. 112. to EKe~neth Novic and Peter M. Sandman, "How Use of Mass Media Affects Views on Solutions .;vlronmentallssues," Journalism Quarterly 51 (1974): pp . 448-452. " unkhouser, op. cit. "RUbin and Sachs, op. cit., pp. 112-113. Ed DaVid L. Erickson, "Attitudes and Communication about Wildlife," Journal of Environmental ~CQt.ion 2 (Summer 1971): pp. 17-20. l! ' Keith R. Stamm, "Two Orientations to the Conservation Concept of Scarcity," Journal of Enl~~rrmental Education 1 (Summer 1970): pp. 134-139. J /. Gerald Kline, "Theory in Mass Communication Research," in F. Gerald Kline and Phillip p b;~henor (eds.), Current Perspectives in Mass Communication Research (Beverly Hills : Sage \ IC~tions, 1972), pp. 17-40. in CKelth R. Stamm , "Conserv a tion Communication Frontiers: Reports of Behavioral Research," R lay Schoenfeld (ed.). Interpreting Environmental Issues (Madison, Wis. : Denbar Educational ~~~Ch Services, Inc., 1973). p. 228. " Id. lio amm , "Environment and Communication," op . cit.; Stamm, "Conservation Communica~ rontiers," op . cit. al\ EDa~id A. Lingwood, "Environmental Education Through Infonnation-Seeking: The Case of ,.;vlronmental Teachln,' Environment and Behavior 3 (1971): pp. 230-262. , t~I1\I1\, "Two Orientations to the Conservation Concept of Scarcity," op. cit. l!ir 'Keith R. Stamm and John E. Bowes, "Environmental Attitudes and Reaction," Journal of En~rr~enta/ Education 3 (Spring 1972) : pp. 56-60. lut' Keith R. Stamm, L. Dethman, and J. Moran, "Hedging and Wedging : Strategies for the ResoCoW n of Environmental Issues," paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism, " eg~ Park, Md., 1976. for t~elth R. Stamm and James E. Grunig, "Communication Situations and Cognitive Strategies "D e ~esolution of Environmental Issues," Journalism Quarterly 54 (Winter 1977) : in process. hill! ' amel B. Wackman, "Interpersonal Communication and Coorientation," American Belora/ Scientist 16 (1973): pp . 537-550.

Si

57

Public Relations Review IIJohn Saltiel and Joseph Woelfel, "Inertia in Cognitive Processes: The Role of Accumulated Information in Attitude Change," Human Communication Research 1 (1975): pp. 333-344. "See, e.g., James E. Grunig, "Some Consistent Types of Employee Publics," Public RelatioTl5 Review 1 (Winter 1975): pp. 17-36; James E. Grunig, "Communication Behaviors Occurring in Decision and Nondecision Situations," Journalism Quarterly 53 (1976): pp. 252-263; James E. Grunig and James B. Disbrow, "Developing a Probabilistic Model for Communications Decision Making," Communication Research 4 (1977): pp. 145-168. liThe four situational variables were measured for eight different environmental situationS. Correlatlonal analysis revealed a moderate correlation between the eight situations on each of the four variables. Thus, the situations were combined into a single added scale for each of the four situational variables. Although these respondents tended to view most environmental situations in the same way, we will see below that there were still some differences in perception for some of the situations. The sample was taken purposively from four cities-Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, and Cleveland-and from University of Maryland physical scientists and students-in order to represent different situations and different levels of knowledge and environmental concern· Sample size was 231. Interviewing was done by telephone, using random digit dialing. "Information seeking was measured by presenting the respondent with a list of hypothetical brochure titles on eight environmental topics corresponding to the situations measured with the situational model questions and asking how likely he would be to send for each brochure. Information processing was measured by presenting the respondent with eight hypothetical newspaper leads and asking how likely he would be to read each of them if he happened to come across thelll in a newspaper. "Tichenor, Rodenkirchen, Olien, and Donohue, "Community Issues, Conflict, and Public Affairs Knowledge," op. cit. " IIJames E. Grunig, "Organizations and Public Relations: Testing a Communication Theory, Journalism Monographs No. 46, November 1976. "Stamm, "Environment and Communication," op. cit. "John E. Bowes and Keith R. Stamm, "Evaluating Communication with Public Agencies," pw blic Relations Review 1 (Summer 1975): pp. 23-37

58