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Social, political and economic contexts in public relations. Theory and cases
Public Relations Review
Ultimately, Budd says, “(the) PR officer’s effectiveness cannot be judged by how much paper he disgorges but, rather, on the adroitness by which he directs it to specific targets. “Volume is not productivity,” he adds. And-borrowing from another master architect-builder, LeCorbusier, he counsels: “Less can be more, if your PR people know what they are doing.” Thus, in part, the gospel of John Budd. Stephen H. Baer, APR Fellow Communications Consultant Pasadena, CA.
Hugh
M. Culbertson,
Stone,
Martin
Dennis
W. Jeffers,
Besser
Donna
Terre11
Social, Political
and Economic Contexts in Public Relations. Theory and Cases
Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum
Associates,
Inc.,
332
pp., 1993 This is an innovative textbook that challenges the conventional case study texts in public relations. It is an effort to integrate the theories underlying public relations with their application in six case studies. These authors use 17 theoretical perspectives to build a framework for solving the case problems they pose. The content of this work is somewhat disorganized which the authors admit but argue that intellectual theory is seldom neat. Their focus in the cases realistically centers on power and persuasion. As one who has long taught that credibility and context are the prime requirements for effective communication with constituent publics, I welcome this book’s emphasis on detailed consideration of the context of problems as a way of intelligently handling them. Credibility is determined by the performance of the sender of the message. Context determines the message’s reception, a context that will reinforce the message, reject it, or ignore it. As a teacher I was often criticized by students as being too theoretical; my response over the years was “theory is the most practical thing in the world.” I heartily welcome this effort to wed theory with its application in specific cases. The six cases presented are of a police department, a livestock magazine, a motel franchise, a Black Studies program in Midwestern University, employees of a municipal government, and osteopathic medicine. All reflect the varied experiences of the authors. Those of us in academe will be specially interested in the Black studies situation as we have seen these programs on our own campus fail to gain fir11 acceptance and beset with problems. On the minus side the reader is constantly interrupted (and in my case irritated) by the constant insertion of source and page numbers in the text as though this were a scholarly paper, not a textbook for students and practitioners. Also the book is
100
Vol. 20, No. 1
Book Reviews
replete with stilted scholarly jargon, e.g. “social schemata.” I fear students and practitioners will have a hard time with much of the author’s prose. A pragmatic question: Will this innovative approach with seven chapter of theory and six chapters on actual case problems meet the needs of most case study courses in public relations? I applaud this innovation. Scott M. Cutlip University of Georgia
Thomas E. Harris Applied Organizational Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence 1993, $34.50
Communication Erlbaum Associates,
477~~.
,
The approach ramp to the much-touted super information highway promises to be smooth enough, but traversing the highway itself, while promising to be efficient and fast, looks to be all too mechanistic, sterile and dehumanizing. Mind you, that Aldous Huxley-plus-10 premise is by no means the central message Thomas Harris wishes to communicate in his book. As a matter of fact, judged by the minimal amount of space and attention he gives it, the quality of communication between and among humans and human communities-as opposed to that between and among robotic work stations-doesn’t appear to rate highly among Mr. Harris’ concerns. The book-essentially a recapitulation of others’ views on the subject-focuses its emphasis on the hightech bells and whistles of conveying information-ever more speedily and efficiently-but essentially without the juice and zest and, indeed, the frustration of people interacting with each other-by means of two-way communication, in other words; and not merely by one-directional dissemination ofinformation. As a matter of fact, the book treats all too casually, almost in passing, the elemental question ofwhether conveyance of information can be said to constitute meaningful communication. Mr. Harris’ failure to address this question in a balanced way is, of course, a choice he is free to make. But since the trend in contemporary society is ever more to the systems approach to the super information highway, the book’s seeming reluctance to discuss the pernicious consequences of the breakdown in two-way communication causes the work to seem more superficial that it ought. After all, in this day and age few of us need to be sensitized to the promised wonders of living more and more of our lives electronically. But what about the physical and spiritual isolation which we are too ready to accept as a characteristic of our life style? At least this one of Mr. Harris’ readers would have been gratified had he chosen to balance in his text the convenience and speed of the super information highway with an expression of concern about our mechanistic communication as a major contributor to our increasingly isolated lives.
spring 1994
101
Ultimately, Budd says, “(the) PR officer’s effectiveness cannot be judged by how much paper he disgorges but, rather, on the adroitness by which he directs it to specific targets. “Volume is not productivity,” he adds. And-borrowing from another master architect-builder, LeCorbusier, he counsels: “Less can be more, if your PR people know what they are doing.” Thus, in part, the gospel of John Budd. Stephen H. Baer, APR Fellow Communications Consultant Pasadena, CA.
Hugh
M. Culbertson,
Stone,
Martin
Dennis
W. Jeffers,
Besser
Donna
Terre11
Social, Political
and Economic Contexts in Public Relations. Theory and Cases
Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum
Associates,
Inc.,
332
pp., 1993 This is an innovative textbook that challenges the conventional case study texts in public relations. It is an effort to integrate the theories underlying public relations with their application in six case studies. These authors use 17 theoretical perspectives to build a framework for solving the case problems they pose. The content of this work is somewhat disorganized which the authors admit but argue that intellectual theory is seldom neat. Their focus in the cases realistically centers on power and persuasion. As one who has long taught that credibility and context are the prime requirements for effective communication with constituent publics, I welcome this book’s emphasis on detailed consideration of the context of problems as a way of intelligently handling them. Credibility is determined by the performance of the sender of the message. Context determines the message’s reception, a context that will reinforce the message, reject it, or ignore it. As a teacher I was often criticized by students as being too theoretical; my response over the years was “theory is the most practical thing in the world.” I heartily welcome this effort to wed theory with its application in specific cases. The six cases presented are of a police department, a livestock magazine, a motel franchise, a Black Studies program in Midwestern University, employees of a municipal government, and osteopathic medicine. All reflect the varied experiences of the authors. Those of us in academe will be specially interested in the Black studies situation as we have seen these programs on our own campus fail to gain fir11 acceptance and beset with problems. On the minus side the reader is constantly interrupted (and in my case irritated) by the constant insertion of source and page numbers in the text as though this were a scholarly paper, not a textbook for students and practitioners. Also the book is
100
Vol. 20, No. 1
Book Reviews
replete with stilted scholarly jargon, e.g. “social schemata.” I fear students and practitioners will have a hard time with much of the author’s prose. A pragmatic question: Will this innovative approach with seven chapter of theory and six chapters on actual case problems meet the needs of most case study courses in public relations? I applaud this innovation. Scott M. Cutlip University of Georgia
Thomas E. Harris Applied Organizational Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence 1993, $34.50
Communication Erlbaum Associates,
477~~.
,
The approach ramp to the much-touted super information highway promises to be smooth enough, but traversing the highway itself, while promising to be efficient and fast, looks to be all too mechanistic, sterile and dehumanizing. Mind you, that Aldous Huxley-plus-10 premise is by no means the central message Thomas Harris wishes to communicate in his book. As a matter of fact, judged by the minimal amount of space and attention he gives it, the quality of communication between and among humans and human communities-as opposed to that between and among robotic work stations-doesn’t appear to rate highly among Mr. Harris’ concerns. The book-essentially a recapitulation of others’ views on the subject-focuses its emphasis on the hightech bells and whistles of conveying information-ever more speedily and efficiently-but essentially without the juice and zest and, indeed, the frustration of people interacting with each other-by means of two-way communication, in other words; and not merely by one-directional dissemination ofinformation. As a matter of fact, the book treats all too casually, almost in passing, the elemental question ofwhether conveyance of information can be said to constitute meaningful communication. Mr. Harris’ failure to address this question in a balanced way is, of course, a choice he is free to make. But since the trend in contemporary society is ever more to the systems approach to the super information highway, the book’s seeming reluctance to discuss the pernicious consequences of the breakdown in two-way communication causes the work to seem more superficial that it ought. After all, in this day and age few of us need to be sensitized to the promised wonders of living more and more of our lives electronically. But what about the physical and spiritual isolation which we are too ready to accept as a characteristic of our life style? At least this one of Mr. Harris’ readers would have been gratified had he chosen to balance in his text the convenience and speed of the super information highway with an expression of concern about our mechanistic communication as a major contributor to our increasingly isolated lives.
spring 1994
101