Week two's readings

I think the key points to remember from this week’s readings were Grunig and Hunt’s ‘four models’ approach, namely the press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric models.

Press agentry model is concerned with generating publicity for the organisation. This model is associated with explicit publicity-seeking stunts, and practitioners would do almost anything to get attention for their organisation. An example of the press agentry model would be part-timers hired by Telecommunications giant StarHub to walk up and down Orchard Road in Singapore, wearing a banner that displays information of a new promotional mobile plan for students.

The public information model’s purpose is to accurately disseminate information, and this is done in a one-way direction on behalf of the organisation. Information from the organisation is objectively reported to the public. An example would be the news release from a ticket promoter having to cancel a show at the last minute due to certain unforeseen circumstances.

The two-way asymmetric model is two-way PR work that is very much concerned with getting the organisation’s message out to the public, rather than responding to replies from the public. The two-way symmetric model on the other hand, is one where the targetted publics benefit as much as the organisation itself.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that most organizations in the world today operate using the two-way asymmetric model, as well as the reasons behind as to why the two-way symmetric model is unrealistic for organisations to adopt.

Week one's readings

This week’s readings taught me new things about PR that I would never have known had I not gone through the readings. Well, first and foremost, I’ve learnt that PR is about the “management of communication between an organization and publics”, according to Grunig and Hunt (1984). Prior to taking up this course, I’ve always thought that PR was just about corporate communications, and nothing more.

And publics, that’s an interesting word that I’ve never come across, until now. I’ve learnt that publics are the groups of people who share the same interests or concerns as an organisation, and they can be either active or latent/passive. The readings also talk about the two primary roles of the PR practitioner, namely the technician and the problem solver/manager.

I think the key points to remember from this week’s readings were the different functions of a PR practitioner, and why PR is absolutely essential in today’s corporate world.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that PR and marketing are different disciplines that actually overlap each other. I studied marketing previously and it was only having read the readings did I realise how closely related the two disciplines are.

Yet to have a text

I have yet to buy the text and thus, not done any readings yet. Will buy the text asap and get to the readings soon.