Seminar resuming some Italian research findings, in Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary

1. Communication and Innovation in Public
Government Bodies in Italy: a research
about the “working rules ” (“règles du métier”)
Pina Lalli
Master in Sciences of Public and Social Communication
Department of Communication Studies
Budapest, Corvinus University,
4-28-2010

2. Communication in the public sector:
the assumptions
 The innovation comes from normative frameworks
that set out principles or values guide
 It is largely a matter of “practices” which are made
possible and actual by the everyday work of some
professionals
 Ongoing process that concerns:
Transparency
Visibility
Information
Communication
follows
Pina Lalli

3. Communication in the public sector:
the assumptions
• Communication in the public sector = development and
recognition of activities and actors devoted to publicity of
action of government and public institutions
• It is called “public communication” in Italy, differing from -
for example - public relations, political communication,
propaganda, and so on
• These names imply different meaning effects: eg. in a
representative democracy defining an action as
“propaganda” tends to discredit it because it assigns a
purpose of manipulation (Ollivier-Yaniv 2009)
follows
Pina Lalli

4. Communication in the public sector:
the assumptions
Two ideal "prohibitions" under democracy:
– Monopoly of information sources for citizens
– Supplying partisan or partial information about action relevance
of government instead of presenting to the all citizens the whole
process of public decision making
• The disappearance of the "propaganda" and the emergence of
“public communication” support the renewal form and
diversification of the ways in which public authorities act in
“democratic public arenas”
• Therefore the methods of "communication" in the public
institution should be reviewed following the normative ideals of
democracy and popular sovereignty that are connected to the
democratic political representation (Ollivier-Yaniv 2009)
Pina Lalli

5. Transparency - Information
Formal aspects Specific aspects
 publicity and access  Control over the sources
to the public acts and (asymmetric, but exposed to some
levels of reciprocity)
tenders
 Explicitness about  Watch-dog (journalism)
procedures and
criteria  Information about access
 ……. to services
 Equal access to knowledge
Pina Lalli

6. The transformation of “visibility”
(J. Thompson, Mass media and modernity, 1998)
 The media are create to monitor, for “surveillance”
 Greater visual field but not subject to direct control
 The media create new forms of publicity…
 … and new hierarchies: the “thresholds” of the
visibility are different  agenda setting
 Who exercise power is more subject than others to
public visibility
Pina Lalli

7. Many communication arenas
The new functions of information
(eg.: Law 150/2000 in Italy)
 Public institution provide them of journalists and
“communicators” in order to ensure direct
information to citizen
 Ongoing process of professionalization
 Effects still unexplored
Pina Lalli

8. Background assumptions
 First:
 duty to inform and bridge the cognitive gap or to
overcome the inequalities in the access to
information
 Starting new reporting and accounting practices
 Secondly:
 practical effects of potential influence in the
media field (e.g. by means of professional public
relations, well-done packaging information, or paying
as an advertiser or an employer payer, and so on)
Pina Lalli

9. Questions
 Thin border between public (government) and
political communication (even if the Italian Law
150 stands the figure of the “spokenman” from
the Press Office)
 Ongoing professionalism of new communicative
skills - sometimes implied - procedures and
categorization
 Position in the organization
Pina Lalli

10. Hypothesis: a plural space?
 The emerging in the information area of public
institutional actors at different levels of public
government extends the concept of “public sphere”
occupied by the media
 Do the issues raised so far in the media (editorial
power, newsmaking, agenda setting, framing,
commercial advertisers’ power…) meet professional
functions? Do they engage or not new influence
effects on the public space (not just media)? Do they
deserve empirical exploration and reflection?
Pina Lalli

11. Our research
published in G. Gardini and P. Lalli (eds), Per un’etica
dell’informazione e della comunicazione (Milan, Angeli, 2009)
Questions:
 which “rules” or “grammar of action” (cfr.
Boltanski) can we find in the accounts by
members of the “community of practice” of
public communicators?
 which organizational solutions are detectable
 which definitions of professional competence
and innovation are recognized
Pina Lalli

12. Our research: methods
 Open Interviews
 Interviews by semi-structured questionnaire
 Focus groups
 Participant Observation
Period: 2008 - N = 75 in different Communication and Press Offices in
some Italian public institutions (in collaboration with Silvia Guido)
Pina Lalli

13. Our research: findings
Position in the organization
 Almost always in the top management team (that is
political - as in public government - or managerial as
in public health services)
 Trends: justification of information activity based on the
objectives provided by the top management
 Tendency to differentiate the Press Office, Urp (Public
Relations Office for citizens), Communication Office
 Usually, the organizational regulation does not expect a
coordinated structure, except the top management; even
when a single Communication Office is responsible, the
Press Office has its own direct way to the top management
Pina Lalli

14. Our research: findings
Features in the organization
 Many executive managers have fixed-term
temporary contracts and about half are working for the
institution for less than 5 years
 Often the workers have not a specific education and
their duties are not professional ones
 Even the executive managers do not always have a
specific education, especially those who have a long-
term position
 The level of specific education increases in case of
fixed-term contracts
Pina Lalli

15. Our research: findings
Self-Representation of the ”mandate”
 It arises from the political representative (legitimized by
vote)
 It should be interpreted in an independent and
autonomous way
 Independence and autonomy arise from recognized
professional competence
Thin and unstable border with political communication
(sometimes, this is explained as a “myopia” of politicians who would
consider communication and information according their own “media
show visibility” - hence, the lack of recognition of professional
competence of the communicator)
Pina Lalli

16. Our research: findings
Professionalism: self-representations
 Journalists of the Press Offices: they represent their
function as directed to provide clear, transparent and
detailed information to citizens
 The heads of Communication Offices claim themselves
this function, because they consider themselves closer to
citizen, less subject to the constraints of journalistic work
and more independent from politics
 Limits reported especially by Communication Offices:
 lack of recognition of professionalism than the more
established and “visible” profession of the journalists in the
Press Office
follows
Pina Lalli

17. Our research: findings
Professionalism: self-representations
 Press Offices: two different points of view
 Similarities with the work of any journalist (including the
“obvious” evidence that the work guidelines tend to be
subjected to the “top management”)
 Differences and “weakening” of some profession rules : the
“public” (government) journalist primarily might make
transparent and accessible public institution to the media
and to the citizens
 Not considered is the outsourcing of some journalistic (or
advertising) tasks to external services agencies, nor the
purchase of media spaces (the public government as “customer” of
media and supplier of news…)
follows
Pina Lalli

18. Our research: findings
Professionalism: self-representations
 Not considered the role of “agenda setting” :
 Professionalism is not involved in the definition of
priorities hierarchy - but it is only considered at the end
of the process where “the Body does” (that is its
“government program”)
 If news have to be selected, the quasi-routinary choice
is referred to the top manager (political or managerial),
who is recognized by the journalist or by the
communicator as the primary decision-maker
 It is partly considered the role of “framing”, though
muffled by the evocation about the general interest of
“facts”: “do not may require you to speak ill of the
employer”…
follows
Pina Lalli

19. Our research: findings
Professionalism: self-representations
 Media Relations
 Regulated by skills that help to make available information but
also to direct it for citizens’ interests
 It is very important to know media machine and to keep trust
relationships with other journalists
 Precious “capital” in the name of which you could select news
in order to keep the relationship
 “It’s part of the professional work” and does not hide
information because it often means avoiding scandal-bad-
show in news framing, which could be counterproductive for the
institution, hence for citizens community….
Pina Lalli

20. Our research: findings
Professionalism: ethical criteria
 Grammars of action “flexible” according
situations  they could not be generalized
 General definition of a “shared
accountability to the citizens”
 Except for a few cases, no reference to
professional ethical documents
follows
Pina Lalli

21. Our research: findings
Professionalism: ethical criteria
 An “ethical” public communication is defined in
opposition to the dramatization show of media
 The unique criterion of “newsworthiness” is “what
the Body does”
 The content of information arises from the
duties of governments and ensuring a good
service to the community comes from the
claimed professional expertise
Pina Lalli

22. Our research: findings
Professionalism and recognition
 The recognition of professional expertise and skills is crucial
 It is also crucial the strength of the position in the
organization and of the “mandate”
 Sometimes the obstacle is not an explicit will of manipulation
 But the vagueness of the rules about: position in the
organization, role, expertise, tasks and functions of
professional information and communication
Pina Lalli

23. Our research: findings
Professionalism and membership
 Institutions often do not understand the transverse
importance of information and communication functions
 Recruitment methods sometimes make relevant other not
professional abilities
 In this context, the communicator’s ethical correctness is
acting in a competent and professional way
 In order to ensure transparency and access to citizens as most
effective possible
 To try to catch on a very communication culture
Pina Lalli

24. Conclusions for discussion:
Public government, innovation, competence and communication
 The “publicity” of public action is not separable by
reflective approach :
 In a democratic context public government include
regulatory ideals about popular sovereignty, freedom
and equality
 May the specialization of communicative managing
“discourses” practices be viewed by public authorities only
as a “technical” answer to an imperative need of publicity
and formal transparency?
follows
Pina Lalli

25. Conclusions for discussion:
Public government, innovation, competence and communication
 Neither propaganda nor ideal of pure transparency, may we
consider the potential reflexive capacities of public
communication in terms of a politics of “discourse” acting
in the public opinion arena in order to ensure equality and
equal access to information and social knowledge produced
in a given historical situation?
 So, may we consider the public communicators as “moral
entrepreneurs” who contribute to the “distribution of social
knowledge” (cfr. Schutz)?
follows
Pina Lalli

26. Conclusions for discussion:
Public government, innovation, competence and communication
 To spread a reflexive culture about communication could
means :
 Active listening
 Strategic culture
 Access to information
 Integrated models of communic-Action
 Participation / inclusion
 New technologies / inclusion / access
 New forms of alliances
 New forms of accountability
 Risks: routine, show-communication, ephemeral,
occasional, incidental, spokesman…
Pina Lalli

27. THANK YOU
Köszönom
pina.lalli@unibo.it
http://www.compass.unibo.it
Pina Lalli