We were asked to deliver a keynote to a meeting of chief executives. The speech centers on five main take-aways for effective public relations management that I learned from the course readings in the first half of the course.

1. Using Public Relations Theory to Improve Strategic Practice
Matt Gilhooly
PUR 6005: Public Relations Theory
Dr. Linda Hon
February 19, 2021

2. Good afternoon. As practitioners, we must ask ourselves how we can create work that
resonates with stakeholders, influences new behaviors, and builds our clients' reputations, yet
still honors the field of public relations. Therefore, shouldn't we use research and theories
presented by public relations experts to develop new strategies to improve practice? This
afternoon I will discuss five critical principles for effective public relations management backed
by various theories and studies. We will discuss how building trust with strategic partners leads
to more effective communication and how dialogue helps us cultivate strong relationships. We
will also examine the importance of embracing new technologies and integrating public relations
throughout an organization. Finally, we will discuss the value of remaining curious and open to
new ideas, theories, and strategies when developing public relations theory.
Let us begin with an overarching principle that can improve most public relations
activities. As practitioners, we must move beyond a sole focus of crafting perfect messaging to
a stronger focus on cultivating relationships that influence stakeholder behavioral changes
through dialogue, including persuasion and listening. Communicators intentionally create
messages to persuade individuals to act or feel a particular way; however, individuals must also
be free to make their own decisions regarding the messages received. Therefore, communicators
must listen to the needs of stakeholders while honoring the public relations function of
persuasion.
In Excellence Theory, Grunig notes that organizations must identify individuals affected
by an organization's decisions and cultivate relationships through symmetrical communication.
Symmetrical communication implies a dialogue between an organization and its stakeholders,
ultimately using public input for organizational decisions and building its reputation. Instead of
putting distance between an organization and its stakeholders like in a buffering activity, Grunig

3. recommends using public relations as a bridging activity, building relationships through dialogue
to transform or enhance an organization.
Lance Porter asserts that Grunig's focus on symmetrical communication somewhat
neglects the inevitable and necessary act of persuasion in public relations. Through historical
examples of public relations activities from the 1st
through 20th
centuries, Lamme and Russell
highlight various motivations, such as profit, recruitment, legitimacy, agitation, and advocacy, all
used to persuade an audience, furthering Porter's assertion of the inevitable need for ethical
persuasion.
Although the field of public relations claims to engage in ethical and symmetrical
communication with stakeholders, Macnamara's study on organizational listening shows that it
may not be succeeding. The study revealed that most organizations spend 80% of the time
speaking and 20% listening and that dominant coalitions refusing advice from communication
professionals contributes to the lack of listening in organizations. Macnamara and Grunig both
agree that inclusion within a dominant coalition empowers the public relation function.
Macnamara states that without more attention focused on organizational listening,
practitioners will fail to create the open and interactive communication intended in Grunig's
strategic management paradigm. Organizations must make structural and cultural changes to
incorporate listening into their communication function. Therefore, with a combination of
collaborative communication (including listening) and persuasion, practitioners can honor the
tenets of strategic intent and human agency in public relations.
The idea of human agency leads us to the second principle that I want to discuss today.
Through consistent bridging activities and best practices, public relations practitioners must
regularly build trust with stakeholders and strategic partners for effective communication. By

4. implementing symmetrical communication, ethical persuasion, and organizational listening
presented by Grunig, Porter, and Macnamara, organizations can build trust with stakeholders. To
build trust, organizations must regularly align behaviors with stakeholder expectations. If a
company has effectively built its stakeholders' trust, it will likely fare better when facing crises.
When a company has not earned its stakeholders' trust, it may face dire consequences when
responding to a crisis, such as FEMA saw when confronting a compounding crisis after its failed
response to Hurricane Katrina.
In a study by Veil and Anthony, we can see how this lack of stakeholder trust, paired
with an unsuccessful response to a previous crisis, created a compounding crisis with a pariah
effect for FEMA. A pariah effect occurs when others ostracize an organization due to the social
stigma and negative effects that might result from associating with the organization facing the
crisis. In this example, FEMA faced a formaldehyde crisis before it could rebuild its legitimacy
after its response to Hurricane Katrina. Because these crises occurred in rapid succession,
stakeholders assigned a higher attribution of responsibility of the formaldehyde trailer crisis to
FEMA. Stakeholder's distrust ostracized FEMA from other agencies that would typically assist
as these agencies did not want to become contaminated by association.
This study shows the importance of building trust with stakeholders and strategic
partners, whether actively facing a crisis or not. Grunig noted that cultivating relationships with
strategic publics allows an organization to develop shared goals. These goals are more likely to
be achieved as they are developed through collaboration. For example, FEMA should create a
plan for future crises, including establishing relationships with other government agencies to
leverage assistance during future emergencies.

5. Similarly, Jin, Austin, Vijaykumar, Jun and Nowak, showed how public health
information officers face the public's distrust of essential communications regarding health risks.
In health emergencies, the lack of trust in these organizations could lead to ignored
recommendations resulting in an infectious disease outbreak. Public health officials noted that
they must build working relationships with media to leverage access and improve stakeholder
trust.
In a DICK's Sporting Goods case study by Gaither, Austin, and Collins, we find an
example of an organization exhibiting behaviors that reiterate its corporate values with a positive
outcome due to perceived stakeholder trust. Although stakeholder theory posits that
organizations must consider primary stakeholders' needs and wants, DICK's took action
motivated by secondary stakeholders to align corporate social advocacy actions with its
corporate values. If a company is consistent in its behaviors and aligned with stated core values,
its communication and actions are likely to be effective and trusted by stakeholders. Researchers
should continue studying whether stakeholders who disagree with a company's actions will still
support the company as long as it is authentic and transparent in its actions. This research would
likely tell us more about how valuable stakeholder trust is for public relations practitioners.
Our next principle states that to improve the strategic practice of public relations,
organizations must integrate public relations as part of an overall culture that values
collaboration, employee expertise, and internal communication. In Grunig's description of
public relations' value, he states that public relations functions must not be sublimated to
marketing or other management functions. It will result in attention only to the stakeholder
category of interest for that function, such as consumers for marketing. Also, sublimation to a
singular department often results in asymmetrical communication, which Grunig's research

6. shows is not an effective strategy for cultivating relationships. Instead, public relations must be
integrated as part of an organizational culture that seeks to build relationships with respective
stakeholders while valuing ethics, employee communication, gender equity, and diversity.
Brian Smith conducted interviews with the marketing and public relations team at Visit
Savannah to uncover the strategies, processes, and situated ideals that influence successful
strategic communication, specifically using social media. In his study, Smith discovered that
communicators at Visit Savannah attributed success to the organization's structure. Visit
Savannah considers each employee as a knowledgeable communicator, all contributing to a team
of experts. Smith uncovered that this organization focused on open employee communication
and strong relationship development. Due to the open communication between teams, public
relations activities are integrated across traditional functional boundaries, leaving the distinction
between advertising, marketing, and public relations nearly nonexistent. Visit Savannah
integrates its public relations function through weekly meetings and interpersonal interactions
centered around a common goal. In fact, the Director of Public Relations for Visit Savannah
attributed the brand's success to integrating public relations into all facets of the business.
With an organizational culture that values ethics and internal communication, employees
use reliance behaviors through formal and informal communication. In turn, these reliance
behaviors build confidence in practitioners and identify areas of expertise across functions.
Smith notes that these reliance behaviors show the positive effects of integration, calling for
typically fragmented teams to work together by focusing on the common goal and not solely on
those of each department. In this study, Visit Savannah showcases open-ended collaboration and
collective activities between practitioners across traditional communication boundaries, thus
improving the strategic practice of public relations.

7. Smith's Visit Savannah research aimed to develop public relations ideals based on
analyzing how social media management works in a specific organizational setting. His study
showed us that integrating public relations throughout an organization can help overcome
uncertainty with technological advances in communication. This leads to the next broad principle
I want to discuss. Practitioners must embrace advancements in technology to enhance the
ability to connect with audiences and ethically influence behavioral changes. Although
existing literature focused on proving an increasingly more ethical approach to public relations
over time, Lamme and Russell demonstrated that the field of public relations should not be
viewed as a progression of phases towards more ethical practices, but rather as developing due to
the availability of message reach and technological advances. Social media tools can help public
relations practitioners foster quality relationships through two-way symmetrical communication.
Macnamara also concluded that organizations could improve listening practices by including
open and interactive systems, such as social media tools, that allow users to engage with content.
Social media platforms allow organizations to cultivate relationships with stakeholders.
Grunig fears that communicators could attempt to dominate audiences with one-sided arguments
or manipulation, yet Porter emphasizes that dialogue with stakeholders must involve ethical
persuasion. Therefore, practitioners must carefully choose how to use the technology available.
Effective uses of social media increase community relationships by communicating with,
instead of marketing to, target audiences. In a study of successful public relations campaigns,
Allagui and Breslow found that using social media generates publicity through the mobile
sharing of content. Its use disrupts the traditional campaign cycle that typically relies heavily on
publicity from events and press releases. However, this shift shows how practitioners can
embrace technological advances to build stronger connections with stakeholders. Allagui and

8. Breslow noted that top social media campaigns used digital storytelling strategies to generate
social media sharing by target audiences. In the development of the RAMS framework, Jin,
Austin, Vijaykumar, Jun, and Nowak aim to foster a process that contributes to positive
information spread regarding infectious disease threats, highlighting the role of social media in
building trust and encouraging social sharing of important information. The study also shows
that public health information officers must adjust communication approaches to various
communities and effectively leverage both social media and traditional media. Practitioners can
use social media and other technologies to create participatory dialogues, catering to the
stakeholders' needs and wants, ultimately and ethically influencing behavioral changes.
I would like to end with the broadest principle for effective public relations, as it connects
to the first four principles and the examples throughout this discussion today. Researchers and
practitioners must embrace an open-systems approach to truly advance public relations
theories beyond the limited paradigms and literature. As Broom explained, an open-system
approach involves exploring new territory by gathering, synthesizing, and interpreting
information that researchers can use as the foundation for future explorations. Broom suggests
that researchers must be open to where the research leads and not be confined to existing
frameworks. He argues that public relations is a science. Broom states that research must
represent relevant focal concepts and include measurable indicators to develop theories that show
consistent and pure qualities of the theory's concept. He warns that using concepts understood
only by public relations professionals inhibits researchers from connecting public relations
studies to other disciplines. By providing specific measurements of clearly defined concepts, the
public relations field is seen as legitimate and not too soft, leading to the adoption of public
relations theories in other areas.

9. Grunig furthers this open-systems supposition by stating that scholars' theories are
"edifices," similar to a building framework. Each time an edifice, or theoretical framework, is
used as a structure for a new theory, researchers can improve upon it in different ways. Grunig
also notes that numerous edifices may solve similar problems in different ways, and existing
edifices should not be destroyed to justify the value of other theories. Multiple theoretical
frameworks can co-exist and present value for future research.
In a closed-system model, researchers are limited to the existing literature, and historical
examples of public relations and observations that do not fit a theory are anomalies. However, by
using a current theory as a framework, or foundation, practitioners can expand public relations
theories beyond the existing limitations. Through an open-systems approach, we see the
evolution of Grunig's work on The Excellence Theory, Porter's critique of symmetrical theory,
and the development of the RAMS framework for public health communications. Public
relations theories will continue to evolve and include multiple disciplines as practitioners
continue to be transparent with research, analysis, and theory development, laying the
groundwork for future research.
Lamme and Russell demonstrated how the public relations function has remained
remarkably consistent over time, and it is likely because of these five principles discussed today.
Public relations professionals have always aimed to build trust to create stronger relationships
and seek to understand audiences in an effort to persuade them to change behaviors. Like the
individuals at Visit Savannah, public relations professionals have remained flexible and adapted
over time to expand the profession through new theories and strategies, including technological
advances. So, in honor of Grunig, "what should we create with this edifice that we built today?"
Thank you.