The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Jim and Lauri Grunig Lecture on "My Life in Public Relations"

PR and relationship measurement legends Jim and Lauri Grunig gave lectures recently that review their fascinating and lifelong work. Here's Jim's intro from his post on Facebook:

Lauri Grunig and I lectured at the Bledcom symposium in Bled, Slovenia, on July 5, on the topic of Our Life in Public Relations. It was part of a festschrift in our honor at the Bled conference, which was coordinated by our good friends K. Sriramesh, Dejan Verčič, Ansgar Zerfass, and Jeong-Nam Kim. Our lectures were followed by a response from the president of Slovenia. We also received commendations from the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana for our contribution to the development of public relations education at that university and from the president of the Public Relations Society of Slovenia for our contribution to the public relations profession in Slovenia. Our lectures can be found at the Bledcom site on YouTube. Lauri speaks for the first 14 minutes, and my lecture follows. Here is the link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCuXoHuUbRM.

Or watch it right here:

The Public Relations Excellence Theory of Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier: A bibliography.

The excellence theory of public relations is a fundamental and defining statement about what effective public relations is. The excellence theory is the result of a 15-year comprehensive study to determine what are the characteristics of excellent communications and of the companies that do excellent public relations. This study was done in several phases by Jim and Lauri Grunig and David Dozier, and funded by the IABC.

I wrote to Jim Grunig to ask for a definitive summary and bibliography for the excellence study and theory. Jim pointed me to “Excellence Theory in Public Relations,” a three-page article from the Encyclopedia of Communication, published by the International Communication Association. Click here to download “Excellence Theory in Public Relations” from the Encyclopedia of Communication. It includes a summary of the project and the theory, and a list of the most important publications. Here is the official citation:

Grunig, J. E. (2008). Excellence theory in public relations. In. W. Donsbach (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication, Volume 4 (pp. 1620-1622). Oxford, UK and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell 2008.

Other sources on the Excellence Project:

• Click here to see the IABC excellence project bibliography. (The IABC calls it the excellence “study.”)
• Click here to read Bob Grupp's comments on “Excellence Theory 2010,” the Third Annual Grunig Lecture given by Jim and Lauri Grunig. You will find a link there to download the text of the lecture.

--Bill Paarlberg, Editor, The Measurement Standard
The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.

Jim & Lauri Grunig’s Lecture at PRSA International 10/17/10

The Institute for Public Relations, PRSA, and the University of Maryland hosted the PRSA International Conference on 10/17/10 in Washington DC. At this conference the Third Annual Grunig Lecture was given by, yes, Drs. Jim and Lauri Grunig and entitled: “Public Relations Excellence 2010.”

As many of you know, Jim and Lauri Grunig are developers of the Excellence Study and its principles for excellent PR, which they explain and elaborate on in this lecture. They are strong proponents of relationships as the foundation of public relations, and have developed techniques to measure relationships as a way to measure the effectiveness of public relationships. (Their work forms the foundation of much of Katie Paine's book Measuring Public Relationships, and also her new book due out next spring from Wiley Press Measure What Matters.)

Click here to read an introduction to the lecture by Bob Grupp (President and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations) on the IPR website.

Click here to download a transcript of the Third Annual Grunig Lecture by Jim and Lauri Grunig.

The Grunig Two-Way Symmetrical Model of Public Relations: A Bibliography

Recently I wrote to Jim Grunig to clarify a reference to his two-way symmetrical model of public relations. I had seen several different references to it and was confused about which to cite. In his usual genial and comprehensive manner he took the time to write back with an extensive bibliography. So I thought I'd pass it along.

As many of you will recall from PR 101, the two-way symmetrical model is part of the Grunig four-model theory of public relations practice. Since its introduction in 1984 (see below) the four-model theory of how PR has, does, and should work has grown in acceptance to become the basis of the practice, measurement, and ethics of modern PR. It is a tribute to the robustness of this model that social media fits right in. (Depending on how social media is used, as Jim points out: See "Jim Grunig on social media, 'the latest fad in public relations.'")

If you are interested in learning more, a quick google will reveal numerous references. For an introduction, see Bill Sledzik's blog post "The ’4 Models’ of public relations practice: How far have you evolved?" It includes an interesting comment by Jim Grunig.

Here is the bibliography that Jim sent me:

The most recent material we have published on the two-way symmetrical model is Chapter 8, titled "Models of Public Relations," in this book:

Grunig, L. A., Grunig, J. E., & Dozier, D. M. (2002). Excellent public relations and effective organizations: A study of communication management in three countries. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Previous to that chapter, you can find summaries of research on the models here:

Grunig, J. E. (2001). Two-way symmetrical public relations: Past, present, and future. In R. L. Heath (Ed.), Handbook of public relations (pp. 11-30). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

and earlier in:

Grunig, J. E., & Grunig, L. A. (1992). Models of public relations and communication. In J. E. Grunig (Ed.), Excellence in public relations and communication management (pp. 285-326). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

and even earlier in:

J. E., & Grunig, L. A. (1989). Toward a theory of the public relations behavior of organizations: Review of a program of research. Public Relations Research Annual, 1, 27-66.

The first article describing research on the models of public relations was published in this article:

Grunig, J. E. (1984). Organizations, environments, and models of public relations. Public Relations Research & Education, 1(1), 6-29.

although the first mention of the models of public relations and the symmetrical model was in:

Grunig, J. E. & Hunt, T. (1984). Managing public relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Thanks very much, Jim!

--Bill Paarlberg, Editor, The Measurement Standard 

 

Jim Grunig on social media, "the latest fad in public relations."

It takes a very smart, very accomplished writer and thinker like Jim Grunig to pour a bracing bucket of cold water on the current social media frenzy -- "the latest fad in public relations" -- and then go on to propose a model to embrace the positive aspects of social media. 

We expect this sort of paradigmatic thinking from Jim, (one of the pre-eminent theorists in PR, see this page, for instance) who has long been a champion of the PR profession as one of strategic management and the big picture. Rather than get-some-more-press thinking.

A new paper of his, "Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalisation" has some heavy going but worth a read. Here's the abstract:

Although the attention being paid to the new digital media may be the latest fad in public relations, these new media have the potential to make the profession more global, strategic, two-way and interactive, symmetrical or dialogical, and socially responsible. However, many practitioners are using the new media in the same ways they used the old—as a means of dumping messages on the general population rather than as a strategic means of interacting with publics and bringing information from the environment into organizational decision-making. For public relations to fully use digital media, practitioners and scholars must reinstitutionalise public relations as a behavioural, strategic management paradigm rather than as a symbolic, interpretive paradigm. This article provides a model of strategic public relations and offers suggestions for the use of digital media in each phase of this model. 

Read Jim Grunig's new paper in its entirety here. --WTP

Jim Grunig: Research is Key to a Seat at the Table

This article was published in our Feb 8 issue
LETTER FROM THE EXPERT
Research: Key to a Seat at the Table
Jim Grunig shares evidence for the strong correlation between use of research and a strategic role for PR.
Studies are beginning to show that research is the answer to the question of how public relations can get a seat at the table, become more strategic, and serve a counseling rather than a messaging role...