must have sources
must have sources
QUESTION: Public relations is the same in government and in private business. Do you agree or disagree? Why? Support your position from this week’s readings.
From Lee, Mordecai, Grant Neeley and Kendra Stewart. 2012. The
Practice of Government Public Relations.
Boca Raton:CRC Press.
Government Public Relations: What Is It Good For? 14
from the news media, reporting to the electorate on agency activities, and generally being
responsive to the public. These are not luxuries in the context of democratic governance.
Rather, they are obligations that can’t be ignored, even if and when a politician denounces
them as self-serving and wasteful propaganda. The qualitative difference between public
administration and business administration is the governmental context of agency
management. In a democracy, public administrators must engage in certain activities that
are expected as the sine qua non of government. For example, government managers
must respond to inquiries from the news media, whether the particular issue would put
the agency in a good light or a bad one. Similarly, given the central role of public opinion
in a democracy, public administrators have a duty to report to the citizenry on the work
of the agency and its stewardship of taxpayer funds. Again, these are part of the rubric of
public relations. Hence, when focusing on these purposes, public relations is integral to
public administration, not ancillary to it.
1. Media Relations
The link between public administration and media relations is practically a tautology.
Government managers are public servants. They are accountable to the public, not quite
like elected officials, but accountable nonetheless. One way that the accountability is
operationalized is by the obligation of public administrators to work, transparently
including the duty to respond to media questions, inquiries, and requests. “No
comment” is not an acceptable answer from a civil servant whose salary is being paid by
the taxpayers.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is chock full of rights that inure
to each individual American citizen: speech, assembly, religion, petitioning government,
and so on. Only one clause in the amendment grants a right to an institution: freedom of
the press to what we now call the news media. Why the selectivity? In the eyes of the
founders, journalism had to be independent of government so that citizens in a
democracy could obtain information about what government and elected officials were
doing from sources other than the government and elected officials themselves. In that
framework, the news media was an instrument of democracy, serving as the feedback loop
of the democratic process. So, the tautology is that government agencies engage in media
relations because government agencies in a democracy have the obligation to cooperate
with the news media.
However, government-media relations tend to be stormy. Besides a built-in
skepticism about “official sources” that is part of journalistic culture, there are several
factors that specifically contribute to the difficult of a public administrator having
consistently good relations with the media. These factors include the following:
The negative image of the bureaucrat in pop culture and public opinion
The profit-making motives of the media
Political Science Faculty Publications Department of Political Science
2012
Mordecai Lee
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
Grant W. Neeley
University of Dayton, gneeley1@udayton.edu
Kendra Stewart
College of Charleston
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Chapter
1
Introduction
Grant Neeley and Kendra Stewart
Contents
Purpose of This Book ……………. …………………………………………………………………. 2
Overview of This Book .. ……………………………………………………………………………. 3
Section I: Reaching the Citizenry ……………………………………………………………. 3
Section II: Managing Government Public Relations …………………………………… 5
Although the news media and technological advances play significant roles in
the lives of most Americans today, the field of public administration has virtu-
ally ignored the topic of public affairs in government. However, effective com-
munications strategies not only advance the mission of a public agency, but also
provide an important and required public service. Public information is one of
the key aspects to government accountability. Today’s practitioners (and stu-
dents training to be practitioners) greatly benefit by understanding the crucial
role that the news media plays in public life, how to deal with the media and,
more generally, how external communications efforts can be used to advance the
work of public agencies. Public relations is an important tool of governance just
like other tools we teach in public administration programs or offer training for
in government agencies.
Some of the uses of public relations in government are pragmatic, intended to
advance the mission of the agency, but in unorthodox ways that reduce costs. For
example, public service campaigns are ways to influence public behavior in a way
that is less expensive than policing. Similarly, advertising the availability of new
programs and services is a way to reach potential clients and customers through
a wholesale approach, rather than the more expensive retail one-by-one outreach
1
2 • Grant Neeley and Kendra Stewart
effort. Besides these pragmatic uses of public relations, external communications
can also be used to advance the goals of a democratic society. These would be
situations of” information for information sake” rather than to accomplish a more
tangible management goal. Examples of this aspect of government public relations
include reporting to the public on agency activities as a way of contributing to an
informed public, disseminating information as a prelude to citizen participation in
agency decision making, and listening to public opinion.
Purpose of This Book
With the recent change of administration in the U.S. executive branch, we have
seen increased attention to issues of public information, transparency in govern-
ment, and government and press relations in the United States and abroad. In addi-
tion, rapidly evolving technology and its influence on public communication have
left many in government struggling to remain current in this area. Citizens and
constituents learn to use interactive tools when searching for information, utilize
technology for communications, and now expect government information and ser-
vices to exist in the same information space as private entities. This book is an
effort of leading experts in the field to assist public managers in understanding the
nuances of the rules and regulations governing public information, innovative ways
to use new technology, how to respond in a crisis, and how to think strategically
in crafting a public image. The very practical and applied treatment of these top-
ics should generate the interest of practitioners and policy makers due to the lack
of avai lable information on issues of public relations in the public sector. Several
chapters contain a “Best Practice Checklist” as well as other supplemental material
(all provided on the CD-ROM that came with this book) that can be used to imple-
ment the strategies outlined in the book.
This book is intended to serve as a single source of information for all aspects of
governmental public relations. As the U.S. government transitions into a period of
more relaxed restriction of public information, public administrators need a book
with practical guidelines and applicable tools to assist in this new era of government
public communication. In addition, the decline of traditional journalism and the
rise of social media are moving targets that are continuing to evolve and require
renewed and susta ined attention for public administrators to the public relations
function. This book addresses some of the common issues and approaches to con-
sider when dealing with this rapidly changing environment.
This book is aimed at providing a very practical, hands-on approach for the
planning, implementation, and evaluation of various aspects of government public
relations. The conception of the book is to serve as a practitioner counterpart to the
academically oriented Government Public Relations: A Reader, which was published
by Taylor & Francis in 2008 to serve as a textbook in university-level courses. The
majority of the chapter authors are current or past practitioners of government
Introduction • 3
public relations crossing all the levels of government, extending outside the United
States and in other areas of public service as well (such as nonprofit and nongov-
ernmental organizations [NGOs]). While their writings are informed by the latest
research, their interests and orientation are to improving practice. Each chapter is
intended to be useful to someone practicing in the field and looking for guidance,
resources, practical advice, and best practices.
Overview of This Book
Beginning with Chapter 3, the book is divided into two sections: “Reaching the
Citizenry: The Tools of Public Relations,” and “Managing Government Public
Relations.” Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the scope, purpose, and practices
in the field of government public relations by Mordecai Lee, one of the foremost
leaders in the field. Lee focuses on how public relations can help public administra-
tors do a better job at implementing policy, accomplish an agency’s mission, and
promote democratic accountability.
Section I: Reaching the Citizenry
The first section, “Reaching the Citizenry,” begins with Jerome Sadow’s chapter
on media relations focusing on the role of government communication directors
as they work within their organization and most importantly with the media.
Particular attention is paid to communication methods, especially writing for
press releases, speeches, executive point outlines, issue backgrounders, op-ed
/
columns, letters to the editor, and TV and radio interviews. Sadow presents a
straightforward discussion of public relations (PR) strategies and tactics, how to
handle media criticism, crises and issues management, and the use of leaks, and
identifies the important personal relationship of the media relations expert with
senior agency officials.
In Chapter 4, Napoleon Byars analyzes the growing use of the web by govern-
ment to disseminate information and achieve greater transparency. The chapter
examines the web operations of a number of agencies including the White House,
the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense, and Treasury Department.
In particular, the Defense Department maintains the most extensive and perhaps
effective online presence on the web. A thorough examination of how that came
to be, along with where things may be headed will provide a practical and helpful
perspective to practitioners at all levels of government. This chapter discusses the
purpose of each website as it relates to public information as a management func-
tion and how websites have become central in helping maintain relationships with
key stakeholders. In addition, the chapter presents agency tactics for directing citi-
zens to its website and encourages them to return time and time again as part of an
ongoing dialog among all levels of government and citizens.
/
4 • Grant N eeley and Kendra Stewart
Jenifer E. Kopfman and Amanda Ruch-McSwain cover the use of public infor-
mation campaigns in Chapter 5. Saying no to drugs, buckling up, donating blood,
and preventing forest fires: public information messages are prevalent in our daily
consumption of information and in governmental public relations. Although pub-
lic information campaigns are used by nongovernment entities, they are classically
government-sponsored campaigns developed to address various social problems and
communicate information to a large number of citizens to achieve positive societal
results. A well-crafted public information campaign can raise awareness, change
attitudes, motivate behaviors, and even impact public policy by providing crucial
information to a defined target audience. This chapter presents multidisciplinary
insights and theoretical perspectives as well as the experiences of the authors to pro-
vide a practitioner guide for planning, implementing, and evaluating public infor-
mation campaigns. Historical and contemporary public information campaigns
provide a background for reviewing campaign development stages and analyzing
successful communication strategies of public-centered messages across local, state,
and federal government agencies. A practical checklist facilitates the development,
implementation, and evaluation of a public information effort.
C risis, emergency and disaster public relations, the subject of Chapter 6, is a
major focus of many government agencies and one that has increased in impor-
tance in the shortened news cycle and increased use of mobile technology. Brooke
Fisher Liu and Abbey Blake Levenshus focus on chis important crucial function
for government public relations practitioners. In addition to providing a valuable
overview of how to prepare and manage a crisis communication plan, the authors
include recent research by effectively framing disaster messages, exploring types of
frames chat resonate with the media, and explaining what obstacles and opportu-
nities practitioners face when managing crises and disasters that are unique co the
public sector.
Social networks are changing the communications landscape in public admin-
istration. More recently, government agencies and elected officials are using social
media channels to engage citizens and arouse support on social issues. As demon-
strated by the political campaign of President Obama, social networking encour-
aged millions to participate in the political process. Until recently, citizens had very
little interaction with government, and therefore fewer mechanisms of information
sharing. In Chapter 7, “Web 2.0,” Leila Sadeghi looks at how government is util iz-
ing social media channel~ to engage the public and adapting to these changes in
communication. This chapter also explores issues that are important in the current
environment such as how government can effectively respond to tweeted service
requests and complaints, practical strategies for government and universities to
inform citi zens of their actions, and how government and universities can monitor
and measure the effectiveness of their social media strategies. Saghedi also high-
lights some of the best practices currently adopted by state and local governments.
The emphasis is on the use of social media to enhance communication, improve
service delivery, and foster greater civic engagement.
Introduction • 5
Section II: Managing Government Public Relations
In Chapter 8, “Strategic Communication Planning,” by Diana Knott Martinelli,
the focus is on an oft-neglected area of government public relations. Many govern-
ment organizations are so busy with the things they must do, that they don’t rake
the time to strategically think through and plan their public relations activities,
except perhaps in the case of special campaigns, where outside counsel is often
secured. Martinelli argues for the need of every organization to develop an annual
strategic communications plan that will identify priorities and allow for efficient
use of valuable resources. This chapter presents the process of developing an annual
communications plan for government entities that supports the overall vision, mis-
sion, and goals of the larger institution. This activity nor only helps move the larger
organization forward, but also helps the smaller unit become more visible and valu-
able to management. Examples taken from government and government-funded
entities show how to apply these principles along with a step-by-step process that
functions as a template for any organization wishing to better organize and strategi-
cally deliver its communication messages.
Chapter 9, by Shannon A. Bowen, explores the ethical challenges facing pro-
fessional communicators in government public relations. Topics explored include
media relations, stakeholder relations, providing public service information versus
concealment for community or national security purposes, public accountability,
relations with the myriad publics of the government, grassroots communication
and use of the mass media, ethical use of research and data in lobbying, the ethics
of constituent relations, and relationships with NGOs and advocacy groups. Using
a public policy issue case study provides a real-world lens to examine how different
ethical frameworks underlie governmental public relations.
As first mentioned in Lee’s chapter, government public relations is fraught with
the potential for misuse, abuse, and misunderstanding by lawmakers. In Chapter 10,
Kevin R . Kosar focuses on practical guidance for government professionals “Doing
Right and Avoiding Wrong with the Law and Pol iticians.” Many modern demo-
cratic governments have laws or political norms that differentiate between appropri-
ate and inappropriate public relations activities. Yet the line between appropriately
persuasive communications and odious propaganda often is far from clear. Public
relations practitioners must be cognizant of the dangers of crossing the line and
setting off political consternation. This chapter guides the public relations practi-
tioner in navigating the ambiguous border between appropriate and inappropriate
activities. The chapter focuses on the U.S. federal government, as it exemplifies
the diverse nature of the sorts of lines that practitioners can unwit tingly cross.
Description of the U.S. government’s various legal prohibitions and related political
norms, found in statutory and appropriations law and embedded in the larger legal
context set by the U.S. Constitution, guides those who may not be at the federal
level on what to look for and consider in their own unique. governmental setting.
The chapter includes several brief case studies that illustrate government public
6 • Grant Neeley and Kendra Stewart
relations activities that avoid and breach these prohibitions along with questions
posed to the reader for solving the dilemmas faced by government public relations
practitioners.
In Chapter 11, Anne Zahradnik focuses on an important constituency for those
tasked with public relations-the government organization itself. A government
public relations practitioner who has researched, planned, executed, and tracked a
strong communications program can still run into professional difficulties if he or
she fails to communicate effectively with internal audiences. An ongoing program
of educating internal stakeholders on the uses and value of public relations, and
on the return on investment from public relations projects and programs, is an
absolute necessity in a resource-constrained environment. Elected or appointed
officials do not always understand or appreciate the important role of communi-
cations. They often consider communications a frill rather than a necessity, are
understandably sensitive to accusations of wasting money, and may be quick to
cut communications funding and jobs when resources become scarce. Zahradnik
focuses on how to adapt and apply the external communicat ions skills and tools
covered in the earlier book chapters to ensure that internal stakeholders are aware
of and understand public relations and the results it produces. This chapter gives
practical advice that helps public relations practitioners apply the tools and tech-
niques of public relations to their own work, improving funding prospects and
making their job more secure.
Measuring the impact of government public relations is the focus of Chapter 12
by Maureen Taylor. She looks at moving beyond a simplistic accounting of the out-
puts of public relations efforts-a clipping file of news placement or anecdotes of
success-toward a more deliberative process of documenting public affairs work
and the resultant effects. This chapter discusses best practices in creating easy-to-use,
systematic, and useful monitoring and evaluation (M&E) indicators that help us
measure the impact of our efforts. This innovative approach is becoming an increas-
ingly common and professional tool for measuring communication effectiveness,
but it has not yet become widely used in the public sector. A brief discussion of the
philosophy behind M&E is presented first, with the author offering a concise and
practical explanation of how public affairs professionals can take traditional social
science methodologies, such as content analysis, to show measurable outcomes of
their efforts. The chapter concludes with specific examples and lessons learned of
how public sector agencies (civilian as well as military) and nonprofit organizations
have used this method to showcase their success and argue for additional resources.
The topics covered in this text are intended to provide the government pub-
lic relations practitioner with the theoretical framework and practical tools for
addressing current issues and demands in public communications. The reader
is presented with a 360-degree approach to PR in government, looking at both
the internal and external aspects from the start of a campaign or crisis, through
implementation and eventually evaluation . Each of the authors brings a unique
perspective in his or her area of expertise based on professional experience and
Introduction • 7
academic research. The intent of this book is to help change the perception that
government public relations is a tool made up of propaganda used to manipu-
late public opinion, and to develop a better understanding of how proper pub-
lic communications can lead to more efficient, effective, and accountable public
organizations.
/
- University of Dayton
- tmp.1447693684 .rHx8T
eCommons
2012
The Practice of Government Public Relations
Mordecai Lee
Grant W. Neeley
Kendra Stewart
eCommons Citation