Chapter 11 - Internal Communications

I think the key point to remember from this week's readings was internal publics comprise of two main groups: the employees and an association members.

Community relations is the function that evaluates public attitudes, identities the mission of an organization with the public interest and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance. Like public relations, community relations is something an organization has whether this fact is recognized or not.

Effective community relations does is involve the people, businesses and organizations who live, work and operate in the surrounding community in company activities.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory that internal PR is of equal importance as external PR as the moral of employees and their exposure to company information can play an important part in productivity. Communicating to key publics the benefits derived from sound community relations further enhances an organization’s overall program.

A company does not live in a vacuum. The citizens and groups that populate its geographic operating area are essential to its operation as well as the employees who live in the community. As a result, a successful organization must continuously establish understanding and support for its products, services and positions among those publics important to its welfare. And these can be accomplished by applying good public relations principles over time.

Theory and Practice of Public Relations

I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were the four models, press agentry/publicity, public information, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical, reflect a linear and progressive approach to history in which the practice becomes increasingly more professional and ethical.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory and practice in a way that although the theories mentioned above are important especially the two-way symmetrical communication theory which is stood strong even now after surviving rounds of debates from public relations scholars. From the article on Public Relations Research at the Crossroads in Journal of Public Relations Research. 18(2), 177-190 by Gower, K (2006) said that two-way symmetrical communication, in its various formulations, has a strong body of knowledge that its values clearly resonate with public relations scholars, and those values will no doubt remain stable as the present theoretical debates build and continue.

Debatable, the two-way communication theory does have its fluxes. In the debates, there are underlying assumptions that are under criticism from a variety of perspectives, such as postmodernism, critical/cultural, and international. Although that might make our paths unclear and confusing, yet this may also be viewed as an opportunity to move forward onto divergent paths to embrace new ideas, new methodologies, and new theoretical approaches.

Not everything will work. Not everything will be worth adopting or saving. Yes, but it is the effort and learning from the failure that counts.

Bibliography:
Gower, K (2006) Public Relations Research at the Crossroads in Journal of Public Relations Research. 18 (2), 177-190.