Comments on: Grunig on the Digitalisation of Public Relations http://www.brunoamaral.eu/grunig-on-the-digitalisation-of-public-relations/ Technology and Strategic Public Relations Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:52:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: David Phillips http://www.brunoamaral.eu/grunig-on-the-digitalisation-of-public-relations/comment-page-1/#comment-75 David Phillips Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:44:05 +0000 http://www.brunoamaral.eu/?p=253#comment-75 This is an interesting exchange and I am grateful to you and to Professor Grunig for pursuing the differences between the Situational and the Relationships Values schools of thought. We seek to identify the situation of organisations in the natural discourse of its constituency. If we can do this, it is possible to observe the nature and drivers of relationships. We are able to present to the public relations industry the Relationship Values hypothesis. What I found interesting when Girish Lakshminarayana presented his latest Latent Semantic Analysis tools was the extent to which one can identify, develop and explore a huge corpus in a very short space of time. This has led to a form client evaluation which has a number of steps: Identify the semantic concepts in the client website Identify the semantic concepts of the web pages of third parties who link into the client web sites (I call this the client sphere of influence). Identify the the semantic concepts or the web sites of third parties who link into the client web sites Explore all web pages indexed by search engines for the last year that mention the client and extract the semantic concepts. Explore all web sites where pages have been indexed by search engines for the last year that mention the client and extract the semantic concepts. This process can be done in time series. The semantic concepts can be viewed as discursive expressions of the actor's values. What we are able to see from this analysis is an agnostic, semantic, content analysis of the corporate view of the client by the client evident in its web site. In addition we have the emerging and changing view of the client sphere of influence and can view this in the context of the wider interests of these external (sphere of influence) actors. Adding the wider, search, sphere creates a view of the wider context in which the client is of interest. This is an astonishing amount of data. The results will be most interesting. I am not, at this stage, sure as to whether the Relationship Values proposition will identify the extent to which values based relationships are also issues. This research process is much more granular and is based on two assumptions. The first is that semantic concepts are the same as relationship values and that the internet is sufficiently pervasive to be representative of other forms of human discourse. I have a completely unscientific view that the discourse in online in social networks is less about issues resolution and more about self actualisation. I will be interested to read Jeong-Nam Kim's view of the extent to which issues resolution is part of daily life as expressed online. This is very exciting for the PR industry. This is an interesting exchange and I am grateful to you and to Professor Grunig for pursuing the differences between the Situational and the Relationships Values schools of thought.

We seek to identify the situation of organisations in the natural discourse of its constituency. If we can do this, it is possible to observe the nature and drivers of relationships. We are able to present to the public relations industry the Relationship Values hypothesis.

What I found interesting when Girish Lakshminarayana presented his latest Latent Semantic Analysis tools was the extent to which one can identify, develop and explore a huge corpus in a very short space of time.

This has led to a form client evaluation which has a number of steps:
Identify the semantic concepts in the client website
Identify the semantic concepts of the web pages of third parties who link into the client web sites (I call this the client sphere of influence).
Identify the the semantic concepts or the web sites of third parties who link into the client web sites
Explore all web pages indexed by search engines for the last year that mention the client and extract the semantic concepts.
Explore all web sites where pages have been indexed by search engines for the last year that mention the client and extract the semantic concepts.
This process can be done in time series.

The semantic concepts can be viewed as discursive expressions of the actor’s values.

What we are able to see from this analysis is an agnostic, semantic, content analysis of the corporate view of the client by the client evident in its web site. In addition we have the emerging and changing view of the client sphere of influence and can view this in the context of the wider interests of these external (sphere of influence) actors.
Adding the wider, search, sphere creates a view of the wider context in which the client is of interest.
This is an astonishing amount of data.
The results will be most interesting.
I am not, at this stage, sure as to whether the Relationship Values proposition will identify the extent to which values based relationships are also issues. This research process is much more granular and is based on two assumptions.

The first is that semantic concepts are the same as relationship values and that the internet is sufficiently pervasive to be representative of other forms of human discourse.

I have a completely unscientific view that the discourse in online in social networks is less about issues resolution and more about self actualisation. I will be interested to read Jeong-Nam Kim’s view of the extent to which issues resolution is part of daily life as expressed online.

This is very exciting for the PR industry.

]]> By: Jim Grunig http://www.brunoamaral.eu/grunig-on-the-digitalisation-of-public-relations/comment-page-1/#comment-74 Jim Grunig Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:27:16 +0000 http://www.brunoamaral.eu/?p=253#comment-74 Interesting post, but you don't seem to understand the situational theory of publics well. The central concept is that of a problem, a concept that can be traced to John Dewey's books "The Public and Its Problems," "Logic:The Theory of Inquiry," and "How We Think"--all written in the 1920s. Dewey maintained that human thought and inquiry is motivated by the perception of a problem--something missing in a life situation. Problems are perceived when someone's expectations are not met. Thus, we seek the advice of a doctor when we don't feel well. We search out health information on the Internet when we experience symptoms or someone else close to us does. We think about a new product when the old one doesn't meet our expectations. We think about an organization when it intrudes in our life in some way, such as causing pollution or traffic jams. For the most part, people don't think about situations that are not problematic to them. There simply is not time nor motivation to think about everything. That is why so much poll data or measures of reputation have little value: They ask people for ideas about things they rarely think about. Issues are different from problems. People (especially when they become members of publics) make issues out of problems that someone else causes or that cannot be solved. Values and ideologies relate to problems. They shape our expectations and therefore the problems we perceive. Thus, I believe we can trace what people search for in cyber space and with whom they communicate based on the problems they perceive. For most people, there is little reason to seek information from people in other countries. However, when life situations are similar or intersect in some way, people seek out or simply pay attention to people or information from other countries. The situational theory, therefore, is powerful in explaining how people use the Internet to search for information and to communicate with others. My former student, Jeong Nam Kim of Purdue University, wrote an excellent Ph.D. dissertation expanding the situational theory of publics into a situational theory of problem solving ("Communicant Activeness, Cognitive Entrepreneurship, and A Situational Theory of Problem Solving", University of Maryland, 2006). An article based on the dissertation will be published shortly in the Journal of Communication and a book based on the dissertation will be published in about a year. In the meantime, however, you can e-mail Jeong Nam if you would like to read the dissertation. Interesting post, but you don’t seem to understand the situational theory of publics well. The central concept is that of a problem, a concept that can be traced to John Dewey’s books “The Public and Its Problems,” “Logic:The Theory of Inquiry,” and “How We Think”–all written in the 1920s. Dewey maintained that human thought and inquiry is motivated by the perception of a problem–something missing in a life situation. Problems are perceived when someone’s expectations are not met. Thus, we seek the advice of a doctor when we don’t feel well. We search out health information on the Internet when we experience symptoms or someone else close to us does. We think about a new product when the old one doesn’t meet our expectations. We think about an organization when it intrudes in our life in some way, such as causing pollution or traffic jams. For the most part, people don’t think about situations that are not problematic to them. There simply is not time nor motivation to think about everything. That is why so much poll data or measures of reputation have little value: They ask people for ideas about things they rarely think about. Issues are different from problems. People (especially when they become members of publics) make issues out of problems that someone else causes or that cannot be solved. Values and ideologies relate to problems. They shape our expectations and therefore the problems we perceive. Thus, I believe we can trace what people search for in cyber space and with whom they communicate based on the problems they perceive. For most people, there is little reason to seek information from people in other countries. However, when life situations are similar or intersect in some way, people seek out or simply pay attention to people or information from other countries. The situational theory, therefore, is powerful in explaining how people use the Internet to search for information and to communicate with others. My former student, Jeong Nam Kim of Purdue University, wrote an excellent Ph.D. dissertation expanding the situational theory of publics into a situational theory of problem solving (“Communicant Activeness, Cognitive Entrepreneurship, and A Situational Theory of Problem Solving”, University of Maryland, 2006). An article based on the dissertation will be published shortly in the Journal of Communication and a book based on the dissertation will be published in about a year. In the meantime, however, you can e-mail Jeong Nam if you would like to read the dissertation.

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