Search

Motor de căutare Search engine
Search engines are tools used by computers to locate digital information. The modern search engine has
evolved into a multibillion dollar advertising machine that keeps track of user search data and sites
visited. Search engines have also become a primary tool for nonprofit organizations, businesses,
marketers, and advertisers to attract customers online.
Modern search engines are capable of searching for images, texts, video, maps, news, scholarly
articles, patent filings, entertainment, and more. Search engines can conduct sophisticated textual
searches using Boolean logic, image searches by timeframe, size, similarity of content, color, theme, faces,
image type, for example, and can conduct sophisticated data and information searches.
Although the term search engine is most closely associated with the tools used to search for infor-
mation on the World Wide Web, any digital search interface such as eBay.com or Amazon.com, or the
interfaces used by universities and public libraries to search for books, magazines, multimedia docu-
ments, and so forth can be called search engines. Search engines work by examining archival databases
generated from the billions of currently accessible websites.
Search engines use an assortment of indexing logics. Most search engines create indexes based on
keywords, phrases, categories, and other heu- ristics. Some search engines like Yahoo, use human beings
to help create categories and index data,
while other sites like Google do all of their indexing electronically, via spiders and robots (programs
that automatically examine webpages and create keyword and phrase indexes).
Initially, scores of search engines competed for success. Only a handful of search sites have sur- vived
as key players. Google and Yahoo have emerged as two of the most visited and most used websites in the
world.
Using Search Engines More Effectively

When searching the Web, most search engines allow users to employ Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT),
phrase searching (surrounding words with quotation marks), wildcard searches (replacing prefixes and
suffixes with an *), and nested searching (complex searches created by using parentheses and algebraic
logic). Suggestions for effective Web searching include the following:
1. Use multiple keywords—sometimes a dozen or more.

2. Search for phrases (words in quotes), especially with proper names, whenever possible.
3. Rare or unusual words such as defenestrate
make it easier to narrow results.
4. Common words such as computer make narrowing results difficult. Instead, use technical terms and proper
names whenever possible.
5. Order search terms from most important to least important.
6. Avoid sifting through large lists of search results. Add new search terms or rephrase the search by adding
quotation marks.
Michael L. Kent
See also Blogs, Vlogs, and Microblogs; Home Page; Information Retrieval System; Search Engine Optimization; Web
Traffic; Web 2.0; Website
Further Readings
Kent, M. L. (2000). Getting the most from your search engine. Communication Teacher, 15(1), 4–7.
Kent, M. L. (2001, April). Essential tips for searching the Web. Public Relations Quarterly, 46, 26–30.
820 Search Engine Optimization
Search engine OptimizatiOn

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tool that gives a webpage a higher ranking and increased visibility
in a search engine’s organic search results. Organic search results are generated by a search engine’s
algorithm rather than by paid or media relations–earned product placement. Pages that appear earlier or
more frequently or are higher ranked in a search engine result page (SERP) receive more visitors. Search
engine optimization targets different kinds of search, including but not limited to image, local, academic or
scholarly, video, and industry-specific searches. By understanding SEO, public relations professionals can
use other techniques such as sentiment analysis and conversation monitoring in order to better craft
dialogue and messages to reach a larger percentage of an intended audience.
A search engine creates an internal database of webpages and then searches them according to an
internal index to return results. Search engines rely on spiders or crawlers—software algorithms that
search Web servers and follow hyperlinks— to search and store webpages within the search engine
database. The system then parses these stored pages according to keywords and key phrases to create a
keyword index database that can be searched later. Search engines also use algorithms, such as Google’s
PageRank algorithm, to assign importance to certain pages. The PageRank algorithm computes the
reputation of the page and its relevance to the user by analyzing how often the page has been updated,
how many other pages link to or cite the page, and the quality of the linking or citing pages.
SEO professionals analyze how search engines work to maximize their clients’ pages’ chances of being
featured prominently among search results. When site operators began optimizing in the mid- 1990s, they
simply submitted the page address to various search engines to receive attention from the engine’s crawler.
Contemporary search engines catalog both on-page factors, such as keyword fre- quency, meta tags,
headings, links, and site structure, and off-page factors, such as the quantity and importance of external
links to the page. Google claims to use more than 200 factors when ranking sites, but search engine
companies closely guard
their algorithms to prevent “gaming” of their search engine, so this cannot be verified. Search engine
optimization service providers study patents held by various search engine companies to gain insight into
their algorithms, or attempt to reverse- engineer them.
Employing overly aggressive SEO techniques can result in being banned from search results.
Techniques that break search engine company regulations and terms of use or are looked upon by the
SEO community as unethical are referred to as “black hat” SEO techniques. In 2005, Traffic Power
allegedly used black hat SEO techniques and was subsequently banned along with some of their clients
by Google. However, many of the black hat SEO techniques, such as BlogPing (BP), can be used in an
acceptable fashion by “white hat” or legal SEO practitioners. Black hat BP consists of establishing a
large number of blogs, linking them together, and pinging them, or sending messages that the blog has
been updated. The white hat version involves pinging only a few links, which still attracts crawlers in
just a few days.
Search engine optimization is not an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet mar-
keting strategies can be more effective, depending on the site operator’s goals. A successful Internet
marketing campaign also depends upon building high-quality webpages to engage and persuade, setting
up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure results, and monitoring a site’s conversion rates, or
the percentage of successful visits (e.g., portion of overall visits that result in a purchase or subscription).
Good public relations professionals know that using proper SEO in accordance with search engine
guidelines will get their sites higher rankings on search engines, and easy tricks like “keyword stuffing” and
“doorway pages” will just end up getting their sites banned.
Kristin Saling
See also Information Retrieval System; Process Research; Public Relations Research; Search Engine
Further Readings
Evans, M. P. (2007) Analyzing Google rankings through search engine optimization data. Internet Research, 17(1),
21–37.
Securities and Exchange Commission 821
Malaga, R. A. (2008). Worst practices in search engine optimization. Communications of the ACM, 51, 147–150.
Page, L., Brin, S., Motwani, R., & Winograd, T. (1999). The PageRank citation ranking: Bringing order to the Web.
Retrieved July 11, 2012, from http://dbubs
.stanford.edu/pub/1999-66
Rangaswamy, A., Giles, C. L., & Seres, S. (2009). A strategic perspective on search engines: Thought candies for
practitioners and researchers. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23, 49–60.
or bond must be fair and honest in disclosing to investors information about the company, the security,
and level of investment risk, while bro- kers, dealers, and exchanges must be fair and honest in issuing
securities to investors.
The Securities Act of 1933 established strong civil and criminal liabilities for omissions and dis-
tortions of facts concerning the issue of stocks or bonds. The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934
created the SEC and required stock exchanges to register with the five-member commission. The Trust
Indenture Act of 1939 required that debt
securities (bonds, debentures, and notes) not be
SecuritieS and exchange cOmmiSSiOn
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the federal agency established to enforce the laws and
rules governing U.S. securities markets. The SEC’s primary functions involve the registration of securities
and compliance with the rule of full disclosure—timely, relevant, and accurate information about a
security and the issuing company that helps an investor make a buy, sell, or hold decision. The expertise of
investor relations professionals depends in part on knowledge of the SEC and its regulations concerning
securities and the publicly held companies that issue those securities. Investor relations professionals
must also understand disclosure opportunities beyond filing requirements that could occur in releases,
responses to rumors, and comments.
The SEC administers the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, along with a
cohort of laws created to help protect investors. Those include the Trust Indenture Act, the Investment
Company Act, the Investment Advisors Act, and the Public Utility Holding Act. These laws were written to
prevent the kind of market collapse that culminated in the crash of October 1929.
Investors had no such protections in the boom of the 1920s when market manipulation and an absence
of ethics, rules, and laws were prevalent. A highly speculative stock market and other weaknesses in the
economy courted financial catastrophe and an ensuing depression. Congress held hearings to find ways to
restore the public’s faith in the securities markets. Participants in the hearings agreed that a corporation
issuing a stock
offered for sale to the public unless a formal agreement (the trust indenture) between the issue and the
bondholder conformed to standards of the act. The Investment Company Act of 1940 focused on
compliance of disclosure of information about mutual funds and investment objectives as well as on
investment company structures and operations. The Investment Advisors Act of 1940 required that
investment advisor firms or sole practitioners register with the SEC and conform to regulations. The act
was amended in 1996 to limit registration to advisers with at least $25 million of assets. The Public
Utility Holding Act of 1935 established regulation of interstate holding companies engaged in the electric
utility business or in the retail distribution of natural gas.
The SEC implements the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which requires corporate officers to certify
company financial statements or be subject to criminal penalties. Among other provisions, the act
mandated creation of the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). The act was
signed into law in response to questionable accounting practices and poor internal controls that led to
the failures of such high-profile public companies as Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing.
SEC commissioners are appointed by the pres- ident of the United States and a chairman is des-
ignated from among the five members. The SEC is organized into 4 divisions and 18 offices, head-
quartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in New York and other regional locations across the United
States. Approximately 3,100 analysts, accountants, lawyers, technical staff, and assis- tants work with
commissioners to oversee the
U.S. stock exchanges, broker-dealers, investment
822 Segmentation of Publics
advisors, mutual funds, and public utility holding companies.

Publicly held companies meet certain filing requirements with the SEC, and the Division of Corporation
Finance is charged with reviewing those documents, which include (a) registration statements for newly
offered securities; (b) annual and quarterly filings (forms 10-K and 10-Q);
(c) proxy materials sent to shareholders before an annual meeting; (d) annual reports to shareholders;
and (e) filings related to tender offering filings, as well as mergers and acquisitions. Corporation Finance
also works in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Accountant to monitor activities of the accounting
profession, particularly the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), that form generally accepted
accounting principles (GAAP).
The Division of Market Regulation regulates broker-dealer firms and self-regulatory organizations
(SROs), which include the stock exchanges and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). This
division also oversees the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) that insures customer
accounts of member brokerage firms against the failure of those firms.
The Division of Investment Management oversees and regulates the $15 trillion investment man-
agement industry and administers the securities laws affecting investment companies (including mutual
funds) and investment advisers.
The Division of Enforcement investigates possible violations of securities laws, recommends action,
and negotiates settlements on behalf of the SEC. Typical violations include: (a) insider trading;
(b) misrepresentation or omission of important information about securities; (c) manipulating the market
prices of securities; (d) stealing customers’ funds or securities; (e) violating broker-dealers’ responsibility
to treat customers fairly; and (f) sale of securities without proper registration.
Rebecca G. Aguilar
See also Annual Reports; Investor Relations
Further Readings
Mahoney, W. F. (1990). Investor relations: The professional’s guide to financial marketing and communications. New
York: New York Institute of Finance.
Securities and Exchange Commission. (2003, July). The investor’s advocate: How the SEC protects investors and
maintains market integrity, and facilitates capital formation. Retrieved from http://www.sec.gov/about/
whatwedo.shtml
Tyler, P. (1965). Securities, exchanges and the SEC. New York: H. W. Wilson.
SegmentatiOn Of publicS
Public segmentation is a conceptual and operational effort to identify a public about a problem (vs.
nonpublic) that brings individuals together to form a social entity. A public is a group of individuals who
recognize a problem and are motivated to do something about it. The members of a public tend to become
communicatively active about the problematic state to ideate and effectuate a solution for closure of the
problematic situation. A public is distinct from nonpublic, mass, or general population in that its members
show differential communicative behaviors about the problematic state such as being motivated to learn,
think, and talk about it. They may differ on how the problematic state should be resolved (e.g., a public
and a counter public about the same issue). They may or may not see each other face to face and may not
be organized or be only loosely structured.
Public segmentation forms an essential part of a public relations practitioner’s repertoire because
identifying different segments of publics based on various factors provides the practitioner a guide- line
to design differentiated, more effective communication strategies for these distinct segments, rather
than generating communication en masse for all parties involved in an issue.
Conceptually, public segmentation should be approached from theoretical explications of what a
public is and how differentiated publics are in their behaviors. Situational theory, such as James
E. Grunig’s situational theory of publics and the more generalized situational theory of problem solving
of Jeong-Nam Kim and Grunig, provide a theoretical base for segmentation through its pre- dictor
variables: problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recognition.
From such theory, two sets of typologies of publics are used based on different problem-specific
Segmentation of Publics 823
perceptual characteristics displayed by these publics. The first typology, within-a-problem/issue, is based
on motivational differences among publics about the problem, and how actively or passively they
communicate: active public, aware public, latent public, and nonpublic. The second typology, across-issues,
is based on the breadth of the problem of interest and the extent of motivation: all- issue publics, those
that are active on all issues in question; single-issue public, those that are active on only one or few of the
issues; apathetic public, those who are completely inattentive; and hot- issue public, those that become
active about an issue after it receives extensive media coverage.
Recently, situational theorists have proposed new dimensions based on the further segmentation of
publics. Kim, Lan Ni and Bey-Ling Sha refined J. E. Grunig and Fred C. Repper’s model of strategic
management, which identifies three stages of the development of an issue; they proposed segmentation
strategies for each of these stages. For the stakeholder stage, they recommend segmenting the
stakeholders based on how they are situated in relation to the organization’s consequences and
resources. In the public stage, they use the situational variables to segment publics, and in the issue stage,
they propose combining consequences and resources and the independent variables of the situational
theory to segment publics. To summarize, Kim, Ni and Sha recommend using cross-situational variables
to segment publics during the stakeholder stage and using situational variables during the public and
issue stage. Ni and Kim proposed an additional public typology by breaking down aware publics and
active publics that form around a controversial issue based on three problem-solving characteristics of
publics—the openness to approaches in problem solving (open or closed), the time or history of problem
solving (chronic, situational, or dormant), and the extent of activeness in problem solving (active or
passive). Based on this refinement, they put forth eight types of publics based
on the three problem-solving characteristics.
Kim and Ni identified another useful typology that finds application in two different types of public
relations problems—organization-initiated PR problem (OPR) and public-initiated PR problem (PPR)—to
complement the segmentation of publics using situational theory. They used a relational
theory-based frame and identified publics based on the quality of relationship (high vs. low) and type of
relationship (behavioral vs. reputational). They then synthesized the typologies of publics based on
situational theory and relational theory and suggested segmentation options for practitioners depending
on the type of public relations problem they are facing and their goals in problem solving (see Kim & Ni,
2013, for a more detailed synthetic segmentation method).
As for the operational procedures of public segmentation, there are two methods available. The first
method is the canonical correlations method of public segmentation. The canonical correlations method
can simultaneously correlate the independent and dependent variables of situational theory while
producing one or more canonical covariates, similar to factors from factor analysis, which can then be
used to segment publics. In this method, the independent variables and dependent variables of the
situational theory are clustered and canonical covariates across multiple problems or issues are
calculated. This approach allows researchers to identify subpublics within-a-problem or issue (e.g.,
active or aware public) as well as identify publics across-issues (e.g., all-issue public or apathetic public).
The second, a simpler procedure, is the summation method. This method, originally suggested by J. E.
Grunig and Todd Hunt in 1984, was formalized by Kim in 2011. The summation method can also
segment both types of subpublics but the computa- tional procedure is simpler and more user-friendly.
The summation method works by converting mul- tipoints survey data of the situational variables into
binary data (high  1 or low  0) using the midpoint as the cut-off. The values of the situational variable
measures above the cut-off point are assigned a value of 1 and the values below it are 0. The measures
for each of the three independent variables of situational theory are then summed and publics are
classified into activist (3), aware (2), latent (1) or nonpublics (0) based on the sum of their scores. It
must be noted here that the constraint recognition, being a negative-coded variable, must be reversed
for the summation method to give accurate results. The summation method is user friendly and highly
accurate, and has gained popularity among researchers. Practi- cal examples of the use of the
summation method
824 Short Message Service
may be found in Kim (2011) and Kim, Shen, and Morgan (2011).
Jeong-Nam Kim and Arunima Krishna
See also Activism; Environmental Scanning; Issues Management; Psychographics; Public Opinion and Opinion Leaders;
Situational Theory of Problem Solving; Situational Theory of Publics; Stakeholder Theory; Strategies
Further Readings
Grunig, J. E. (1989). Publics, audiences and market segments: Models of receivers of campaign messages. In C. T.
Salmon (Ed.), Information campaigns:
Balancing social values and social change
(pp. 197–226). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Grunig, J. E. (1997). A situational theory of publics: Conceptual history, recent challenges and new research. In D.
Moss, T. MacManus, & D. Vercˇicˇ (Eds.), Public relations research: An international perspective (pp. 3–46).
London: ITB Press.
Grunig, J. E., & Hunt, T. (1984). Managing public relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Kim, J.-N. (2011). Public segmentation using situational theory of problem solving: Illustrating summation method and
testing segmented public profiles. PRism, 8(2). Retrieved from http://www.journal.org/ homepage.html
Kim, J.-N., & Grunig, J. E. (2011). Problem solving and communicative action: A situational theory of problem solving.
Journal of Communication, 61, 120–149.
Kim, J.-N., & Ni, L. (2013). Two types of public relations problems and integrating formative and evaluative research:
A review of research programs within the behavioral, strategic management paradigm. Journal of Public Relations
Research, 25, 1–29.
Kim, J.-N., Ni, L., & Sha, B.-L. (2008). Breaking down the stakeholder environment: A review of approaches to the
segmentation of publics. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 85(4), 751–768.
Kim, J.-N., Shen, H., & Morgan, S. (2011). Information behaviors and problem chain recognition effect:
Applying situational theory of problem solving in organ donation issues. Health Communication, 26, 171–184.
Ni, L., & Kim, J.-N. (2009). Classifying publics: Communication behaviors and problem-solving characteristics in
controversial issues. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 3(4), 1–25.
ShOrt meSSage Service
Short message service (SMS) enables mobile tele- phone users to exchange short text messages. The key
to SMS is that the message be short: The maximum length of a text message is 160 characters in the
form of letters, numbers, or symbols in the Latin alphabet. For other alphabets, the maximum SMS size
varies.
The terms SMS and text messaging have become synonymous. This is not surprising given the history
of SMS, which was invented in the late 1980s in Europe. Engineers wanted to create a simple messaging
format whereby messages could reach mobile phone users when cell phones were turned off or were out of
signal range. The first SMS text message was sent from New York City to Melbourne Beach, Florida, via a
Motorola beeper in 1989 by Raina Fortini, who used upside down numbers to create words. The first
commercial SMS text message, “Happy Christmas,” was sent in the United King- dom by Neil Papworth
using a personal computer to Richard Jarvis using an Orbitel 901 handset in 1992. It was not until the
following year that Riku Pihkonen sent the first typed SMS on a GSM (global system for mobile) phone.
SMS is currently the most commonly used data application in the world. Approximately 2.4 billion users, or
nearly three quarters of the world’s mobile phone subscribers, interchange text messages on cell phones. This
is probably due to the numerous advan- tages to SMS. One, it enables users to communicate discreetly in
public spaces via silent communication. Two, it can be less time consuming than making a voice-to-voice
phone call. Three, its mobile application enables users to send messages without being logged on to a
computer in order to receive email or instant messaging. Four, users can store and retrieve messages for
long periods of time, and can forward messages to additional users. Finally, SMS technology has proved to
be an ideal way for hearing-impaired and physically challenged individuals to communicate.
In addition to sending personal messages, many businesses are taking advantage of SMS technology
to market goods and services. SMS can be used to send messages to large populations at one time,
anywhere in the world. Press releases and other forms of public relations communication tools are
Situation Analysis 825
now being delivered in SMS, video, podcasts, and microblog formats. As with any technology that has the
potential of reaching mass audiences, there are disadvantages to SMS, especially in terms of privacy and
cyber attacks. Overloading control channels with mass messages has the potential of crashing cell phone
systems. Other disadvantages include unreliability, whereby some messages are delayed, and
approximately 1% to 5% of messages are lost completely.
Because of the limited number of characters that are used in SMS communication due to space, time, and
cost restraints, some researchers are focusing on SMS language, also known as txtese or txt-speak (e.g., “CU
L8R” instead of “see you later”) in everyday communication.
Kathy Keltner-Previs
See also Media Release; Online Public Relations
Further Readings
Milian, M. (2009). Why text messages are limited to 160 characters. Retrieved August 10, 2012, from http://
latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/05/ invented-text-messaging.html
Safko, L. (2012). Social media bible: Tactics, tools & strategies for business success (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Silver, K. (2011). OMG: Text messaging turns 19 this week . . . and this is the Brit we have to thank for our sore
thumbs. Retrieved August 10, 2012, from http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070892/OMG- Text-
messaging-turns-19-Meet-Neil-Papworth-Brit- thank.html#ixzz23TrUubyE
Swallow, E. (2011). The future of social media and public relations. Retrieved August 10, 2012, from http://
mashable.com/2010/08/16/pr-social-media-future on
SituatiOn analySiS
A vital part of public relations planning—whether it is strategic planning, development of a specific
project, or solving an immediate problem—is understanding the circumstances an organization faces. A
situation analysis is the detailed explanation of factors that have the potential to influence an
organization or a specific problem or project. In
2002, Ronald D. Smith wrote, “Without a clear and early statement of the situation to be addressed, you
will not be able to conduct efficient research or define the goal of your communication program later in
the planning process” (p. 19).
The situation analysis makes it possible to develop hypotheses about causes of and solutions to a
problem. The American Marketing Associa- tion in 2012 noted that systematic collection and study of
data on internal and external factors helps “identify trends, forces and conditions with the potential to
influence the performance of the business.” Through research, a practitioner can gain a thorough
understanding of the organization’s relevant publics, its environment, and opportunities as well as
challenges related to solving the problem. The situation analysis also helps identify the additional
research needed in order to develop a successful plan. As Donald Parente wrote in 2000, the situation
analysis should be organized, structured, detailed, and focused.
Importance to Public Relations Practitioners

Situation analysis is the foundation of public relations planning—whether for a comprehensive
campaign or just one element such as a writing project. Because the effectiveness of the plan depends on
the quality of information gathered in the research process, a thorough situation analysis is critical to
setting and meeting the objectives of the project.
A situation analysis is a key to successful decision making. Before a situation or problem can be
addressed, the communication team in conjunc- tions with the rest of the organization’s leadership must
come to a shared understanding of the issue at hand. The situation analysis should clarify the current
situation and provide evidence to support any hypotheses.
Conducting a Situation Analysis

Situation analyses can be structured in a variety of ways, posing a myriad of questions about the cur-
rent problem, the background of the organization, the organization’s environment, and the significance
of the situation. The situation analysis may reveal gaps in existing information, pointing the way to the
development of primary research.
826 Situation Analysis
A method of identifying a company’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to the environmental

opportunities and threats was developed at the Harvard Business School in the 1950s and 1960s. This
framework was refined into what is now known by the acronym SWOT. Looking both inside and outside the
organization, its strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) are analyzed, and its opportunities
(O) and threats (T) are identified. Robert A. Sevier (1998) described strengths and weakness as
internal or institutional, whereas opportunities and threats are typically external or environmental.
Sevier cautioned that different audiences may place the same characteristic in opposite categories—
one considering a characteristic to be a strength, whereas another audience may consider the same
characteristic to be a weakness.
Another approach to conducting a situation analysis is to develop categories of internal and external
factors. The internal factors that may be analyzed include the following:
1. Mission: Organization mission statement, charter, bylaws

2. History: Descriptions of programs, services, products of the organization
3. Resources: Statistics on budget, staffing, sales, profits, stockholders
4. Policies: Policies and procedures related to the problem
5. Position statements: Opinion quotes from key executives regarding the problem
6. Current plan: Description of the current handling of the problem
7. Stakeholders: Description of the organization’s current internal stakeholders
8. Controlled media: Samples of communication tools with content controlled by the organization for use with
both internal and external audiences—Web, annual report, employee communication, for example.
External factors that may be analyzed include the following:
1. Uncontrolled media: Content analysis of media exposure the organization cannot control—news coverage of
the situation, bloggers, social media traffic, for example
2. Supportive stakeholders: Lists and background information on those who share the organization’s positions
on the situation
3. Opposing stakeholders: Lists and background information on those who oppose the organization’s
positions on the situation
4. Public opinion research: Information on consumer/customer opinions related to the situation including
analysis of comments from media coverage and social media
5. Competition: Identification of organizations and causes competing for resources and support
6. Events: Lists of important dates or events related to the organization and the situation
7. Regulatory bodies: Lists of government agencies and others with power affecting the situation; copies of
relevant legislation, pending bills, and government publications
8. Existing research: Published research on topics related to the situation; relevant publications, records,
directories
Additional areas to consider in situation analysis include the organization’s culture, emerging issues
and trends in the organization’s environment, history of the problem, consequences of the problem,
opportunities for solutions, challenges or obstacles to solutions, and publics that may not yet fit into
supportive or opposing categories.
A public relations audit may also be part of the analysis of internal factors. The audit may include
examination of the organization’s performance— the quality of goods or services as well as the via- bility
of its causes and ideas. Structure may also be considered in the audit. This includes review of the
organization’s mission as it relates to the problem, the role public relations plays within the decision-
making body, and identification of resources (per- sonnel, equipment, budget, time) that may be needed
to address the situation. Smith (2004) pointed out that the final area of focus for the audit is the public
perception of the organization’s visibility and reputation.
Information for the situation analysis can be gathered using both formal and informal method-
ologies. Secondary (or existing) research can be gathered from organizational records or online
databases. Primary (or original) research, for
Situation Ethics 827
example, may use focus groups, interviews, content analysis, and surveys.
The situation analysis should clarify all assumptions and back up assertions with evidence.
Phyllis Vance Larsen
See also Communication Audit and Auditing; Environmental Scanning; Research Goals; Research Objectives; Opportunity
and Threat
Further Readings
American Marketing Association. (2012). Dictionary: Situation analysis. Retrieved from http://www
.marketingpower.com/_layouts/Dictionary
.aspx?dLetterS
Austin, E. W., & Pinkleton, B. E. (2006). Strategic public relations management: Planning and managing effective
communication programs (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Daugherty, E. (2003, Spring). Strategic planning in public relations: A matrix that ensures tactical soundness.
Public Relations Quarterly, 48, 21–26.
Ghemawat, P. (2002). Competition and business strategy in historical perspective. Business History Review, 76(1), 37–
74.
Panagiotou, G. (2003). Bringing SWOT into focus.
Business Strategy Review, 14(2), 8–10.
Parente, D. (2000). Advertising campaign strategy: A guide to marketing communication plans (2nd ed., pp. 29–36).
Fort Worth, TX: Dryden Press.
Sevier, R. A. (1998). Integrated marketing for colleges, universities, and schools: A step-by-step planning guide
(pp. 129–141). Washington, DC: Council for Advancement & Support of Education.
Smith, R. D. (2004). Strategic planning for public relations (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
SituatiOn ethicS
Situation ethics began in the 1940s and 1950s as a movement among Roman Catholic theologians who
saw in the post–World War II environment a constellation of unique moral challenges that the traditions of
law and casuistry were not equipped to address. Law and casuistry were tied to hierarchy and authority,
and the experience of World War II showed how immoral following orders could be. So these
theologians sought a way to
listen for the voice of God in complex, particular circumstances. Spurning rules and paradigm cases as
being too rigid, they argued that truly moral decision making was marked by deep personal
responsibility and dialogue. But these theologians failed to persuade their superiors. In 1952, Pope Pius
XII put an end to the movement among Roman Catholics by condemning situation ethics as dangerously
subjective and relativistic.
Situation ethics returned as a Protestant debate in the 1960s. Popularized as “the new morality” by
Episcopalian ethics professor Joseph Fletcher (1905–1991), this incarnation of situation ethics was
championed as the golden mean between legalism at one extreme and licentiousness at the other.
According to Fletcher, situationists are nei- ther slaves to rules and regulations nor heedless of the needs
of others. Rather, they follow only one rule, and that is to do the loving thing in every situation they face.
Fletcher argued that no behavior is right or wrong intrinsically; more accurately, behaviors are right
only if they lead to good consequences and wrong only if they cause harm. “The situationist enters into
every decision- making situation fully armed with the ethical maxims of his community and its heritage,
and he treats them with respect as illuminators of his problems,” Fletcher wrote. “Just the same he is
prepared in any situation to compromise them or set them aside in the situation if love seems better
served by doing so” (1966, p. 26). Fletcher summarized his situation ethics in six propositions: “Love
only is always good, love is the only norm, love and justice are the same, love is not liking, love justifies
its means, and love decides there and then” (1966, p. 9).
In philosophical terms, situation ethics falls under the category of teleology, a way of justifying
behavior according to consequences rather than principles (the ends justify the means). More spe-
cifically, it is a type of utilitarianism (the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of
people). Because situation ethics came out of the Christian faith, it is sometimes referred to as act-
agapism, referring to agape, the Greek word for selfless love used in the New Testament. In act- agapism,
good emerges when the individual chooses the most loving course of action on a case-by-case basis.
Striking a responsive chord at a time when traditions were being questioned, situation ethics found
828 Situation Ethics
a wide range of business applications. In The Moral Crisis in Management, Thomas Petit (1967) wrote,
“The situational model . . . best fits the American manager’s self-image of a tough-minded individual
who demands freedom and is willing and able to be responsible in its exercise” (p. 167). Fletcher him-
self in 1967 applied situation ethics to business management, asking, “What, in the situation, is the most
constructive decision to make, as measured by a primary concern for people, and not for profits alone
nor only for . . . one company’s sake?” (p. 167). In an example of a clothing manufacturer who pays
an illegal kickback to fulfill an essential order from a department store chain, Fletcher said that the
manufacturer’s bribe was the right thing to do in the circumstances. He broke a law certainly, but more
importantly he kept his employees working and did not have to cut their pay. In this case, following
the law would have devastated his employees and their families.
Applications of situation ethics to public relations followed. The most common example involved a
company with a policy of full disclosure to the media being justified in deciding to withhold information
that could harm an employee, a client, or the community. A more extreme application was put forth in 1989
by Marquette University professor Steven Goldzwig, who argued that serious social change—he gave as an
example the struggle against racial inequality—could at times justify “suggestion, innuendo, even misuse of
facts.” Des- perate situations require desperate measures, argued Goldzwig, who said that demagoguery and
techniques of propaganda may be “legitimate means of pursuing laudable social ends” (p. 220).
The main attraction of situation ethics is its commonsense recognition that circumstances matter
when making moral decisions. People generally follow the rules—they tell the truth and keep promises,
for example—but they also understand that breaking the rules is occasionally warranted. Sometimes lies
need to be told—to catch criminals, perhaps, or to protect national security—and sometimes a promise
needs to be broken—if it was made in haste and keeping it would cause more harm than good.
Situationism is often congruent with lived experience.
Another appeal of situation ethics is that it takes very seriously Immanuel Kant’s philosophy that
people should always be treated as ends in themselves, never as means to an end. Slavishly
following rules, by contrast, can cause immense harm. “Always produce maximum profits” is a common
rule that pleases Wall Street investors, but among other things leads to wages that are below subsistence,
employment that does not provide for health care, and working conditions that endanger employees.
Similarly, merely following the rules can keep companies out of legal trouble while they ignore concerns
for employee welfare, public safety, and the environment. Situation ethics avoids these pitfalls by
focusing on people rather than rules.
Despite these attractions, situation ethics has fallen out of favor. Its greatest weakness is that it grossly
underestimates the value of moral rules. Understood in their broadest sense, moral rules are needed to
sustain human community. People seldom or never need to decide whether to deceive, to cause pain, or
to break a promise. Following moral rules maintains community; breaking moral rules destroys
community. For this reason, following moral rules does not require justification. However, breaking
moral rules always requires justification because it damages the basis of civi- lized society. Breaking
moral rules introduces dis- trust, thus undermining the cooperation necessary for community.
Situation ethics has fallen out of favor for more practical reasons as well. It privileges individual
judgment over conventional wisdom and assumes that the individual is capable of transcending self-
interest and limited perspective when deciding to break a moral rule. For that matter, it assumes that the
individual can calculate the potential harms and benefits of any particular action, as if the individual can
peer into the future to see short- term and long-term effects of any particular act. It is even conceivable
that maximizing the happiness of most people will cause harm to a few, thus creating what British
philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill called “tyranny of the majority.” Mostly, though, situation
ethics ignores the fact that moral rules generally work, and work well. That is why certain practices
achieved the status of moral rules.
To say that situation ethics has fallen out of favor is an understatement. The term is used today with utter
scorn and contempt. Instead of meaning the application of agape in concrete circumstances, as Fletcher
intended, situation ethics has come to refer to self-interest, rationalization, and a lack of
Situational Crisis Communication Theory 829
professionalism. It now means immorality pre- tending to be good, an attempt to excuse unethical
behavior. Canadian public relations specialist Nigel Atkin in 1999 typified today’s low regard for
situation ethics when he defined it as “where you do that which is least painful, and hope that not many
people find out about it” (p. 349). Pub- lic relations practitioners have spent the last few decades writing
and revising codes of ethics, looking for principles that can be applied locally, nation- ally, and even
internationally. They are more likely than ever to reject the situationist claim that rules are meant to be
broken. Instead, they are still searching for meaningful rules that their colleagues can agree to follow.
John P. Ferré
See also Codes of Ethics; Deontology; Ethics of Public Relations; Moral Philosophy; Utilitarianism
Further Readings
Atkin, N. (1999). Transparency, dialogue and ethical decision-making. Vital Speeches of the Day, 65(11), 347–351.
Fletcher, J. F. (1966). Situation ethics: The new morality.
Philadelphia: Westminster.
Fletcher, J. F. (1967). Moral responsibility: Situation ethics at work. Philadelphia: Westminster.
Goldzwig, S. R. (1989, September). A social movement perspective on demagoguery: Achieving symbolic
convergence. Communication Studies, 40, 202–228.
Petit, T. A. (1967). The moral crisis in management.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) was developed to provide a theoretical connection
between these two critical crisis factors. The driv- ing variable in SCCT is crisis responsibility, to what
degree do stakeholders hold the organization in crisis responsible for the crisis.
Situational crisis communication theory is a fusion of attribution theory and rhetorical theory.
Attribution theory holds that people search for causes for events, especially negative ones that are
associated with high uncertainty (Weiner, 1986). People will attribute the event to either situational
factors (external) or the person involved in the event (internal). For crises, stakeholders can attribute
the crisis to the organization (internal) or to environmental factors (external). Marketing research
found that crisis responsibility attributions by stakeholders matter. Increased crisis responsibility
intensified the damage from a crisis such as reducing purchasing intentions. Moreover, the marketing
research found that some crises generated stronger attributions of crisis responsibility than others.
Situational crisis communication theory used attribution theory to develop a framework for assessing
potential stakeholder evaluations of crisis responsibility. Crisis responsibility was assessed by
combining measures for personal control and blame found in the attribution literature. The first step
was to identify if there were patterns in attributions people made about the various crisis types that
appeared in the crisis literature. Survey research found that basic crisis types could be grouped into
three categories predicated upon the attributions of crisis responsibility they generated: (1) victim
(very low attributions of crisis
responsibility)—natural disasters, workplace vio-
SituatiOnal criSiS cOmmunicatiOn theOry
Early research in crisis communication was descriptive rather than predictive. Practitioners would
report what they did during a crisis, and researchers would examine case studies of high-profile crises to
learn the best practices. From this research mix emerged a list of crisis types (frames for view- ing a crisis
event) and possible crisis response strategies (what managers say and do once a crisis begins). What was
missing was a connection between crisis types and crisis response strategies.
lence, rumors, and malevolence; (2) accidental (minimal attributions of crisis responsibility)—
challenges, technical-error accidents, and technical-error product harm; and (3) preventable (strong
attributions of crisis responsibility)—human-error accident, human-error product harm, and organi-
zational misdeeds.
The next step was to identify factors that might alter the initial attributions of crisis responsibility. These
variables are called intensifiers. Experimental research found that prior reputation (treatment of
stakeholders) and crisis history (previous crises) influence attributions of crisis responsibility. Attri- butions
of crisis responsibility intensified as prior
830 Situational Crisis Communication Theory
reputation became more negative and an organization had previous crises. Note that SCCT is receiver
focused as it seeks to understand how stakeholders (receivers) perceive the crisis. Assessments of the crisis
type and intensifiers are combined to determine the degree of crisis responsibility stakeholders are likely
to ascribe to an organization.
Rhetorical theory was essential to identifying the crisis response strategies that were available to crisis
managers. William L. Benoit’s 1995 image restoration/repair theory built upon corporate apologia
research to develop a comprehensive list of possible crisis response strategies. Benoit’s list was modified
to form the crisis response strategies used in SCCT. Situational crisis communication theory sought to
connect the crisis response strategies to the crisis situation. Crisis response strategies were arrayed along
a continuum from defensive to accommodative. This continuum reflects the amount of responsibility the
organization is accepting for the crisis. The SCCT strategies include attacking the accuser, denial,
scapegoating, excus- ing, justification, compensation, apology, remind- ing, ingratiation, and victimage.
Compensation and apology represent the highly accommodative strategies while attacking the accuser,
denial, and scapegoating are the highly defensive strategies. Situational crisis communication theory’s
receiver orientation tries to understand how stakeholders perceive the crisis response strategies instead
of assuming they will have the effect intended by the crisis responder.
Responsibility became the linchpin between the crisis type and crisis response strategies. SCCT posited
that as attributions of crisis responsibility intensified, crisis managers need to use strategies that
increasing accepted responsibility for the crisis. By using this matching strategy, crisis managers can
maximize the ability of the crisis response strategies to protect an organization’s reputation, reduce the
anger generated by a crisis, decrease the likelihood of negative word of mouth, and maintain purchase
intentions (Coombs, 2007).
Situational crisis communication theory argues that there is an ethical base response that should be
used in crisis response. Crisis managers can then determine what additional crisis response strategies to
utilize after the ethical base response is employed. The ethical base response is com- posed of instructing
and adjusting information. Instructing information tells stakeholders how to
protect themselves physically from a crisis. Instructing information includes warning people to not use
defective or dangerous products and orders to evacuate or to shelter-in-place. Adjusting information
helps stakeholders cope psychologi- cally with a crisis. Adjusting information includes expressions of
concern or sympathy and actions taken to prevent a repeat of the crisis. For most crises, the ethical base
will be an effective response. Crisis managers must utilize additional, accommodative crisis response
strategies when attributions of crisis responsibility are strong. Attributions of crisis responsibility are
strong for preventable crises and accidental crises that have one or more intensifiers present. For these
crises managers would need to use some combination of compensation and apology in order to protect
the organization’s reputation and minimize the damage inflicted by the crisis.
W. Timothy Coombs
See also Apologia; Attribution Theory; Crisis Communication; Image Repair Theory; Rhetorical Theory
Further Readings
Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Coombs, W. T. (2007). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of
situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10, 163–177.
Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (2002). Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial tests of the
situational crisis communication theory.
Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 165–186.
Mowen, J. C. 1980. Further information on consumer perceptions of product recalls. Advances in Consumer
Research, 7, 519–523.
Schwarz, A. (2008). Covariation-based causal attributions during organizational crises: Suggestions for extending
situational crisis communication theory. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 2, 31–53.
Sturges, D. L. (1994). Communicating through crisis: A strategy for organizational survival. Management
Communication Quarterly, 7, 297–316.
Weiner, B. (2011). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer Verlag.
Situational Theory of Problem Solving 831
SituatiOnal theOry Of
prOblem SOlving
Situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) was developed to explain people’s motivated communicative
actions when they encounter problematic life situations. Jeong-Nam Kim theorized STOPS as a continuation of
its parent theory, situational theory of publics (STP), James E. Grunig’s theory about the role of information
during human decisions. STP builds on the concept of publics, defined by John Dewey as being issue groups
that form around problems that affect people and motivate their involvement, information reception, and
processing. These are measures for identifying and segmenting publics. The original version of situational
theory criticized the assumption postulated in economic decision- making theory that decision makers have
perfect knowledge, and information is available freely and sufficient for them. In reality, people make
decisions with imperfect knowledge or lack relevant information as they face the risks of their choices and
decisional consequences. People become motivated to seek more information about their decisions as the
risks or the opportunity costs associated with those decisions increase. It is, therefore, fallacious to assume
information behaviors in decision situations to be constant or to conceptualize people are inac- tive as they
recognize the need for knowledge and
information in decision situations.
J. E. Grunig explained human communication as a purposeful action related to the problems that one
identifies. This conceptual transition is an important theoretical landmark for the development of both STP
and STOPS. Specifically, the situational theories posit that (a) communication behaviors increase and
decrease across people’s decision situations;
(b) communication could better be understood as a variable (vs. a constant) and better be a
dependent variable; (c) (de)motivators of communicative behaviors could vary across situations, as
one’s personal perceptions about problem significance, connection, and obstacles in doing something
about the problematic situation vary. As such, situational theory upset the common assumptions (i.e.,
the perfect knowledge assumption and the sender-based view of communication) to the notion of
communication being an activity through which people cope with their problematic life situations
within the constraints of one’s internal and external conditions. It
reversed the causal order of information behaviors as being dependent variables that increase (or
decrease) as people face (solve) genuine (vs. habit- ual) decision situations. Situational theory stood out
as one of the few theoretical outliers distinct from most communication theories during the 1960s (cf.
uses and gratification theory) that assumed communication to be an activity that a message sender
engages in with message recipients for the purpose of persuasion, education, or social influence.
STOPS builds upon, incorporates, and advances STP. First, STOPS has shifted the theory’s focus from
decisional situations to problematic situations. The original theory came out of a critique of the problems
in economic decision-making theory and is grounded on the relationship between information and
decision making. In contrast, STOPS directs focus explicitly on problem solving and communicative actions.
This means that STOPS sets the unit of theoretical analysis of the theory as the problem solver or the
social actor with the purpose of coping with and the closure and resolution of problematic states rather
than the decision maker or the economic man with the purpose of satisficing decisions for maximizing
utilities or satisfaction (e.g., a problem solver often needs to produce and give information to others, while
a decision maker rarely does so).
STOPS redefines and modifies the independent variables of STP and introduces new ones. Specifi-
cally, it explicates problem recognition as a state with varying magnitudes of discrepancy between
experiential and expected states. It is a cognitive problem following one’s failure to preconscious problem
solving (i.e., perceptual problems) that one starts realizing some level of discrepancy or indeterminacy
that interrupts and intrudes one’s routine perceptual and cognitive processes. In addition, the person
with the problem recognition starts to assess the connection between the problem and oneself and the
extended self such as friends and significant others, that is, involvement recognition of the recognized
problematic state. Once a problem is recognized, the person starts to assess the internal and external
barriers or obstacles that limit efforts to do something about the problematic state, the constraint
recognition. Notably, these three variables could be either con- sciously or unconsciously perceived and
may or may not be accurate and subjective, reflecting one’s
832 Situational Theory of Problem Solving
individuality. They are more perceptual and less effortful and cognitive.
In contrast, the referent criterion is more cognitive, referring to any knowledge or subjective judg-
mental system that could influence one’s cognitive problem-solving efforts and communicative behav-
iors. It could be more knowledge based and experiential information that one could carry forward from
previous problematic situations or more affective and expectational solutions that one may improvise
immediately or in an earlier phase of problem solving. More importantly, although the origin and type of
referent criterion may be different, it is functionally equivalent, in that it guides problem-solving efforts
and increases communicative actions related to the given problem situation. In addition, unlike STP,
STOPS redefines the referent criterion as an independent variable that influ- ences one’s communicative
behaviors, information forefending, and the information forwarding and sharing (see J. E. Grunig, [1997],
for the earlier conceptualization of referent criterion).
While these four variables are situational perceptions and cognitive states a problem solver
experiences, STOPS also introduces a motivational variable, situational motivation in problem solving, defined
as a state of situation-specific cognitive and epistemic readiness to undertake problem-solving efforts. This
new motivational variable helps further explicate the previous definition of problem recognition—that is,
people detect that something should be done about a situation and stop to think about what to do as it
removes the stop-to-think tendency as a joint effect from the situation-specific perceptual variables. In
other words, one’s perception of seriousness of a problematic state would be high but this alone cannot
make one motivated enough to expend cognitive and behavioral efforts to the given problem.
Finally, another notable generalization of the STOPS, developing from STP, is its communication- based
dependent variable. According to STP, the dependent variables are information seeking and
information attending. These dependent variables limit the scope of communication to information
consumption. STOPS addresses this limitation by acknowledging that publics display other
communication behaviors that are pertinent to public relations. These are conceptualized by Kim, J. E.
Grunig, and Lan Ni as communicative actions in problem solving (CAPS). The CAPS
model has a second-order factor structure with six first-order factors. The six subvariables of the
CAPS model represent a more general view of information behaviors of problem solvers or members
of publics. They are divided into three categories or domains—information acquisition, information
transmission, and information selection—each with a proactive dimension and a reactive or passive
dimension.
This characterization of the subvariables follows the conceptualization of the dependent variables of STP
where information seeking was described as a proactive action—“the planned scanning of the environment
for messages about a specified topic” (Clarke & Kline, 1974, p. 233), while information attending was more
passive—“the unplanned discovery of a message followed by continued processing of it” (p. 233).
Information transmission refers to the dissemination of information to others, actively through
information forwarding (the planned, self-propelled information giving to others) and passively through
information sharing (the reactive provision of information only when solic- ited). Information selection
refers to the acceptance and rejection of certain information in taking and giving, either based on source
or on content, actively through information forefending (the extent that one fends off certain information
in giving or taking in advance by judging its value and relevance) or passively through information per-
mitting (the extent to which a communicator accepts any information related to a problem- solving task).
Notably, information forefending could either be to economize one’s cognitive resources in problem
solving or to optimize one’s preferred solution and desired end states. Here, the former forefending
tendency is associated more with the factual, experiential referent criterion, while the latter forefending
tendency is associated more with affective, expectational referent criterion. Regardless of the given types
or sources of selectiveness, it helps problem solvers solve a metaproblem, that is, how to manage informa-
tional tasks en route to problem solving.
The main goal of STOPS is to describe and explain communicative aspects of human problem solving
by conceptualizing perceptual and cognitive processes and epistemic motivation that rise and fall in life
situations. STOPS is conceptually compatible with the themes proposed by STP (see Figure 1). The
developmental history
833
Situational Theory of Problem Solving
in Problem
Situational
Situational Motivation Solving Perceptual and Cognitive Frame
Antecedents:
Communicative Behavior in Problem Solving
Problem Constraint Involvemen Referen
Recognitio Recognitio t t
n n Recognitio Criterio
n n
Situational Theory of
Publics
Situationa
Problem Constraint Level of
l
Recognitio Recognitio Involveme
Motivatio
2:
H
n n nt
n in
Problem
Solving
InformationInformation
Communicativ
SeekingProcessing
e Action in
Problem
Solving
Information
Acquisition
InformationInformationInformationInformationInformationInformation
ForefendingPermittingForwardingSharingSeekingAttending
Information Selection
Information Transmission
Information Acquisition
Situational Theory of Publics

Internal Inquiring StageExternal Inquiring StageIndividual Effectuating StageCollective Effectuating Stage (Knowledge
Activation)(Knowledge Action)(Individual Solution Application)(Collective Solution Application)
IA Top
IS TopIT Top
Situational Communicant Activeness in Problem Solving

Information Acquisition
Information Selection
Information Transmission
Problem
Recognitio
n Active Public Activist Public
Situational Motivation in Problem
Solving
= f(PR, IR, CR | RC)
Figure 1 Situational Theory of Publics and Situational Theory of Problem Solving

Source: Kim, J.-N., & Grunig, J. E. (2011). Problem solving and communicative action: A situational theory of problem solving.
Journal of Communication, 61, 121.
834 Situational Theory of Publics
of the two theories shows how a good theory can and should continuously evolve to generate a better
understanding of the phenomenon of interest.
Jeong-Nam Kim
See also Activism; Segmentation of Publics; Situational Theory of Publics; Stakeholder Theory; Strategies
Further Readings
Clarke, P., & Kline, F. G. (1974). Media effects reconsidered: Some new strategies for communication research.
Communication Research, 1, 224–270.
Grunig, J. E. (1997). A situational theory of publics: Conceptual history, recent challenges, and new research. In D.
Moss, T. McManus, & D. Vercˇicˇ (Eds.), Public relations research: An international perspective (pp. 3–46). Boston: ITB
Press.
Grunig, J. E. (2003). Constructing public relations theory and practice. In B. Dervin & S. Chaffee, with L. Foreman-
Wernet (Eds.), Communication, another kind of horse race: Essays honoring Richard F. Carter (pp. 85–115).
Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Kim, J.-N. (2006). Communicant activeness, cognitive entrepreneurship, and a situational theory of problem solving.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.
Kim, J.-N, & Grunig, J. E. (2011). Problem solving and communicative action: A situational theory of problem solving.
Kim, J.-N., Grunig, J. E., & Ni, L. (2010).
Reconceptualizing the communicative action of publics: Acquisition, selection, and transmission of information in
problematic situations. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 4(2) 126–154.
Popper, K. R. (1963). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York: Harper
Torchbooks.
Popper, K. R. (1999). All life is problem solving. New York: Routledge.
SituatiOnal theOry Of publicS

James E. Grunig developed the situational theory of publics to put meaning into the term public, which is one
of the two key words in the phrase public relations. Public relations practitioners often use the term public
to refer to the mass population,
which they also call the general public. At other times, they use the plural term publics to refer to the
groups for which public relations programs are planned—especially journalists, employees, consumers,
investors, governments, local communities, and members of associations and nonprofit groups.
Practitioners also commonly use the terms stakeholders and publics interchangeably.
In contrast, J. E. Grunig distinguished between stakeholders and publics and used the two concepts
to segment the general population into categories that help communication professionals identify
strategic publics and to plan and evaluate public relations programs. He considered the term general
public to be a contradiction in terms because a public is always a specialized group whose members
have a reason to be interested in the activities and behaviors of organizations.
In its current state, the situational theory of publics is part of J. E. Grunig’s theory of the role of public
relations in strategic management. Follow- ing the lead of John Dewey, who wrote about publics in the
1920s and 1930s, J. E. Grunig theorized that publics arise when organizations make decisions that have
consequences on people inside and outside the organization who were not involved in making that
decision. In addition, publics often want consequences from organizational decisions that organizations
might be reluctant to provide, such as lower prices, stable employment, or less pollution.
J. E. Grunig reserved the term stakeholder for general categories of people who are affected by the actual
or potential consequences of strategic, or important, organizational decisions. Stakeholders are people who
have something at risk when the organization makes decisions. Stakeholder categories generally are the
focus of public relations programs, such as employee relations, community relations, investor relations,
consumer relations, or government relations.
Within each of these stakeholder categories, however, the situational theory can be used to identify
types of publics that differ in the extent to which they communicate actively, passively, or not at all about
organizational decisions that affect them. Active publics, in turn, can change from loose aggregations of
individuals into organized activist groups. Active and activist publics make issues out of organizational
consequences, and these issues may lead to crises. Thus the situational
Situational Theory of Publics 835
theory can be used to identify active publics in programs of environmental scanning, issues man-
agement, and crisis communication.
Situational theory is built from an explanation of why people communicate and when they are most
likely to do so. It uses the concepts of active and passive communication behavior to segment the general
population into publics likely to communicate about one or more problems that are related to the
consequences of organizational behaviors. The theory is situational because problems come and go and
are relevant only to people who experience problematic situations related to organizational behaviors.
As a result, publics arise and disappear as situations change, and organizations rarely, if ever, have a
permanent set of publics.
In addition to explaining who an organization’s publics are at a specific time, situational theory explains
when communication programs are most likely to be effective—that is, to have effects on the short-term
cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors of different publics and on the long-term relationships with these
publics. As a result, situational theory provides a useful tool for strategically managing public relations
programs—identifying publics, choosing realistic short- and long-term objectives for communication
programs, and evaluating the outcomes of these programs.
Situational theory is similar to theories of market segmentation because it provides a method for seg-
menting the general population into groups relevant to public relations practitioners. Marketing theorists
provide several criteria for choosing a concept for segmentation. Segments must be mutually exclusive,
measurable, accessible, pertinent to an organization’s mission, and large enough to be substantial. Most
importantly, the people in market segments must have a differential response to marketing strategies. In this
sense, situational theory of publics predicts the differential responses most important to public relations
professionals: (a) responsiveness to problems and issues; (b) amount of and nature of communication
behavior; (c) effects of communication on cognitions, attitudes, and behavior; (d) the extent and quality of
organization–public relationships; and (e) the likelihood that publics will participate in
collective behavior to pressure organizations.
Situational theory also helps to explain the nature of public opinion because it incorporates the
assumption that two of the classic theorists of
public opinion, John Dewey and Herbert Blumer, first made about publics: Publics arise around problems
that affect them. Dewey also recognized the crucial role that publics play in American democracy. The
situational theory formalizes the classical conceptions of publics and provides concepts and variables
for identifying and measuring publics and their opinions.
When situational theory is expressed formally, it consists of two dependent variables (active and passive
communication behavior) and three independent variables (problem recognition, constraint recognition,
and level of involvement). The two dependent variables, active and passive communication behavior, also
can be called information seeking and attending. Information seeking is premeditated— “the planned
scanning of the environment for messages about a specified topic” (Clarke & Kline, 1974, p. 233).
Information attending is message discovery—“the unplanned discovery of a message followed by continued
processing of it” (p. 233).
The three independent variables are defined as follows:
Problem recognition: People detect that something should be done about a situation and stop to think about what
to do.
Constraint recognition: People perceive that there are obstacles in a situation that limit their ability to do
anything about the situation.
Level of involvement: The extent to which people connect themselves with a situation.
High problem recognition and low constraint recognition increase both active information seeking
and passive information attending. Level of involvement increases information seeking, but it has less
effect on information attending. Information seeking and the independent variables that precede it
produce communication effects more often than information attending. People communicating actively
develop more organized cognitions, are more likely to have attitudes about a situation, more often
engage in a behavior to do something about the situation, and are more likely to develop a relationship
with an organization.
J. E. Grunig and Todd Hunt (1984) used com- binations of the situational variables to define non-
publics, latent publics, aware publics, and active publics and to calculate the probability of
836 Social Amplification of Risk
communicating with and having effects on each type of public. J. E. Grunig (1997) described four kinds of
publics identified by research: (a) all-issue publics, which are active on all problems measured in a study;
(b) apathetic publics, which are inattentive to all of the problems; (c) single-issue publics, which are active
on one of the problems; and (d) hot-issue publics, which are active only on a single problem that involves
nearly everyone in the population and that has received extensive media coverage.
Hot-issue publics emerge from a triggering event such as an accident, crisis, or media controversy.
However, they tend to dissipate when media coverage subsides. Linda Aldoory and J. E. Grunig (2012)
addressed the extent to which organizations need relationships with hot-issue publics because they turn
into active publics or whether they need only to address media coverage of a crisis at the time it occurs.
Qualitative interviews about a number of hot issues showed that hot-issue publics seldom become active
publics but that they remain aware of the problem after it gets less attention. Thus, organizations need to
use principles of crisis communication to cultivate a short-term relationship with hot-issue publics and to
continue a longer term relationship with the then more aware public. Jeong-Nam Kim and J. E. Grunig (2011)
extended the situational theory of publics into a situational theory of problem solving. The theory of problem
solving adds four subvariables (information forwarding, sharing, forefending, and permitting) to the two
dependent variables of the theory of publics (information seeking and attending)—thus extending the
reach of the theory to information selecting
and sharing as well as acquisition.
James E. Grunig
See also Activism; Crisis Communication; Environmental Scanning; Issues Management; Public Opinion and Opinion
Leaders; Segmentation of Publics; Situational Theory of Problem Solving; Stakeholder Theory; Strategies
Further Readings
Aldoory, L., & Grunig, J. E. (2012). The rise and fall of hot-issue publics: Relationships that develop from media
coverage of events and crises. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 6(1), 93–108.
Clarke, P., & Kline, F. G. (1974). Media effects reconsidered: Some new strategies for communication research.
Communication Research, 1, 224–270.
Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. Chicago: Swallow Press.
Grunig, J. E. (1989). Publics, audiences and market segments: Models of receivers of campaign messages. In C. T.
Salmon (Ed.), Information campaigns: Balancing social values and social change (pp. 197–226). Newbury Park, CA:
Sage.
Grunig, J. E. (1997). A situational theory of publics: Conceptual history, recent challenges, and new research. In D.
Moss, T. McManus, & D. Vercˇicˇ (Eds.), Public relations research: An international perspective (pp. 3–46). Boston:
ITB Press.
Grunig, J. E., & Hunt, T. (1984). Managing public relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Grunig, J. E., & Repper, F. C. (1992). Strategic management, publics, and issues. In J. E. Grunig (Ed.), Excellence in
public relations and communication management (pp. 117–158). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kim, J.-N., & Grunig, J. E. (2011). Problem solving and communicative action: A situational theory of problem solving.
SOcial amplificatiOn Of riSk
The emergence of large-scale risks in the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as the 1979 partial nuclear
meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania or the 1984 chemical leak at a
Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, was accompanied by changes in public risk perceptions and
reactions. Technical or expert definition of a risk threat could no longer explain or predict the public’s
response to that risk.
Created to help explain the complexity of this discrepancy, the social amplification of risk framework
(SARF) integrates both the technical assessment and sociocultural experience of risk. Proposing this theory,
Roger E. Kasperson et al. (1988) explained “that risk events interact with psychological, social, and cultural
processes in ways that can heighten or attenuate public perceptions of risk and related risk behavior” (p.
179). The framework character of SARF allows competing theories from various disciplines to be
integrated to elicit new research. It
Social Amplification of Risk 837
encourages the incorporation of fragmented empirical findings and the creation of new hypotheses.
The social amplification of risk framework sparked much social science research. Early work in the
1980s and 1990s focused mostly on supporting and refining core assumptions of the framework such as
characteristics of amplification stations or elements of the amplification processes. The last decade of
research has treated SARF as an established framework—even a theory—to explain and trace
amplification and attenuation processes of emerging risks such as nuclear waste storage, Bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), blood transfusions, and genetically modified foods.
The social amplification of risk framework builds upon the assumption that perceptions and reporting
of risks involve two main stages: First, the transmission of information about a risk event to amplification
stations and second, the mecha- nisms of response, or rippling effects, within society. The starting point
in the SARF is a risk event. Risk, according to Kasperson (1992) has two dimensions: the objective and
physical characteristics as well as the social interpretation of the risk. In the first stage of the
amplification process, information about the risk event flows and risk-related behaviors occur. Risk
information can be gained either by direct experience (which is rare) or through information sources such
as the media or informal networks of friends, coworkers, and family. Following the source-receiver
communication model premise, each risk signal is processed by social or individual “amplification
stations” like scientists, the media, interest groups, institutions, or networks of people. Every station
processes the information about a risk event and amplifies or attenuates it through processes of analysis
and communication. Each receiver of a message as a part of variously complex networks engages in
amplification within its social context and therefore acts as an amplification station.
The amplification of a risk is achieved by dis- tributing large volumes of information, when dis-
agreement about the actual harm of a risk exists among experts, and when a risk is sensational in nature
or represented as such. The cultural and social meanings attached to the risk can further heighten fear of a
risk. Receivers of information attach social values to the risk and interact with their cultural and peer
groups to determine and
validate the importance of a risk. Based on these interpretations and interactions, responses are for-
mulated, which lead to changing, accepting, toler- ating, or ignoring a risk.
The second stage in the amplification process follows these informational and behavioral responses.
Secondary impacts ripple away from the risk event to influence changes in (un)related areas of society.
Examples of secondary impacts are, among others, those in local business sales and property values, in
political and social pressures, in changes of risk analysis and response systems, and in altered images
and perceptions. Policy changes might also be evoked, triggering or hindering risk reduction actions.
Early criticism on the initial proposition of SARF pointed to a lack in conceptualizing context in the
amplification processes. Since, culture as “super- variable” and context in the form of layering have been
introduced in different studies. However, the cross-cultural application of SARF has been tested only in a
limited amount of studies. Two additional points of critique have led to further refinement of SARF in the last
decades. First, although Kasperson et al. (1988) mentioned both attenuation and amplification as possible
responses to a risk event, most research has focused on fleshing out the amplification processes. Especially
the role of the media as influential amplification station has received much research attention, underscoring
its role and power to distribute risk information and influence meaning creation. Second, in SARF both
individual and group level interpretations of risk are mentioned when describing amplification and
attenuation processes. However, the importance of social groups, networks, and individuals in these
processes has not been presented in detail. To address these shortcom- ings some studies have focused on
better understanding the processes in each stage of the SARF. To date most studies focus on the first over
the second stage, largely providing support for the core tenets of the social amplification of risk processes.
The social amplification of risk framework allows the tracing of a risk event and its social impacts over
time to follow and even explain amplification or attenuation. It provides room to incorporate
communication theories to explain co- creation of meaning surrounding certain risk issues based on risk
perceptions. The framework’s explan- atory and integrative power can provide public
838 Social Capital
relations professionals guidance in communicating with publics about emerging or unknown risks with the
goal to lower or trigger a heightened sense of awareness. Issues managers and risk communicators can
provide amplification stations with accurate risk information and assessment. Public relations professionals
may act as amplification stations by communicating risk information to their publics.
Tatjana M. Hocke
See also Culture; Issues Management; Network Theory; Risk Communication; Risk Perception; Risk Society
Further Readings
Barrett, R., Moore, R. G., & Staines, A. (2007). Blood transfusion in Ireland: Perceptions of risk, a question of trust.
Health, Risk & Society, 9, 375–388.
Kasperson, R. E. (1992). The social amplification of risk: Progress in developing an integrative framework. In
S. Krimsky & D. Golding (Eds.), Social theories of risk
(pp. 153–178). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Kasperson, R. E., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H. S., Emel, J., Goble, R., et al. (1988). The social amplification of risk: A
conceptual framework. Risk Analysis, 8(2), 177–187.
Pidgeon, N., Kasperson, R. E., & Slovic, P. (Eds.). (2003).
The social amplification of risk. New York: Cambridge University Press.
SOcial capital
The notion of social capital has been popular in social science for quite some time. It can be defined in
brief as networks and the benefits which accrue from inclusion in those networks. This entry briefly
introduces three positions on social capital and gives an overview of some potential applications within
public relations.
Strands of Research on Social Capital

Pierre Bourdieu, James S. Coleman, and Robert D. Putnam are probably the three chief classical theorists
of social capital (see, e.g., Field, 2008). For Bourdieu, social capital was one of several resources actors
might employ to pursue their interests and position themselves, thus explaining
social hierarchy. Bourdieu defined social capital as connections with and membership in groups, and
pointed to two main components: the size of an individual’s network and the volume of the capital the
other parts of the network have and to which the individual gains access. The “problem,” from an
instrumental perspective, is that social capital must be established well before a need appears, “as if for
[its] own sake, and therefore outside [its] period of use” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 252).
According to Coleman (1998), social capital is “the set of resources that inhere in family relations and
in community social organization and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or
a young person” (p. 300). Coleman’s notion of social capital was based in rational- choice thinking and
the notion that people are calculating in pursuit of their own interests. He also saw social capital as a
public good, however, and lamented the erosion of the family and the fact that the responsibility for
socialization has been transferred to the schools.
Putnam (2000) is probably the one scholar who has done the most to popularize the concept. With the
phrase “bowling alone,” he summarized his analysis of social change in modern society: Partici- pation in
public life has declined; trust, social cohesion and community values have disintegrated. In short, there is
less social capital. Social capital is here defined as “connections among individuals—social networks and the
norms of reciprocity and trustwor- thiness that arise from them” (p. 19). According to Putnam, the basic
problem of this development is that social capital is needed to create a happy, well- educated, healthy and safe
society. A society rich in social capital is also an efficient society, as it leads to less conflict and more satisfied
citizens.
As John Field has pointed out, these authors see social capital as a resource—either for individuals or
society. They have thus been accused of ignoring the negative side of social capital in, for instance,
fostering inequality. A main point of many critics is that social capital can be used for both good and ill,
much like public relations.
Public Relations and Social Capital

Public relations researchers have drawn on all the aforementioned scholars. Øyvind Ihlen for instance, has
combined the work of Bourdieu as well as that
Social Construction of Reality Theory 839
of Nan Lin to provide a better fit for the analysis of the social capital of organizations. Drawing on these two
authors generates questions such as: What kind of investment does or should an organization make in social
capital? What is the size of the organization’s network? What other kinds of capital are potentially accessible
through the network? And finally, what has the organization gained economi- cally, politically, and socially?
Following Bourdieu, answers would be expected to be accompanied by a comparison with other
organizations in an analysis that has power issues at its center, thus addressing the criticism mentioned in the
last paragraph.
Vincent Hazelton and William Kennan (2000) argued that social capital can contribute to the orga-
nizational bottom line by leading to increased or more complex forms of social capital, reduced transaction
costs, and improved productivity and effi- ciency. From this perspective, social capital has three dimensions:
structural (network ties), content- communicative, and relational. Since public relations efforts are
instrumental in developing these dimensions of social capital, it is clearly of value to organizations.
Agreeing with the latter point, Vilma Luoma-aho (2009) has posited that public relations should be
defined as “the creation and maintenance of organizational social capital” (p. 247). Public relations could
lead people to bowl together again. Bonding social capital is the starting point for organizations as this can
create social cohesion within an organization, while bridging social capital is applicable to external
stakeholder relations.
While the mentioned publications are theoretical in scope, Erich J. Sommerfeldt and Maureen Taylor
(2011) provided an empirical example of how internal relationships of social capital can be measured
through network analysis. The authors measured levels of trust and support, and diag- nosed the relative
strengths and weaknesses of the relationships. They also draw attention to how the public relations
function requires internal social capital in order to solve external problems.
Despite these efforts, it seems safe still to say that organizational social capital needs to be better
understood, better integrated, and further researched. This could be decisive for public relations practice.
Øyvind Ihlen
See also Bourdieu, Pierre, and Public Relations; Fully Functioning Society Theory; Public Relations; Relationship
Management Theory
Further Readings
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of
education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood.
Coleman, J. S. (1998). Foundations of social theory.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Field, J. (2008). Social capital (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Hazelton, V., & Kennan, W. (2000). Social capital: Reconceptualizing the bottom line. Corporate
Communications: An International Journal, 5(2), 81–86.
Ihlen, Ø. (2005). The power of social capital: Adapting Bourdieu to the study of public relations. Public Relations
Review, 31, 492–496.
Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Luoma-aho, V. (2009). On Putnam: Bowling together— Applying Putnam’s theories of community and social
capital to public relation. In Ø. Ihlen, B. van Ruler, &
M. Fredriksson (Eds.), Public relations and social theory: Key figures and concepts (pp. 231–251). New York:
Routledge.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Touchstone.
Sommerfeldt, E. J., & Taylor, M. (2011). A social capital approach to improving public relations’ efficacy: Diagnosing
internal constraints on external communication. Public Relations Review, 37, 197–206.
SOcial cOnStructiOn Of reality theOry

The social construction of reality theory contends that reality is socially constructed and that the
sociology of knowledge must scrutinize the manner in which this occurs. From this orientation, Peter L.
Berger and Thomas Luckmann in 1967 described reality as a quality related to phenomena that
humans recognized as having a being
840 Social Construction of Reality Theory
independent of their own volition and described knowledge as the certainty that phenomena are real and
possess specific characteristics. In essence, people conceive their distinctive social realities through
contact and interaction with others.
Building on the work of Alfred Schutz, Berger and Luckmann argued that the reasonableness of knowledge
in everyday life presents itself as a reality interpreted by individuals and subjectively meaningful for them
as a rational and coherent perspective. From the perspective of a social construction of reality theory, the
domain of everyday life is not only taken for granted as reality by members of society in the subjectively
meaningful conduct of their lives, but it is a world that originates in people’s thoughts and behaviors, and is
maintained as real by the objectifications of subjective processes and meanings by which the intersubjective
commonsense world is constructed.
A large amount of public relations research comes from the traditional theoretical position known as
objectivism. This perspective operates on the assumption that awareness, knowledge, behavioral intentions,
and behaviors are a given in nature, essentially uncontaminated by social factors.
On the other hand, a social constructionist orientation is a generally accepted and growing per-
spective in the field of public relations, arguing that public relations claims are subject to social
interpretation and negotiation. From a rhetorical perspective to public relations, it is through dialogue
that participants identify, create, and manage meaning by the rhetorical processes of statement and
counterstatement. The study of public relations in this sense seeks to advance marketplace and public
policy discourse by pursuing organizational responsibility and discourse that lead to the co-creation,
comanagement, or codefinition of meaning (zones of meaning) that resolve fact, value, and policy issues
for a fully functioning society. From a public relations perspective that appreciates and incorporates
social constructionist perspectives, steeped in rhetorical traditions, public relations can help individuals
and groups from lay persons to decision makers understand, critique, and employ socially constructed,
value-laden choices.
For public relations scholars and practitioners, social construction of reality theory raises questions
about whether the differences among key
stakeholders’ realities may not be understood in relation to various differences among the multiple publics
and stakeholders. Numerous communication and public relations scholars contend that communication
cannot be considered and realized without an appreciation for the interpretations communicators bring to
symbolic discourse; other- wise the study of human communication, including public relations, is limited
to mechanistic analysis.
Language, as such, is the means by which people function on two levels: that of their individual
thoughts and the realization that others’ thoughts have similar meanings and interpretations. By
concentrating on language and the subsequent symbolic meaning, public relations research can provide
insight on relationships between words and issues, and between content and meaning, as well as by
examining how interaction transpires regarding issues development.
Communication and public relations scholars examine the social construction of reality through the
scrutiny of symbols and meaning within the substance of messages constructed and shared by
organizations with key stakeholders. It is through these messages (symbols) that people create, man-
age, and share interpretations of reality through social interaction, which allows society to function by
the sharing and giving of meaning to physical and social realities. Ultimately, this sharing provides a
footing for cooperative behavior through social reality—the understanding each person has of what
other people know.
It was Berger and Luckmann’s contention that the sociology of knowledge must concern itself with
whatever passes for knowledge in a society, created by individuals and groups within that society,
regardless of the ultimate validity or inva- lidity of such knowledge or the criteria used to evaluate such
knowledge. This human knowledge, or perception, is identified, developed, rational- ized, maintained,
and altered in social situations. As if almost directly speaking to public relations scholars, they argued
that the sociology of knowledge must seek to understand the processes of social construction in a
manner that taken- for-granted everyday experiences (reality) easily functions for people.
Communication theories abound in public relations literature, and the concept of socially constructed
knowledge and perceptions permeates the
Social Construction of Reality Theory 841
field’s literature. A limited list of theories developed from this perspective include social cognition theory,
social exchange theory, social identity theory, social judgment-involvement theory, social learning- social
cognitive theory, social penetration theory, and the broader category of social theories of media effects.
For example, the relevance of mass communication studies to public relations is bound up with socially
constructed realities; because mass communication is bound up with society, it is strongly influenced by the
immediate circumstances of culture, history, and society. The forms of the symbolic environment, though
socially constructed, are often reflected in and perceived through mass media.
Within risk communication studies, social constructionist concepts treat risk as social con- structs that
are determined by structural forces in society. Issues such as trust, control, and fair- ness among others
are reconstructed from the beliefs and rationalities of people in society, and these social constructions
reflect the interests and values of the individuals and the shared meaning of terms, cultural artifacts, and
natural phenomena among groups. In a sense, what individuals and societies choose to call risky is
largely determined by the social and cultural construction of perceptions, rather than some objective
nature.
Within organizational studies, it is often viewed within organizational legitimacy research as a complex
process of a socially constructed reality, based on localized social norms and values. In the science and
health communication field, numerous researchers have examined media coverage of scientific findings
as socially constructed. Many researchers in the field of sociology of ignorance argue that scientists’
claims regarding knowledge are either inherently social or at least partially subject to social processes.
Though not specifically coining this theory, aspects of social construction theory can be traced back to
at least Plato’s famous cave analogy, where the prisoners not only see shadows or reflections, but their
knowledge of the people outside the cave is also created by shared perceptions. This shared, socially
constructed perception is a result of their discourse about those shadows and reflections.
Building from the lead of philosophers and historians like Nietzsche, Dewey, Heidegger,
Wittgenstein, Scheler, and Kuhn, social construction theorists generally accept the claim that knowledge is
socially determined and constructed. Earlier this century, Walter Lippmann discussed similar important
aspects of the social construction of reality in describing how democracy works and the role of public
opinion within the democratic system. Lippmann in 1922 argued that “man is no Aris- totelian god
contemplating all existence at one glance” but rather develops views of the world based on the “behavior
of other human beings, in so far as that behavior crosses ours, is dependent upon us, or is interesting to
us” (p. 18). The individual and collective sense of reality is ultimately constructed by our experiences
and relationships with others who also shape our experiences.
Ultimately, the social construction of reality theory argues against a purely objective sense of
perception. Knowledge is not something that exists only as part of our cognitive functions and is only
learned from informative communication. Rather, the construction of discourse is created through social
interaction, and that discourse can only be recognized after it becomes routine of the normative
conventions that form the social communities in which societies function and live.
Michael J. Palenchar
See also Perspectivism Theory; Risk Communication; Social Exchange Theory
Further Readings
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge.
New York: Doubleday.
Heath, R. L. (2000). A rhetorical enactment rationale for public relations: The good organization communicating well.
In R. L. Heath (Ed.), Handbook of public relations (pp. 31–50). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Heath, R. L., & Bryant, J. (2000). Human communication theory and research: Concepts, contexts, and challenges
(2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kent, T. (1993). Formalism, social construction, and the problem of interpretive authority. In N. R. Blyler &
C. Thralls (Eds.), Professional communication: The social perspective (pp. 79–91). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Lippmann, W. (2009). Public opinion. New York: Classic Books. (Originally published 1922)
842 Social Exchange Theory
SOcial exchange theOry

Social exchange theory adapts microeconomic theory to a wide variety of exchanges between people and
groups. Indeed, social exchange theory is not one theory but several theories that describe the emergent
properties of social interaction. Social exchange theory has been invoked to explain how social
relationships form, expand, and dete- riorate. These theories have also been applied to characterize
relationships between individual stakeholders and organizations.
Social exchange differs from economic exchange in that it is relatively informal. It involves obliga- tions
that cannot be specified in advance and, compared to economic exchange, has a longer time horizon.
Unlike economic exchange, the elements of social exchange are quite varied and cannot be reduced to a
single monetary exchange rate. Social exchange thus requires greater trust that others will honor their
promises. Social exchange also contrasts with economic exchange in that it tends to foster feelings of
personal obligation and grati- tude that are usually absent in exchanges that are purely economic.
Simple social exchange models assume that the rewards and costs of an association drive relationship
decisions. When relationship rewards exceed costs, a party typically moves toward expanding the
exchange in a relationship. When costs exceed rewards, the person may freeze the exchange or terminate
the relationship. In a mutually beneficial relationship, each party supplies resources that the other party
wants that have less value to the pro- vider than the resources that are received from the other party. Such
an exchange results in mutual relationship satisfaction and stability.
Why, then, do people often put up with less- than-satisfactory relationships? John Thibaut and Harold
Kelly (1959) proposed two comparison standards to differentiate between relationship satisfaction and
relationship stability. Relationship satisfaction increases when the balance of rewards and costs in the
relationship exceeds the person’s comparison level. A person’s comparison level is based on social norms, a
person’s past experience in relationships, or social observation. When the reward cost ratio falls beneath
comparison level expectations, the person is dissatisfied with the
relationship. Parties to the same relationship may have rather different comparison levels and thus
different expectations regarding what is a satisfactory relationship.
Relationship stability is determined by how a relationship compares with the comparison level of
alternatives. This standard reflects the level of profits that the person thinks are available in alternative
relationships. If a current relationship is perceived to be more profitable than available alternative
relationships, then that party will likely stay with the relationship.
Combining the two comparison standards, one can distinguish between four kinds of relationships. In a
still-born relationship profits fall beneath both the person’s comparison level and comparison level of
alternatives. The person will likely be dissatisfied with the relationship and perceive better available
alternatives. Such a relationship will likely be termi- nated. In an unstable relationship, the relationship
compares favorably with one’s comparison level but compares unfavorably with one’s comparison level of
alternatives. The person is satisfied with the target relationship but considers an alternative relationship to be
more attractive. A malaised relationship compares unfavorably with the comparison level but is rated as
better than the perceived alternatives. Such a relationship will be stable even though the person is dissatisfied
with it. A blissful relationship exceeds both comparison standards and is characterized by both relationship
satisfaction and stability.
An important extension of social exchange theory is found in Caryl Rusbult’s 1987 investment model.
This model posited that the greater the nontransferable investments that a person has in a relationship,
the more stable the relationship will be. In this view, relationship commitment or stability is a function
of relationship satisfaction plus relationship investment minus perceived alternatives. A person may
find she has a great deal invested in a relationship and is thus reluctant to terminate it. She may pour
additional resources into the relationship and attempt to salvage her endangered investments. The
investment model has been applied to types of relationships of interest to public relations practitioners
such as employment and customer associations.
The importance of relationship investment is illustrated in the tenets of relationship marketing.
Relationship marketing theorists advocated a
Social Exchange Theory 843
differentiated and unique relationship with each customer via the use of computer databases and
information processing technologies. According to Don Peppers and Martha Rogers (1997), the customer
tells the firm what he wants. The firm makes it and remembers the customer’s prefer- ences for the next
time. The “learning relationship between a customer and an enterprise gets smarter and smarter with
every individual interaction, defining in ever more detail, the customer’s own individual needs and tastes”
(p. 15). The increasing degree of convenience represents a customer investment that will be lost if he
deserts to a com- petitor. Peppers and Rogers wrote, “The learning relationship creates what is, essentially
a barrier that makes it more difficult for a customer to be promiscuous than to be loyal” (p. 15).
Social exchange theory also investigates how parties respond when they experience relationship
dissatisfaction. Rusbult (1987) described four generic options that parties can employ in response to an
event that triggers relationship dissatisfaction. Exit consists of leaving the relationship. It is a likely
response when people have few investments, low prior relationship satisfaction, and perceive available
alternate relationships. Voice consists of various communicative responses in which a party brings up the
relational problem and seeks redress or relationship repair. Loyalty consists of increasing one’s
commitment to the relationship without making the dissatisfaction the focus of communication. The
loyalty and voice options are typically exercised when a party is satisfied with the relationship and is
highly invested in it. The neglect option tends to be exercised when relationship satisfaction is low, but
the person perceives few alternatives.
Social exchange theories enable one to describe power dynamics in a relationship. When levels of
interdependence in a relationship are low, both parties have little influence over each other. As the levels
of relational interdependence increase, the influence of each party increases. The relative balance of
dependencies within a relationship determines the distribution of influence within the relationship. The
person who is more dependent on the relationship will have less power. The person who is less
dependent on the relationship will have more influence within the relationship. In organizational
contexts, a party gains power to
the degree that he helps the organization obtain a critical resource or manage an important threat. If he
is able to control access to and use of such resources, this control translates into considerable influence
and power. One can increase his influence by incrementally increasing the organization’s dependence
on the key resource (Pfeffer, 1981).
Relationship management theory in public relations is derived from social exchange theory. In this
work, the organization–stakeholder relationship is the unit of analysis. Considerable work has been
devoted to measuring dimensions of organization– public relationships. For instance, Samsup Jo (2006)
found that trust, relationship satisfaction, and relational commitment were the primary factors of
organization–public relationships in a Korean retail setting, thereby highlighting core social exchange
concepts. Parallel work has differentiated various types of organization–public relationships (Hung, 2005).
This work is important because it identifies types of exploitative and one-sided relationships in addition to
those that involve high levels of mutual- ity. This corrects for an implicit “positivity” that characterized some
of the early work using the relationship management metaphor. Scholars have also explored organizations’
attempt to cultivate and maintain organization–stakeholder relationships (e.g., Ki & Hon, 2009).
Social exchange theories continue to make important contributions to public relations scholarship.
The contribution, however, need not be con- fined to the individual organization–stakeholder
relationships. For instance, Robert L. Heath in 2006 integrated social exchange theory with systems
theory and rhetorical theory to develop a normative model of how public relations should contribute to a
fully functioning society. This involves debating, negotiating, and harmonizing the interests of
organizations, stakeholders, and the larger public interest as society confronts issues of risk
management. In summary, social exchange theories continue to contribute to the ongoing conversation
about what role public relations does and should play in society.
Greg Leichty
See also Issues Management; Relationship Management Theory; Resource Dependency Theory
844 Social Learning Theory
Further Readings
Heath, R. L. (2006). Onward into more fog: Thoughts on public relations directions. Journal of Public Relations
Research, 18, 93–114.
Huang, Y. (2001). OPRA: A cross-cultural, multiple-item scale for measuring organization-public relationships. Journal
of Public Relations Research, 13, 61–90.
Hung, C. (2005). Exploring types of organization-public relationships and their implications for relationship
management in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 17, 393–425.
Jo, S. (2006). Measurement of organization-public relationships: Validation of a measurement using a manufacturer-
retailer relationship. Journal of Public Relations Research, 18, 225–248.
Ki, E., & Hon, L. (2009). A measure of relationship cultivation strategies. Journal of Public Relations Research,
21, 1–24.
Peppers, D., & Rogers, M. (1997). Enterprise one to one: Tools for competing in an interactive age. New York:
Doubleday.
Pfeffer, J. (1981) Power in organizations. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
Rusbult, C. E. (1987). Responses to dissatisfaction in close relationships: The exit-voice-loyalty-neglect model. In
D. Perlman & S. W. Duck (Eds.), Intimate relationships: Development, dynamics and deterioration (pp. 209–
238). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. (1986). The social psychology of groups. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. (Originally
published 1959)
SOcial learning theOry

Social learning theory (also called social cognitive theory) is a general theory of learning that explains
how people not only learn directly through their own trial-and-error efforts but also through observation
of other’s behaviors and the positive or negative outcomes of those behaviors. The theoretical
foundations of social learning theory can be found in the work of Albert Bandura. According to his principles
of social learning theory, people learn to perform behaviors by observing others and subsequently
modeling those behaviors. For this reason, the learning process is referred to as modeling, observational
learning, or vicarious learning. Social learning theory holds that behavior should be con- ceived in the
broad sense to include both overt
(observable) as well as covert (emotions and thoughts) behaviors. In addition, Bandura’s 1978 principle of
reciprocal determinism (also called reciprocal causation) claims that a person’s behavior, personal
characteristics (including cognitions and feelings), and environment interact with and affect one another
to influence behavior.
Four factors account for social learning: (1) attention, (2) retention, (3) behavior reproduction, and
(4) motivation. The first factor is attention. In order to learn from the model’s behavior, the individual
must pay attention to that behavior. Failure to attend to the behavior means the behavior process
cannot be encoded in memory. The second factor, retention, is necessarily dependent on the first factor.
Visual as well as verbal elements of the behavior performance must be stored and recalled at another
time. In addition to storing the performance, the person retains the consequences of that behavior. Was
the behavior rewarded or punished by valued others? Remembering that a particular behavior was
rewarded and another behavior was punished will increase the likelihood that the rewarded behavior
will be enacted. Cognitive rehearsal of the behavior and outcomes aids retention. The third factor is
reproduction of the observed behavior. The individual must have the physical or verbal skills or both as
well as knowledge needed to effectively replicate the desired behavior. The person must understand the
circumstances that led the behavior to be rewarded as well as how to enact the behavior. The final
factor is motivation, which is related to the individual’s internal mental states. An individual may recall
how to perform an action but choose not to repro- duce it. Motivation can stem from both internal and
external factors. Internal factors include the individual’s emotion states, personal characteristics (e.g.,
risk aversion, extroversion), and feelings of self-efficacy, as well as imagined outcomes— rewards or
punishments—for performing the behavior. An individual’s motivation to produce the behavior will
increase when anticipated positive rewards, whether internal (such as feelings of mastery or self-
reinforcement) or external (such as tangible awards or verbal phrase) are contingent upon the behavior
performance. Recalling that the model received desired positive reinforcement for performing the
behavior also should enhance motivation.
Social Marketing 845
The role of self-efficacy in social learning has attracted attention from researchers interested in
modifying people’s motivations to enact desired behaviors. Self-efficacy expectations refer to beliefs that
one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce particular outcomes (Bandura, 1977b).
Self-efficacy is important to behavior reproduction because it affects whether the person will attempt to
perform the potentially rewarding behavior, how much effort the person will exert to perform a behavior,
and how long the person may persevere in trying to enact the behavior. Enhanc- ing a person’s self-efficacy
expectations should increase the likelihood of behavior enactment.
Social learning theory has been applied in studies of media effects to explain why people model what
they see, read, or hear in the media. The theory can be used to account for behaviors that are consistent
with as well as contrary to main- stream norms. Because valued others can be the model as well as the
sources of reinforcement for behavior performance, both prosocial and antisocial behaviors may be
modeled and reinforced. For example, a person may learn how to smoke a marijuana cigarette by
watching a friend smoke and receiving positive social feedback when smoking. In contrast, a person may
learn to model behaviors depicted in a public service announcement that demonstrate how to decline a
friend’s invitation to use marijuana. Research in the media effects tradition often has been directed toward
understanding why people model dangerous behaviors (e.g., stunts or violence) and how to counter the
likelihood of enacting the behaviors (e.g., warnings such as “don’t try this at home” or “professional actor
on a closed track”).
Social learning theory has many applications in public relations, ranging from social marketing campaigns
to effective risk prevention efforts. By presenting models that target publics can identify with, effectively
demonstrating how to engage in desirable healthy behaviors or how to avoid unde- sirable risk-provoking
behaviors, and showing positive outcomes that ensue from the desired behavior, public relations
practitioners encourage publics to learn strategies and tactics for enacting the target behaviors. Thus the
theory holds implications for the effective design of campaigns designed to influence behavior. Recent social
marketing campaigns aimed at decreasing bullying in schools and
increasing physical activity among young people provide examples of campaigns that rely on obser-
vational learning to teach appropriate behavior.
Criticisms of social learning theory include the inability to predict precisely the impact of a model on
behaviors. For example, the role of valued others as models and reinforcers may be difficult to
establish. Valued others may be actual or imagined. This complicates the prediction of which factors
will be seen as positive reinforcers by different people. The complexity of the relationships between
behavior, personal characteristics, and social environment, called reciprocal determinism, makes it
difficult to predict a specific constellation of factors that will produce desired behaviors for members
of a target public (Bandura, 1978).
Sherry J. Holladay
See also Efficacy/Self-Efficacy; Learning Theory; Reinforcement Theory; Social Marketing; Word of Mouth Marketing
Further Readings
Bandura, A. (1977a). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1977b). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–
215.
Bandura, A. (1978). The self system in reciprocal determinism. American Psychologist, 33(4), 344–358.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
SOcial marketing
Social marketing evolved from the discipline of marketing and focuses on the use of marketing concepts
and techniques to promote social causes and to counter antisocial behavior. It differs from commercial
marketing by its emphasis on achieving social change and the well-being, health, and safety of the
community rather than on increasing sales, profits, and value for shareholders. Social marketers promote
such outcomes as health, environmental protection, animal welfare, human rights, freedom, and other
common good issues. They
846 Social Marketing
conduct educational campaigns, usually funded by nonprofit organizations and government agencies, aimed
at solving social problems (e.g., obesity, smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, road safety, sun protection, birth
control, immunization, and responsible parenting, as well as clean-up and recycling).
Core principles of social marketing include clear behavioral change goals, an attempt to segment
audiences and reach out to specific target audiences with specifically designed messages and
intervention programs, an effort to increase incen- tives and remove barriers to behavior change, and
systematic measurement of intervening programs and campaigns’ impact. In many cases, social mar-
keting campaigns seek to influence decision makers and legislation to achieve individual behavior
changes as well as societal structural changes.
Since its introduction by marketing scholars Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman in 1971, social marketing as
an academic discipline has consis- tently ignored relevant and useful public relations theories and concepts.
Inspired by commercial marketing, health education, and health communication theory, social marketing
still lacks a discipline-specific theory framework. In a process of “reinventing the wheel” social marketing
literature uses terms such as media advocacy to describe what public relations calls media relations and
upstream movement to describe the public relations function of lobbying. The different terminology
describes similar professional tools. In reality, the two relatively young disciplines overlap: Social marketing
campaigns involve public relations practices, and many public relations practitioners provide services to
social marketing programs. Both work to build relationships with specific stakeholders based on persuasive
communication, understanding, and trust. However, the academic disciplines have ignored each other, and
it was not until after 2000 before public relations textbooks started to refer to social marketing as a
relevant field.
The reservation social marketing scholars have about public relations might be explained by the
controversial reputation and perceived unethical image of the profession. Their rare comments on public
relations tend to see it as an ineffective effort to put a gloss on messages and to promote the organization
rather than to solve social issues. Some identify the contribution of public relations as limited to the stage
of “raising awareness” about
social problems and sometimes influencing attitudes. They do not position public relations as
significant in attempts to influence behavior change. That change is the bottom line for social marketing.
Social marketing could benefit a great deal from the superior experience and knowledge that public
relations has in overlapping areas—particularly in terms of cost-effective methods, theories that can
augment the marketing mix, and public relations’ longer track record in education and research. Public
relations educators could similarly benefit from the inclusion of social marketing as part of the core
curriculum. The emphasis of social marketing on the use of research to understand client motivation to
maintain or change a behavior, and its creative approach to intervention programs could enrich public
relations practice as well as its body of knowledge. Following social marketing prosocial aims and ethical
intent could enhance public relations’ reputation.
Social marketing is often confused with social media and online networking and with the concepts of
corporate social responsibility and societal marketing that relate to specific business practices.
Businesses might conduct social marketing campaigns that are aimed at prosocial causes but even-
tually result in improved organizational image and increase in sales and profits. Thus a sportswear brand
has a vested interest in promoting active lifestyle and a beauty products company benefits from a
campaign that promotes positive body image in young women to reduce anorexia. Social marketing
differs from the organization-centered approach of public relations. In many cases, social marketing has
to compete with messages delivered by public relations practitioners in the business sector that promote
consumerism and the consumption of alcohol or tobacco, fat and sugary products, lottery, and so on.
From Alan R. Andreasen’s 2006 point of view, social marketing ought to be identified mainly as the
domain of government and nonprofit organizations, especially health promotion, and with improving
citizens’ quality of life. Genuine social marketing campaigns are funded by public resources and are
accountable to public interest groups.
Social marketing research has been growing with active research centers and projects affiliated with
universities and Ministries of Health. The
Social Media 847
international peer-reviewed magazine Social Mar- keting Quarterly (SMQ), which started in 1994,
provides a stage for scholarly publications. The International Journal of Non-Profit & Voluntary Sector
Marketing and the Journal of Health Com- munication provide other outlets for the development of the
discipline. Alongside publishing, opportunities for the exchange of ideas and experiences have developed
in the last decade by newly formed associations in Europe, the United States, and Australasia. However, in
terms of teaching, the discipline’s scope is limited. This is changing as more elective papers on social
marketing are included in marketing, management, and communication degrees.
Margalit Toledano
See also Cause-Related Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Goals; Marketing; Objectives
Further Readings
Andreasen, A. R. (2006). Social marketing in the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (2010). PR Strategy and applications: Managing influence. West Sussex UK: Wiley
Blackwell.
Donovan, R., & Henley, N. (2010). Principles and practice of social marketing: An international perspective.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hastings, G. (2007). Social marketing: Why should the devil have all the best tunes? Burlington, MA: Butterworth-
Heinemann.
Kotler, P., & Lee, N. (2008). Social marketing: Influencing behaviors for good (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kotler, P., & Zaltman, G. (1971). Social marketing: An approach to planned social change. Journal of Marketing,
35(3), 3–12.
McKie, D., & Toledano, M. (2008). Dangerous liaison or perfect match? Public relations and social marketing. Public
Relations Review, 34(4), 318–344.
SOcial media
Social media provide the ultimately networked communication hub of dialogue, relationship management,
and information creation and dissemination in
digital and mobile environments. Social media com- bine the use of innovative strategies with digital
communication technology platforms, enabling users to share knowledge; engage in digital storytell- ing
through conversations and visual components; collaborate with others; engage in crowdsourcing tasks and
contribute ideas to solve problems; conduct strategic monitoring and analytic analysis online; and build
relationships within a community sharing common interests, investments, and needs.
Compared to traditional media, social media are open and accessible, dynamic, modifiable, and
decentralized. Where traditional media feature a primarily one-way dissemination of content, social
media provide means for real two-way or group conversations. The cost of entry to traditional media is
quite high, but social media users create content at very little if any expense. In place of traditional
media’s designated spokespersons, multiple voices from all walks of life produce user- generated
content in social media. To a much greater extent than traditional media, social media create and
maintain networks of personal relationships. Information from traditional media is frequently
delayed, but social media are immediate, breaking barriers of time and location.
Social media feature a wide range of communication channels, including social networking sites
(Facebook and LinkedIn), blogs and microblogs, intranets, podcasts, video sharing (YouTube), photo sharing
and editing networks (Flickr or Instagram), social networking Q&A sites (Quora), collaborative websites
(Wikipedia and Scholarpedia), virtual worlds (World of Warcraft and Second Life), microblogging or
presence applications (Twitter), social bookmarking (Delicious or Pinterest), and news aggregation and RSS.
Jan H. Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre (2011) wrote that each
social media site focuses on one or several of seven major functions: identity, conversation, sharing,
presence, relationships, reputation, and groups.
Social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, can be internal or external in their
specialization of audiences. Social networking sites are particularly influential sources of user-generated
content. Social networking sites can be defined as “(1) web-based services that allow individuals to
construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,
848 Social Media
(2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list
of connections and those made by others within the system” (boyd & Ellison, 2008, p. 211). Individuals
share their statuses with others on newsfeeds, initiating dialogue with posts and shares on their status
wall, and participate in conversations and other forms of dialogue on profile walls of other users.
Individuals share their insights and statuses with others to spark interest or dialogue with their friends
or to provide content they believe to be helpful or entertaining.
A blog, short for “Web log,” is a collection of individual submissions or posts that usually appear in reverse
chronological order, from more to less recent. Blogs typically contain text, photos, and links to other online
material. Microblogs are blogs in which updates feature limited numbers of characters. Twitter is a leading
microblog site that has become increasingly popular among public relations professionals. Compared to
Facebook, Twitter positions itself as being more specific in the actions and features offered to audiences.
Twitter focuses on simplicity and the ability to use its features in various sources such as mobile, wireless,
and instant message. Although some blogs and microblogs are maintained by professional journalists,
blogging has greatly increased the volume and influence of user- generated content for public relations and
strategic communication professionals.
Videosharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo provide unique visual creation and uploading
opportunities that allow individuals, organizations, or agencies to share their story through videos that
are easily searchable online. Pho- tosharing sites such as Flickr and Instagram represent emerging
platforms for creating, curating, and sharing visual information to a mass audience in the form of still
pictures that are editable. Social bookmarking sites allow users to save and manage documents in various
formats (links, PDFs, videos, tweets, published articles, etc.) from a centralized location. Users also have
the option to assign tags or key words to each of these documents to allow others to search for them or
as a personal reference tool.
Users of social media vary in their level of active participation. Some users actively participate by
creating their own digital content, and interact with others one-to-one or one-to-many on a social
platform. Other users are more passive consumers of information that others share, create, and curate
into a centralized place on a social media platform. Social media have transformed the way businesses
target consumers and how organizations create and implement campaigns. From sharing news articles
through the microblogging website Twitter to networking with friends, professionals, and brands on the
social networking phenomenon Facebook, consumer use of social media outlets is revolutionizing the
public relations profession in the 21st century. Best practices within social media for public relations
and communication profes-
sionals include the following:
 Integrate participation in social media as part of the daily routine, just like checking the news or email.
 Connect with people online and establish strategic relationships with key audiences in positive
situations before any crisis occurs.
 Create engaging dialogues through online channels relevant to audience members.
 Monitor and evaluate the analytics and metrics associated with social media platforms and conversations
for both research and practitioner purposes.
 Be consistent with content across all social media platforms as well as in traditional media outlets.
 Recognize that social media is not for the short term—it is a long-term process and investment.
 Educate your organization and community about social media along with future trends.
 Monitor and evaluate conversations across social media platforms.
 Prepare an evolving social media policy for training and education, and run scenarios and simulations in
real time.
 Manage relationships proactively—be helpful and bring value to the conversation and relationship.
 Maintain proactive online reputation management practices both personally and for the organization.
Karen Freberg
See also Network Theory; Really Simple Syndication; Social Media Press Release; Social Network Analysis; Social
Networking; Social Networks/Niche Networks
Social Network Analysis 849
Further Readings
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-
Mediated Communication, 13, 210–230.
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding
the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54, 241–251.
Wright, D. K., & Hinson, D. H. (2009). An updated look at the impact of social media on public relations practice.
Public Relations Journal, 3(2).
news releases. This technological advancement, along with the development of social media over the
subsequent years, cleared the way for the rise of the social media press release, ushering in new ways for
public relations practitioners to handle content, style, and format. For example, incorporating keywords
into the headline may improve search engine results, helping an organization more quickly reach those
interested in learning about an important announcement.
David Remund
See also Media Relations; Media Release; Search Engine;

SOcial media preSS releaSe
The social media press release is a modern interpretation of the traditional press release, formatted for
the digital age. It is often in the form of a webpage, designed to appeal directly to bloggers and
consumers, as well as reporters and editors. The social media press release enables bloggers and the
general public to find news and share it directly through their online social networks, providing a
complement to the traditional distribution method facilitated by the news media.
Like a traditional press release, the social media press release typically contains a short announcement
written in news style. However, it often includes the same information repackaged into bul- leted points or a
detailed outline. In addition, the social media press release provides further resources, including multimedia
files (high-resolution photos, compressed video, digital audio, graphics), hyperlinks to RSS news feeds and
previous news coverage on the topic, and social media tags. Social media expert Todd Defren is generally
credited with creating in 2006 one of the first known tem- plates for a social media press release.
As Internet use and functionality grew, the traditional press release became less effective. Journalists
wanted more digestible bits of information, along with multimedia elements and links to additional resources
that would help bring a story to life and provide easy access to more depth and context. Additionally, the
launch of Google News in 2002 meant that public relations wire services, such as Marketwire and PR
Newswire, became searchable via the Internet. For the first time, consumers, as well as journalists, could have
immediate access to
Search Engine Optimization; Social Media
Further Readings
Breakenridge, D. K. (2008). PR 2.0: New media, new tools, new audiences. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
Croft, A. C. (2007). Emergence of “new” media moves PR agencies in new directions. Public Relations Quarterly, 52,
16–20.
Defren, T. (2006, May 23). The “social media press release” debuts—download the template today! PRSquared. Retrieved
from http://www.pr-squared
.com/index.php/2006/05/the_social_media_press_release Dubois, L. (2010, November 11). How to write a social
media press release. Inc. Retrieved from http://www
.inc.com/guides/2010/11/how-to-write-a-social-media- press-release.html
Solis, B., & Breakenridge, D. K. (2009). Putting the public back in public relations: How social media is
reinventing the aging business of PR. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
SOcial netwOrk analySiS

Social network analysis (SNA) is the examination of social networks and their behavior through the framework
of network theory. In network theory, networks typically consist of nodes within the network connected
by edges or links. In social networks, the nodes represent individuals, groups, organizations, or larger
social systems. The links connecting the nodes signify relationships such as friendship, kinship,
organizational position, sexual relationship, and so forth. Regardless of the level of social
850 Social Networking
system or type of relationship, SNA seeks to describe the structure and pattern of these relationships
and to understand both their root causes and end consequences. The study of these relationships has
been used throughout anthro- pology, biology, communication studies, social psychology, public relations,
and sociolinguistics to examine network dynamics and locate influential actors within each network. The
study of social networks helps public relations professionals influence perception and spread strategic
messages through a network by identifying and leveraging these influential actors.
Relationships in the network can be directed (“seeks advice from”), undirected (“shares information
with”), positive (love, friendship, alliance, partnership), or negative (hatred, anger, rivalry). Network
analysis can involve the qualitative study of these connections or a quantitative study of the number of
relationships, regardless of how good or bad they are.
Clusters are used to identify and classify groups in a social network. A cluster is a tightly knit, highly
bonded group both belonging to and distinct from the larger network. Identifying clusters has become
one of the most important applications of SNA. As Amazon has demonstrated with its algorithms that
show what other customers who bought certain items also bought, sales can be improved by identifying
these linked groups in the larger network. To identify clusters, analysts often look at relationship density.
A node’s or actor’s density is the number of links that connect that node or actor to a group of interest
divided by the maximum possible number of links that could exist from that node or actor. The closer the
density is to 1, the more connected that node or actor is to the rest of the network.
Analysts try to find the bridgers and the hubs in the network to best analyze network behavior. Bridgers are
individuals who have connections in multiple clusters, and thereby bridge distinct sub- groups in a network.
This connection makes them important relay points between clusters. Bridgers are often overlooked because
their significance is not obvious from their density. A better metric is betweenness centrality, a measure
that calculates the number of shortest paths to other nodes that pass through that node. Analysts also use
network constraint. An individual’s network constraint measures how many links a node has with other
nodes that are already connected to each other. High betweenness centrality and low network con-
straint indicate bridgers.
Hubs are individuals within a social network who have the most influence, or are sought after by
other network members. They are best measured using in-degree centrality, or counting the number of
directed links (“seeks advice from”) as opposed to undirected links (“shares information with”) from
other nodes to the hub node. More advanced metrics count not only the number of directed links but also
how influential the nodes seeking the hub node are in the network.
Kristin Saling
See also Knowledge Networks; Media Networks; Network Theory; Social Networking
Further Readings
Carrington, P. J., Scott, J., & Wasserman, S. (Eds.). (2005). Models and methods in social network analysis.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Scott, J. (2000). Social network analysis: A handbook
(2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1999). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
SOcial netwOrking
Social networking has become popular over the last few years and can be understood as the grouping
of individuals into specific circles. Any communication channel that allows for two-way interaction can
be used for social networking. Social networking is based on a network structure that allows people to
both express their individuality and meet people with similar interests. That can be done in person but
is often conducted online. Social networking has revolutionized the way people communicate and share
information.
Social networks have evolved into online communities used by millions of people on a daily basis.
Websites are commonly used for social networking; they are known as social sites, connecting members
in this online community. Many of these online community members are professional
Social Networks/Niche Networks 851
acquaintances, friends, or just individuals who share common interests in hobbies, religion, poli- tics, for
example. Once a person has access to a social networking website, he or she can begin to socialize. This
socialization may include reading profile pages of other members or contacting and connecting with them.
Social networking sites incorporate email type messaging, instant messaging (IM), and chat. Many social
networking sites allow for file sharing, blogging, photo and video publishing, and the ability to incorporate
content from other platforms.
The first basis for social networking that
Further Readings
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210–230.
Brown, R. (2009). Public relations and the social Web: How to use social media and Web 2.0 in communications.
Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page.
Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2010). Web 2.0: How to for educators. Washington, DC: International Society for
Technology in Education.
caught the public’s attention was the means to
connect with former classmates. Classmates.com was launched in the United States in 1995 and acquired
over 40 million users in a little over 10 years. An equally successful site, Reunion.com started in 2002 and
expanded the Classmates.com objective to beyond the classroom. Friendster and Myspace were two of the
most popular early social networking sites that connected individuals with friends, coworkers, or others
with similar interests online. Facebook, launched in 2004, is the most popular social networking site with
over 900 million users.
The friends that people can make are just one of the many benefits of social networking online.
Diversity is another benefit because the Internet gives individuals from all over the world the ability to
connect online through social networking sites. This means that although users are in one country, they
can develop an online friendship with individuals from other countries. This enables learning about
different communities and cultures.
Social networking sites have become increasingly popular over the past few years because of their high
level of engagement and reach. Conse- quently, this is one of the main reasons they have become of such
interest to public relations practitioners and marketers. Businesses and organizations are able to
communicate directly with stakeholders through social networks. In addition, they are able to receive
feedback and comments from stakeholders as well. The relationship development potential that social
networking sites provide is enormous and continues to grow.
Melissa W. Graham
See also Social Media; Web 2.0

SOcial netwOrkS/ niche netwOrkS
Social networking sites (SNS) are the most widely used form of social media and describe platforms such
as Facebook and LinkedIn (and, traditionally MySpace). In 2012, Facebook had 901 million users, and
LinkedIn reported 175 million users. Social networking sites are used to (re)connect with friends and
acquaintances as is the case for Facebook and professional contacts for LinkedIn. For organizations and
public relations practitioners, SNS offer the opportunity to communicate with constituencies via a
direct-to-consumer approach.
For organizational use of SNS, Facebook Pages and LinkedIn, Company Pages are created to com-
municate broadly with constituencies who “follow” or subscribe to updates from an organization.
Facebook Pages are often aimed at evangelists or those who subscribe based on a shared interest in the
organization and may serve as third-party endorsers for organizations. LinkedIn Pages, on the other
hand, are aimed at professionals who have similar business interests and are interested in learning more
or discussing industry and topical issues. Importantly, the individuals who follow LinkedIn Pages already
have an interest in the organization and its mission or content. Users are not typically recruited through
contests, promo- tions, or amusing content as is generally the case with Facebook Pages.
As a result of the volume of users of major SNS, niche networks formed as a specialized subset of
users. Niche networks focus on a shared interest (e.g., alumni groups or dog lovers). Facebook
852 Socialization Theory
Groups were designed to be more intimate than Facebook Pages and are often invite-only groups
that resemble niche networks in purpose. Similarly, LinkedIn Groups generally focus on past and
present employees and members of an organization, professional organizations, or users who
share similar business interests.
Although they differ in purpose, Facebook and LinkedIn as social networks share the following
features:
Profile: Both Facebook and LinkedIn allow organizations to create a customized profile page. The profile
photo will generally be the organization’s logo, and basic information will be included as descriptive
content.
Posts/Status updates: Posts refer to the regularly posted content on behalf of the organization to include
key messages and promotional content.
Comments: Comments refer to the posts made by followers of a page, either in response to a post
made by the organization or on its own.
Organizations should always allow users to leave comments on SNS because disabling the comment
function restricts dialogue and transparency.
Organizations should respond to applicable comments within a timely manner. Depending on the
communication staff’s capabilities, it is appropriate to respond to comments within one hour to one
day. Negative comments and customer service queries are unavoidable for many organizations on SNS.
Handling such comments is a delicate situation; however, if handled properly, it offers communicators
the opportunity to create evangelists and brand loyalty. Staff may either respond directly to comments or
may direct a participant to a private conversation (direct message).
Identification: Organizations can identify with other groups and organizations on Facebook and
LinkedIn. An organization may want to publicly affiliate with a nonprofit organization or cause they
are supporting on Facebook. Or, an organization may join and contribute expertise to a relevant
industry or topical group on LinkedIn.
Melissa D. Dodd

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Motor de căutare Search engine

Using Search Engines More Effectively

1. Use multiple keywords—sometimes a dozen or more.

Search engine OptimizatiOn

advisors, mutual funds, and public utility holding companies.

Jeong-Nam Kim and Arunima Krishna

See also Media Release; Online Public Relations

Importance to Public Relations Practitioners

Conducting a Situation Analysis

A method of identifying a company’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to the environmental

1. Mission: Organization mission statement, charter, bylaws

External factors that may be analyzed include the following:

Situational Theory of Publics

Situational Communicant Activeness in Problem Solving

Figure 1 Situational Theory of Publics and Situational Theory of Problem Solving

SituatiOnal theOry Of publicS

SOcial amplificatiOn Of riSk

Strands of Research on Social Capital

Public Relations and Social Capital

SOcial cOnStructiOn Of reality theOry

See also Perspectivism Theory; Risk Communication; Social Exchange Theory

SOcial exchange theOry

SOcial learning theOry

See also Media Relations; Media Release; Search Engine;

SOcial netwOrk analySiS

See also Social Media; Web 2.0

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