Ch. 9-13 Flashcards
What is public opinion?
Opinions on controversial issues that one can express in public without isolating oneself.
A collection of views held by persons interested in the subject.
What is the definition of an opinion leader? (5)
- Highly interested in a subject or issue
- Better informed on an issue than the average person
- Avid consumers of mass media
- Early adopters of new ideas, and
- Good organizers who can get other people to take action.
Two types of opinion leaders: formal opinion leaders or power leaders- (elected officials, presidents of companies, heads of membership groups.)
What are some of the uses of persuasion in PR? (3)
- Change or neutralize hostile opinions
- Crystallize latent opinions and positive attitudes
- Conserve favorable opinions
What is the difference between persuasion and propaganda?
Propaganda is the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.
Persuasion is an activity or process in which the communicator attempts to induce a change in a person’s belief/attitude through the transmission of a message in a context in which the persuadee has some degree of free choice.
Propaganda should be used only to denote activity that sells a belief system or constitutes political or ideological dogma.
Persuasion is trying to convince someone to change his mind while propaganda is forcing someone to change his mind or else something bad will happen.
What is the conflict management life cycle? (4)
- Proactive Phase– thought processes that can prevent a conflict from arising or from getting out of hand; preparing for the worst.
- Strategic Phase– risk communication, crisis management plan
- Reactive Phase –issue has reached a critical level. PR must react to events in the external communication environment
- Recovery Phase – employ strategies to repair its reputation in the eyes of the key publics
What are the strategies for responding to a crisis? (7)
- Attack the accuser
- Denial
- Excuse
- Justification
- Ingratiation
- Corrective Action
- Full apology
What are the strategies for responding to a crisis? (7)
- Attack the accuser
- Denial
- Excuse
- Justification
- Ingratiation
- Corrective Action
- Full apology
Discuss the strategies for image restoration.
- Quickly disclose the details of a scandal or corporate misstep
- Make progress/recovery visible
- Analyze what went wrong
- Improve governance structure
- Make CEO and leadership accessible to media
- Fire employees involved with problem
- Commit to high corporate citizenship standards
- Carefully review ethics policy
- Hire outside auditors for internal audits
- Issue an apology from CEO
