Some Essential Systems Theory
The PR practitioner's job is to produce messages that connect and align the stakeholders' goals and interests in mutually beneficial ways. Some theory can help explain.
Public relations is best understood from a systems perspective. Systems theory says that all organizations are systems. Each system is made up of subsystems and exists within larger suprasystems. You can imagine it looking something like this.
The blue lines on the diagram represent communication that links various components, otherwise known as publics, to one another. These communication links are public relations.
- Some publics are internal (members, employees, departments), some are external (communities, regulators, customers), but they are always connected through communication.
- A change in any one component impacts all of the other components so coordinating and aligning goals and behaviors is very important.
Let's make this more specific to really illustrate what I mean. If I want to take a look at a university as an organization, imagining it as a system is one way to look at it.
- So, one of the green circles represents my university, let's call it A-University, or AU.
- AU exists within and is impacted by suprasystems, like the state who funds it or the agency who accredits it. So let's say the purple circle represents the state of Illinois (where I live).
- Now the state of Illinois has many state universities so the second and third green circles represents B-University and C-University. A change at any point in the systems can impact the others so they are important too. For example, If CU cuts their tuition in half, it is likely to have an impact on AU and BU enrollment.
- My university system (green circle) has subsystems within it (colleges).
- Each college is made up of various components (departments).
Persuasion
Because public relations work is fundamentally about advocacy, you need to understand how persuasion functions. Dr. Robert Cialdini describes what he calls universal principles of persuasion in this animated video.
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