The Power of Publicity (Case 4)

Power is an underlying theme of all public relations, yet it’s a topic rarely raised in its professional practice. In contemporary society organizations – especially corporates – hold more power than governments. Organizations hold the information, they hold the budget and they have the influence. What a hefty responsibility lies on their shoulders, then, to use all this power responsibly and not purely for their own benefit. Two of the three characteristics of power I just named fall squarely within the remit of public relations: information and influence. These are our currency. 

Organizations are generally the ones that want to start communication (maybe even conversation) on a particular topic as they want change to occur in some way. It may be a knowledge, perception or behavior change, but it’s still change.

Communication can also be prompted by an organization wanting to maintain its positive reputation and/or its market share. In this case, change is not actually sought, just reinforcement of the status. A further dimension of this is reinforcing reputation to protect an organization in a time of crisis.

At the core of this is that organizations have the resources to undertake the communication. People – like us – are employed specifically for this job. An organization’s stakeholders are, mostly, not employed to communicate with an organization. So we immediately have a power imbalance in the time and resources that all relevant parties devote to communication.