Theoretical Perspctives

Finally finished reading chapter 3 written by Steve Mackey on Theoretical Perspectives. Personally speaking, this chapter is a little bit difficult for me to fully comprehend, so i would rather to make this post more like a review of this chapter and raise some questions i am not sure about, hoping that someone could give me some of their point of view.

I think this chapter illustrates some of the basic terms for the study of public relations like what is Agenda setting, General systems theory, Semiotics, Critical theory and the Notion of the public, etc, and it explains how can they be used and their importance and limitations. Besides, it also suppliments some other theories including ' Situdational theory, opinion, attitude and the belief, Audiences and media efects and Social learning theory. All with a brief explaintion concluded.

What I am interested in is the Grunig's models and the ' symmetrical debate'. The four models to me can be roughly considered as four different levels of communication between PR and the public. Which model is more worthvalue for a success PR pratice is not an easy question. You can't expect to have a successful PR operation simpy by using one model. If I didn't wrongly remeber, Ms james once mentioned this in the lecture and I agree with her, especially considering about the huge influence of the new technology. Nowadays the public have more channels to not only receive the disseminated message, but also many platforms to express their own opinions. They now have more chances to give their reponses to the messages, more than ever. I cannot deny the fact that the fourth model is too ideal to realize in the real world considering the various realistic factors, but totally negalect the public during the procedure of PR operation will definitely lead to a failure.

Someting New for Me about PR

I hope it is not too late to post my first blog about Public Relations. Having listened to the introduction lecture and read some materials about PR provided by Ms James, I' d say that my previous acknowlegement about this career has been changed profoundly.

Before that I thought doing PR is just to arrenge some events or activities for the clients (companies or some other organizations) out of especially commercial reasons. As for the people who does PR should live a fantastic life, party all the time, meeting with high ranked figures, etc, a very much typical misunderstanding of this career that Ms James exemplified in the class. In the except from public relatitons by M. James which I thought delivered a more brief but concise overview of almost every aspect of this particular field. I started to rethink it and i realized that it is definitely more than what I thought it should be.

As a Chinese overseas student, language is probably the biggest barrier ahead of me. I saw that among all the requirments listed about how to be a good public relations practioner, ability to write and speak well is always the first and foremost requirment. For this reason I think to create this blog is a quite useful way to not only improve my english proficiency as well as a development of a critical thinking.