The Global Policy Journal is a sophisticated interdisciplinary publishing venture based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and linked to the other core institutions of the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN): Columbia University in New York, Sciences Po in Paris, and the National University of Singapore.  A quick glance at the Global Policy boards gives an idea of the multidisciplinarity and level of the Journal’s contributors.

In the January 2012 issue of Global Policy, my article, “From ‘Public’ to ‘Stakeholder Relationships’: A Challenge to Governance in Organisations,” discusses how the “comfortable” approach is clearly at odds with the core sense of our field of study or practice.

Citing references also available from IPR’s website, I argue that in today’s context the most relevant and added-value role of the public relations function resides in attentively and professionally listening to the often conflicting expectancies of the organization’s stakeholder groups. Interpreting these expectancies to top management before decisions are taken helps to accelerate their time of implementation. This has possibly become one the important indicators of the quality of any organizational decision.

I also refer to the growing and increasingly less-USA centric global body of knowledge for our field, underscoring the global nature of our work and illustrating an interpretation of the generic principles and specific applications paradigm.  Indicators of a specific territory’s situational public relations infrastructure are inevitably intertwined with an organization’s generic principles.

A further and more ambitious step forward for the global public relations community is evident in the Stockholm Accords, a two-year (2011–12) brief issued by the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management.  These Accords define how effective public relations practice creates value by employing external communication, internal communication and the alignment of these two, to strengthen an organisation’s sustainability, governance and management policies.  The revised Stockholm Accords will be ready for the Global Alliance’s Melbourne World Public Relations Forum to be held next November.

Toni Muzi Falconi is Italian, currently teaching public relations at the Vatican’s Lumsa University and global relations at New York University.  He was founding Chair of the Global Alliance and he is a director of Methodos, the management consultancy.

Next month, Tom will be presenting a paper on his AVE research at the International Public Relations Research Conference at the University of Miami (March 8-10).

In this Conversations contribution, Tom investigates where AVE came from, and finds some surprising answers.

David Geddes

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It is quite astounding that AVE has persisted for so long, as it has had no support from academic research. Indeed, there have been many harsh criticisms, such as “voodoo measurements” and “plain silly.”

The first reference that I found about an AVE-type measurement comes in a 1947 book, Blueprint for Public Relations, by Plackard and Blackmon. They described a method of measuring the value of column inches that was offered by a press clippings agency. Each column inch was multiplied by $1.06, which was the agency’s calculation of average column inch value for US daily newspapers.

“From the results of his publicity thus obtained in the form of newspaper cuttings, he [the publicist] can much more effectively measure its value,” wrote Plackard and Blackmon

In 1949 F. Murray Milne, a founder of the Institute of Public Relations in England, wrote in the IPR Journal that “it was a grave mistake for the PRO to try and evaluate his work at so many column inches calculated at advertising rates,” and that “press cuttings are never measured in column inches and assessed at advertising rates. This practice has done more to undermine public relations than any other.”

These references show that measurement of press coverage by reference to advertising rates was already established over 60 years ago. I am proposing that AVE arose from two influences. First, press clipping bureaux were able to use their sources of ratecard information to offer a valuation service to clients. In other words, they were able to offer a value-added service at little or no cost to themselves. Second, and probably more important, from the beginning of the 20^th century there was comparison between advertising, in which space was bought to put the message before audiences, and the work of press agents and publicity men, which was less certain in its results.

Richard Tedlow writes that in the 1920s, “one estimate has it that … the press agent could deliver equal linage to an advertisement at one-third the cost of paid space”. This observation indicates there was an understanding or expectation that publicity activity could be expressed in advertising value terms.

But AVE has been ignored or had a bad press since they first appeared. Scott Cutlip’s major bibliography of public relations research from 1939 to the mid-1960s makes no mention of it. In the UK, the prolific PR author Frank Jefkins damned it in 1969: “Nor is there any sense in trying to assess an advertisement rate-card value on editorial coverage, saying these inches would have cost so much if the space had been paid for, for the elementary reason that no-one would use the same space, the same quantity of space, or perhaps even the same media for advertising purposes.” There were many others who were equally critical.

Yet AVE thrived, as former Institute for Public Relations CEO John W. Felton recalled: “Way back in 1966, when I was in the product publicity unit of US Steel in Pittsburgh, PA, our boss Tex Wurzbach, counted product clips we generated and equated the space we “earned free” to the amount that the same space would have cost if we had purchased it as ads.”

AVE has seldom appeared in public relations texts and not at all in the measurement and evaluation research that burgeoned from the late 1970s.

Now that the Barcelona Principles have “outlawed” AVE, will it survive? When I recently judged regional public relations awards in the UK, I saw a distressing situation: the majority of submissions had some form of AVE calculation in objectives and evaluation. I fear that AVEs are so established in the mythology of publicity activity that they will be with us for a long time to come.

# Tom thanks many members of the Commission on Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation for their assistance with his research.

I started researching Wikipedia in 2006 with Marcus Messner, Virginia Commonwealth University, and we have been arguing for years that public relations professionals should monitor their Wikipedia articles. Our 2010 study found that the negative content in corporate Wikipedia articles increased from 2006 to 2008 to 2010 and articles were becoming less focused on historical information and more on legal issues and controversies.

Given our findings and the wide use of Wikipedia by the public, having articles with incorrect or outdated information is not in anyone’s interest, but edits made by public relations professionals are unlikely to stick. Gerry Corbett, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, along with many others have suggested that Wikipedia policies should be based on accuracy and transparency in Wikipedia articles; no matter who does the editing, as long as the information is accurate, unbiased and properly referenced.

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, doesn’t agree and has stated “This is not complicated. There is a very simple “bright line” rule that constitutes best practice: do not edit Wikipedia directly if you are a paid advocate. Respect the community by interacting with us appropriately.”

Unfortunately, many public relations professionals don’t know the rule, tried playing by it without success, have chosen to ignore it, and/or quite possibly the rule needs to be changed or better communicated.

I’m a member of the Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (CREWE) group and we are working with Jimmy Wales and other Wikipedia editors to identify how we can have a constructive relationship with the goal of maintaining accurate Wikipedia articles. This has proven not to be an easy task and hopefully my research study can help.

Please take a few minutes to complete this important survey. A white paper with the results will be available on IPR soon.

Dr. Marcia W. DiStaso is an Assistant Professor of Public Relations at Pennsylvania State University, Chair of the PRSA Financial Communications Section, and Co-Chair of the PRSA National Research Committee.

I was interviewed a few weeks ago (along with PRSA Chair Gerry Corbett and Council of Public Relations Firms’ Senior Vice President Matt Shaw) by The Business Journals for an article on “How to respond to bad publicity.” The three tips at the bottom of the article come right from what research teaches us about crisis response:

1. “If you act fast, you have a better chance of controlling the story and the outcome.
2. “Treat employees, community leaders and officials as key contributors to helping you solve the problem.
3. “Never miss out on the opportunity to learn from the mistake. The public is far less forgiving when you’ve had this problem before and you let it happen again.”

Frank Ovaitt is President and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations.

To ensure that my students are learning the most contemporary approaches, I frequently reference and use the white papers available on the website of the Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation. Sometimes, I reference and link to a white paper when I am lecturing or explaining a concept. Occasionally, I require my students to read a paper and summarize or critique its research approach. Many of my PR colleagues at other universities have told me they also use the Commission white papers in their research and campaigns courses.

Based upon feedback from some educators who teach PR research and evaluation, I’ve written a white paper that recommends and describes how many of the Commission white papers can be used in the classroom. I’ve organized my paper by research topics, such as social media and experimental design, so that readers can quickly find resources on topics important to them. I’ve also included a synopsis of recent books on PR research, measurement, and evaluation.

I hope you find this paper helpful as you plan and teach research, measurement, and design. Please let me know if you think other papers should be added to the list. I also welcome your feedback for ways the Commission can assist you in the classroom.

Read Resources for Public Relations Educators for Teaching Research, Measurement, and Evaluation

Dr. Julie O’Neil, a professor of strategic communication, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations, integrated marketing, and research methods at Texas Christian University.

Klein now admits that those on the left were not necessarily less enlightened; they just tended to stick to their views. In other words, they were likely to refute a true statement if it didn’t align with their beliefs. The correct answers to the economic questions were more closely aligned with conservative views, giving left-leaners a disadvantage in showing off their economic intelligence.

A follow-up survey in 2011 tested whether conservatives and libertarians were equally unenlightened about statements that challenged their views. He concluded that regardless of political leaning, “the more a statement challenged a group’s position, the worse the group did.” In other words, the correct conclusion is that confirmation bias exists, not that left-leaning people are unenlightened.

There’s a great deal we can learn from Mr. Klein’s screw-up that we can apply to our own research.

Questions must be valid for your research purpose. Mr. Klein’s biggest mistake was how he analyzed responses to questions that were not intended to serve his research purpose. The questions from the original survey related to economic issues but were not designed to test economic knowledge.

Avoid seeing something that’s not there. Mr. Klein went digging for information that didn’t exist in the in the original survey. He was looking for it, so he saw it. A good researcher constantly seeks as much meaning as possible, explores different theories and ideas, and analyzes the data from different angles.  But it’s just as important to not see things that aren’t there.Study design is critical in isolating variables so that you can get rid of the clutter that may contribute to an incorrect conclusion.

Repurpose with caution. Repurposing data can be an attractive option, because it’s often less expensive than doing your own original research. It’s especially efficient when looking for basic information and basic relationships. But when you are asking a more complicated question, it’s probably best to design your own study around the research question you are trying to answer.

Klein’s experience is a great reminder of why skepticism and transparency are key when you are delving into the results and conclusions of a study. When a claim seems some combination of outlandish, controversial or counter-intuitive, it’s a good idea to check the methods, the intended use of the data, and the history of the organization doing the research.

In the end, Mr. Klein’s mistakes weren’t costly, besides some initial embarrassment and the energy it took to respond to critics. The criticism led him to correct the mistakes made in the first publication and ultimately give us insightful conclusions based on a well-designed study that matched a well-defined research question.

Kara Capelli is a graduate of The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, in Strategic Public Relations. She is currently employed as a Public Affairs Specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

PRDepiction, a blog devoted to the depiction of public relations in film, TV, radio and books, across all media, has just been launched. In addition to recent productions and books, it lists many of the earliest films and novels that incorporate PR characters.

Although not the first movie about publicity, Bing Crosby’s starring role as the PR man for Hawaii in the 1937 Waikiki Wedding gave the business a glamorous, musical, fun perspective.

In fiction, J. Ward Moorehouse in the first volume of John Dos Passos’s USA Trilogy, published in 1930, is the earliest PR character identified so far. He is portrayed in the novel as an Ivy Lee-type of PR man before the First World War, but becomes less ethical and respectable as the trilogy reaches its final volume. The blog has also identified a novel from 1936 with the title of Public Relations, written by Lewis Lefko. Its secondary title is “a novel of the utilities field.”

The website is the collaborative effort of academics and practitioners in Australia, Ireland, UK and US such as Jane Johnston (Australia), Conor McGrath (Ireland), Philip Young, Scott Davidson and Tom Watson (all UK) and Cheryl Lambert, Karen Russell, Tom Hove (all US). They welcome suggestions of additions, especially from outside the English language. PRDepiction will also feature research and press articles/blogs on the subject.

The URL is http://prdepiction.wordpress.com.

Tom Watson PhD is Professor of Public Relations at Bournemouth University in England. He runs the annual International History of Public Relations Conference and is a member of the Commission on PR Measurement & Evaluation.

Communicating in an environment of risk is one of the more difficult roles for senior communications strategists.

In larger organizations risk assessment often is managed by Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), which sets the risk agenda based on its discipline-specific quantitative tools and processes.  But communicators may find that ERM tools rarely predict reputation risk and often fail to provide a framework for effective mitigation through communications.

An ERM expert may compare the death rates from nuclear power to those from smoking and conclude nuclear power presents low risk to the enterprise. People who live near a nuclear plant may feel dread [or the inability to control an event that may result in catastrophe] that is significantly out of proportion to the fatality rates. Facts do not trump emotion, as communicators know instinctively.

Into this chasm of confusion step researchers who focus on risk communication, a field that has applicability to communicators by examining how people hear messages in certain situations, and the implications for the choices they make. Among other benefits it provides a fact base for the use of emotion.

Professor John Maule is one such researcher. He directs the Centre for Decision Research at Leeds University Business School. He and colleagues analyze perception and the efficacy of methods of communication in risk situations, seeking answers to questions that are essential for strategic communications.

In a recent article Maule cites research that identifies five key attributes for effective risk communication: competence, objectivity, fairness, consistency and acting in good faith. He cites research that suggests communicators should understand how each stakeholder group looks at risk, and at the world. This may require research in the form of traditional focus groups and surveys, or through metadata from social intelligence that unpacks the public dialogue and what it means for a company, product or issue.

He points to a body of work that questions whether we should frame a risk qualitatively or quantitatively for better effect. For example, researchers suggest that we value human life proportionally. The higher the percentage of a group that might be impacted by a risk the more concern we are likely to feel. So, we might feel greater concern when 5,000 people out of 25,000 are affected by a disaster than 5,000 out of one million.

Maule presents a wide-ranging body of research (with a valuable bibliography with which to dive deeper) with some key findings for communicators.

– Approach risk communication as a two-way dialogue between your experts and the public that results in a common understanding of the risks.

–Understand that past experience has a strong influence on whether people will assign the same level of risk you do to a situation. (As a young Kansan I experienced many tornado warnings that did not impact me. But ignoring such warnings could have proved fatal had I been in Joplin, Missouri last spring.)

– Risks that are hard to visualize may not be as compelling. Maule discusses examples of organizations over-predicting risks such from hackers and under-predicting risks from system overloads, when the latter may be a far more common experience.

– Risk communicators should understand and monitor psychological issues such as dread and lack of familiarity attached to their issues, products and programs so they can better predict and communicate risks to the general public.

He divides risk into four types or sources of threats: to well-being, infrastructure, customers and to the public. Have you done communications scenario planning around each type of risk? Are you using social intelligence to track the likelihood and velocity of these types of threats? Do you understand the psychological issues associated with each major risk issue facing your organization?

There are tools that help the communicator understand the emotions inherent in issues in the public dialogue and identify messaging that addresses the concerns. Communications that ignore the emotional underpinnings of an issue may be viewed as cold, uncaring and irrelevant.

On the other hand, communicators who actively monitor and listen, and who engage with the ERM team to bring an outside-in perspective, are more likely to manage risk appropriately, thus protecting the reputation of their organization.

Articles used for this post: “Risk Communication in Organizations,” a chapter by AJ Maule in the forthcoming forthcoming paperback edition of “The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making” by Gerard P. Hodgkinson and William H. Starbuck, Oxford University Press, 2008; and “Translating Risk Management Knowledge: The Lessons to be Learned from Research on the Perception and Communication of Risk” by AJ Maule, in Risk Management: An International Journal 2004, 6 (2) 17 – 29.

Linda Locke, principal at Reputare Consulting, subscribes to journals from which she draws inspiration and concepts for clients of her corporate reputation consulting practice. If you wish to suggest a research article for her review, contact her at Linda.Locke@ReputareConsulting.com, or DM her on Twitter @Reputationista.

The authors already have experienced consternation and “push back” from those who advocate CSR in any and all circumstances.  Many of these critics are from the communication industry, a major group that has long advocated CSR.  To hear communicators talk, one would think that any CSR program would be a good thing and would be welcomed by stakeholders and the larger society.  It seems reasonable to assume that companies seeking to “do good” would be looked at more positively, but the authors have found that this is not always the case.

The authors examined routes to CSR value: the “direct route” and “indirect or stakeholder route”.   In the direct route, the company finds programs that lead to cost savings or increased revenues.  For example, companies can invest in sustainability and have a favorable bottom line impact.  This is the position supported by “shared values” advocates (I blogged about this in September 2011).  Shared values suggests that companies seek to maximize their own self interest so the best way to get a company to engage in CSR is to find an area that both maximizes their value and also contributes to the good of society.

The “stakeholder or indirect route” is the more traditional route advocated by the communications profession.   This involves the company finding some way to contribute to society.  Stakeholders then judge the program. The expectation, of course, is that stakeholders will praise the company for “doing good”.  This does not always occur.  As a result, there are a lot of companies that have wasted a lot of money.

One of the authors of the book, Daniel Korschun, is a colleague of mine at the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University and a Fellow of the Center for Corporate Reputation Management that I lead.  We talk regularly about reputation management in general and CSR in particular.  My view has always been that CSR success is based on two primary variables: 1) that the CSR activity is consistent with the strategy of the company; and 2) that it is meaningful to the stakeholder for whom it is intended.  The authors support this view, but offer a far more refined basis for the success or lack of success of CSR programs.   The findings can be summarized by three themes: Understanding, Usefulness and Unity.

Understanding:  Stakeholders filter the CSR program against their understanding of the company and their expectations of the firm.  If the CSR programs do not make sense to the stakeholder, i.e., the program is from a company with a poor reputation, the reaction is likely to be suspicion rather than praise.  The initiative in this case can create a negative ROI.  A company with a poor reputation should begin correcting its problems and avoid trying to jump-start their reputation with a large-scale CSR program.

Usefulness: Stakeholders look to their own needs and interests first and ask “what’s in it for me”.  While a CSR program may benefit society at large, the program is likely to be more successful if stakeholders perceive a benefit to themselves.  An example here is the disappointment of many pharmaceutical firms that invested heavily in African River Blindness only to find little or no interest in the United States.  The program was of high value to those on the African Continent, but had little usefulness to Americans.

Unity: When Understanding and Usefulness are in play for stakeholders, they interpret that the CSR efforts align the company’s values with their own.  This, the researchers found, is a “powerful predictor” of CSR success.  The concept of unity is similar to relevance.  That is, the belief that the organization is “like me” or is important to my life.  It is more important than differentiation in a highly complex, competitive marketplace.

When one looks at CSR in this light, one sees a route to decision-making that is more logical and systematic than currently available.  All potential CSR programs can be judged against the “3Us”, and the program can better be aligned with the company’s business strategy and the interests of stakeholders.

Communication researchers should take heed.  We need more research on behaviors and less on opinions that lead us to make decisions that may not be valid.  For example, one well known research study by a major PR firm regularly finds that the vast majority of people would rather do business with a company that is socially responsible.  What a revelation!  They likely also want to be friends with people who love their mothers.  The issue is not what people say, but rather what they do.  Unless we can better predict behaviors, our research will have little practical value.

This is a book well worth reading by all those who are interested in corporate social responsibility.  While it may disappoint some who want companies to do any and all social activities possible, it serves as a guide for executive decision-making.  This book should be a welcome read for those who want more research, science and rigor in communication advice.  It demonstrates that the art of communication needs a good dose of science to assure that its perspectives are not only correct, but also produce the ROI that companies should expect from their investment.

Elliot Schreiber, Ph.D. is Clinical Professor of Marketing and Executive Director of the Center for Corporate Reputation Management at the LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, Philadelphia, as well as CEO of Brand and Reputation Management LLC.

Sir Winston Churchill is widely—and famously—quoted as having said, “Statistics are like a drunk with a lamppost, used more for support than illumination.”   Embedded in that comment is a common—and valid—concern about an overdependence on data and the danger posed when data is used as a substitute for critical thinking.

If Sir Winston were seated across my desk at this moment, I’d make a confession to him:  guilty as charged.  I have used research many times simply as a means of supporting my opinions and conclusions, rather than as a predictive tool.  Illumination is great, but I, too occasionally need something to lean against while I am fumbling for the light switch.

When it comes to measurement and evaluation, I think a lot of us begin there.  And when management knows that our opinions are actually supported by something, that’s a fine start.   But to the point of the lamppost analogy, if we are going to be effective counselors, we can’t just validate—we have to illuminate.

So, how do we make that transition?  Here are a few thoughts:

1. Repetition, repetition, repetition. As we conduct focused research on the same topic over the course of time, the positive outcomes of that research are cumulative.  We build on what we know.  This also allows us to develop multiple research methodologies to drill deeper into the issues.  It is especially helpful in conducting formative research—the research that actually helps shape the strategy behind programs and campaigns rather than simply evaluating their effectiveness.

Here’s an example:  Some years ago, a group of public relations students was asked to assist a community blood bank in reversing the trend of declining blood donations. The students began by performing research to ascertain why blood donation levels were so low.   The blood bank believed (based on current issues and observations) that donors were fearful of contracting a disease, such as AIDS, from the blood donation.  The blood bank also speculated that a newly opened plasma center that was paying for blood had drawn donors away from the blood bank. At the time the students were called in to assist, the blood bank was planning a massive education, awareness and motivational campaign.

The students commenced the research process by polling 400 community members with specific questions about their attitudes and concerns regarding blood donation and the blood bank.  Fascinatingly, not one respondent said he/she believed it possible to contract a disease by donating blood.

The students then conducted focus groups with various community segments and reinforced the survey findings:

• That the publics who would or did sell their blood to the plasma center had never nor would ever consider giving blood at the blood bank, and, conversely—

• That those publics who would or did give blood at the blood bank would never consider selling their blood to the plasma center.

Further, the survey and focus groups revealed the true cause of the decline in donations:  respondents said there was insufficient information and publicity surrounding mobile blood drives.  Understanding this enabled the blood bank to avoid a costly and unnecessary campaign to raise awareness about the safety and importance of blood donation and instead focus on resolving a much simpler publicity problem.

This experience illustrates the bigger point about repetition of effort:  Because the students had time to build on that research, and because they developed multiple methodologies, they were able to truly illuminate the deeper issue.

2. Hang out with your data.

A true understanding of data is often a process, not an event.  It comes as we examine data over time, and in different ways.  It’s also helpful to share data with other people, because they, too will see that data in different ways.  And when others pick up on something we’re not seeing, that can be an important step towards illumination.

3.  Give your data a “voice” so that it speaks compellingly to management and clients.

• Make it relevant. Research findings, like people, get more attention when they are saying something interesting.  Measure things important to clients and management.
• Tell a story. Well-told stories engage audiences.  Lay out your measurement process as a story arc:  “Here’s what the problem was, here’s how we tackled it, here’s what we found out, here’s what reassured/surprised/amazed us, and here’s what we think it means.”
• Be clear about what you are trying to accomplish with the data. People don’t want a good ending spoiled in the first 5 minutes of the movie, but they do want to know what the movie is about before they buy the tickets.

Christina Darnowksi, Research Director at PRSA and a former research consultant, notes:  “When I was a consultant, people would often come into my office, show me a survey they or someone else had already used, and say, ‘I want to use this to survey a group.’  I’d then say, ‘But what are you trying to accomplish?’  When I heard the answer, I’d know that they really needed a completely different kind of data collection instrument.  It’s important to take great care in crafting that instrument.”

The lesson?  If we are merely looking for support, just about any lamppost—or any vertical surface—will do.  But, if we are really after illumination—data that will point the way to doing things better—we have to be very clear about what we’re trying to accomplish.

Susan Walton is Associate Chair of the Department of Communications at Brigham Young University.