The theory this essay will discuss is Grunigs four models of Public Relations, concentrating specifically on the first two; Press Agentry and Public Information. (Grunig and Hunt 1984). These are the two, one-way models and are more focused towards marketing pr than corporate pr. It includes a brief description of each of them and how effective they are when applied to practise. .
The models were created in order to reflect the diversity of ways in which public relations is practised and also to provide practitioners with a theoretical framework with which to work from (N. Jackson, 2003). The four models are; Press Agentry/Publicity, Public Information, Two-way Asymmetric and Two-way Symmetric. .
The Two-way Asymmetric model is predominantly used by competitive businesses and organisations and is concerned with using scientific persuasion in order to change the message of practitioners to their publics. This is purely for the business's benefit and is focused on the way that they communicate their policies etc, rather than changing the policies themselves. The use of feedback from their publics means that it is two- way communication.
According to Dozier, Grunig and Grunig (1995), the Two-way Symmetric model is the most desirable and the most effective model of public relations. This model is more concerned with mutual understanding between the organisation and their publics. This is done by conducting research into the opinions and ideas of the publics and reporting back to the company. This way the company can adapt their practises to benefit everybody involved. This model is very effective yet hard to achieve. When applied to the internal environment of an organisation it is useful in developing effective communication between departments.
Both of the above models are more effective when applied to corporate PR, the aim of this essay is to discuss the effectiveness of Press Agentry/Publicity and Public Information models which are, as mentioned earlier, mainly used within Marketing PR.