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Situational theory of publics

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778 Situational Theory of Publics
SITUATIONAL THEORY OF PUBLICS
James E. Grunig of the University of Maryland
developed the situational theory of publics to put
meaning into the term public, which is one of the
two key words in the phrase public relations. Public
relmions practitioners often use the term public to
refer to the mass population, which they also call
the general public. At other times, they usc the
plural term publics to refer to the group~ for which
public relations programs are planned-especially
journalists, employees. consumers, investors,
governments, local communities, and members of
associations and nonprofit groups. Practitioners
also commonly use the terms stakeholders and
publics interchangeably.
In contrast, J. E. Grunig distinguished between
stakeholders and publics and used the two concept~
to segment the general population into categories
that help communication professionals identify
strategic publics and tO plan and evaluate public
relations programs. He considered the term general
public to be a contradiction in tenus because a
public is always a specialized group whose members
have a reason to be interested in the activities and
behavior~ of organizations.
In its current state, the situational theory of
publics is part of J. E. Grunig's theory of the role of
public relations in Strategic management. Following
the lead of John Dewey, wbo wrote about publics in
the I 920~ and 1930s, Grunig theorized that publics
arise when organizations make decisions that
have consequences on people inside and outside
!he organization who were not involved in making
that decision. In addition. publics often want conse-
quences from organizational decisions that organi-
zations might be reluctant tO provide-such as
lower prices, stable employment, or less pollution.
Grunig reserved the term stakeholder for general
categories of people who are affected by the actual
or potential consequences of strategic. or important.
organizational decisions. Stakeholders are people
who have something at risk when the organization
makes decisions. Stakeholder categories generally
are the focus of public relations program5. such as
employee relations, community relatioru.. investor
relations, consume•· relations, or government 1
relations.
Within each of these stakeholder categories, ho" ·
ever. the situational theory can be used to identify
types of publics that differ in the extent to which they
communicate actively, passively, or not at all about
organizational decisions that affect them. Active
publics. in rom. can develop into activist groups. or
join or support activist groups. Active and activi<t
pub! ics make issues out of organizational conse-
quences, and lhese issues may lead to crises. Thu>
the situational theory can be used to identify active
publics in programs of environmental scanning.
issues management. and crisis communication.
The situational theory is built from an explana-
tion of why people communicate and when they are
most likely to communicate. It uses the concepts of
active and passive communication behavior to seg-
ment the general population into publics likely to
communicate about one or more problems that are
related to the consequences of organ izational
behaviors. The theory is situational because proh·
!ems come and go and are relevant only to people
who experience problematic situations related to
organizational behaviors. As a result. publics arise
and disappear as situations change. and organiza-
tions rarely, if ever. have a permanent set of publics.
In addition to explaini ng who an organization's
publics are at a specific time. the situational theory
also explains when communication programs are
most likely to be effective- that is. tO have effects
on the shon-term cognitions, ani tudes, and behav-
iors of different publ ics and on the long-term rela-
tionships with these publics. Finally. the theory
eKplains when publics develop from loose aggrega-
tion~ of individuals into organi.~:ed activist groups.
As a result, the >ituational theory provides a useful
tool for strategically managing public relations pro-
grams- identifying publics. choosi ng realistic
shon- and long-term objectives for communication
programs. and evaluating the outcomes of these
programs.
The situational theory is similar to theorie~ of
market segmentation because it provides a method
for segmenting the general population imo groups
rclc,ant to public relations practitioners. Marketing

theorist~ proviu~ >everal criteria for choosmg a
concept for segmemation. Segments must be mutu-
ally exclusive, measurable. accessible, pertinent to
an organization·s mission. and large enough to be
substantial. Most imponantly, the people in market
~egments must have a differential response to
marketing strategies.
In th is sense. the situational theory of publics
predict~ the differential responses most important to
public relations professionals: (a) responsiveness to
problems and issues: (b) wnount of and natLU'e of
communication behavior: (c) effects of communica-
tion on cognition>. anitudes, and behavior: (d) the
extent and quality of organizatio n-public relation-
ships; and (e) the likelihood that publics "~II JX111ici-
pare in col lective behavior to pressure organiwtions.
The >ituational theory also helps to explain
the nature of public opinion bccau,e it incorporates
the assumption that two of the classic theorist~ of
public opinion. John Dewey and Herbert Blumer,
first made about publics: Publics arise around prob-
lems that affect them. Dewey also recognized the
crucial role that publics play in American democ-
racy: Afler recognizing that problems affect them.
publics o rganize imo issue groups to pressure orga-
nizations that cause the problems or to pressure
government to constmin or regulate those organiza-
tio ns. The situational theo ry relates these classical
theories of publ ic o pinion to public relations by
showing that organi?.ations need public relations
because their behaviors cr~ute problems that create
publics. which may evolve into activist groups that
create issues and threaten the autonomy of organi-
zations. T he situational theory f01malizes the clas-
sical conceptions of publics and provides concepts
and variables for identifying and measuring publ ics
and their upi nioos.
When the situational theory is expressed formally,
it consists of rwo dependent variables (active and
passive conununication behavior) and three indepen-
dent variables (problem recognition, constraint
recognition, and level of involvement). The theory
ulso speci lies that active and passive communica-
tion behaviors lead to different cognitive. attirudinal,
bchavior-JI. and relational outcomes. The two depen-
dent variables, active and passive communication
Situational Theory of Publics 779
behavior, also can be called information seeking and
processing. Info rmation seeking is premeditated-
"the planned scanning of the environment formes-
sages about a specified topic'. (Clarke & Kline,
1974. p. 233). lnf01mation procc-;sing is message
discovery- "the unplanned discovery of a message
followed by continued processing of it" (p. 233).
The independent variables arc situational vari-
ables because they measure the perceptions that
people have of specific situation~, especially situa-
tions that are problematic or that produce conflict~
or issues. The three independent variables are
defined as follows:
Probl~llt-ectJJ:niticm:
People dcleCI that something
should be done about a situation and stop to think.
about whm to do.
Cmrsrrailllt~cognirirm: People perceive that there
arc obstacles in a situution that limit rhcir abili ty to
do anything about the situation.
uvel of illvOil'emem: The cxtem 10 which people
connect themselves with a situation.
The theory states and research has contirmcd that
high problem recogni tion and low constraint recog-
nition increase both active information seeking and
passive information processing. Level of involve-
ment increases in formation seeking, but it has less
effect on information processing. Stated differently.
people seldom seek information about situations
that do not invo lve them . Yet, they will randomly
process information about low-involvement situa-
tions, especially if they also recognize the situation
as problematic. Because people participate more
actively in information :.ccking than in information
pnx:essing, information seeking and the indepen-
dent variables that precede it produce communica-
tion effects more often than information processing.
In particular, people commun icating actively
develop more organized cognitions, are more likely
to have attitudes about a situation, more often
engage in a behavior to do something about the sit-
uation. and are more li kely to develop a relationship
with an organization.
J. E. Grunig and Todd Hunt (1984) w;ed combina-
tions of the situational variables to dcfiae a range of
780 Smith, Rea
publics (including nonpublics, latent publics. aware
publics, and active publics) and to calcu late the prob·
abi lity of communicating with and having effects on
each type of public. Grunig described a large number
of studies that have used the situational theory and
described the kind~ of publics identified in thi>
researc h. These studies consistently have identified
four kinds of publics: (a) a/1-i.twe publics. which
are active o n all problems measured in the study:
(b) apatl1etic publics, which arc inattentive to all of
the problem.~; (c) single-issut• publics. which are
active oo one or a small subret of the problems: and
(d) hot-issue publics. which are active only on a sin-
gle problem that involves nearly everyone in the pop-
ulation and that has received exten sive media
coverage. J. E. Grunig also included quantitative
measures of the ~iruational concepts and described
the multivariate statistical techniques lbCd to analyze
survey data based on these measures.
- James E. Gnmig
See also Activism: Crisis communication:
Environmental scanning: bsucs management:
Public opinion and opinion leaders: Segmentation:
Stakeholder theory: Strategic~
Bi bli<>graphy
Clarke. P.. & Kline. F. G. fl974}. Mcdio effect< rocon>idcrcd;
Some n('\\' strategie"\ for communication rcscOll'ch.
Communirntinn R~srorrh. I. ~2.,._270.
O.:"ey. J. (t927}. Th• public wul it> pmbltms. Chica!O:
Swallo'' Pn: ..~
Grunig. J. E. ( 1989\. Publics. audience< and market segment<:
Models of r<cei,·ers of campai~n me;,age,. In C. T.
Salmo n (Ed.). ln{nmwrion C'f1111ptr(¢Wi: Jlmwgin.-.: rht:
pron•,\''( nf .focial clumgi' (pp. 197- :!:!6). Ke''-bur;: P;~_rk.
CA: S:.gc.
Grunig. J. E. ct 997). A >ituational theol} of public"
Conceptual hi~tory. roccnt ch;~.lltn~t"' J.nd new re<earch.
To D. ;\to ...), T. ~lcManui-. &: D. \'crCu: (Eds.t. Publrc rda·
tr'ons l't.H'mt·h: An im~rnmiwwl prrrpecr;t'e ( pp. 3~6 •·
Boston: International Thom~nn Bu~ine's Pre:~~.
Grunig. J. E.. & Hunt. T. (198~) . .lltmtl~ing public relalions.
New York: Holt Rinchan & \\'in:-ton.
Gruni~. J. E.. & Ropper. F. C. ( 1992J. Strategic managem<nl.
public'- and iS>ue,. In J. E. Grunig ! Ed. l. £rctlltll<'<'
in publr'r rl'lntions ond t:mtwumirminn mano.~f!'"IIIC'nl
(pp. 117-158}. Hillsdale. Xl: '"""'"nee Erlbaum.
SM ITH, REA
Rca W. Smith, APR ( 1918- 198 1), served the P ublic
Relations Society of America (PRSA) for 23 ycars-
ftrSt as a~sistant to Shirley D. Smith. PRSA executive
director, and her husband; then as vice president of
administration in 1960: and finally as first woman
executive vice president from 1975 to 1980.
In 1980, Smith became executive di o·cctor of the
Foundation for Public Re lations Research and
Education (now the Public Relations Foundation)
until her death in 1981 .
Her pioneering staff work for the national office
of the PRSA included staff executive for judicial and
g1ievance matter:;, for legal affair~. for committees
on the development o f PRSJ\'s Code of Ethics, and
for the Accreditation Boards. following the initiation
of accreditation in 1962. She authored the OI-ganiza-
tional plan for establishing the International
Accreditation Council, adopted in 1975.
Smith was born in Jamestown. New York, and
began her C<U"eer in public relations in the early 1940s.
She was a TV talk show moderator and in Memphis,
Tennessee. was one of the first women to produce
political TV broadca~ts. From 1946 to 1957, she and
her husband were partners in Shirley D. Smith &
Associates. a Memphis public relations firm.
Smith wrote many articles dt:aling with public
relations and PRSA. She was treasurer of the
Women Executives in Public Relations from 1971
to 1973. and a board member from 1977 to 1978.
-Eii:abeth L Tnrh
Bibliograph~·
Smhh. R. <19~1. J une) Foundation exect.uivc: director. dies of
heart ali.Kk. ;\h) t7. PRSA .Vcuio~ral N~wslmer. 9(9). 1.4.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY THEORY
The social construction of reality theory contends
that reality is '>OCially constructed and that the soci-
ology of knowledge must scrulinize the manner in
 Editor

Robert L. Heath
Universitv of Houston
tl

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