A detailed Outline of chapter 3

Kaoutar Kaddouri
COM 4301
Dr. Ibahrine
Fall 2007


A detailed Outline of chapter 3

*Public Opinion*

I- What is Public Opinion?
1- Joseph Kraft called public opinion "The unknown god to which moderns burn incense.
2- Edward Bernays called it "a term describing an ill-defined, mercurial, and changeable group of individual judgments
3- Herman C.Boyle: "Public opinion is not the name of something, but the classification of number of somethings"
4- Public opinion is splits into two groups public and opinion
a- Public: means a group of people who share a common interest in a specific subject.
b- Opinion: the expression of an attitude on a particular topic.
5- Public opinion is the aggregate of many individual opinions on a particular issue that affect a group of people.
II- What are attitudes?
1- Attitudes are evaluations people make about specific problems or issues.
2- Attitudes are based on a number of characters.
a- Personal
b- Cultural
c- Educational
d- Familial
e- Religious
f- Social Class
g- Race
III- How are attitudes influenced?
1- Attitudes are positive, negative, or nonexistent
2- Leon Festinger: Theory of cognitive dissonance
a- People tend to avoid information that is dissonant or opposed to their own points of view and tend to seek information that is consonant with or in support of their own attitudes.
3- Social Judgment theory: people may have a range of opinions on a certain subject, anchored by a clear attitude
a- The anchore position can be changed communications can work within this range: Latitude acceptance to modify person's opinion.
4- The objective of public relations practitioner is to win support through clear, thoughtful, and persuasive communication.
IV- Motivating Attitudes Change
1- People are motivated by different factors
2- Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory defines the origins of motivation
a- Physiological needs
b- Safety needs
c- Love needs
d- Esteem
e- Self actualization
3- Elaboration Likeli-hood model: Two ways in which people get persuaded
a- When we are interested and focused enough on a message to take a direct central route to decision making
b- When we are not particularly engaged on a message and need to take a more peripheral route
4- The best way to motivate interested people is with arguments that are: strong, logical, and personally relevant
5- The Best way to motivate less interested people through: putting them in better mood, demonstrating through speech or clothes or mannerism
V- Power of persuasion
1- Persuasion means getting another person to do something through advice, reasoning, or just plain arm twisting
2- Classic persuasion theory: People may be of two minds in order to be persuaded to believe in a particular position or take a specific action
a- systematic; referring to a person who has carefully considered an argument actively, creatively, and alertly
b- Heuristic: a person who is skimming the surface and not focusing on the intricacies of a particular position
3- Evidence is needed if you want to influence people and it must coincide with their own beliefs, emotions, and expectations, for example:
a- Facts
b- Emotions
c- Personalizing
d- Appealing to
VI- Influencing Public Opinion
1- Opinion is highly sensitive to important events
2- Opinion is generally determined more by events than by words - unless those words are themselves interpreted as an event
3- At critical times, people become more sensitive to the adequacy of their leadership
4- Once self-interest is involved, opinions are slow to change
5- People have more opinions and are able to form opinions more easily on goals than on methods to reach those goals.
6- By and large, if people in a democracy are provided with educational opportunities and ready access to information, public opinion reveals a hardheaded common sense.
VII- Polishing the corporate Image
1- Organizations today and the people who manage them are extremely sensitive to the way they are perceived by their critical publics
a- Organizations understand that corporate image is a fragile commodity, to improve it they must operate with the implicit trust of the public.
VIII- Managing Reputation
1- Reputation is present throughout our lives and has become a buzzword in public relations and in the broader society.
2- Relationship management aligns communications with an organization's character and action
a- It creates recognition, credibility and trust among key constituents.
b- It stays sensitive to its conduct in public with customers and in private with employees
c- It understands its responsibilities to the broader society and is empathetic to society's needs.