Public Relations and Corporate Communication Questions and Answers

Answer: B

They are called stakeholders.

Stakeholders are the individuals, groups or organisations who can affect, or are affected by, an organisation or a project: employees, customers, investors, communities, government and the media. Public relations and development communication planning begins by identifying stakeholders, because their support or opposition decides whether the goals are met.

Journalists are only one kind of stakeholder. 'Cheerleaders' are enthusiastic supporters, not everyone vital to success or failure, and 'gamers' are players of games, unrelated to the concept.

Answer: D

The most appropriate way is to facilitate news coverage.

Crisis communication practice holds that a bad event will be reported anyway. By releasing the facts quickly, making spokespersons available and explaining what is being done, the organisation becomes the main source of the story, limits rumour and speculation, and keeps its credibility. This is the 'tell it all and tell it fast' principle associated with Ivy Lee and later crisis-management writers.

Discouraging coverage makes journalists suspect a cover-up and dig harder. Denying an event that occurred destroys credibility once the truth emerges. Hiring a new content writer does nothing about the event itself.

Answer: B

The first step is to determine which media outlets best serve their purpose.

A public relations plan is implemented strategically: practitioners first identify the target publics and then choose the media that reach those publics, matching each message to the outlet whose audience, format and timing suit it. Only after that are releases, pitches and events prepared for those outlets.

Sending as many releases as possible to as many people is the scattergun approach that wastes effort and annoys editors. Asking editors to promise to use releases ignores editorial independence. Picking the media that have been friendliest to the client in the past puts favourable treatment ahead of reaching the right audience.

Answer: C

The father of public relations is Edward Bernays.

Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, applied psychology and social science to persuasion. He wrote Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), taught the first university course in public relations at New York University that year, and ran campaigns such as the 1929 'torches of freedom' parade for the tobacco industry. Ivy Lee is sometimes given the title too, but he is not among the options.

Joseph Goebbels was Hitler's propaganda minister and Adolf Hitler the Nazi dictator; both are associated with propaganda, not with the profession of PR. Wilbur Schramm is regarded as the founder of communication studies as an academic discipline.

Answer: C

The process is called Lobbying.

Lobbying is organised advocacy aimed directly at those who make or apply rules: legislators, regulators and government officials. A company or industry body presents its case to them in order to influence a law, a policy or a regulatory decision.

Public relations is the broader management of relationships between an organisation and all its publics. Public affairs is the part of PR dealing with government and community issues in general, of which lobbying is one specific activity. Publicity is simply gaining media attention, and is not aimed at decision-makers.

Answer: A

The correct sequence is (vi), (i), (iv), (iii), (ii), (v).

1. (vi) Send an invitation to the media.
2. (i) Share a write-up about the event and the organisation, the press kit.
3. (iv) The PRO opens the conference with a welcome address.
4. (iii) The authority briefs the media.
5. (ii) Media persons' questions are answered.
6. (v) A press release is sent afterwards.

The order follows the event itself: invitation and background before the day, welcome before the briefing, questions after the briefing, and a release to follow up. The other sequences put questions before the briefing, the welcome after the briefing, or the press release in the middle.

Answer: B

It is called an Open House.

An open house is a public relations event in which an organisation opens its premises, a factory, laboratory, hospital or office, to the public, the families of employees or the community for a day so that they can see the work done there. It builds understanding and goodwill with the local community.

An educational visit is a trip arranged by an institution for its students, not an event the organisation opens to everyone. 'Visitors Day' and 'Public Relations Day' are not the standard PR term for this activity.

Answer: D

External communications deal with investors, clients, customers.

External communication is an organisation's communication with people outside it: customers and clients, investors and shareholders, suppliers, the media, government and the community. Press releases, advertising, annual reports and customer service all belong to it.

Keeping employees informed is internal communication. Communication flowing from the bottom to the top is upward communication, a direction within the organisation. And external communication does not always use mass media; letters, meetings, telephone calls and email are equally common.

Answer: A

The financial publics of a company include investment analysts.

In public relations, financial publics are the groups that affect a company's ability to raise and keep capital: shareholders and potential investors, investment and securities analysts, stockbrokers, banks and other lenders, and the financial press. Investor relations is the PR function that serves them.

Employees of a bank are, as such, simply employees of another organisation. Senior citizens are a demographic segment or a community public, and a political journalist belongs to the media public dealing with government, not to the company's financial publics.

Answer: A

The three core elements are expertise, motivation and trustworthiness.

Source credibility research, from Aristotle's ethos to Carl Hovland's Yale studies and James McCroskey's work, identifies three dimensions: expertise or competence (whether the source knows the truth), trustworthiness (whether the source will tell it) and goodwill or intention (the source's motivation towards the audience). A source seen as knowledgeable, honest and well-intentioned is believed.

Power is not a component of credibility; a powerful source may be obeyed without being believed, which is why every option including power is wrong. Personality is not one of the three either, so the option without expertise fails.