To get behavioral, attitudinal, and informational outcomes that

organizations are looking for

Advertising

- A paid, mediated form of communication from an identifiable source,

designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the
future

Laswell’s model of mass communication

- Who: Sender is an organization (corporation, government, non-profit)

Washington Post Super Bowl commercial: to visualize the WP as key source

of information

Important role journalism plays in our society

- What: Good, Services, and Ideas

- Complete control of PAID advertising (redundant)
- Elements of message
o Verbal: specific words
o Nonverbal: Overall nature of ad’s graphics

PSA – meant to service the public = done in the public interest

3. Channel?

- Specific medium (student newspaper vs USA Today) determines range

Where you place the ad (full page, half page, quarter, etc)

Advertising spent around 112 billion Dollars in 2020

4. To Whom?

- Less chance to greatly influence people if it is shown to the entire

population

- Target Audience:

- Demographics: age, sex, income, education

- Psychographics: categorizing consumers according to their attitudes,

beliefs, interests, and motivations

- User type: New, returning, and loyal

 - Categories: Business, Politics, Sports, and Local

5. With what effect?

Objectives : inform, change behavior and attitude (take action now or

in the future)

Television Advertising:

- TVC (commericals)
o Considered the most effective mass market advertising format
o Extremely expensive (Superbowl

Building, shaping, and reshaping brands through advertising/30

Lecture 2/4/25
- Persuasion: how do we create advertising messaging as persuasive as
possible
- Prof. Doug Gould: Creative advertising as a career path
o Created the infamous Budweiser horse campaign
- Persuasion: to use communication to influence beliefs, attitudes,
and/or behavior
o The most effective way to get message to the audience
o Propaganda: the use of persuasion for malicious purposes (mal
intent)
o Foundations come from the 2nd world war
o Difference is INTENT of the message: malicious vs effectiveness
o Coercion: persuasion by use of force
- Aristotle’s rhetorical approaches to persuasion
- Ethos: credibility – inclusion of CREDIBILITY in our messages (celebrity,
expertise, homophily, experience)
o Doctors, Kardashian family, Ryan Reynolds with Mint Mobile
brand ambassadors
o Homophily- to extend to the audience by RELATING to the
audience (we treat YOU like YOU treat YOU)
- Pathos: emotion – develop sympathy in ur reaction as an audience
o Fear, anger, Sadness, Happiness, Hope
- Logos: The use of Logical explanation
o Arguments, statistics and number, definition and explanation of
terms
o Logical appeals to let you change ur behavior
 - Kairos: Call to action to urge the audience to urge NOW or “forever
hold ur peace”
o Encourage immediate action
o “Time to act is now”
o For more benefit
o To reduce loss

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence

- Attention to Need to Satisfaction to Visualization to Action

- Linear sequence: one thing comes after the next

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

- Central Route
o Motivated audience and audience with ability to process
o Careful consideration of message and include elements of logos
in the message
- Peripheral route
o Low investment-audience and Low processing ability. people who
don’t care that much about the issue you’re preaching to the
audience
o Include elements of ethos and pathos (brand ambassadors, “four
in five dentists recommend…”, homophily

Guest lecture:

- Work separately… then together

Lecture 2/6/25
- PSRA: “strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial
relationships between organization and their publics.”
- Strategic: information, attitudinal and behavioral
o Mission driven for the organization
- Publics: individuals/groups of individuals that have direct or indirect
association with an organization
o Primary public: consumer, activist, government, employees,
investors
o Secondary publics: news media, broadcast media
- NON PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS and GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
DO NOT HAVE INVESTORS … they have DONORS
 - 3 most important publics (especially during crisis) are: CUSTOMERS,
EMPLOYEES, and INVESTORS
- Internal Publics
o Within your organization (employees, students, alumni, board of
trustees)
- External Publics
o Outside of your organization (Ex. Customers, Government, News
Media, community)
- The Marketing mix (4 P’s)
o Product, Place, Price, and Promotion
o Marketing is focused on sales

Gruing & Hunt’s Models of Public Relations

- Press agentry/publicity
o Generate hype
o P.T Barnum -associates with this model
 Leverage the news media to publicize his services
o Court media/reporters
o One way form of communication
- Public information
o Ivy Lee
 All about public information.. providing the public with info
to their interests
 Press release – information subsidy
 Should help journalists by giving them information to write
off by
o Public interest information
o Promote TRUTH
o Journalistic focus
o Boilerplate always present in press release
- Two-way Asymmetric Communication
o Scientific persuasion
o Two way
o Edward Bernays
- Two-way symmetrical Model (most ethical model)
o Dialogue with publics
o Action-words
o ARUTHUR W PAGE
o Benefit for all
 o PR pro mediator not persuader
o Heavy focus on relationship management
- Public Relations Careers
- PR Campaign programming
o Research + careful planning + Implementation
o Consideration. Of objectives + audiences
o Ensure campaigns stay within budget and on time
- 4 step planning for public relations practice
o Research, planning, evaluation, and action
- PESO framework:
o Earned media
 Not always positive
 Actions will trigger a report on ur organization
o Paid Media
 Advertising… clearly labeled as a paid post
o Shared Media
 User generated content
 PR packages/boxes being sent to influencer’s… they create
videos to rate and review the product
o Owned Media]
 Any outlet that the audience has full editorial access of
 Own official social channels

2/11/24 Lecture
- Public relations sub functions
o Media relations: Maintaining good relationships with journalists
and obtaining appropriate news coverage for your organization
 Media visits and pitches, press release, access to experts,
press conferences, “Exclusives,” Online newsroom
o Corporate communications: Trying to promote the brand AS A
WHOLE
 Corporate Responsibility: An approach to doing business
that incorporates the social impact of a business’s
functioning into its strategic decision making and seeks to
minimize negative and maximize positive impact
 Takes resources from the community that uses It (ex. Coke
using water from different plants and things that use water
in a community)
- Major approaches to CSR
o The ad-hocx “donate to charities” approach
 Ex. Surveymonkey Donates 50 cents for every survey
completed to organizations like the Humane Society and
Boys and Girls club
o The partnership approach
 Ex. The NFL and Susan G Komen foundation
o The “Foundation” approach
 Ex. Ben and Jerry Foundation – 7.5% of pre-tax profits to
charitable organizations across the world
o The Program/project approach
 Ex. BMW’s schools Environmental Education Development
Project
o The business systems approach
 Starbucks CAFÉ program – Coffee and Farmer Equity
program; invested $100 million in supporting coffee
communities
o Government relations: Refers to activities undertaken by an
organization to build relationships with various branches of the
government (executive, legislative, judicial) to ensure favorable
decision-making and minimal regulation from the government
 Direct lobbying – Contact legislators directly to influence
legislation/regulation
 Indirect lobbying -
 Astroturf lobbying
o Investor relations:
 Annual reports, quarterly earnings calls, reports, press
releases, brochures, annual shareholder meetings, press
conferences
o Marketing communication:
 Above the line marketing: Involves media methods for
targeting larger and more general consumers
 Below the line marketing: aimed at smaller, targeted
audiences, direct contact with consumers
o Internal communication: employee engagement
 Intranet, newsletter, town halls, special events
o Community relations: Strategic development of mutually
beneficial relationships with targeted communities with the long-
term objective of building reputation and trust
  “License to operate” refers to written and unwritten
expectations between an organization and the community

Lecture 2/13/25
Crisis communication

Crisis: A situation or event that impact organization’s financial, physical , or

reputational well-being

Types of organizations

- Corporate, Government, and Non-Profits

Types of Crises:

- Product Crises
o Product gets a recall
o Consumer harm caused by product (mental or physical)
o Product failure
- Industrial
o Organizationally based disasters
o Cause extensive damage and social disruption
o Involve multiple stakeholders
o Unfold through complex technological, organizational and social
processes
- Natural Disasters
o Acts of weather (flooding, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis)
- Technological
o Security/data breaches
- Scandal
o An event/action or allegation of event/action that elicits outrage
from publics and/or disgraces those associated with it
- How do we respond to crises?
o #1: Consider hiring PR firm while working with your in-house PR
team
o #2: Apologize
 Acknowledge events
 Accept full responsibility
 Express regret + seek forgiveness
 Explain your plan to improve
 o #3: Provide a constant flow of information on multiple platforms
(set up a central information center)
o #4: Be accessible
o #5: Communicate with all key publics
o #6: Speak with ONE voice
 Message and tone are CONSISTENT
o #7: Monitor news coverage + social media mentions

Crisis Communication Objectives

- To increase awareness of (recall, mitigation, evacuation)

- To reduce negative attitude toward org
- To increase trust in org
- To reduce distrust in org
- To increase number of returns of recalled product

Guest Speaker: Gary Scheffer: Crisis Principles & Lessons

- Fukushima Tragedy
o Japan reeling from damage:
 20,000 killed
 2,000 missing
 $300 billion in damage
o Now it must deal with nuclear disaster

Strategic tasks in a crisis

- Recognize the problem:

o Address it… focus on resolving it rather than assigning blame
- Restore trust:
o Key priority during a crisis
o Truthful, accountable, accesibile
- Follow through on your commitments:
o Trust is built through actions, not merely promises

Lecture 2/20/25
Traditional models of communication

- Shannon and Weaver’s sender-receiver model

- Laswell’s communication model – Components plus roles

OG Theories of Communication
 - Magic bullet theory – defunct – media act as an injection into
depositing media messages into audience’s minds = did NOT work
because audiences are not sheep
- Minimal effects theory
- Two – step flow of communication
- Cultivation theory – heavy viewing of television

Key Takeaways

- Communication is a process
- Communication objective – informational, attitudinal, behavioral
- Mass Communication – used to build a brand, promote a product,
improve reputation, generate awareness
- Communication pathways – advertising and public relations
- PESO – different kinds of media in order to fill their objectives

Media Science

- Create distribute, and evaluate media messages in a strategic manner

- Careers in
o Media design and content creation
o Message development and dissemination
o Analysis and evaluation
o Social media management

Crisis Communication Outcomes

- Informational: to increase awareness about mitigation plans

- Attitudinal: to decrease negative perceptions about organization in
crisis among (public); to reduce belief in allegations
- Behavioral: to decrease stock sells off OR to increase participation in
mitigation efforts for those directly affected
- Whistleblowers make allegations of wrongdoing

Examples of Whistleblowing

- The company/organization is trying to HIDE the truth… that is the only

reason for a whistleblower to be active
- Negative news that is harmful to the organization
- GE = raised the alarm about frequent nuclear/radioactive spillages
- Army = turned in photos of prisoner mistreatment and torture at Abu
Ghraib prison
- Uber = whistleblower raised the alarm about rampant gender
discrimination at Uber
Types of Crises prone to Whistleblowing

- Product crisis coverups

- Scandals
o Workplace discrimination
o Embezzlement
o Mismanagement
o Misconduct from top officials
o Coverups of misconduct

Need to choose a multi-national organization for project

Crisis Communication during Scandals

- Denial = “we are outraged by these allegations”

- Contrition = “we apologize for alleged “misconduct”
- Hedging = “we are launching an investigation into these allegations”

Follow the letter of the project instructions

4 verbs used for objective: Increase/decrease, improve/reduce

JOURNALISM
2/25/25
- To inform, to reveal, and hold accountable, to give voice to the
voiceless
- Printing what someone else does NOT want published
- 4/15/13: Abel was at the Boston Marathon bombing
- More than 2400 journalists and media workers were killed from 1994 to
2025
- Black Americans are more than 2x more likely killed to be killed
- Who is the media?
o Approximately 80,000 in broadcast, online, print, radio
o Not owned, licensed or controlled by the government
o Different business models – profit and non-profit

What is our job?

- Report what we can observe or verify, from reputable sources

- Put that information in context
Why do we do this work?

- It’s a calling
- To defend democracy
- To enable the public to make informed decisions

What are our guiding principles

- Truth and Accuracy

- Independence
- Fairness and Impartiality
- Accountability and thoroughness

2/27/25
Edward Murrow:

- To bear witness – the reality of war in Europe

- Sent photos and videos and evidence of the burning and destruction
during war

A journalist is willing to report the truth, no matter if it differs from their

opinions or ruins their reputation

Newsgathering: Finding and reporting the facts

News is…

- Relevant, timely, verified information (facts) presented in context

Fact: something that is known to have happened or to exist especially

something for which proof exists, or about what Is there

Is it newsworth?

- Timeliness
- Significance
- Proximity
- Prominence
- Conflict

How significant is it?

- Did anyone die?

Any prominent people affected?

 - Anyone famous or important

Anything else unusual?

Elements of a news story

- Facts: verified information from credible sources

- Context: the broader story
- Voices: who to quote
- Structure: how to write your story

Bringing stories to life

- Idea
- Research
- Interviews
- Write/produce
- Edit/fact check

News story structures:

Hard news attributes:

- Used for breaking news

- Dispassionate tone
- Uses “inverted pyramid” writing structure, with the lede (first
sentence) providing the vital facts
o Information they MUST have to know what happened
o Additional information that helps them understand but isn’t
essential
o Information that’s interesting or nice to have

Feature story

- Facts typically unspool in narrative form

How to fix a mistake…

- Tell your editor immediately

- Run a correction in the same place as the original report
- Apologize sincerely

Don’t plagiarize, and don’ fabricate

- Don’t plagiarize = copy someone else’s writing

- Don’t fabricate = invent facts or quotes
 3/4/25 Lecture
Qualities of a successful journalist

- Curiosity= Key question is WHY

- Persistence… go KNOCK on their door
- Thick Skin= Threats will be put out to you, but you must be strong
- Attention to detail
- Ability to listen
- Impartiality = cannot let own opinions lead a story… fact must lead to
the truth; not where we want them to go
- Critical thinking/skepticism
- A love for words
- A student/reader of history
- Defender of democracy = provide voters with enough information for
candidates to make informed decisions
- Gallows humor = find some humor in the hardest times
- EMPATHY

Reporting

- Direct observation
- Interviews
- First-hand information
- Public records/databases
- Online searches
- Academic journals
- Press conferences/releases
- Leaks

Direct observation

- No filter between what is being reported and what we are writing

Interviews

- Identify yourself = who you are, what you are doing, knowing straight
away
- Be transparent with your aims
- Know what you’re looking for
- Put your subject at ease (by being human, relatable, polite,
professional
- Save the controversial question until a rapport is built
 - Most important follow up question: listen up
- Most importantly: Listen!
o Don’t be so focued on what youre going to ask next that youre
not listening to the answers to your question

Types of Questions

- Closed-eneded questions
o Short-answer questions (yes/no)
o When? Where? How many?
- Open-ended questions:
o Thoughtful conversation-starters
o How? Why?

Good quotes/soundbites

- They provide color and emotion

- They should be short and punchy
- They help illustrate or amplify
- Emphatic and elicit important information

First-hand information

Primary ad Secondary sources

- Primary sources = first-hand accounts

o Eyewitness accounts
o Personal papers and letters
o Emails, photos, videos, social media
- Secondary sources = second-hand accounts (not ideal for news)
o Newspaper articles (clips)
o Websites
o Wikipedia and other encyclopedias

Public record/databases

- Criminal record or relevant court records to show what became of

those allegations
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
o The right of federal access to public records
- Finding people, property data, aircraft information, professional
licenses

Other sources
 - Google
- People finder sites (Intelius, Whitepages.com)
- .GOV ; .EDU ; .ORG ; .COM ; .BIZ

Press Conferences

- Press releases are presented

- Calling together reporters to publicize

Conditional Information

- On the Record
- On Background
- On embargo
- Off the Record

Leaks

- Sources provide information that hasn’t been approved by the public

- FBI to the Washington Post that led to the Watergate Scandal
- Identifying yourself clearly
o Do your job ethically and be transparent

Sourcing and Disclosure

- Attributed = named (accountable)

- Reliable = trustworthy (credible)

Anonymous Sources

- How do they know the info?

- What is their motivation for telling us
- Have they proven reliable in the past?
- Must reveal the source to a journalist

Types of attribution for anonymous sources

- New York Times CO vs Sullivan

Dos and Don’ts of reporting

- Identify yourself as a news reporter

- Never pay for information
- Give a source an opportunity to respond to criticism
- Never sleep with a source
- Tell source what the story’s about
- Seek permission to record
- Never provide a story to a source before it’s published
- Check quotes and facts
o Ensure that they’re accurate
o Avoid the preemption of the story