The purpose of communicating with a public is to create change in one or more of the following:
- What they KNOW (knowledge).
- How they FEEL (attitude).
- What they DO (behavior).
The Situational Theory of Publics proposes that publics can be divided into groups that you can more effectively communicate with to meet your change goals. This division is based on three differentiating attributes called independent variables:
- Problem recognition - the extent to which people are aware that something is wrong or missing in a situation. People who recognize a problem exists tend to seek information about it.
- Constraint recognition - the level at which people perceive obstacles that limit their ability to do anything about a situation. These limitations may be real or imagined. It is the individual's perception that matters. People who think they can make a difference will seek information to make action plans.
- Level of involvement - the extent to which people connect themselves personally with a situation or problem.
Ranking people from low to high based on these independent variables allows you to divide everyone into four basic publics that predict how they will seek and process information. That behavior toward information makes up the theory's dependent variables:
- Information seeking, which is active communication behavior. These people are looking for information and trying to fully understand it.
- Information processing, which is passive communication behavior. These people are not looking for information but will often process it when it comes to them without any effort on their part.
The following four publics predict how active someone's communication will be:
- Active publics recognize the problem and are involved in finding a solution. They are high in problem recognition and level of involvement while low in constraint recognition. These are the most active communicators.
- Aware publics recognize the problem but haven’t participated in finding a solution. They are high in problem recognition and either high in constraint recognition or low in level of involvement.
- Latent publics face the problem but do not recognize it as a problem. They are low in problem recognition or low in level of involvement.
- Non-publics do not currently face the problem but have the potential to be affected by it if circumstances change. These are the most passive communicators.
Armed with the knowledge of how actively your publics communicate and why, you can construct your communication plan, select your communication channels and tailor your messaging to most effectively promote change.
References
Grunig, J. (1997) A situational theory of publics: Conceptual history, recent challenges and new research.