For this assignment you must choose either one campaign for social change or the risk communications produced by one organisation concerning an issue of public controversy and present your report in three sections.

 

Section A: Strategic Analysis (around 1500 words)

 

Collect information and structure this into an explanation and analysis of the organisational and issue contexts of the campaign or risk communication programme, the organisation/s who are running the campaign/communications and any relevant social, political, cultural or public opinion contexts that you can argue are relevant.

 

From the publicly available documents and online materials you have collected present your analysis of the objectives of the campaign/communications, its strategic approach and the key tactical communication channels that it has used. You should also evaluate from the documentary evidence the target audiences for this campaign/programme.

 

Section B: Proposed evaluation methods (around 500 words)

 

Propose what information and data you would collect, and how you would analyse it, to conduct a full practice-oriented evaluation of the success, or otherwise, of this campaign/programme. (Note: You are not conducting a full evaluation or collecting any data: your main focus is on proposing the design and method of evaluation.)

 

Section C: Critical reflection

 

Nominate and utilise two different theoretical frameworks for the academic study of public relations to critically evaluate the social and cultural dimensions of this campaign/programme. In this section critically assess both the campaign and the utility of your chosen theoretical approaches.

 

A (non-exhaustive) list of suitable examples:

 

Rhetorical/discursive functions of PR

Issue framing

Habermas/The Public Sphere/Strategic communicative action

Dialogic theories of PR

Propaganda

Persuasion (efficacy and/or ethics)

Mixed-motives/Contingency

Relationships management

Interest groups and pluralism/neopluralism

Information subsidies

Co-creational

Cultural Intermediaries

Excellence Theory

Elite power/political economy

Beck’s risk society