Unit 5. Publics, markets, and audiences
Pre-reading task. Answer the following questions:
Do you know what “publics, markets, and audiences” is?
Why do you think it’s important for a PR practitioner to distinguish these groups of people?
Read the text and check if you were right:
Effective public relations begins with knowing who you deal with. The public relations practitioner, therefore, begins by identifying the organization's publics, groups of people connected with the organization. This requires a general understanding of what a "public" is as well as knowledge about the various types of publics relevant to most organizations. To identify an organization's publics, you must be able to distinguish publics from other groups that are of interest to the organization. In particular, publics are often confused with audiences and markets. The truth, however, is that these groups are distinct in significant ways.
Publics. To a public relations practitioner, there is no such thing as the "general public." It's impossible because the very concept of public is specific and limited. They are bunches rather than loose twigs, mosaics rather than isolated chips. Each public is homogeneous in the sense of its members sharing a common bond of interest or concern related to an organization, although one that may not always be apparent to them. Beyond this shared relationship with the organization, the members of a public may have little in common and often have no demographic similarities. Publics are, for example, patients of a doctor with AIDS, volunteers at a soup kitchen, homeowners whose side streets are congested by college students, and repeat patrons of a vegetarian restaurant. The public may be supportive of the organization (frequent customers) or nonsupportive (striking employees or picketing ex-customers).
Markets. An organization's markets (also called market segments) are a specific type of public. They are groups of people whose defining characteristic is that they are potential buyers, customers, patrons, patients, clients or otherwise spenders who are sought out by a business. Members of markets do not necessarily have anything in common except the ability and potential to spend money on the organization's products.
To distinguish publics and markets, think of them in terms of your personal relationships. Publics are like your family. You don't get to choose your relatives, nor they you. You exist in a relationship often not of your own making, which includes your friendly Cousin Chris, overbearing Uncle Fred and eccentric Aunt Bertie. Markets are more like friends. You can add or delete them at will, usually based on your interest in having them around and their ability to please you. Sometimes, but not necessarily, publics and markets coincide, just as family members may also be friends.
Audiences. An audience consists of the people counted among the readers, listeners or viewers of a particular medium. Beyond their reliance on that medium, members of an audience do not necessarily have anything in common. Audiences generally are passive; they do not seek the organization's message. Instead, they put themselves in a situation in which the organization can present its message to them despite their potential lack of interest.
To define publics and audiences, public relations practitioners look for overlapping circles of opportunity. Publics are the people with whom they wish to communicate; audiences are the people they can communicate with through a particular medium. Public relations practitioners develop effective program tactics around the coincidence of publics and audiences.
Types of Publics
To identify publics completely, you should go about it systematically. A useful approach comes from systems theory, the study of patterns of associations, or linkages, that define the relationships between groups of people. Look for the organization's linkages among the groups most likely to affect the organization in some way. This process, called a public relations audit, covers four basic types of publics: customers, producers, enablers, and limiters.
Customers. An important grouping of publics is found in an organization's customer base—the people who use the organization's product or service. Consider the following organizations and their consumer publics: Hospitals have patients, merchants have shoppers, schools have students, TV stations have viewers as their "customers." Try to identify publics as narrowly as possible. Hospital customers, for example, can include first-time patients, pediatric patients, underinsured patients, repeat patients, and so on.
Producers. Another important group of publics consists of producers, the people who provide the organization's service or product. They include employees and volunteers as well as suppliers of goods, services, and financial resources. Examples of producer publics include doctors and nurses working at the hospital, clerks and managers of the merchants, teachers and taxpayers who support the schools, and reporters and production crew at TV stations. The producers of this book include its authors, editors and compositors.
Enablers. Other publics in some way enable your organization to operate and communicate. These enablers may be professional colleagues, formal or informal regulators such as government agencies or trade associations, and the communication media. Following are examples of enabler publics: state health agencies and medical associations that set standards for hospitals, the Chamber of Commerce and business media that affect the environment for merchants, teacher groups and the state education department that affect schools, groups such as the National Association of Broadcasters that try to create a healthy professional environment for TV stations, and the publishers, bookstores and reviewers that enable this book.
Limiters. Some publics are the opposite of enablers. These limiters are publics that threaten or restrict the organization's performance. They may include formal or informal competitors and other groups that seek to impede the organization in a variety of ways, such as pressure groups, unions, public watchdog organizations, and governmental entities.
For example, pharmaceutical companies may threaten hospitals with rising drug costs, changing residential patterns can hurt neighborhood stores, budget cuts could impede the educational program of a school, a threatened union walkout could hurt the TV stations, and strong competition from another book could adversely affect the continued existence of this text.
Answer the following questions:
How do you understand “effective public relations”?
Why are the terms publics, markets and audiences often confused?
What is publics, markets and audiences?
How can you distinguish publics from markets and publics from audiences?
What are the types of publics?
What is the difference between the types of publics?
Give examples of supportive and non-supportive publics.
What’s a public relation audit?
Give Russian equivalents for the following words and word combinations from the text:
A public relations practitioner, to distinguish smt/smb from smt/smb, to be of interest, to be confused with, homogeneous, a bond of smt, apparent to, have in common, be supportive of, based on, at will, to coincide, to define, to communicate through a particular medium, an approach, a pattern, a linkage, to cover four basic types of publics, to enable, to threaten smb with smt/doing smt, to restrict, an organization's performance, to impede, a competitor, pressure groups, unions, public watchdog organizations, governmental entities, budget cuts.
Give English definition or synonyms to the following words and expressions:
A public, an audience, a market segment, to define, an approach, a linkage, to enable, to impede, a competitor, pressure groups, unions, public watchdog organizations, governmental entities, budget cuts, an organization's performance, a consumer.
Give all the derivatives to the following verbs:
to distinguish
to support
to coincide
to define
Study different meanings of in terms of and translate the sentences into Russian:
Наиболее часто употребляемые способы перевода словосочетания in terms of:
1) с учетом; 2) на основе.
The optimum was measured in terms of an error criterion. - Оптимум измерялся на основе критерия ошибок.
Decision problems can be classified in terms of the number of participants involved. - Проблемы принятия решения можно классифицировать с учетом числа заинтересованых участников.
In terms of the players the game can be 2-person or N-person.
The classification has been made in terms of the complexity of the available strategies.
To distinguish publics and markets, think of them in terms of your personal relationships.
The book has been well reviewed, but in terms of actual sales it hasn’t been very successful.
In business terms the project is not really viable, but it would add to the prestige of the company.
We’re thinking in terms of moving to the South, as there are so few jobs in the north.
The recent increase in inflation means that our income has been reduced in real terms.
It sounds like a good suggestion, but I wonder what it will mean in practical terms.
Grammar Infinitive translation
Инфинитив, стоящий в начале предложения, может играть роль двух членов предложения: подлежащего и обстоятельства.
В роли подлежащего инфинитив может переводиться или неопределенной формой глагола, или существительным. В роли обстоятельства инфинитив следует переводить неопределенной формой глагола с союзами для того чтобы или чтобы. Таким образом, прежде чем переводить, следует выяснить, есть ли перед сказуемым кроме инфинитива другое слово, которое может быть подлежащим. Если такое слово есть (или группа слов), тогда данный инфинитив является обстоятельством цели. СР.:
To read much is to know much. – Читать много – значит знать много.
To read much one must have much time. – Чтобы читать много, нужно много времени.
Инфинитив, стоящий после слов likely, unlikely, sure, certain переводится следующим образом. Сначала переводится подлежащее, затем инфинитив переводится сказуемым, а указанные слова – вводными словами.
The results are likely to be effective. - Эти результаты, вероятно, будут эффективны.
To be likely – вероятно, может быть
To be not likely – маловероятно, не может быть
To be unlikely – вряд ли, едва ли
To be sure – конечно, несомненно
To be certain – наверняка, обязательно
Look at the examples of using infinitive in the text and give correct translation into Russian:
To identify an organization's publics, you must be able to distinguish publics from other groups.
To distinguish publics and markets, think of them in terms of your personal relationships.
To define publics and audiences, public relations practitioners look for overlapping circles of opportunity.
To identify publics completely, you should go about it systematically.
Look for the organization's linkages among the groups is most likely to affect the organization in some way.
Translate the following sentences into English, using the words and structures from the text:
Должна существовать взаимозависимость между предоставлением экономической поддержки и демократическими реформами в этой стране. (linkage)
Этот обычай грозит стать всеобщим. (threaten)
К счастью, его интерес полностью совпадает с его обязанностями. (coincide)
Эта история будет нам интересна. (be of interest)
На мой взгляд, ваш журнал - одна из лучших возможностей опубликовать такую статью. (medium)
Эта книга по истории охватывает годы президентства Эйзенхауэра. (cover)
У каждой картины есть свой зритель, у каждой книги - свой читатель. (public)
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