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Example research essay topic: Rhetoric In The Context Of Public Relations - 1,519 words

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Through rhetoric, people individuals and organizations influence opinions, understanding, judgements and actions. Negotiation and conflict resolution involve rhetorical changes of opinion, facts and resources. Policies by which people live together often require debate and consideration. Robert L. Heath 1. INTRODUCTION In this assignment I will try to illuminate and discuss what the term rhetoric is all about, how it is used, and how it becomes an implemented part in Public Relations situations.

I will discuss the importance of rhetoric as a communication tool to solve specific communications problems and illuminate this by the use of a specific case. The case used in this assignment is NATO's 78 -day intervention (war-campaign) in Kosovo in 1999. When using this as a case, it is difficult to describe the campaign to its full extent to illuminate the total use of rhetoric in all of the different communication situations occurring. I will describe and discuss NATO's intentions and needs to communicate about the intervention to the public opinion, both prior to, and during, and how it was done. When doing so, I will show that NATO was indeed facing a major communication problem towards the public opinion, if they did not address their intentions and motivations for intervening in the first place and later. In the assignment I will consider a brief background for why NATO intended to act in Kosovo, though this will not be discussed in depth.

I will mainly illuminate what NATO it self defined as the ultimate main reason for intervention, and how the use of rhetoric was a significant tool as part of an overall public relations strategy. Further on, this assignment will be limited, but will provide one example that demonstrates the general and particular use of rhetorical approaches. This example will hence be NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. When discussing in the assignment, I frequently use the term "public opinion." When referring to this term, the context is within a European public and not in particular the American public. The reason for this is the difference in which one might say that briefings about the intervention to the European public was made by NATO, whereas briefings to the American public more often came from Pentagon. Being a conflict in Europe, the average American had naturally less interest in this intervention than the average European.

PBI Media, On-line, 1999 As part of this assignment I have used a number of textbooks and online sources with different theoretical angles, to illustrate the meaning of rhetoric in the context of Public Relations, and how it is being used to influence opinions, understanding, judgements and actions. 2. RHETORIC IN THE CONTEXT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS In both classical and modern context, the term rhetoric has different meanings and perceptions. Perhaps the most commonly used definition of the term, is in regards to the process of persuasion, as in "influencing the thought of one's hearers. " Macquarie Dictionary, On-line, 2001. In this classical definition of the term, this usually refers to a single person addressing a message by the use of specific words or symbols, in the intent to persuade an audience about a specific issue.

Another, yet similar and broader definition about rhetoric is "the ability to observe in any given case the available means of persuasion - what needs to be said and how it should be said to achieve desired outcomes. It entails the ability and obligation to demonstrate to an audience facts and arguments available to bring insight into an important issue. " Heath & Tooth, 1992, p. 21. When using this definition, the purpose of using rhetoric seems visible because the persuasion process is done deliberately to achieve desired outcomes. Such a process must evidently be done with care and planning. One must determine what kind of messages that must be said, with what kinds of words, and with what kind of symbols. Both facts and arguments must be credible in a way to make the audience really believe in the messages that are being presented.

When connecting the term rhetoric directly to the context of public relations, it is according to Sproule's description (cited in Heath & Tooth, 1992, p. 5. ): "the new managerial rhetoric [] its use, not by individuals, but by institutions such as the U. S. government." Sproule also claims that "the eyes of managerial communicators are ever focused on the mass audience. " Most certainly, the U. S. government is not alone, whereas all kinds of organizations in both public and the nonpublic sector might have to rely on the benefits of a healthy relationship with its mass audience. When focusing on the mass audience in this context, this may be such target public's as the mass media, the nearby community and local government institutions.

When discussing the shapes and forms of the rhetorical approaches, this might be both words and symbols used to "share and evaluate information, shape beliefs, and establish norms for coordinate collective action", according to Heath & Tooth, 1992, p. 5. In other words, when the words and symbols are used in such manners, it is to influence the relationships between organizations and publics. Grunig also mentions these symbols, in relations to the fact that organizations are actually symbolic in nature. Organizations are hence being created largely by the use of communication, and may be changed through symbolic rhetorical acts. Grunig, 1992, p. 544. According to Heath & Tooth rhetoric "is the rationale for explaining how people and organizations strategically manage their relationships through word, interests, opinions and action.

It seeks to explain its dynamics among many factors: a situation that requires or allows a strategic response, a problem that arises from that situation, one or more audiences, messages, message sources, images or opinions participants... " Heath & Tooth, 1992, p. 25. 3. A CASE STORY: NATO'S INTERVENTION IN KOSOVO IN 1999 NATO's 78 -day intervention in Kosovo started on the 24 th of March 1999, and was named Operation Allied Force. It begun as a result of the lack of diplomatic efforts to stop what was referred to as an "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo. NATO, On-line, 1999. 3. 1 The pre-stage of the intervention Prior to the intervention, NATO addressed one main reason for doing so and this became to be some sort of a slogan. "We can't simply stand by and do nothing!" Cowan, On-line, 1999. How important was the slogan to justify NATO's intervention? An important issue for NATO was quite obvious, as deciding to use military power to solve a specific problem in another country.

Merely by the use of even limited military power, the public opinion would rapidly be faced with the fact that people eventually would be wounded and killed, and at least to some minor degree. In the same context, how would NATO be able to avoid loss of civilians, as an opposite to military personnel? Another issue facing NATO as a problem in regards the public opinion, was whether such an intervention would culminate and so on spread to other parts of Europe. For the 19 countries, all members and some participants in NATO's allied military force, was the concerns of the number of casualties that might occur to the troop members from each respective country. Other factors such as the total cost of the intervention, moral and ethical issues, and legal issues were significant factors to be considered by NATO, even before the first attacks on Kosovo started. When facing these serious concerns, was non-communication ever a possible option for NATO to use?

Probably not, but then again why? As a dominant military international organization, NATO was (and still is) the main representative for millions of people living in the 19 representative countries in both Europe and North America, all being indirectly and directly affected by such a major military operation. As Grunig mentions, in every risk management scenario one must implement "The Seven Cardinal Rules of Risk Communication [] Accept and involve the publics as a legitimate partner; plan carefully and evaluate your efforts; listen to the public's specific concerns; be honest, frank and open; coordinate and collaborate with other credible sources; meet the needs of the media; and speak clearly and with compassion. " These seven rules also correlates to what Grunig refers to as the "normative two-way symmetrical principles. " Grunig, 1992, p. 317. If deciding to ignore this powerful and massive public, NATO could have lost their organizational credibility and hence maybe even being forced to abort the intervention, if the mass media was to be the only channel for reporting on what was happening.

As David Perlmutter claims (cited in Cobb, On-line, 2001) "simple, persuasive images of war cause massive shifts in public opinion. " Especially in this pre-stage, NATO also had to gain further support for the future steps of the intervention, merely not by addressing the one slogan "We can't simply stand by and do nothing!" as the only legitimate symbol. Even so, the symbolic nature of the slogan was intentionally directed towards the public opinion. When so referring to the best of all mankind, its primary desi...


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