Public communication - Essay Example

16-10-2006 Public communication Introduction: In modern day politics, public communication is taking center stage and success of governments to a large extent depends upon the ability to communicate effectively to the public. Information is now becomes more than a crucial weapon for acquisition of social, economical and political power in any country. Nowadays media is playing an appropriate and effective role in managing governments. In order to protect their positive image governments are trying to employ new communication strategies and policies. Governments are the legitimate players of political process and communication to the public is the legitimate element of this process. Public/government communication is the important governance tool itself. Appropriate public communication is necessary for governments to become effective (Engel, 2005). Nowadays information and governance should provide a framework within which political, social and economical priorities are based on a broad consensus in society. Information and governance targets improvements in administration of government and delivery of services to the public. It ensures efficiency, availability, transparency and accountability of government information system. The success of the government to a large extent depends on their ability to communicate effectively to the broader public. So it has been agreed upon by all communication scholars that media are playing a growing role in modern day politics. Contemporary news media function as a vital but unofficial intermediary branch of government (Cook, 1998). However the nature of the role of public communication is changing in uncertain ways that leads to speculations regarding their role in the effect on the transformation of the democratic process in the contemporary societies. Here we are more concern about the way governments practice public communication and put constraints in it as well as control of the governments on public communication. Constraints and control: The objective of public communication is to transmit messages targeting the public and enabling it to have an overall view, while at the same time is able to retain its distance from the general strategy and the central messages being transmitted by government so that to achieve its goals and policies. It is very much evident that democratic governments are crucially dependent on a sufficient degree of two-way communication and horizontal communication at the grass root level, otherwise there cannot be consensus building and responsiveness. In the present era of mass media communication such as newspapers, Radio, televisions do have the potential of including practically everybody. The term public means open and available to the public; visible and observable from the public and effectuated in front of it. Thus, public has to do with publicity and diaphaneity / transparency. In almost every country, public media works under lots of constraints. The most important constraint, the public communication is facing the interference and involvement of governments at most of the level itself. Even in the post totalitarian world effective legal framework protection to media still far from reality and peoples perception about independent public communication as stage-managed. Public communication faces the constraints such as decision-making power over the public communication, which directly connects with the ownership. Ownership may be public ownership combined with public control i.e. not of government but of civil society or public ownership combined with government control or private ownership with decision making at owners discretion or private ownership with decision making in legal framework and a strong cultural tradition concerning professional rights, quality standards etc. In the above types of ownerships governments put constraint on the all except the last one. So framing legal framework with strong traditions, professional ethics can regulate the constraint. Secondly institutional freedom of public communication is not sufficient condition for its appropriate democratic performance. Even formally free media can create a particular type of representative public sphere, which is not more than a stage on which personal power parades its glory. Thirdly public communications are intrinsically asymmetrical. The access to their functions is very unequal. Some social and political actors do have direct and preferential access over others. Fourthly the agenda structuring function also lies with governmental agencies and their political masters. It is upto their discretion whether certain issues rank high or low, is dealt with extensively or in a volatile manner. Fifthly public communication do have the power to set agenda but they are completely been dependent on political and bureaucratic masters. So political communication become tools at the hands of power politicians in the government and they use this platform to portray their views only. Apart from above constraints public communication generally faces some other constraints such as anonymity, overconfidence, equal treatment of multiple senders, commercialization of media, interlocking of interest between media, politicians and business sector, inherent media ideology and culture, new technology, time responsiveness, policies and above all public perception. Similarly governments control public communication also. Communication practices and technologies have come to dominate media - government relations. This systematic professional control of strategic public communication applies to democracies on both sides of the Atlantic (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999). Public communication control is widely thought to be essential for governing. Politicians and officials use publicity to make news, to get the attention of other policymakers, to set agendas, and to help persuade others into action. This link between governing and publicity in all political institutions has news media as the facilitator for enabling politicians to accomplish their policy goals. (Cook, 1998) Moreover, more sophisticated news management operations that enable officials to retain control of key political messages, restoring the media - government balance in favor of government, arise. So, there is more to the story of media - government relations and the political content of news media than simply that the media are dependent upon official sources. (Bennett & Livingston, 2003) The media may be key elements, or objectively important to government and politics since they constitute a vast economic power. This concentration of economic power is likely to be accompanied by political power as well. Moreover, the media have a critical role in the communication of the government with the public. Through out the last years there has been sufficient demonstration that the media is in desperate need of reform. The absence of substance in news content has a great deal to do with the structural and organizational constraints that constantly bear on the news decisions of media, journalists and even politicians maintaining the gate keeping function. Lance Bennett offers a four-pronged, multi-gated model that drives the modern news cycles; application in different historical and political contexts, the reporter's news judgment values, bureaucratic or organizational newsgathering routines, economics, and information and communication (Lee Kaid, 2004). Government and people communicate via various forms and channels; advertising a new policy or communicating changes in an older one, promoting or propagandizing certain ideas, etc. The use of strategic communication and political public relations by governments has also increased in the last decades. Governments are changing the face of politics by attempting to directly "sell" their message to the public, rather than having complex policy matters debated in Parliament or disseminated by more traditional media (television, radio, newspapers). The rise of this trend is symptomatic of the decline of the public dialogue. (Rose, 2000) Public communication agendas can have substantial impact on the priorities and behavior of government, but they also suggest that the influence is sometimes from government to the media, rather vice versa, and that journalists and government officials often cooperate with each other to raise the salience of various issues and problems without first involving public opinion. Government sometimes influences the subsequent Public communication agenda and sometimes follows earlier media and public agendas. Specifically, important news sources influence on the Public communication agenda is the corps of government public information officers and other public relations practitioners. They subsidize the efforts of news organizations to cover the news by providing substantial amounts of information. Prominent personalities and government sources as well as polls and personal conversations and affiliations are more influential news sources. Moreover, journalists are ready to use government or party - initiated material. Now it has been clearly evident that in one form or other governments put constraints and control public communications as a part of their well thought strategies. Media influence is enhanced or diminished by the political power or weakness of other players in the political arena. The expectations that the media foster democratic governance and guard against abuses of power by government officials are tempered by the realities of power struggles (Graber, 2001). The news is in a state of continual change, defined and redefined by economics, journalism, technology, politics and public. Today's news system has evolved as an essential tool of government at a time where audiences increasingly mistrust politicians and journalists. Moreover, it evolves under pressures of commercial political profit and political spin. Government's officials try to manipulate the media to their advantage, to foster their preferred policies and to win favorable publicity. 2003 and 2004 seem to confirm the suspicions of a public already dubious about government communication. Although the news media provided a window on the world of politics, the content, which the public received, was subject to widespread criticism (Stanyer, 2004). Now spin and spin-doctors are becoming part of the public communication on the agenda of the governments. Specially Britain became the center stage of government spin and become synonyms to spin-doctor like Alistair Campbell. The current UK Govt. with Blair as its symbol and spokesperson are becoming in famous in the media world for their extensive use of spin. Burring news or diverting news or exploiting events such as Jo Moore email is the example of spin. Recently U.K. Govt. press officer Jo Moore email on September 11, 2001 contains the phrase. "It now a very good day to get anything we want to burry " created uproar and is good example of time of spin. Similarly skilled practitioners of spin are called 'Spin Doctors". The most well known person in U.K. often described as a "spin doctor" is Alistair Campbell who was involved with Tony Blair's PR between 1994 and 2003. In the case of Dr. David Kelly who is a Govt. official exposed the Blair's Govt. attempt to deal with the discordant message about Iraq military capabilities that were conveyed to journalist. In the above case Hutton's inquiry reaffirmed the Govt. complain about violation of secrecy and observing that Kelly was acting in breach of Civil services code of procedures "when he had an unauthorized meeting with the journalist Andrew Gilligan (Hutton 2004: 321) To manage spin & spin-doctors Govt. all over democratic world put forward Freedom/Right of information act, which is intended to empower citizen by granting them a right to government documents. However the law will be implemented by a Govt. that was developed highly centralized structure for controlling and communication of its department. The conflict between public expectations of transparency and elite concerns about governability may not be adequately accounted for during implementation of the U.K. Freedom of Information Act. The encroachment of the "spin culture" can be seen outside of the government as well as other institutions of British life sharpen their capacity to hone the messages which they project to the public. (Manning: 1998, Miller & Dinan 2000, Pitcher 2003). But FOI has certain positive impacts on Government departments. It is difficult to quantify the extent to which it enhances the routine and political fallouts from disclosure of information but the departments has learned how to mitigate risk associated with transparency and how law may be bent to reduce risks. Though the government forms FOI for citizens but it have an upper hand. In the political and administrative spheres spin Doctors are managing the information and have structural and strategic advantage. Through the government forms FOI for citizens but it have an upper hand. In the political and administrative spheres spin Doctors are managing the information and have structural and strategic advantage. Conclusions: Now as public communication has taken a center stage in government policies, programmes and views because it has potential to portray the positive image of the government and influence public opinion in their favour. In all the democratic world governments and political parties in power is desperately trying to remain in government and for that trying to put constraint on public opinion and control it. Governments are always trying to influence public communication through direct or indirect control on media. They always argue in favour to put constraint and control over public communication because of their need to influence public opinion in favour of self to uphold their vote bank and to remain in power. Their tendency to control public opinion as well as opponents and ability to put forward their views loud and clear tempt them to put constraints and control public opinion. To regulate constraints and control of public opinion governments themselves can do little unless public pressure do not mount on them. The informed knowledgeable citizen, professional approach, proper training to media on the whole, cultural background, legal framework to regulate public communication and above all political will to provide transparent information system to citizens can only put brakes on the constraints and control put up by the governments on public opinion. Recent spurt in government spin and deliberate appointment of spin-doctor by the different governments such as Britain has not gone well in public minds in general. Though the governments are trying to be perceived by the public as they are trying to establish an independent public communication system under public pressure but the true and honest political will is lacking to provide a transparent, independent and responsible public opinion system. Governments are trying hard to put forward Freedom of information as an act to practice transparent information system but it has certain shortcomings which creeping in it. The mindset of the government officers to provide information to general public has not been changed yet. They are putting lots of hindrances in providing information. Though some people are trying to take advantage of the act must also be taken care of. It is the staring phase of freedom of information so as the time passes it will become an effective tool in the hands of citizens to evolve a transparent information system. References: 1. Bennett, L. & Livingston S., (2003), "A semi-independent press: government control and journalistic autonomy in the political construction of news", Political Communication, vol. 20, pp. 359 - 362. 2. Blumler, J. & Kavanagh, D., (1999), "The third age of Political Communication: Influences and features", Political Communication Journal, vol. 16, p 213 - 224 3. Cook, T., (1998), "Governing with the news: the news media as a political institution", University of Chicago Press; Chicago. 4. Engel, Ch., (2005), "Governmental public relations", Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com . 5. Graber, D., (2001), 4th edition, "Media power in politics", Congressional Quarterly Press . 6. Hutton, L. (2004), Report of the Inquiry to the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly. London. 7. Lee Kaid, L., (2004), "Handbook of political communication research", Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; London . 8. Miller, D. and W. Dinan. 2000. 'The Rise of the PR Industry in Britain, 1979-98', European Journal of Communication,15,1, 53-5. 9. Rose, J., (2000), "Making pictures in our heads: government advertising in Canada", CT; Praeger Publishers . 10. Rich, F., (2004), "Operation Iraqi infoganda", The New York Times Newspaper, http://www.nytimes.com accessed on 15-10-2006. 11. Stanyer, J., (2004), "Politics and the Media: A crisis of trust", Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 57(5)3, pp. 325 - 338. Read More