The public relations practitioner as part of the management team of an organization must be involved in the decisionmaking process to ensure that the organization takes positive, socially responsible actions. These actions, then, become the source of much of the organization's communication.

Often the process used to implement a public relations plan can be seen as an attempt to spread, or diffuse, information throughout the organization's primary publics. The diffusion process is how new ideas are adopted in society. The critical paths through which new ideas, products, or technologies spread include: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. Mass media is key to the first two of these paths while personal contact may be more important in the last three paths.

The concept of stakeholder management provides a good framework to visualize an organization's environment and to differentiate among the stakeholders. The goal in stakeholder management is to develop maximum overall cooperation between stakeholders and the organization's objectives.

The public relations practitioner is the key communicator within an organization. Writing remains the primary tool of the communicator, but practitioners must master a variety of writing styles. While the inverted pyramid structure is especially important because it is used by most journalists, other styles, such as writing for the Internet, are also necessary.

Another important aspect of the communication process is media selection. The three basic considerations for media selection are the needs and desires of the audiences, the optimum timing for the message, and the budget available for the medium.

Finally, if you want your message to be heard, you need to make sure you get your audiences' attention, understanding, retention, and action. Unfortunately, to be heard a message must go through a "funnel" of selective attention, selective perception, selective retention, and selective action. Therefore, the message is often lost at various stages in the process unless steps are taken to improve the likelihood that the message will be heard.

The final step in the process of public relations, measuring the effects of these messages, will be discussed in the next chapter.

To learn more about public relations communication watch the interview with Steve Erickson, Clip #9, on the book's CD-ROM.