Organizational listening: Addressing a major gap in public relations theory and practice

ABSTRACT

An extensive body of literature theorizes public relations as two-way communication, dialogue, and relationships between organizations and their publics. Although there are alternative views, including public relations as advocacy, most theories emphasize dialogue, co-orientation, and relationships incorporating satisfaction, trust, and control mutuality—even to the extent of symmetry. Critical perspectives propose a sociocultural turn that further emphasizes stakeholders’ and societal interests. This analysis draws on a three-country study that reveals a major theory-practice gap and proposes a significant expansion of public relations theory in relation to listening to realize normative notions of public relations and give effect to claims of dialogue and engagement.

大量的文献将公共关系定义为组织与其公众之间的双向的交流、对话和关系。虽然也有不同的观点，包括公共关系作为宣传，但多数理论强调对话、互定向和包含满意、信任和相互控制的关系 — 甚至达到了对称的程度。主要的观点建议一个社会文化的转变，进一步强调利益相关者和社会利益。本文针对三个国家开展了研究，揭示了一个主要的理论与实践之间的缺口，并建议对公共关系理论的倾听方面做出一个显著的扩展，以实现公共关系的规范概念并展现对话和接触的主张。

Una extensa bibliografía teoriza de las relaciones públicas como una comunicación bidireccional, el diálogo y las relaciones entre las organizaciones y su público. Aunque hay puntos de vista alternativos, incluyendo las relaciones públicas como la promoción, la mayoría de las teorías hacen hincapié en el diálogo, la co-orientación y las relaciones incorporando satisfacción, confianza y reciprocidad de control - incluso hasta el punto de simetría. Perspectivas críticas proponen un giro sociocultural que destaca, además, a los interesados y los intereses de las sociedades. Este análisis se basa en un estudio de tres países que revela una gran brecha entre la teoría y la práctica y propone una expansión significativa de la teoría de las relaciones públicas relacionada con escuchar para comprender las nociones normativas de las relaciones públicas y dar efecto las reclamaciones de diálogo y compromiso.

Keywords:

• Dialogue
• engagement
• listening
• relationships
• speaking
• two-way communication

Notes

¹ Listening in this context refers to listening as defined in the section “Defining listening.” It does not refer specifically to dialogic listening, which is described as an interplay between speaking and active listening (Dobson, 2014; Waks, 2010), although dialogic listening meets most of the criteria identified for ethical effective listening.

² The Organizational Listening Project is examining 10 public communication functions: Audience and social research; customer relations; social media; public consultation; marketing communication; corporate communication; public relations; organizational (internal) communication; government communication; and political communication.

³ The term press releases was extensively used by corporate and government PR practitioners interviewed in this study, even though ‘media releases’ or ‘news releases’ are more inclusive terms.