Page Center study suggests publics hold more influence than ever

Certainly the concept of “relationships” has existed at the center of public relations research and theory for decades, specifically the relationships between an organization and their publics. And if we look at the development of public relations theory over time, we can see somewhat of a shift in the focus on said relationships. Namely, with the development of Excellence Theory, we originally focused on the organization to public relationships, prioritizing the agency of the organization and how they can best reach their core publics or stakeholders.

With the advent of Relationship Management Theory, and the concurrent growth of research based on the Situational Theory of Publics, that focus shifted a bit, focusing more on the organization and public relationships, giving more agency to publics themselves. Since then, however, we’ve seen the rise — and arguably the dominance—of social media.

Or more to the point, we’ve seen the rise of new technologies that put more agency and power into the publics’ hands. The news of an organization breaking our trust, doing something that we see as unethical or going against social expectations can spread like wildfire. Social media, in short, has given the public the ability to hold organizations accountable in ways never before imagined.

We therefore need to take a new, updated look at the relationship between organizations and publics. Specifically, we need to investigate if, and if so the extent to which, the public possibly has more agency today than organizations in terms of driving organization-public relationships. Our study, funded by the Page Center, investigated how publics, specifically Gen Z — the first generation to have been born into the social/digital age — make decisions regarding the organizations with which they have a relationship.

Of the findings, which are being compiled in an article to be sent to a peer reviewed public relations journal, perhaps the most telling are the responses to two questions:

Of the 165 respondents who completed the survey, in terms of adopting, 100 respondents said yes, 65 said no. In terms of if a respondent had abandoned an organization and its products or services due to an organization’s known stance on or response toward a social issue, 110 respondents said they had abandoned a relationship with an organization, 55 said no.

Similarly, participants indicated that an organization’s demonstrated commitment to social responsibility plays a part in choosing the organizations with which they will engage. In this scaled question, zero participants said a commitment to social responsibility played no role, only five said it played a small role, and 112 respondents said it played a great extent or a lot in their decision-making. The 48 remaining participants indicated that it played somewhat of a role.

Together, the study found that the public has a great deal of agency when it comes to organization-public relationships. It suggests that public relations scholars should take a new look at our long-held theories and refocus how we research the “public” in organization-public relationships and arguably put the public piece more front and center.

The end goal is the same as it has always been, to understand how best to nourish strong relationships between organizations and their key stakeholders or publics. It just asks us to shift the “how” one more time. In the 1908s and beyond, we investigated the organization to public, then the organization and public relationship. Perhaps the next turn as scholars is to flip the approach to examine the public to organization relationship.

For more information about this study, email Dean Mundy at dmundy@uoregon.edu. This project was supported by a 2024 Page/Johnson Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center.