Spot the difference

Stakeholders, audiences and publics. Three terms we use in PR to describe who we are communicating with. Nowadays, they are used interchangeably. Is there a difference?

Transcript

Spot the difference

Stakeholders, audiences and publics. Three terms we use in PR to describe who we are communicating with. Nowadays, they are used interchangeably. Is there a difference?

Let’s look at some academic definitions of each term. My go-to definition source is the glossary at the end of Joep Cornelissen's book, ‘Corporate Communications’. The publisher, Sage, has made the glossary accessible online. Joep defines a stakeholder as “Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives”. That is a bit more nuanced than the standard definition of a stakeholder as someone who has an interest in the organisation. Joep’s definition of a public is a negative portrayal, “People who mobilise themselves against the organisation on the basis of some common issue or concern to them”. Joep defines target audiences as “The key groups or individuals that a company wants to receive with its communication messages.”  In a Public Relations Review article, the authors Robert Wakefield and Devin Knighton said that audiences are derived from a marketing-generated approach of “getting audiences to consume messages”. The authors suggest this harms PR practice as it is not about building mutually beneficial relations. To me, ‘audiences’ is about one-way communication. It is closely related to persuasion, which many PR scholars dislike, even if it is the most prevalent form of communication. ‘Stakeholders’ is more of a symmetrical, two-way communication (which PR scholars love). However, the lack of a detailed understanding of stakeholders is a common fault in PR. ‘Publics’, to me, is closely linked to issues management.

The use of either stakeholders, audiences or publics probably depends more on sector practice. Public sector communicators tend to use stakeholders. Communicators working for companies use audiences or target audiences. PR agency folk are possibly the only ones to use publics, and then they are using it to distinguish between different stakeholder groups rather than activists!

Does it all matter? Probably not if the communicators understand what they are doing and it achieves organisational objectives. However, I note a gradual diminishing of the academic base in public relations. In my well-thumbed copy of ‘Exploring Public Relations’ from studying the CIPR Diploma many years ago, Lee Edward said, “Definitions are important because they shape expectations of what public relations could or should be about”.

What do you think?

[Image: Dylan Gillis on Unsplash]