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| Issue No. 200601
| January 2006
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The PIOnet Newsletter is sponsored by Newswise and Dick Jones Communications
Feature Editor: Dick Jones Editor/Publisher: Roger Johnson
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PIOnet Newsletter is produced monthly to support media relations' vital role in integrated marketing for your institution. This role is not always adequately recognized, understood, or acknowledged. Our goal is to give you data, arguments, evidence, and ideas to enhance the understanding of and appreciation for media relations at your institution.
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View full list of jobs in higher education.
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Corporate PR Culture vs. Higher Ed Culture
by Dick Jones
Dick Jones Communications
I have covered disasters as a reporter and held the role of spokesman in bad-news situations, too. So I know firsthand, as do most of you, how easily information can be altered and misinterpreted.
The key question in the Sago Mine calamity is not, Why did the false information surface? It is, Why did it take so long to correct the situation?
Reports I have seen indicate that 45 minutes after the families' initial jubilation at unconfirmed reports that 12 miners were alive, company officials had grave doubts about the accuracy of those reports. For more than two hours, mine officials appear to have suspected what the families in the church did not -- that quite probably 12 miners were dead and only one alive.
"There appears to be no evidence that anyone from the coal company came to the church to make any rescue statements -- or talked to the media," report Joe Strupp and Greg Mitchell in the January 5 issue of Editor and Publisher magazine. "By this time...the coal company knew there was likely just the one survivor, but this did not leak out at all."
The first reports that miners were alive began circulating around 11 P.M. on Tuesday, January 3. It was after 2:30 A.M. on January 4, according to Strupp and Mitchell, that a coal company official came to the church, where relatives of the trapped miners were waiting, to announce the heartbreaking news that the rumor was not true.
International Coal Group officials have said that it took time to get things sorted out and make sure the facts were straight. This is undoubtedly true.
Company officials, however, had an obligation, as soon as they suspected that the good news might be wrong, to tell the families that the report was premature and entirely unofficial. They had the same obligation to go to the press briefing area, one hundred yards from the church, to say the same thing.
In the absence of these actions, joyful rumor calcified into "fact" in the early hours of January 4, making the eventual revelation of the truth far more painful.
Higher Education is not immune to tragedy, of course, so the lesson of Sago Mine is one that we should take to heart. Silence is not always the best policy, especially in the face of rampant rumors. Sometimes it's necessary to officially step forward and say, "We can't confirm that," until you can confirm it, one way or the other.
We invite your discussion of this topic on PIOnet.
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What is the Reference Preference?
by Zoltan Bedy
State University of New York at Oswego
From time to time, I have heard and read discussions by colleagues about how we, or our, institutions should refer to Americans of African descent. Do we refer to members of this group as "black" or "African-American"? Which term is preferred by Americans of African descent?
This latter question was the subject of a study entitled "What's in a Name? Preference for 'Black' versus 'African-American' among Americans of African descent" by Lee Sigelman, Steven A. Tuch, and Jack K. Martin (Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 3, Fall 2005, pp. 429-38).
During the Civil Rights movement, which began around the middle of the twentieth century, the terminology used to refer to Americans of African descent, and the term used by members of this group to refer to one another, changed from "colored" and "Negro" to "black". Then, in the late 1980s, civil rights leaders (Jesse Jackson among them) began to use the term "African-American". The term caught on quickly and, within approximately five years, became the label of choice. A 1994 national survey showed that among Americans of African descent, slightly more than half favored the term "African-American", while just over one-third favored "black". Then came the Million Man March in 1995, and, after Jesse Jackson referred repeatedly to "blacks" and never to "African-Americans" when speaking at this event, the term "black" began to see a resurgence.
The question, then, was asked by Sigelman, Tuch, and Martin in their "What's in a Name?" study: "Do you prefer the term 'black' or 'African-American' to describe your racial identity?" The results were quite different from those of the 1994 survey. In the Sigelman study, 48.1 percent of the respondents said they preferred the term "black", while 49.2 percent chose "African-American". (The remaining respondents, 2.7 percent, declined to express an opinion.) But the nearly equal distribution of preferences for "black" and "African-American" does not tell the whole story. While Sigelman et al did want to identify the preferred terms, they also wanted to know how people's preferences were broken down by age, gender, education, and other factors.
The key question in the (phone) survey of 2,382 respondents was about preference. Subsequent survey questions were asked using the respondent's preferred term. "Question sequence is of crucial importance in this context," explain the researchers, "because of the strong likelihood that the interviewers use of the term 'black' or 'African-American' early in the interview schedule, prior to soliciting the respondent's preference, would influence the respondent's choice of labels." Then, "to pinpoint the sources of preferences for one term or the other, we drew from an array of other information about each respondent," the researchers said. Those factors included age, education level attained, and, of course, gender, as well as whether the respondent was a resident of a major urban center, had lived in the South, and/or had attended an integrated primary school. In addition, racial identification was determined using the following questions:
- "How important would you say African-American culture is in your everyday life?" (very, somewhat, not-at-all important")
- "Do you currently participate in any organizations that support African-American equality and advancement?" (yes, no)
- "How often would you say that you read African-American newspapers and magazines?" (six-point scale rating from "nearly every day" to "never")
- "African-Americans should always vote for African-American candidates." (strongly agree, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, strongly agree)
- "Black people should shop in African-American owned stores whenever possible." (strongly agree, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, strongly agree)
- "African-Americans should not date whites." (strongly agree, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, strongly agree)
- "Black parents should give their children African-American names." (strongly agree, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, strongly agree)
Using the survey results, the researchers were able to devise a way to predict preferences based on the factors mentioned above. Generally, older blacks are less likely than their younger counterparts to prefer "African-American". Those who live in large cities are significantly more likely to prefer "African-American". Being a Southerner does not result in a significant preference for either term. The two strongest predictors of preference for the term "African-American" or "black" were the type of primary school attended and racial identification.
Those who attended primary schools in which the student population was predominantly either black or white were nearly even (58-42 percent) in their preference of "African-American", while those who attended primary schools in which the student population was about half black and half white seemed to prefer "African-American" by slightly better than 2 to 1 (69-31 percent). As for using racial identification as a predictor, those who have a stronger racial identification, using the scale above, also have a stronger preference (by some 12 percentage points) for the term "African-American" over "black."
But it is the "joint impact of age, community size, region, early-life racial composition in school, and racial identification" that is "considerably greater than the impact of any of these factors alone," say the researchers.
So, why is this important for us, as PIOs, to know? "How group members refer to themselves provides insight into their position in society," say Sigelman et al. And it is not just the question of whether to use the label "black" or "African-American". There is a similar question being debated and researched in the Spanish-speaking community regarding the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino/a". Questions of preference among other racial, ethnic, and cultural groups are also sure to arise. According to the researchers, "This is especially true of minority group members, for whom racial and ethnic labeling at the hands of the majority group has historically been pejorative."
As we work to establish, maintain, and strengthen the relationships between our organizations and the public, it is good for us to know how members of these publics think of and refer to themselves. As this study shows, even though it appears on the surface that Americans of African descent seem pretty evenly split on their preference for either "African-American" or "black," having a deeper understanding of our audience's background could help us predict preferences and target our communication accordingly.
We invite your discussion of this topic on PIOnet.
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Book Review: Blink Think
by Deborah Hill
Duke University
In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, turns the familiar concept of a first impression into something both strange and fascinating. His rendering of the awesome power of this daily phenomenon is surprising, sometimes disturbing, and will make you think twice about what you "think" you know.
Gladwell first introduces us to the concept of thin-slicing -- that split second in which you simply "know" something without being able to explain it. Thin-slicing is what psychologists call the adaptive unconscious, and it is our brain's innate, powerful ability to make accurate assessments in the blink of an eye.
According to Gladwell, thin-slicing explains the uncanny success of some gamblers and car salesmen, and even of top athletic coaches. These people are able to size up a situation so quickly that it gives them a competitive edge. He presents a compelling range of examples, from scientific studies of marital stability to the art dealers who instinctively sensed the Getty Museum had made a whopping $10 million mistake in the purchase of a cleverly forged Greek statue.
But thin-slicing isn't foolproof. Our "blink thinking" can be derailed by the fundamental associations and connections nestled our subconscious and so can lead us in directions that may be utterly incompatible with our conscious beliefs. For example, people associate tall, well-spoken men with success. According to Gladwell, these men tend to get better treatment during job interviews, are chosen to run most of the companies in this country, and generally have more opportunities in life -- whether they deserve them or not. He describes the presidential election of tall, well-spoken, but hopelessly inept Warren Harding as an "error on the dark side of rapid cognition."
The risk of false positives aside, Gladwell contends we would change the world if we better understood the value of thin-slicing. He argues that with practice, it is possible to hone and harness our thin-slicing skills.
Although Gladwell wrote this book for a general audience, the reality of thin-slicing has intriguing significance for those of us in the public relations profession. At least in part, we're aiming for the best "thin slice" interpretation we can get of whatever it is we're trying to convey, and this influences our communications choices whether we're working with the printed word, photography, video, or radio. It is part of why we spend so much time -- and must continue to -- examining situations from different perspectives before we act.
An engaging, thought-provoking read, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is also a cautionary reminder of the objectivity and care communications professionals need to take in their jobs.
We invite your discussion of this topic on PIOnet.
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