Personal influence and pre-industrial United States

Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 131–138

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Public Relations Review

Personal influence and pre-industrial United States: An early

relationship model that needs resurgence in U.S. public

relations

Robert I. Wakefield∗

Brigham Young University, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Keywords:

Personal influence model

Four models of public relations

Persuasion

Relationships

Community

Society

a b s t r a c t

The personal influence model of public relations, using one’s influence to seek favor with

government and other power bases, is seen as most applicable in Asia but also is found else￾where in the world. Only a few writings have explicitly broached the possibility that the

personal influence model is practiced in the United States. Muzi Falconi (2010) argued that

U.S. public relations emphasizes persuasion, espoused by Bernays and brought to fruition

through one-way messaging. While it is easy to see persuasion as dominating U.S. practice,

such observation ignores the prevalence of personal influence through at least 150 years

of U.S. society. As early settlers built agrarian communities, interpersonal communication

fostered community pride and solidarity. During World War II, Katz and Lazarsfeld iden￾tified personal influence as a major element in U.S. communication, overriding the mass

media in importance. Even today much public relations activity in the U.S. consists of orga￾nizations seeking favor from the power elites. However, with the focus on message control,

scholars have overlooked the efforts and effects of personal influence. The purpose of this

paper is to identify early evidences of the personal influence model in the U.S. Today, the

increasing power of social media and virtual stakeholders renders the persuasion model

as somewhat specious. It is time to reexamine the concept of personal influence and the

greater promise it holds for returning to what public relations was and should be in the

first place—a function for maintaining relationships.

© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

James Grunig once described four typologies of public relations: press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetri￾cal, and two-way symmetrical public relations (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). To Grunig,thesemodels indicated a sort of evolutionary

ascension. Press agentry arose in the late 1800s from the hucksterism of P.T. Barnum, who sought results by flooding the

public arena with information, regardless of veracity (a notion that prevails in entertainment publicity). Public information

came from Ivy Lee’s idea that entities should truthfully divulge at least some information, and this model pervaded govern￾ment relations long after World War II. Post-war corporate growth ushered in the two-way asymmetrical model, wherein an

organization uses research to understand its stakeholders but then manipulates them in ways that achieve the organiza￾tion’s purposes. Finally, two-way symmetrical communication entails research-based, give-and-take facilitation of mutually

beneficial relationships with stakeholders who supposedly stand on equal footing to the organization (Grunig & Hunt, 1984).

Grunig (1992) viewed the two-way symmetrical model as the most ethical—a normative ideal to which all organizations

should strive in their communications. However, the model attracted criticism from scholars such as Murphy (1991), who

viewed it as too idealistic for a practical world where large organizations would not likely release their power over publics.

∗ Tel.: +1 801 404 4681.

E-mail address: robert [email protected]

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.02.008