Whether People will Buy Your Story

This week, my class is reading the chapter about stories in Made to Stick. Dr. Chip Heath and Dan Heath present several studies to demonstrate that stories are more effective and memorable than statistics. Although the authors present criteria for memorable stories, they do not discuss whether people will believe your story. This is where rhetorical scholar Dr. Walter Fisher of University of Southern California comes in (pictured left).

Dr. Fisher proposed a framework to explain the ways in which people evaluate stories. The two criteria for assessment include narrative probability and narrative fidelity.

Narrative probability (also referred to as narrative coherence) refers to whether the story fits together and whether the story, characters, and actions are consistent and non-contradictory.

In the book Arguments and Arguing, Dr. Tom Hollihan (of University of Southern California) and Dr. Kevin Baaske (of California State University, Los Angeles) explained the tests of Fisher’s narrative probability with the following questions:

• Is the argumentative structure of the story satisfying and complete?
• Is the chronology credible and convincing?
• How do the characters acquire their motivation?
• Do the heroes and villains behave in their roles?
• Are the actions of the characters reliable?
• Do the actions follow the developed plot line? (p. 19)

Narrative fidelity refers to the matter of truth. Hollihan and Baaske generalized Fisher’s tests of narrative fidelity into two main questions:

• Do the characters make their decisions in accordance with the audience’s values?
• Are the facts presented correctly?” (p. 19).

It’s no wonder that public service announcements like this one are ineffective. What happened to message testing?

Further Reading

Fisher, W. R. (1978). Toward a logic of good reasons. The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 64, 376-384.

Fisher, W. R. (1984). Narration as human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51, 1-21.

Fisher, W. R. (1985). The narrative paradigm: An elaboration. Communication Monographs, 52, 347-367.

Fisher, W. R. (1987). Human communication as narration: Toward a philosophy of reason, value, and action. Columbia: University of South Carolina.

Hollihan, T. A., & Baaske, K. T. (1994). Arguments and arguing. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

Featuring My Students’ Blogs

I was glued to my computer screen reading my students’ blog posts last night! I have profiled my favorite posts that they wrote last week.

Fernando Aguirre Robert Iger
Chiquita Chairman and CEO Disney President and CEO

On Consuming PR, Sarah Essary deconstructs the differences between the executive head shots on Disney’s shareholder letter and on Chiquita’s shareholder letter.

As shown above on the right, Robert Iger, Disney’s chairman and CEO, dons a suit with a black tie at what looks like a red carpet event. The picture looks like a paparazzi picture: Iger looks away from the camera, and there are people in the background.

Compare Iger’s photo with the picture of Fernando Aguirre, Chiquita’s chairman and CEO. Aguirre looks directly into the camera and wears a casual dress shirt. His chin and forehead have a little shine, suggesting that this is not a touched up picture. Aguirre’s shareholder letter begins with “fellow shareholders,” which captures the tone of his picture as well.

To Sarah and I, Aguirre’s picture communicates warmth, professionalism, and a focus on his readers. We agree that Iger’s picture looks cold and elite. Let’s hope for a warm picture from Disney next year.

On Pat on the Back, Pat Foulon talks about Sen. Obama’s speech at the University of Oregon. Obama denounced spin, lies and PR. Would it have been difficult for Obama to at least say “bad PR” rather than maligning the entire industry? Did he even consider adapting his stump speech to the university, where PR is taught and where he borrowed our PR students to help with the media registration? And really, how meaningful is it to ask students if they are better off now than they were eight years ago. Let’s see — I guess that would be comparing college with junior high. I also noticed that Obama referred to the “57 states.” He must be exhausted.

On PRception, James Lutes’ raves about Delta Airlines’ blog as part of the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki project while ranting about the passenger experience on Delta. He raises a good point: How much good does blogging do when your customer experience is unsatisfactory? James comments, “Now if only you could make flying in your planes as pleasant as reading your blog, you’d really be making some profits.”

On Media Disc, Ben Benson discusses a controversy surrounding Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. A touch-up artist gave a tell-all to The New Yorker magazine.

On PRactice PRetty Writing, Stephanie Land commends America’s Next Top Model (*spoiler alert*) for selecting its first plus-size model. Stephanie relates this selection to Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.

On PR Play, Stephanie McCulley critiques the lack of public relations by Hewlett-Packard regarding rumors about laying off 400 people.

On PRotocol, Liz Harney shares tips for working through writer’s block.

On PR Obsessed, Olga Walsh reconsiders twitter after reading The Bad Pitch Blog.

On Stop the (Word)press, Bryan Saxton directs readers to the Google Friends application, which is a tool for adding social media components to Web sites.

On Public Relations for the Fashion Forward, Ali Grise discusses a spoof of a controversial Vogue cover. Also see here for her discussion of the cover that sparked the controversy.

Also, our very own PR Ninja, Beth Evans, compares public and private sector public relations, based on a talk with our PRSSA adviser, John Mitchell, APR.

On Pet Voice, Jean Kim weighs in on the controversial advertisements against PETA.

On Furry Friends, Stacey Rogers evaluates Johnson & Johnson’s blog as part of the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.

Survey of Young PR Agency Practitioners

Cross-posted to PRos in Training

If you’re working at a public relations agency full time and are younger than 26, please take minute to read the info below and respond to our survey (link at the bottom).

*******
Welcome to an exciting profession!

As a member of the up and coming generation of public relations practitioners, we would like to ask for your help. Workplace expectations are changing with the new tide of public relations practitioners. Public relations employers are asking for help in understanding how to build strong relationships with your generation.

If you work at a public relations agency, we hope you will help us by sharing your experiences with us. No scholarly public relations studies have been published that examine the perceptions of young practitioners in public relations agencies. We hope that you will confidentially share your experiences with us through a survey. Participation is voluntary.

Opportunity to Make a Difference
With your help, we would like to make a difference in the lives of new public relations practitioners who work at agencies. We want to make recommendations regarding how agencies can improve their relationships with young practitioners and how they can create an organizational culture that resonates with your generation. In addition, we would like to refine an existing model for ethical decision-making so that it will be useful to young agency practitioners.

Compensation
If you participate, we will add your name to a random drawing. The winner will receive his or her choice of either an iPod Nano or a $150 gift certificate to iTunes. A $50 gift certificate to Target will be given to two runners up, also randomly chosen. We expect the odds of winning one of the prizes to be about 3 in 500.

At the end of the survey, you will have the opportunity to contact us to indicate whether you would like to participate in an interview or focus group. If you are selected to participate in these activities, you will receive financial compensation in exchange for your participation.

Survey Completion
Because the survey is online and the questions are about your experiences with your employer, please refrain from completing this survey at work. Your employer could otherwise intercept the data. Your participation is confidential.

Sponsors
We are grateful to the Public Relations Society of America Foundation and the University of Oregon for funding this study.

Survey
You can begin the survey here.

Thank you for your help!

Questions and Comments
If you have questions or comments, you are welcome to contact us via phone or through e-mail from a personal e-mail account (away from the workplace). You will find our contact information listed below.

Sincerely,

Pat Curtin
University of Oregon
(541) 346-3752
pcurtin@uoregon.edu

Tiffany Derville
University of Oregon
(541) 346-2035
derville@uoregon.edu
Blog: The PR Post

Kelli Matthews
University of Oregon
(541) 346-3744
kmatthew@uoregon.edu
Blog: PRos in Training

Lessons in Assigning the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki

The Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki is a collaborative project for evaluating the blogs of Fortune 500 companies. You can read John Cass’ discussion of the project and its history on PR Open Mic here. John highlighted our first round of student blog reviews on his blog here. (Thanks, John!)

John, my class, and I have been discussing what to do about blog revisions. Due to the contribution of students’ blog reviews to this exciting project, I wanted to provide students with content and writing mechanics feedback. The challenge was that I asked students to post their blog reviews before I shared my feedback.

I discussed this issue with my class this afternoon. Students requested that I provide feedback for subsequent rounds of students’ blog reviews before they would be posted. John has also encouraged students to provide constructive feedback and pose questions on one another’s blog reviews. Helping others through the commenting area is a key part of blogging. John shared one of his blog posts about constructive criticism. Here is one of my favorite lines from it:

“The message is that if you would not say such negative things out loud why are you writing them on the web?”

The “would I say this to the person’s face” exercise is a useful test of whether the words are appropriate. John also notes that constructive criticism should be presented in a friendly rather than confrontational way. Giving a compliment before constructive criticism can help set the tone.

After reading John’s discussions, I feel comfortable with sharing content feedback on students’ blogs; however, for now, I prefer to save my editing of writing mechanics for offline conversations.

What do you think about sharing constructive criticism in a public forum? I invite readers to share their thoughts and stories.

Student Launches Social Networking Site for Horse Enthusiasts

My student Stephanie Land just established Equine Enthusiasts, a social networking site “for people who ride, train, own, or are involved with the horse industry.” Stephanie learned about creating a social networking site through her experience with PR Open Mic, which Robert French created. Stephanie is following Robert’s example by welcoming each member and by contributing to the online discussions. You can read about her experience with establishing Equine Enthusiasts on her blog here. Way to go, Stephanie!

Highlights This Week

Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications generously shared a guide to search engine optimization, which ties in with our assignment this week to write social media releases. (Note to outside readers: We’ve decided to use PRX Builder to construct the social media releases. Hopefully, PRX Builder will adopt Todd’s new template soon.)

Class, I welcome your comments about what you decided to do differently with your social media release based on the content from this guide.

Also, Tom Hagley has started a blog. I encourage you to read his first post and comment on it.

In addition, you can enjoy Kami Huyse’s video about astroturfing on Geoff Livingston’s blog (which is a good blog to add to your feed readers, by the way).

Spotlighting the Spotlighter: Dr. Karen Miller Russell

Dr. Karen Miller Russell spotlights public relations educators in the “Meet the Teacher” series, which she hosts on her blog, Teaching PR. Today, we are spotlighting each other. Dr. Russell teaches at the Grady College of Journalism and Communication at the University of Georgia. She has supported and guided me in my social media endeavors. Without further adieu, let’s meet Dr. Karen Miller Russell!

Tell us about the University of Georgia’s public relations program.

Our program is housed in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. UGA students have to apply to be Grady majors, and PR is one of the most popular, so we tend to get the cream of the crop — most have GPAs well over 3.0. We try to maintain a balance between teaching theory and research about PR with practical, hands-on professional training.

Your Word of Mouth class sounds intriguing. What activities do your students do in this class?

It’s a special topics course, so this is my first time teaching it. It’s actually a good example of trying to balance theory/research with practice — I had them read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and other research on word of mouth, making choices, and social media; and David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR, which taught them how to write a “new rules” plan for our class client, the East Georgia chapter of the American Red Cross. They also maintained blogs, did the social media coverage for the Edelman Digital Bootcamp in March, and used Twitter and other social media.

Congratulations to you and your students for winning the Bateman competition last year and for receiving an honorable mention this year. What tips can you share with aspiring teams?

Thanks! We actually also got an honorable mention 2 years ago, so the streak is building. The best advice I can share is that you have to keep your focus on helping the client, not on winning the competition. You can’t control what other schools do or what the judges want or like to see. But you can do a fantastic campaign on behalf of your client. If the students have been well trained, they should already know what to do — start with research and let that guide the strategies and tactics.

You wrote an insightful blog post about public relations serving society. There have been recent discussions about the definition of public relations. When you talk with students about the definition of public relations, what do you say? What are students’ reactions?

Students are like everyone else — they don’t have a clear definition of PR. I hope when they leave UGA, they want to make a positive contribution to society in addition to whatever personal goals they may have. To me that means choosing clients you believe in, and doing your best to promote them to the benefit of their constituents as well as the organization.

What first interested you in public relations history?

I’ve always loved history, but when I took a media history class in grad school (I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison) I saw that I could combine my interest in public relations with my love of history. Hardly anybody was doing research on it, and we had a great archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society, which included the Hill & Knowlton collection I used for my dissertation. I think doing the research is fun, and I think understanding history can help us better understand our field (including reasons other people dislike and distrust it).

What are some things that people might not know about you?

I won’t eat seafood, I love watching all kinds of sports, I have a 3-year-old, I spend way too much time on Twitter (students, feel free to add me, @karenrussell, and I’ll add you back), and I didn’t give any tests to my WOM class because I hate grading them! (Don’t worry, I gave them lots of projects instead.)

Thank you, Dr. Russell! It has been an honor to interview you.