1. Organic Communication
11/24/2017
Winter Writer’s Workshop Communications Department Public Relations Team Forming Public Opinion
Facilitated by: Lee Broekman Organic Communication LLC Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Setting the Bar for Innovation

2. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Forming Public Opinion
The media plays a powerful role in influencing the way people perceive public relations messages.
Agenda Setting
Priming
Framing 2
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

3. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Media Effects
AGENDA SETTING 3
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

4. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Media Effects
AGENDA SETTING McCombs & Shaw
Media do not tell us what to think,
but rather what
to think about. 4
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

5. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Agenda Setting Discussion
What is on the media’s agenda today?
In a given situation, how have media placed issues X, Y & Z on their audiences’ agenda?
How can a public relations practitioner use to advantage an issue of relevance to the organization that is already on the media agenda?
What can a public relations practitioner do to place an issue on the media agenda?
How do you establish an issue’s importance and significance? 5
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

6. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Media Effects
PRIMING 6
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

7. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Media Effects
PRIMING Iyengar, Peters & Kinder
The media attend to some issues
and not others, drawing attention to some aspects at the expense of others, and thereby alter the standards by which people make evaluations. 7
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

8. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Priming Discussion
What information/personality is most accessible in your mind?
In a given situation, how have the media primed their audiences on a particular issue of importance to an organization?
How can you use to your advantage an issue of relevance for which the audience has been favorably primed?
What can a public relations practitioner do to gain the interest of media audiences when such priming has not occurred?
How do you determine what facets of an issue are most relevant and deserving of attention?
Which figures do you focus on in your reporting of a topic? 8
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

9. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Media Effects
FRAMING 9
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

10. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Media Effects
FRAMING Goffman
Media tell us how to think about an issue by providing a focus for reporting a story influencing how audiences
will understand or evaluate it. 10
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

11. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Role of Framing
Define problems
Diagnose causes
Make moral judgments
Suggest remedies 11
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

12. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Common News Frames
Conflict Frame Reporters structure their stories around a conflict that is often portrayed as being inherent in the issue being discussed
Consensus Frame Emphasizes general agreement
Reaction Frame Features the reactions of one or more important people involved in the story
Wrongdoing Exposed Frame Corruption or injustice is revealed
Straight News Account Frame The reporter primarily asks the standard who, what, when, where and how questions 12
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

13. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Framing +/-
A frame, well used, can help us understand complex events and issues. Conversely, a poorly chosen frame
can distort and misrepresent
those events and issues. 13
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

14. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Framing Discussion
What is the “meaning” of today’s top stories?
In a given situation, how have the media framed a story?
Is there a “good guy” and a “bad guy”?
Whose version of facts get top billing?
Which version becomes the standard against other points of view inherent in the story?
What can a public relations practitioner do to re-frame a story or counter a negative frame?
What meaning, interpretation and ideology do you attach to this issue?
How do you organize and present the ideas, events and topics you cover? 14
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

15. Enhance Your Communication Skills with Clients and Co-Workers.
McDermott Will & Emery / 11/09/15
Framing Techniques
Metaphor To frame a conceptual idea through comparison to something else
Stories (myths, legends) To frame a topic via narrative in a vivid and memorable way
Tradition (rituals, ceremonies) Cultural mores that imbue significance in the mundane, closely tied to artifacts
Slogan, jargon, catchphrase To frame an object with a catchy phrase to make it more memorable and relatable
Artifact Objects with intrinsic symbolic value – a visual/cultural phenomenon that holds more meaning than the object it self
Contrast To describe an object in terms of what it is not
Spin To present a concept in such a ways as to convey a value judgment (positive or negative) that might not be immediately apparent; to create an inherent bias by definition.
Fairhurst & Sarr 15
Lee Broekman & Judith Gordon, Organic Communication

16. For more information, please reach out.
Organic Communication
11/24/2017
For more information, please reach out.
Lee Broekman
Thank you
Lee Broekman, Organic Communication