Everybody’s talking at me … is anyone listening?

Public information during the Brexit campaign – including that provided by official civil service sources – was criticised for bias and distortion. Jim Macnamara, Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney and a Visiting Professor at LSE’s Media and Communications Department, argues that governmental and other communications services should focus less on getting their message across, and learn to listen more to the public

Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of Public Communication Review for 2012. There have been some delays in publishing this second volume because of changes to roles and the teaching and research commitments of editorial staff, which academics will understand. We apologise to authors whose work has been delayed and we are working on speeding up the review and publication process. This issue did not have a pre-planned theme, but two important perspectives on issue management and crisis communication are provided. In the first, we have given more space than the usual article length to an analysis of a major crisis at a university in Europe. While this occurred a few years ago, the article by Martial Pasquier and Etienne Fivat from the Institut de Hautes Études en Administration Publique (the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration – IDHEAP) provides a forensic analysis of a crisis unfolding, the actions taken by management (and desirable actions not taken), and the repercussions and effects that continued long after the initial incident. The article provides a ‘thick description’ of actions and thinking inside a crisis, as well as media and public reactions, and is informative for organisations and their communication staff. The second perspective on this theme is provided by an experienced Australian practitioner in a professional article. Tony Jaques has a long career working in issue management consulting, along with some academic teaching, and he provides salutary reminders of how crises often arise out of issues that are poorly handled or not addressed at all by management. Tony also explores the future of issue management including evolution from reactive responses to a proactive form of agenda-setting and framing by governments and policy-makers, the impact of social media, the relationship between issue management and crisis management, and the positioning of issue management within organisations. Before these two thematically related articles, this issue presents an analysis of a recent health communication campaign. In our lead article, Deborah Wise and Melanie James from the University of Newcastle in Australia use discourse analysis to examine one particular element of the communication campaign to promote use of a vaccine that prevents the development of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Types 16 and 18 which cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers. In a similarly detailed approach to that of Pasquier and Fivat, Wise and James analyse one brochure using discourse analysis to explore its text and visual content, paying attention to framing, presuppositions, register, modality, foregrounding and backgrounding of particular issues or themes, as well as omissions (what is not said). Their sentence-by-sentence analysis contributes understanding of the techniques of discourse analysis and illustrates the role and importance of deep knowledge to achieve effective communication through an information resource such as a brochure. This issue also includes an article based on a paper presented to the Third International PR History conference in Bournemouth, UK in 2011 by Robert Crawford and the editor. While being circumspect about publishing our own work, this article addresses an important gap in Australian PR scholarship – the lack of a comprehensive localised history of the development of public relations practice and the role and influence of PR socially, culturally and politically. Hence, the title refers to an ‘outside in’ perspective, noting that most PR histories to date have been written about PR for PR. This article examines a significant national cultural event, Australia Day, to identify how it was established, maintained in spite of opposition over many decades, repositioned to adapt to a changing social, cultural and political environment, and finally institutionalised with the Bicentenary celebrations of European settlement (1988) and celebrations for the new millennium. This article prompts us to issue a reminder to our readers to submit articles, tell your colleagues about Public Communication Review, and refer your students to the free online site – http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/pcr. As a ‘young’ journal, we do need to attract more quality submissions to achieve our goals of promoting scholarship across the diverse field of public communication and contributing to the dissemination of research in Australia and Asia Pacific. So please spread the word. And we hope you find the work of authors published in this issue informative and stimulating. Jim Macnamara Editor March 201

Editorial

Welcome to the second issue of Public Communication Review. Although our journal is still in its infancy, we are delighted to be able to bring together an edition that reflects the breadth and diversity of research and practical work that falls under the banner of public communication. Our theme for this edition revolves around the notion of conversations. Public communication cannot exist without a relationship between the communicator and its audience. However, as the articles in this edition clearly demonstrate, this relationship does not flow in a single direction. Effective public communication requires two-way interaction and engagement. Jim Macnamara’s article, ‘“Emergent” media and public communication’, sets the tone for this edition. In this overview of the literature on new forms of interactive social media , Macnamara notes that attitudes towards ‘new media’ continue to be informed by the past and that focus should be on practices rather than only technologies . His call for public communication practitioners and scholars to recognise the fundamental centrality of conversations within these ‘new media’ is taken up by the other contributors in this edition of PCR. The first of these critical accounts of public communication is Mark Pearson and Hamish McLean’s examination of the recent attempts by the Queensland government to engage in a dialogue with its publics. Examining the blurry line between public information and political persuasion, Pearson and McLean demonstrate that government media relations should not be analysed as a simple one-way conversation, but rather a series of conversations. In his discussion of anti-smoking campaigns and its impact on young smokers, Jim Mahoney investigates what appears to be a one-way conversation. Finding that the current approach is not working, Mahoney urges the creators of anti-smoking campaigns to listen to their audience and engage with them, rather than simply preaching to them and hoping that they will simply absorb anti-smoking messages. Erik Trosby’s article analyses a conversation that is yet to happen (and one that few of his respondents hope to engage in) – crisis communication within sport. His focus is Australia’s A-League football competition which has managed to avoid the crises that have dogged the NRL and the AFL in recent times. Exploring some of the reasons for this difference, Trosby reveals that A-League teams nevertheless remain vulnerable to such crises and, more worryingly, are not well poised to meet them. Our inaugural ‘Talking Practically’ section features a speech delivered by John Bevins to the Australian Centre for Public Communication. Having recently retired from a long and illustrious career in Australia’s advertising industry, Bevins reflected on some of the lessons he learned during his time in advertising. In this informative and entertaining piece, Bevins keeps with the theme of this edition by highlighting the fundamental importance of empathy and engagement in advertising. Without this conversation, advertising, like all public communication, will fail. And finally, our inaugural reviewer, Rodney Gray, looks at Viral Change by Leandro Herrero. Here, we can see how conversations also form an important component of managing change within organisations. We thank you for your support and would like to remind you that contributions on any issue related to public communication are heartily encouraged. Robert Crawford PhD Jim Macnamara PhD Co-editor Co-edito

Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of Public Communication Review. Borrowing an approach from journalism, it is appropriate in this first issue to briefly explain the who, what, where, when, why and how of this publication. Who and where? Public Communication Review is published by the Australian Centre for Public Communication (ACPC) at the University of Technology Sydney. Why? The Centre was established in 2002 to facilitate research in the field of public communication and to engage with industry and the professions through the dissemination of research and stimulation of debate on important issues, encouraging innovation, and promoting ethical practice. The ACPC is very much a result of UTS’ vision and goal to integrate theory and practice. Along with undertaking partnership and contract research, hosting seminars on key issues, and conducting short courses, the Centre decided that a quality journal is a key channel for achieving its objectives. When we asked the question ‘why launch another journal’, the members and the Advisory Board of the Australian Centre for Public Communication agreed that integration of theory and practice and our holistic view of the field of public communication fill a gap in the field. What? While recognising and respecting the specialist disciplinary fields of public relations, advertising, journalism and media studies, we use the title ‘public communication’ to draw focus to the interrelated and inter-dependent nature of a range of public communication practices. We define public communication as comprising advertising, public relations, organisational and corporate communication, and political communication including campaigns and engagement in the public sphere, as well as media communication generally. These practices are also closely inter-connected with journalism – albeit, sometimes in a tensioned relationship. We believe that this holistic view brings a new perspective and vantage point for exploring public communication. It recognises convergence and an increasing blurring of boundaries between practices of production, practices of distribution, and practices of consumption in the ‘Second Media Age’, and it facilitates discussion of common concerns and interests across practices of public communication. When? We intend to publish two issues a year. How? We have decided that Public Communication Review will be an e-journal as this allows research to be distributed more quickly than print publications and it enables the journal to respond to topical issues. Furthermore, it reflects the practices of the digital media age which are a focus of this journal. On behalf of the Centre and the University of Technology Sydney, I thank the distinguished scholars who have agreed to be members of the Editorial Board and welcome you to Public Communication Review

Public relations & the media : a new influence in "agenda-setting" and content

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Strategi Jitu Menjinakkan Media; ada Saatnya Media Perlu Di Hadapi

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Representations of men and male identities in Australian mass media

Gender has been identified as a key element of human identity. Feminism has focussed particular attention on gender issues over the past five decades. Gender discourse has been dominated by discussion of women and women’s issues - “feminists have somehow set the agenda for men’s studies” as well as women studies. Mass media have been identified as key sites of discourse in feminist studies. Numerous studies have examined representations of women in mass media and argued that these have significant effects on women, on men, and on societies. A number of researchers have found that the treatment of men in mass media is not unproblematic and say that that feminist-led discourses have presented pictures of men as rapists, batterers, pornographers, child abusers, militarists, exploiters, and images of women as targets and victims. But studies of representations of men have been far fewer than those focussing on women. Furthermore, some media content analyses have been limited or unreliable because of small samples or lack of methodological rigo