Engaging with the Media - Hamish McLean and Richard Phillips

Reading the chapter 11, Hamish Mclean and Richard Phillips i found some interesting points in Theories section. One of them is Spiral of silence theory (Noelle-Neumann 1984), explaining that in group discussions, if people think they are in a minority they are less willing to say what they think. This is because of peer pressure or keenness to adopt a view. People go along with what is perceived to be majority thinking for the sake of the peace within the group, because they do not want to stand out as being different, or to embarrass themselves. 

I found this very true and relate to us in our school, working as group.  Not everyone will stand out and say their ideas, therefore the group will be less active for this reason, however, it will help the group to work peacefully. On the other hand, different idea sometimes greatly increase the group's performance and sometimes occur conflicts within the group.

Another interesting theories that i had learnt before in this course is "Framing Theory" ( Tversky & Khaneman 1981). This theory explain how the news story is framed in certain way or perspective. This will portray the news under the perspective of the news provider. However, most of the time the news will be bias since it is framed under certain opinion, feeling of a person, or an organization.

I had learnt this in my last semester and i understand that this theory is being used in almost every newspaper, magazine etc... Some to control the riot of the country if they find out something is wrong within the government's system, therefore they have to frame the story in which way that benefit the government more. However, sometimes framing only be used to the sake of the organization. 

Interesting reading, i found some related to my previous studies and i do understand how important these theories are to PR, since we are trying to reach out to more people, to everyone.

Move on with the reading, i found some values which will benefit our materials, such as:

• Truth
• Timeline
• Proximity
• Conflict
• Eminence and prominence
• Consequence and impact
• Human interest
• The unsual or remarkable
• Fit the focus of each medium

Indeed, these values are essential for every materials we use in PR. I will take a look more and maybe apply these theory to my future essay.