I found the reading’s discussion of Grunig’s models to be the most interesting and the most influential in altering my perspective on public relations. I have always believed and to some extent still do believe that the function of mainstream public relations is to operate asymmetrically, propagating the biased information of organisations to the greater public. I did not really take into consideration that there were other models that operate in Public Relations. For example, simply just doing “anything to get attention for [an] organisation” seems not only simplistic but inefficient. I think that a company could lose a lot of respect if they were to just do whatever it takes to get a story or information out to the public (53 Johnston & Zawawi). Grunig’s model describes Public Relations model’s development, so it makes sense that it would move from the more primitive press agentry, to public information the second model. Public information is more accurate information given to the public. There is certainly less desperation in the attempt to get information out in the way Grunig describes it.
The last two model’s are more modern to me. While Grunig suggests that the two-way semmetric approach is the better, I believe that most of the public relations sectors still handle PR in a more asymmetric fashion. I feel bombarded with information everywhere I turn, and I feel I rarely if ever give back my personal opinion on a PR matter. Though Ideal I believe that PR has a long way to go to truly reach a symmetric approach.
