Judy VanSlyke Turk and Bob Franklin. 1987. “Information Subsidies: Agenda-Setting Traditions”//Public Relations Review, Vol. 13, pp. 29-41

In this article the authors revise the role of mass media in setting the public agenda in both UK and USA. VanSlyke Turk and Franklin analyze the structure of both local media and local government.

Access to information about governmental activity is a necessary condition of democratic society development. However, “people rely on others to see or experience for them, and government is a major ‘other.’” (30) The main channel of dissemination of information is media. Public does not only obtain the raw information from media coverage but also a set of clues with it. Cohen wrote about media: “It may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its [press] readers what to think about.” (30)

This quotation describes what is called agenda-setting. This agenda is a constructed reality; the journalists decide themselves which events to include in current news and how to show these events. It’s obvious that government does its best to inform the public through the media about its activities.

VanSlyke Turk and Franklin make a little excursion in the history of governmental public information offices in the UK and the US that started in early 1900s. According to figures they cite, about one percent of gross revenue of a typical local government in the UK was spent on PR in the 1980s. (33) I suppose, this share has grown up since that time.
The authors compare public information/relations officers’ roles in both countries. Their functions are “to promote government to the media and to media audiences in the sense that they wish to provide information and promote understanding of government policies and practices.”(33)

The common feature of PIOs/PROs in both countries is that they tend to rely upon news releases, news conferences and briefings. Nevertheless, “one-half and two-thirds of the information subsidies disseminated by PIOs are NOT used by the mass-media” (34) in United States. Other findings in examinations of government public information made by authors were: PIOs are more likely to initiate information subsidies rather than disseminate them to a journalist’s request; published stories were more likely to be unfavorable, while government subsidies were almost favorable; the PIOs and journalists highlight different issue of topic preference; PIO handouts and news stories try to avoid controversial topics (34-35).

Meanwhile, in the UK the PROs play a more important role as gatekeepers, determining the media content, certainly in the local level. The placement rate of local government’s press releases in the UK is much higher than that in USA (96%) (35). Another interesting feature in British practice is use of free newspapers by governmental bodies. “Free newspapers are probably the most powerful media tool for PR people.” (37) in UK

The differences could be explained by varying in the structure of local media and in the structures of local government in the two countries. Authors point out the following differences: “American local papers carry more national news than British local papers which tend instead to focus on local, even parochial issues.” (37) A second difference is the character of free newspapers in UK where they are an important source of news while in the US free newspapers are mostly advertising.

The reason why British newspapers more likely rely on governmental sources is that they have fewer resources for news gathering than American ones. Another difference is journalistic craft values: American journalists are more independent than British ones: “While American journalists consider themselves to be watchdogs of government, Britain journalists have been dubbed ‘the silent watchdog’”. (38)

Differences in relations between PIOs/PROs and media could be also based on differences in structure of local government in both countries. Government in the local level in Britain is much smaller (in terms of demography, political autonomy etc) than one in the US, therefore former one is more in proximity and newsworthiness for local opinion leaders. (39)

In combination, differences in both structure of local government and media system are the differences of culture. In the United States, the dominating principle in freedom of information (formalized in First Amendment), that forces government be opened to society, while in UK “national security interests” still urge the PIOs/PROs to reveal a part of information that makes the rest of information more valuable and newsworthy.

It seems to me that cultural differences do play a big role in PR practice; findings made by VanSlyke Turk and Franklin in this article prove that they exist even in such a similar democratic societies like UK and US. The article describes the process of setting the agenda in both countries and shows why British PIOs/PROs are more successful in this point than their American colleagues. In spite of the fact that local government structure changed somehow in the UK since 1987, the value of the article is quite high because of its unique topic (cross-cultural differences in agenda setting).