Page 129 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

118 D. McKNIGHT AND M. HOBBS

largely behind closed doors. Lobbying key government members is seen as
an essential tactic for explaining the organization’s point of view to legis-
lators and initiating two-way dialogues capable of convincing either side of
the merits or deficits of a particular policy initiative (Harrison 2011; Heath
and Waymer 2011).
However, when these internal communication campaigns fail, the
organizations involved will often elect to ‘go public’ and take their
arguments and complaints to the media and the ‘broader court of public
opinion’. The aim is to influence popular understandings and attitudes in
order to apply pressure on specific politicians so that they change their
stance on a given issue. ‘Going public’ is also a targeted strategy in that
organizations will run public relations campaigns in strategically significant
communities (McKnight and Hobbs 2013, p. 311). Common tactics here
include organizing town hall meetings, rallies and protests as well as issuing
direct mail letters, flyers and pamphlets. These ‘ground campaigns’ are
often supported by advocacy advertisements in the media and online.
As noted by Herbert Waltzer (1988) in his typology of corporate
advertising, advocacy and issues advertisements are an aggressive public
relations strategy. They are also mostly a reactive response to potential
legislative agendas or the advertisements of adversarial publics (Miller and
Sinclair 2009; Miller 2012). Their aim is to frame people’s understanding
of an issue or event, a practice communication scholars refer to as ‘second
level agenda setting’ in that it aims to influence how people think by
shaping their conceptual schema used in decoding information (Martinelli
2011, p. 40; Entman 2004).
PR theory also provides proactive strategies for controversial organiza-
tion to employ during times of relative peace with their publics. The most
common of these is called ‘inoculation public relations’ (Pfau and Wan
2006) and aims to ‘immunise’ an organization and their operations from
future challenges from legislators or oppositional groups by bolstering their
public image. According to Coombs (1998, 1999a) inoculation PR works
on the assumption that corporations can accumulate ‘image credits’ via the
publicity of positive performance, which can in turn offset reputational
damage generated by a future crisis or an adversarial communications
campaign.
Advocacy or ‘issue advertisements’ are often used as part of an inoculation
strategy, with the goal of presenting the organization as a positive contrib-
utor to the economy and society more broadly (Burgoon et al. 1995). ‘Good
works’, such as providing financial assistance and sponsorships to community