Posted: September 13th, 2017

Corporate Communications-5MZ008-2014-15

Corporate Communications-5MZ008-2014-15

Case Study 2
Introduction

The following task will test your understanding of the Circuit of Culture and its Practice Matrix. Read chapters 3 & 10 of ‘International Public Relations’ (Curtin & Gaither, 2007) before you carry out the analysis of this case study.

Once you have read the chapters you should watch a special report produced by the news channel Al Jazeera named: Rush for resources; How much of Papua New Guinea‘s wealth of natural resources is reaching its people?

To watch the programme place your cursor over the following link, press control and click on the link at the same time:

You can also copy and paste the link into the browser address/url bar of your web browser.

Recommendations

•    Watch the programme several times and take notes, bearing in mind the aims of this task.

•    Take from the case studies discussed in the book what you consider relevant for making sense of the theory but do not assume that the analysis and solutions devised by Curtin & Gaither (2007) can be applied directly and automatically to this task. While the cases described in chapters 3 & 10 of the book are useful to make sense of the theory, they are not in any way similar to the case that you are about to analyse (our task). In other words, make sure you are covering the specific aspects of the task, which are listed/indicated here.

•    Some terms used by Curtin & Gaither (2007) have a specific meaning. For instance, the term ‘production’. Do not assume that meanings are similar to the ones you know – invest time familiarising yourself with the terminology.

•    It will take you a while to work out how the theory – academic views – can help you to understand the specific situation of the participants involved in the case study and also therefore to come up with a comprehensive analysis. Allow enough time – at least three weeks – to work on it.

Your task

As senior communication manager working for the PR international conglomerate WPP Group you have been asked to travel to Papua New Guinea to advise its government on a matter of critical interest for the future of this country located in the southwest of the Pacific Ocean.

Papua New Guinea’s government has signed a $16 billion deal to allow energy corporations to extract and transport liquid natural gas to Asia. However, the government is facing opposition from different groups of local stakeholders who believe the project will not improve their current standard of life and also challenges their ancestral beliefs and value system. Lack of trust in the government and its partners is visible.

The government’s initial public relations efforts have failed to muster any good will amongst some of tribes living in close proximity to the first stage of the project. It is therefore likely that the current approach, if maintained, will fail to win the support of up to 100 tribal groups that will supposedly benefit from the project.

The assessment of the situation presented to you by the government is very superficial and indicates that:

•    Tribes are not in agreement on what they want from the authorities (multiple expectations).

•    Some groups are using violent forms of protest to express their frustration with the way the authorities are implementing the project. Some are vowing to increase the level of violence in their actions if the government does not meet their expectations.

A comprehensive reassessment of the situation is needed. In different circumstances it would have been critical to interact personally with the different tribal leaders and interview key stakeholders but this is a volatile situation and people will not open up to you because you work for the government. However, you have managed to embed yourself in the production team of 101 East (Al Jazeera’s news team on the island) so you were allowed to look around alone while they gathered information for the special report (the one that you have to watch) on this issue.

a) Since you could not take notes – only observe – you have to watch the report again. Do not buy any particular point of view, try to stay impartial (if that is possible) and do the following:

•    Identify the key norms, values, legal arguments (related to regulation)

•    Identify the different sources/points of view/discourses (related to production)

•    Identify the different ways in which discourses have been interpreted and de-coded

•    Identify the main or only form of representation available. How does it influence the current situation?

•    Pin point the ways in which key stakeholders identify or relate to the project

All the information you gathered identifying the items listed above should be inserted/entered into the column labelled ‘a’ (see the table below). If you want to write 500 words summarising your findings for this part of the analysis you can do it separately. This summary is not mandatory.

b) Describe the main challenges/issues that arise from each of the moments in the circuit. Enter this information into column ‘b’. Again, if you want to expand on what you entered into the table you can produce a short 500 word summary.

c) Suggest managerial/operational (non-communication) and communication tactics for each of the challenges. Use column ‘c’ of the table below to present this part of your analysis. Expand on it if you wish – outside the table – but do not use more than 500 words.

Moments    a) ID    b) Challenges     c) Tactics/solutions/actions
Regulation
Production
Consumption
Representation
Identity

Do not leave empty spaces/boxes. You must complete the whole table. If you are unable to cover some aspect of the task (e.g. a moment of the circuit), you must explain why. Expand or modify the size of table if you need it.