FROM INFLUENCING TO SHAPING THE PUBLIC DEBATE

The ability to proactively shape debate by directly engaging with the public early on is critical. Of course shaping public debate is easier said than done, and the evolution of debate is hardly linear. It’s messy, complex, grueling, and gets exponentially more difficult for communications to influence as it grows over time. Best then is to influence public opinion before issues become legislative priorities.

Increasingly clients want and need public relations advice. They want to know how reporters think and how they decide what news is from their perspective. This requires a basic public relations approach such as setting up an echo chamber to help frame messages , creating websites for the client, seeking coverage of the client’s goals by the media, working with pollsters to develop a message and creating videos demonstrating the products or services the client can offer.

The growing network of “strategic communications,” digital practitioners and the newly created PR subsidiaries of old-line lobbying firms is, in effect, supplanting special pleaders’ traditional tactics .