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journalists’ behaviour, providing a more complex framework. Grunig (1982, 1983) also
contributed to the study of journalists’ behaviour.
Finally, the research about ethnocentrism relies on studies in the fields of anthropology,
intercultural communication, and media studies. Anthropology literature helps understand the
concept of ethnocentrism and its original context based on the works of authors such as LeVine
and Campbell (1972), Segall (1979), and Lévi-Strauss (1973, 1983). In addition, intercultural
communication studies enabled the present study to link ethnocentrism with the concept of
cultural identity thanks to authors such as Giaccardi (2005), and Collier (1986). Meanwhile,
media studies highlighted the linkage between media and culture (and cultural identity);
authors such as Boni (2005), Lull (2000), Liebes and Curran (1998) studied the interaction
between media and the culture in which they operate. Moreover, a relevant contribution comes
from news values literature, which underscores the linkage between ethnocentrism and
journalists’ communications. The main authors of reference are Galtung and Ruge (1965),
Östgaard (1965), and Schulz (1976), although an important contribution came also from Aronoff
(1976) as well as Wilke and Rosenberger (1994).
In order to address the objective of this research, three research questions were formulated.
These research questions are used to investigate whether ethnocentrism exerts a direct and/or
indirect influence on communication behaviour. Furthermore, if ethnocentrism exerts both
types of influences, the questions sought to determine the relative importance of each. To
answer the research questions, the study investigates ethnocentrism’s influence empirically
through two types of analysis: content analysis and a survey questionnaire. The content analysis
focuses the investigation “in the field” through the analysis of newspapers and TV news to
determine what really happens in these media. Meanwhile, the questionnaire investigates
ethnocentrism’s influence at the individual level of journalists’ behaviours, attitudes, and
cognitions using a scenario approach, which refers to hypothetical situations.
In this research, the two types of analysis are interrelated; in fact, the content analysis results
serve to develop the questionnaire further. The content analysis was conducted with media from
the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland (one newspaper, daily news, and a news show) using
ten stories of global interest and focusing on a news values analysis. Using a syntax code,
relevant articles and TV news were selected, which were then subjected to a codebook for news
values analysis. The results of the content analysis identified three issues that were incorporated
into the questionnaire, which comprises two main parts—the measurement of situational
variables with regard to the three issues and the measurement of journalists’ ethnocentric
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attitudes. The questionnaire was submitted to 574 journalists operating in the Italian-speaking
part of Switzerland (Ticino); 180 usable questionnaires were returned.
The current research has been developed along five chapters. The first three chapters aim to
establish a theoretical background able to support the objective of this thesis. Chapter 1
introduces Grunig’s situational theory. After a description of the main concepts and the
variables composing the theory, the discussion follows the theoretical background of the theory
in order to develop a deeper understanding of the roots of the theory as well as the framework
that stands behind it. The last section contextualizes the situational theory among stakeholder
theories, highlighting the values and peculiarities of the theory with respect to other theories.
Chapter 2 is dedicated to the media publics—in particular, to journalists’ communication
behaviour studies. The objective of this chapter is to delineate a framework that helps explain
the fact that journalists’ behaviour is not subjectively biased, but depends upon some external
variables or different situations that require different behaviours.
Chapter 3 explores the concept of ethnocentrism. The aim of this chapter is to highlight the
links tying the concept of ethnocentrism to cultural identity and media. Ethnocentrism is
contextualized among news values theories and integrated into cultural identity and media
discourse. To support the importance of ethnocentrism, an overview of the concept as applied to
other disciplines is provided, particularly marketing and public relations. Subsequently, the
discussion presents the research model and the formulation of the research questions, thereby
introducing the two following chapters dedicated to the empirical research.
Chapter 4 describes the methodology used, delineating the instruments of research as well as
their structure and contents.
Chapter 5 presents the results generated by the two analyses—the content analysis and the
survey questionnaire—followed by a discussion of the findings. This discussion aims to point
out the relevant aspects according to what was illustrated in the theoretical background.
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Chapter 1
The Situational Theory of Publics
1.1 The Situational Theory of Publics
Situational theory explains how predicted communication behaviour can be used to segment the
mass population into publics likely to communicate about one or more problems.
The theory was first developed in 1968 by James E. Grunig, who tested the theory in various
professional settings, refining and expanding it. The situational theory has been credited by
public relations scholars as the first “deep theory” in public relations, and the most useful to
understand why publics communicate and when they are most likely to do so (Aldoory and Sha,
2006). With his theory Grunig (1994b) improves upon the classical conceptions of publics, by
formalizing those theories and providing means for identifying and measuring publics and their
opinions.
Grunig defines the situational theory as a teleological theory, meaning that it is intentional, not
deterministic. In fact it is able to predict when people will think and communicate purposively
but cannot predict what kinds of cognition members of publics will have or whether their
attitudes will be positive or negative. It is not possible simply because people construct
cognitions, attitudes, and behaviours; they actively control their own thinking and behaviour
and “they are not the product of deterministic forces outside the individual” (Grunig, 1994b).
Instead the theory shows which publics are most likely to have some cognition or attitude. In
other words the theory helps identify which publics will communicate most and be most likely
to develop ideas and evaluate those ideas.
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The theory is developed around three independent variables (problem recognition, constraint
recognition and level of involvement) and two dependent variables (active and passive
communication behaviour).
The independent variables allow to:
- separate people who are part of publics from those who are not;
- detect how a person perceives a specific situation;
- explain when and how people communicate about specific situational issues.
They are situational as they “describe the perceptions that people have of specific situations,
especially situations that are problematic or that produce conflicts or issues. The situational
definition provides a logical connection between these concepts and the idea of classical
theorists that issues, problems or situations create publics that change over time” (Grunig,
1994b).
These independent variables represent the conditions necessary for a public to develop and
include:
• Problem recognition refers to whether a person has a “need for information” and stops
to think about an issue. Measuring whether people detect an organizational
consequence is the first step to determine whether they will interact with the
organization about the problem and whether they will be members of a public (Grunig,
1984, 1994b).
• Constraint recognition represents the extent to which people perceive that there are
obstacles in a situation that limit their ability to do anything about the situation. This
variable discourages communication. If people perceive that they have little
opportunities to take action, information has little value to them. If there is a high level
of constraint recognition people are less likely to pay attention to the issue and
consequently they will not seek information and will not communicate about it (Grunig,
1984, 1994b).
• Level of involvement represents the extent to which people connect themselves with
the situation. It helps to measure whether people’s communication behaviour will be
active or passive (Grunig, 1984, 1994b).
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In the original formulation of the theory, the three independent variables were independent of
each other, but after some more statistical examination Grunig found out that they are
correlated, especially problem recognition and level of involvement. In addition to this,
statistical results showed that problem recognition is the trigger to the occurrence of
communication but it is to a large extent a function of level involvement. That is to say that
people are more likely to recognize problems in a situation they perceive to be involved in.
The three independent variables explain the behaviour of the two dependent variables, called by
Grunig: information processing and information seeking. They refer to two different kinds of
communication behaviours:
• Information seeking is an active communication behaviour. Individuals look for
information and try to understand it when they obtain the information; they are more
likely to form a cognition or idea about the situation (Grunig and Hunt, 1984).
• Information processing refers to a passive communication behaviour. Individuals or
publics do not look for information, they process it randomly, and they do not make
many efforts to understand that information (Grunig and Hunt, 1984).
Given the five variables, the theory states that high levels of involvement lead to active
information seeking, when a person perceives himself as involved in a situation he will be likely
to seek information actively. People seldom seek information that does not involve them; yet,
they will randomly process information about low-involvement situations, especially if they
recognize them as problematic.
In addition, high level of problem recognition, high level of involvement and low level of
constraint recognition increase information seeking. In fact a person who perceives a situation
as problematic needs information to solve the problem. High problem recognition and low
constraint recognition also increase information processing (passive communication behviour).
Moreover high levels of problem recognition, usually, are joined by high levels of involvement
and low levels of constraint recognition. High involvement generally leads to high problem
recognition because it is obvious that when a person is affected by an organizational
consequence he/she will see that consequence as a problem.
At the same level, high involvement reduces constraint recognition because people involved in
an issue will do their best to remove constraints in order to do something about the problem.
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All these mechanisms make an involved public to be the most active public. In fact people highly
involved try to avoid constraints by organizing with other persons who face the same problem,
becoming members of an active public.
1.1.1 Typical public segmentation according to situational theory
Problem-facing behaviour describes a public that recognize the problem and face no constraints;
this means that its members will be highly likely to seek and process information and to be
affected by the information.
Generally this will be an active public although it may remain only an aware public when
involvement is low.
Constrained behaviour is that when the members of the public feel constrained from doing
something about a problem. If involvement is high the members will be likely to process and
seek information in spite of the constraints and they will behave as an active public. When
involvement is low the members will have less motivation to communicate, thus they will be
part of an aware but latent public.
Routine behaviour occurs when the members of the public think the problem has been solved, that
is why the low level of problem recognition. When the level of involvement is high the members
seek information in order to support their solution to the problem. They are active publics who
try to preserve their solution. When the level of involvement is low, routine behaviour publics
do not care about the problem and they become nonpublics or latent publics.
Fatalistic behaviour describes the profile of a public that would not communicate actively (or
seldom) and would not process information that comes randomly to it. This kind of public
behaviour means that its members do not care about the issue and thus they will not do any
action for it. A case that occurs very rarely is that in which the public has a high involvement
and is still fatalistic; in this situation the public is latent, but if something happens to make it
recognize the problem it could become aware.
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As the three independent variables affect each other, there are some combinations that can occur
more often than others; this is the case of high-involvement problem facing and low-involvement
fatalistic behaviour.
According to some studies done by Grunig about several situations concerning environmental
publics, public affairs, consumers, social responsibility and employee issues, it is possible to
identify four kinds of publics that have a theoretical regularity:
• All-issue publics. Publics active on all of the issues.
• Apathetic publics. Publics inattentive to all of the problems.
• Single-issue publics. Publics active on a small subset of issues that involve only a small
part of the population.
• Hot-issue publics. Publics active only on a single problem that involves almost everyone
in the population (for instance gasoline shortage and drunken driving).
1.2 Theoretical Background of Situational Theory
1.2.1 The concept of “public”
To better understand the real value of Grunig’s situational theory it seems important to explain
its genesis through the concepts that inspired the theory.
Situational theory explains how predicted communication behaviour can be used to segment the
mass population into publics likely to communicate about one or more problems. In this
definition we find a fundamental concept for the situational theory, that of “publics”.
The concept of “public” originated as a sociological concept and was introduced in the early
1900s by the American philosopher John Dewey. His activity ranged from philosophy to
psychology and sociology; he was also engaged in educational programs as well as in politic
activities. He is, together with William James, the father of pragmatism.
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