Thursday morning at 9 a.m. Pacific Time, I’ll be interviewed by Lee Weinstein on Small Plate Radio at http://prworks.sprnetwork.com/. From a small list I gave him, Lee chose what one of my favorite topics – land-use and natural resource issues and public relations. Below, I’m listing some barriers to communications in this area; on the show tomorrow, I’ll give some tips for effective communications. If you’d like a booklet I wrote about this kind of communication, please e-mail me at kathy@adscripts.com. Enjoy!
Barriers to communication which make affect your public relations program centered around land-use issues and natural resources:
- Lack of support from senior management. If senior management isn’t on board, your project won’t succeed.
- The specific cultures within some corporate entities, such as mining companies and pipeline companies. Here, the difference may be described as one of the strictly utilitarian view of the land held by the company in questions versus the myriad of cultural, spritual, intellectual and emotional values which those in the local population hold about the land.
- The specific cultures within some government agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and the National Parks Service. There may be attitudes which are the equivalent of, “We’re the experts, we’re hired to do this job, and the public doesn’t understand or know what needs to be done.”
- Lack of understanding of the history and culture of the area. If a company comes into a western region wanting to open a new mine, drill for gas and oil, or perhaps operate a big game reserve, but doesn’t know whether or not that particular region and its communities have dealt with such issues before – and how they dealt with them – then the company is already operating at a deficit.
- Lack of understanding the values and views of the “Old West” and the “New West.” The West is often looked upon as a cohesive region, univied by its vastness, a place that can be treated in a general way. Nothing could be further from the truth.
- Lack of knowing about and understanding differences in culture, values and perspectives within regions and areas of the West. The differences throughout the West are not simply a matter of classifying the Old West and then the New West. There are vast differences in the various communities themselves.
- Imbalance of power between the corporation or government agency and the local community. For example, the people of Libby, Montana, had no power in their initial dealings with W.R. Grace & Company; the people at Grace knew about the town’s asbestos contamination, but kept quiet. Similarly, Native American tribes had no power against the dominant white culture for many years. Efforts to understand how to work with various tribes still lag far behind efforts made to understand business dealings elsewhere.
- Assumtpions that are not based on fact. For example, it’s a big mistake to assume that people living in rural areas are not educated. Most of the time, people choose to live there, even if they could make a better living somewhere else. Always remember “there are Ph.D.s out in the woods,” and act accordingly.
- Prior biases that may need to be discarded before communication begins. This involves a lot of self-awareness and perhaps a bit of self or company analysis. For example, many people hold unconscious biases toward those in the rural West, assuming they are not educated or aware (see #8); in the same way, they may approach Native American tribes with biases because they’ve had no experience working with tribal members or on reservations.
- Traditional western distrust of outside corporations and government entities. That distrust seems to be more pronounced the more a region has been used for its extractive industries and the more it has been approached with a patriarchal attitude.
- The traditional western reliance on face-to-face communication, coupled with…
- Lack of established relationships. It is paramount in rural western areas to establish personal relationships with anyone who has any interest in the issue at hand. This is time consuming, expensive, and absolutely necessary. Westerners place high value on being talked with in an informal, personal way, and do not value canned media message or e-mail promotions.
- Difficulties in disseminating information caused by sheer distances to travel in order to speak with people directly.
- Problems with public meetings and other communications tactics which do not engender trust among the local populace.
Want some tips? Listen in on Thursday morning, and I’ll post tips here on Friday!
