Jody Roginson

Message comes through someone, often a press agent or a publicist, or some channel (think X) and there isn’t necessarily an emphasis on accuracy. It’s more about emotional appeals. This can become thought of as organizational propaganda.

There is an emphasis on accuracy and on making information available. However, because public information is provided on owned channels, such as organizational websites, it may not be perceived as being as credible as through sources that are mediated.

A sport organization pumps out a lot information and gets some feedback or responds to some questions. The communication, however, can be uneven or asymmetrical because the organization puts out more information than it receives back.

For example, players and coaches often answer questions at press conferences. Media members who are there can ask questions during such a press conference, but you couldn’t without earning a media credential. Neither could members of an opponent's student body. In that way this is considered an asymmetrical model.

In this model an organization tries to engage in a process to help guide their communication efforts. There is equal, or symmetrical, emphasis on an even exchange of communication.

Imagine that after the weekend series, a team of Texas Tech employees sent everyone (media, home and visiting team fans, players, umpires, etc.) who attended the game an online survey to complete about their experience and then they followed that up with phone calls to each of them to discuss their experience further. This would be an example of a sport organization trying to engage in a two-way symmetrical process for communicating, but that's just not feasible!

I hope you can see through that illustration that this one, while called the “gold standard” of PR, isn’t practical.

We’re usually too busy updating all the information that has to go on a website!