Advocacy and Opinion

Chapter 10: Advocacy and Opinion Chapter 10 leads students through several formats available to public relations writers -wishing to express the opinion of their organizations or clients. It is important for students to understand that the admonition in previous chapters against the blatant expression of unattributed opinion is not a blanket prohibition for all writing formats. This chapter attempts to guide them toward developing competence in various opinion-based writing opportunities.

The author has observed that even good student writers often naively believe that they need little structure for opinion-based writing. This chapter approaches organizational opinion from the perspective of issues management. It discusses research tools to identify emerging issues, and it presents writing strategies and tactics associated with organizational opinion in the context of public communication about those issues. Exercise 10.1 is a freewrite that provides a basis for class discussion about issues management.