Two-Way and One-Way Communication

Two-way and one-way communication represent two basic methods or “styles” of communication and also serve as two key concepts for categorizing James E. Grunig and Todd T. Hunt's (1984) “Four Models of Public Relations.” Grunig and Hunt created the four models to show not only that different organizational settings require different means of evaluating their success, but also to show different stages in the history of public relations. For them, the major difference between two-way and one-way models is feedback. There is no explicit feedback component from communication receivers in the one-way models.

For Grunig and Hunt, one-way communication includes two models: press agentry or publicity, and public information. Using the press agentry or publicity model, practitioners believe that telling the whole truth is not essential. Sources release information with the idea of changing the receivers' behavior or beliefs. The information is often incomplete, distorted, or consists of half-truths. For the public information model, telling the complete truth is of the utmost importance. The public information model is used simply to inform, not persuade the receiver.

Grunig and Hunt worried about the paradigm of public relations often associated with the early practitioners: The role of practitioners was to inform and convince publics and markets of the rightness of the sponsoring organization's position on key matters. The use of one-way communication flatly rejects the possibility that the organization could be wrong in its stance, policies, and activities.

From Grunig and Hunt's perspective, two models feature two-way communication: two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric. While both of the two-way models include feedback, asymmetric and symmetric models rest on the question of intent. In an asymmetric model, feedback is important to the shaping of the message. Feedback from the receiver will be used by the source to better tailor the message, maximizing results and providing an outcome that is beneficial to the message source. The symmetric model allows for the possibility that, through feedback, both the source and the receiver may change. There is one thing unique to the two-way symmetric model: It is the only one of the four models that is actually a dialogue—which also makes it the most ethical.

Along with the explicit four-model paradigm, there is an implied moral or ethical issue that practitioners are challenged to consider. What is acceptable (ethically honest and moral) behavior for public relations practitioners? Grunig and Hunt maintain that a genuine dialogue must happen for effective public relations to occur; to be specific, a two-way symmetric setting. They are not alone (Scott Cutlip and Allen Center are another example) in suggesting that good communication occurs when “good” people are the ones communicating.

Most people agree with the concept that it is best to be forthright and ethical (honest and moral) in the practice of public relations. Accomplishment of that goal, at least in part, requires two-way communication. Cutlip and Center offered the following definition of public relations: “Public relations is the planned effort to influence opinion through good character and responsible performance, based upon mutually satisfactory two-way communication” (1978, p. 16). This definition, emphasizing good character and two-way communication, preceded (and probably inspired) J. E. Grunig and Hunt's models.

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