Saint Louis College of Bulanao

Graduate Studies

Master in Public Administration

GEORGE C. TUMBALI, LPT,MPA

Activity # 1: Getting to know each other

Introduce yourself by following the simple pattern listed below:

1. Start by greeting everyone…….

2. State your name…..
3. Educational Attainment……
4. Agency / Institution you are working…..
5. Position / Designation…..
Administrative Communication:
Domain, Threats, and Legitimacy
Vignettes: Administrative Communication Illustrated

1996 Olympics:
 public, private, and nonprofit organizations devoted to planning, security, logistics,
media coverage, and other support of the Olympics

 30, 000 security officers were drawn from U.S. federal, state, and local governments,
military and voluntary organizations, and even the FBI and CIA.

 fifty-five law enforcement and intelligence agencies were involved in the security effort

 197 nations participating in the Olympics had their own planning committees, security
forces, suppliers, media organizations, or other support agencies, making this an
incredibly complex administrative communication exercise on a global scale.

 In spite of the numbers of security officers and agencies and perhaps because of this
Complexity two people were killed and more than 100 injured by a pipe bomb explosion
in Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996.
Without communication it will lead to Deaths and
injuries.

The case of antigovernment freemen in Montana (month-long standoff) – no

people were killed

Reaching tonga Islanders- communicating was done through dance, plays and
other ancient forms of communicating – better implementation of policies e.g.
health and environmental protection

All of these vignettes involve administrative communication

The Theory and Practice of Administrative Communication,
Charles Redfield (1953, 1958) defines communication as

 "the process of transferring a selected bit of information (a

message) from an information source to a destination" .

Scope of Administrative Communication

 "In management we are not dealing with one-way
communication, of which commercial radio, television,
motion pictures, newspapers, and other mass media are
examples. Instead, we are concerned with bilateral
communication, in which information passes in both
directions, from superior to subordinate, or vice versa, and
back again in a continuous (albeit often interrupted) cycle"
Administrative communication
 Is any communication intended to facilitate the management of
an organized group. An administrative communication may be
originated to tell somebody something, to ask somebody
something, to recommend something to somebody, or to
predispose someone toward a certain action or attitude.
 includes verbal and Non- verbal

IMPACT

 to "facilitate the management of an organized group" or

"perpetuate, directly or indirectly, the goals of an organized
group"
 bilateralism is a necessary condition of administrative
communication. THERE MUST BE AN “interaction” WHICH
is typical of communication in management settings.

 administrative communication ought to be reciprocal what

Grunig and Grunig (1992) (Chapter 12) refer to as symmetrical
and negotiated: parties performing both sending and receiving
roles and willing to compromise and be influenced by each
other.
Threats to Administrative Communication

Practice under Siege

 There is wide-spread concern about declining membership

(generally resulting when members leave communications jobs
and no longer identify with the profession).

 Another major concern is that government communication

capability is becoming po-liticized with political appointees
increasingly replacing trained professionals as head of
communication units and marginalized by the overall loss of
credibility and influence

 Government credibility is most needed to break the cycle of

distrust, its lack becomes a barrier to improving trust.
 when governments have "come clean" and admitted faults,
they have often been punished for such candor, perhaps
making them reluctant to be so open in the future. This cycle
constitutes one of the biggest communication problems facing
governments, news media, and other publics.