Effect of Support and Personal Distance on the Definition of Key Publics for the Issue of AIDS

Abstract

Situational theory predicts that those with a high problem recognition, high involvement and low constraint recognition will be active information seekers. A telephone survey of 493 individuals in a Southwestern city finds knowledge of AIDS is high among all groups and, as hypothesized, distinguishing audiences according to personal and impersonal levels of problem recognition, involvement and constraint recognition provides a useful extension of James Grunig's situational theory. The addition of valence of support as a predictor is also found to enhance the use of the situational variables in identifying target audiences for communication campaigns.