J350 Final Project

Ella Sevareid

Miley Cyrus waited exactly one week before formally responding, to the backlash from her oh-so-risqué VMA performance. The interview that was finally released was a segment from Cyrus’ series of short documentaries that would later be released through MTV entitled Miley: The Movement. In this 30-second segment Cyrus explains that all the negative attention surrounding her VMA performance is unimportant, and she doesn’t pay attention to it. She explains that performances such as her own, which push boundaries, are inevitable in pop music, and especially at the VMAs. Her goal, like many who’ve come before her (see Britney Spears and/or Madonna), was to make history. And fifteen weeks later it seems she’s done just that.

This is an example of Public Relations because the interview was Miley Cyrus’s first interview after her VMA performance, and was strategically released at the opportune moment of Miley’s choosing.

Cyrus’ interview was an example of Systems Theory. Systems Theory holds that organizations and their environments are interdependent and adapt to their environment in which they operate. Systems can be either open or closed. An open system uses two-way communication model and uses feedback from stakeholders to make adjustments. A closed system is determined by the history or preferences of the decision maker and is closed to external feedback. In both cases, PR professionals take the role of “boundary spanners” who span the boundary between the organization and its stakeholders.

With her post-VMA interview, Miley Cyrus, being her own organization, had many stakeholders to consider. Her fans, parents of her fans, MTV (host to the VMAs), her label and other entertainers just to name a few. These stakeholders and Miley herself (the organization) are interdependent. With this interview, Cyrus, as her own boundary spanner, had the opportunity to reach out to any of her stakeholders and try to mend what many now thought of as a tarnished reputation. Many expected her to do this, but Miley, in this case the boundary spanner, had no intention of doing so. In her interview she specifically states the she doesn’t “pay attention to the negative”, demonstrating the use of closed systems because she is making decisions without allowing feedback from her stakeholders. She is blazing her own trail, and she is done following the rules to make other people happy.

Katie von Dohlen

August 25th is the day that went down in history as the day Miley Cyrus twerked for the world. That was the day of the MTV Video Music Award show at which Miley performed one of her hit singles, “We Can’t Stop”. The performance involved Miley wearing minimal clothing, sticking her tongue out, feeling herself with a foam finger, and dancing… no, twerking around stage and even on a married man (Thicke).

Miley’s performance shocked everyone. Some found it amusing while others found it disturbing, in particular, parents watching the VMAs with their children. Miley’s performance became a controversy and the one thing everyone remembered about the VMAs. Everyone had something to say about it, including Miley.
On October 10th, Miley made an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to promote her new album, Bangerz. Before discussing the new album, Ellen addressed the VMA performance and gave Miley a chance to explain herself.

In the interview Miley defends her performance as something that “was supposed to be funny” and “somewhat obviously provocative.” Miley also tries to understand why “normal” people were shocked but can’t wrap her head around it, she says, “I can’t really understand it because I don’t see anything more than what any other real artist did that night.”
Ellen mentions an interview she did with Elton John where he expressed his support for Miley. He explains how artists at the VMAs are competing for attention with the intention of overshadowing their competition and that is what Miley accomplished with this performance. People were only talking about Miley after the award show ended. With that performance she out shined the rest of the artists there. She did what she was supposed to do at the VMAs, It’s not like she was at the Oscars or the Emmy’s. This stunt is similar to those done by Britney and Lil Kim in the past.

This is the perfect example of the uses and gratifications theory, which in terms of PR involves sending a message to a targeted group. This theory is based off the idea that people actively choose and use particular media to satisfy their particular needs. To use this theory in PR the practitioner must determine how to reach a targeted audience with a specific message. The first step is determining the target group they need to communicate with. The next step is to figure out what kind of media that group pays attention to, since people are selective in the media they use. The final step is using that media channel to send a message to the targeted audience. This theory fits this example because Miley’s PR team targeted an audience that negatively affected Miley’s image and used the appropriate channel to reach them so they could send them a message that would reconcile the situation.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show is a daytime talk show with the main audience being those stay at home parents who have the time to watch during that time. Using the Ellen Show, Miley could send a specific message to the audience of parents that have given her negative reviews. Her interview was geared toward explaining her actions in a way that made sense for this particular audience and taking some of the poison out of the wound. Miley defended her performance and Ellen supported her throughout the interview, especially when she mentioned the positive support from Elton John. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is a trusted source of information for her viewers. Those viewers actively seek out the show for entertainment and information. The influence the show has on its viewer is used by Miley to her advantage. If Ellen casts a positive light on Miley her viewers may do the same.

The interview with Ellen is an example of public relations because Miley was able to use the show as a channel of communication between her and the public. She was able to comment on the public’s reaction to her performance and explain her vision for the performance in a relatable way. The show allowed Miley to get her point of view across to a target audience, whose judgment could have a negative impact on her image. She was able to defend herself from the negative reviews and put herself in a more positive and relatable position.

Lydia Folwell

The criticism Miley Cyrus received after her controversial VMA Performance was overwhelming in volume.  The days and weeks following were going to be crucial for her PR to respond in ways that would help her continue her success as an artist.

When looking only at Miley Cyrus’s personal Twitter feed from the weeks subsequent to her performance you would be hard pressed to find more than one tweet referencing the VMAs, and even that one tweet only refers to the number of hits the video received on youtube rather than the publics reaction.

The majority of her twitter feed is devoted to the promotion of her newest album, Bangerz.  She posts many pictures from her album photo shoot as well as countdowns to the release dates and updates on her singles rating status in the charts.

Her ignoring the public’s response on her twitter feed and instead focusing on her album release is an example of PR Agenda Setting.  She is purposefully attempting to get the public to concentrate on her music and is putting that front and center in everyone’s mind that follows her on twitter.

I believe this strategy was somewhat successful but lacking certain aspects of the theory that could have proved helpful.  She adapted the Priming stage of Agenda Setting very well by posting about her album leading up to the VMA Performance while posting little about the performance itself.  She however didn’t utilize the Framing stage as well as she could have.  Rather than posting a sole tweet about the number of hits her performance received she could have tweeted every milestone number reached by the video to really frame the issue as a success for her instead of ignoring the issue entirely.

Betsy Mylius

Miley’s performance at the VMAs spiked controversy everywhere even before she stepped off the stage. Yet her team was prepared and released a mini documentary titled “Miley: The Movement” to bring viewers into the mind and world of the scandalous star.

This documentary uses the elaboration likelihood model in PR to get their point across. Other than Miley herself, they use interviews with many other celebrities such as Brittany Spears to explain Miley’s behavior and her movement. It uses the Central Route by extensive interviews explaining how Miley acts the way she does in life and in her performances. 

Miley uses the documentary to show audiences that what she does is planned out. Every step is planned ahead of time. She did not just jump onto the VMA stage and start twerking on Robin Thicke without rehearsing extensively first. Then again, how much practice does that take? Miley then goes on to explain that this is not the first time that anyone has been shocked in the industry before, “Madonna’s done it. Brittany’s done it. Every VMA’s performance, everyone that performs. That’s what you’re looking for, you’re wanting to make history. Me and Robin, the whole time said, you know we’re going to make history right now.”

This is Public Relations for it illustrates to the audience who Miley is and her behavior whether she is on stage in a giant teddy bear or upset because she did not get to show up on the red carpet in a cop car.  I believe that overall Miley’s Public Relations team was extremely successful with this mini Documentary. They reached the demographic of fans they wished to by strategically having the documentary air on MTV. Plus they did not shy away from showing some of the darker sides of her such as her freak out right before getting on the red carpet. Although I do have to say that chapter is not titled properly with “Miley Keeps Cool Under Pressure, Walks The VMA Red Carpet.” Quite the opposite in my opinion.

Overall, the main point of the documentary is that Miley isn’t changing, but she is growing up and becoming herself. Yes people change, but they should as they get older. Which is more terrifying; a twerking twenty-year-old pock star or Disney’s Hannah Montana getting older but stuck in her tweens?