Hello. Last lesson separated being seen from being trusted. The interactive story could meet its trailer-view target while players who depend on keyboard controls still had good reason to doubt its accessibility information. That raises a more precise question: trusted by whom, about what?
This lesson looks at the different groups around a creative project—their stakes in it, their ability to affect it, and the relationships they already have with it. You will build a map that helps you notice people a single category such as “our audience” would conceal. The aim is not to rank whose opinion matters most; it is to understand whose experience and judgment a project must take seriously.
Start with relationships, not demographics
A prospective buyer, a tester, a critic, and someone whose work appears in a project might all see the same announcement. They do not encounter it from the same position. One is deciding whether to purchase; another may be checking a promised feature; a third may interpret the work for others; the fourth may need to know whether their contribution has been used as agreed.
A stakeholder is, broadly, someone who can affect a project or is affected by it. In PR, a public is often understood more specifically as people connected by an issue or concern, whether or not the creator intended to address them. The terms overlap, and practitioners do not always use them identically. The important point is that a public is not simply a slice of a mailing list. People may gather around a concern and demand an answer the project never planned to give.
This is why demographic labels are often a poor starting point. “Adults interested in games” describes a potential market. “Players who cannot complete a dialogue choice without a mouse” describes a relationship to a particular claim and a particular consequence. The second description tells you far more about what the project needs to learn.
Watch how a stakeholder-mapping facilitator moves from a broad list of affected people to a more useful account of their concerns.
How to Facilitate a Stakeholder Mapping Workshop
Watch How to Facilitate a Stakeholder Mapping Workshop from Big Bang Partnership for a practical method of identifying groups before deciding how to engage with them.
Begin with who has a stake: note that a person can be affected by a project without being close to its creators. Then watch the initial list, where identification is deliberately kept separate from ranking. In the mapping grid, notice how interest and influence help organise attention. Finish with what comes next, especially the move from assumed concerns to listening and checking them with the people concerned.
The grid in the video is useful, but “interest” needs careful interpretation. Someone may have little interest in a project’s overall success and a profound interest in one decision it makes. Likewise, a person with few followers or little power over sales may bear the greatest cost of a broken promise. A PR map should make those differences visible rather than flatten them into a popularity ranking.
Three questions that make a map useful
For each group, ask:
- What is at stake for them? Consider practical effects, not just whether they like the work. Can they use it? Have they contributed labour? Are they relying on a claim, credit, payment, or agreement?
- How could they influence what happens? Influence might mean an ability to change the work, grant permission, withhold participation, report an experience, or shape how others understand it. It need not mean a large online following.
- What relationship do they have with the project? Are they makers, contributors, users, potential users, interpreters, partners, or people drawn in by a specific issue? This tells you why they might speak—and what the project might owe them.
The Institute for Public Relations reading offers two complementary ways to sharpen this account. Its linkage model prompts you to look beyond customers to operational partners, people with authority, groups with shared interests, and people who become involved when an issue arises. Its stakeholder typology adds power, legitimacy, and urgency. Read these as aids to noticing relationships, not as instructions to dismiss anyone who scores poorly.
[PDF] Identifying and Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations
Read the relevant passages of Identifying and Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations from the Institute for Public Relations to distinguish people affected by a project from publics that form around an issue, then examine two ways to map their relationships and claims.
In “Defining Stakeholders and Publics” (around p. 5 of the PDF), read the definitions. In “Identifying Stakeholders by Linkage to Organization” (pp. 5–7), read the four linkages; focus on whom each category might help you remember. In “Prioritizing Stakeholders According to Attributes” (pp. 8–10), read from the explanation that defines the attributes. Later in that same subsection, read how claims change. Concentrate on the meanings of the three attributes and why a map may need updating; you need not memorise every stakeholder label in between.
Here, power concerns the ability to affect decisions, legitimacy concerns whether a claim has a credible basis, and urgency concerns a claim that is both important to the claimant and time-sensitive. These are different dimensions. Someone can have a strong claim and little ability to make a creator respond. In fact, that combination may be a reason to pay more ethical attention to their experience, not less.
The typology makes the combinations visible:
Treat the diagram as a snapshot, not a verdict on people. In particular, labels such as “dependent” or “dangerous” describe combinations in the model; they should not replace an assessment of what people have actually experienced or done. Nor does a diagram decide whether a claim is legitimate for you. That judgment needs evidence and, where possible, listening to the people involved.
Map the interactive story’s publics
Return to the story from last lesson. A tester reports that a dialogue choice cannot be passed without a mouse, although the project’s accessibility information suggests keyboard navigation works. Imagine the team is preparing to release an update. It would be tempting to announce a fix to “players” and measure whether the announcement receives a favourable response. A map reveals why that would be incomplete.
| Group and relationship | What is at stake | Possible influence |
|---|---|---|
| Players who depend on keyboard navigation — users or prospective users relying on a specific claim | Whether they can play, and whether the team’s descriptions allow them to make an informed choice | They can test the claim, report what works, and decide whether to rely on future information; they may have little leverage over the team |
| Developers and testers — people making and checking the work | Time, workable priorities, and the accuracy of what they are asked to release or verify | They can change the controls, find remaining barriers, and correct the published description |
| Other prospective players — potential buyers without the same access need | Whether the story interests them and whether the project seems candid | They can buy, recommend, or question the work, but cannot establish that keyboard navigation works for those who need it |
| Critics or specialist reviewers — independent interpreters of the project | Whether they can give readers an accurate account | They may investigate the claim and shape its wider interpretation; their influence varies |
| Accessibility-focused groups — people connected by an issue, some of whom may not be customers | Whether the claim reflects usable access and responsible reporting | They may share expertise or bring attention to a problem; they are not obliged to validate the team’s work |
These rows are not mutually exclusive. A critic might use keyboard-only controls. A developer might also be a player with an access need. Map the relationship relevant to the issue, rather than assuming each person belongs in only one box.
The map changes the response. A broad announcement might help prospective buyers know that an update exists. It cannot, by itself, answer the keyboard-dependent player’s question: Can I now pass every choice, and what remains untested? That requires the team to check the controls and describe the result accurately. Critics may then have something verifiable to discuss, but their approval cannot stand in for affected players’ experience. The groups are connected; they are not interchangeable.
This also reveals a quieter form of influence. A keyboard-dependent player may lack the reach of a prominent reviewer, yet possess knowledge the team needs to make its claim accurate. The reviewer may have greater power to circulate an account, but less direct evidence about that player’s experience unless they investigate it. A map that records only follower counts would miss both facts.
Prioritise attention without ranking people’s worth
A small creative team cannot hold an extended conversation with everyone. Mapping helps it decide where attention is needed, but priority for engagement is not a measure of human importance. Begin with who is directly affected and what obligations the project has to them; then consider who can help verify a change, who needs timely information, and who can affect its wider interpretation.
For the interactive story, direct engagement with players who rely on keyboard controls and with the people testing the fix would be a sensible early priority. That does not require asking affected players to perform unpaid testing or to endorse a correction. The team remains responsible for its own checks. Once it has evidence, it can give other publics information suited to their relationship with the work—without presenting a critic’s favourable reaction as proof of accessibility.
The map should also record uncertainty. “Accessibility-focused groups will object” is an assumption, not a finding. “A tester reported a blocked choice” is a specific observation. Conversations, testing records, and published reactions can improve the map; guesses about what a group “must think” cannot. Even within one group, people may disagree.
Finally, revisit the map when the situation changes. If the blocked choice is fixed but another barrier is discovered, the relevant stakes and urgency change. If a reviewer investigates the issue, the path by which others learn about it changes. Publics can form around a concern that was not prominent when the project first planned its launch. Mapping is therefore an ongoing way to notice relationships, not a form to complete once and file away.
Takeaways
A creative project does not have one audience with one reaction. It has people who make, use, rely on, interpret, or are affected by different parts of the work. To map its publics, identify the specific relationship, the stake in the issue, and the means of influence—while keeping direct harm and legitimate claims visible even when the people concerned have little power. Check assumptions, allow groups to overlap, and update the map as events develop.
Next, we will turn from a map of relationships to a documented PR episode: what happened, in what order, and which claims about intentions go beyond the observable facts.