Issues in PR conclusion

The last day, the last hours of the Theory and Issues in PR module. In fact the classes ended on the 24th of March, but from then and until now we had the opportunity to revise everything we have learned during this course and to continue our blogs.

This is my last post for this class but hopefully not for PR profession. And here I would like to sum up what is written in my blog.

Public Relations is the art and science of establishing relationships between a company and its audience. It plays a key role in creating communication channels between these players and in spreading the message across people. such interaction is supposed to be a two-way mutually beneficial dialogue resulting in particular public actions. This is the good side.

However PR has a doubtful side: propaganda, spinning, fiction, manipulation, ethics and moral issues, "window-dressing" through CSR and NGO, women's discrimination, transparency and authenticity etc.

In addition to this the "bad" side of PR is the loss of people's trust, critique and an undermined reputation.

Truthful and devoted to the profession practitioners still struggle hard to improve and "lift" the face of PR. Using new technologies, new media, new global opportunities, new advocates and new "brains" these fighters are moving towards people's interests, ethically and legislatively regulated activities, charitable and socially responsible deeds and of course towards a good name.

In conclusion I'd like to say that PR is an essential part of our everyday life. Every single person is introducing and promoting him/herself to others, is doing his/her own PR even without realising it. PR professionals help people communicate, have a dialogue, say their opinions, concerns, share their information and experience and so forth. What could happen if PR didn't exist? There would have definitely been an analogue to this profession. Nonetheless people's feedback, evaluation and analysis are crucial for its reputation and existence.

It is not truth that this profession has almost died out - there are plenty of new ways and opportunities for development, it is just important to look attentively around, understand people's needs and create.

Parliament opens its doors to bloggers

The House of Commons is following the trend of increased importance of user-generated content by allowing selected bloggers into the Westminster lobby system (a small group of journalists with privileged access to certain parts of Parliament).

To learn more you can read the following PR Week articles:
Bloggers Set To Be Allowed Privileged Access To Westminster Lobby System
Is Opening Parliament To Bloggers Sensible?

Doesn't it approve the significance of this new type of independent journalists? Is the influence of these social media amateurs so powerful that even politicians need them to accelerate the change "for the better in transparency and democracy"? Well, this leads to the conclusion that bloggers might have got on the way to replace or move to the second positions journalism and PR.

Do you trust polititians?

Good day to you my reader!

During one of the sessions we had been discussing Political PR and the debating teams had crossed each other on whether "political PR has undermined public trust in politicians" and whether it "is the single biggest threat to our democratic health". This case made me think about the following: Do people still have enough trust in politicians?, What are the statistics?, How has it changed comparing to previous years? and What are the reasons?

Today trust is elusive. People once treated as experts have now lost their credentials and can not be trusted any longer. Many politicians say they operate in the public interest but do never fully disclose their own agendas and motives. Often the roles they perform in the political structure are unrevealed as well. Such "closed" authority's intentions cannot represent the public interest, but are efficiently promoting themselves through compelling influencers' speeches, motivations and fictions. Democracy's face is damaged because of similar politicians' reputation and actions. But how dramatic is the question?

Having made a bit of research I found out that trust in politicians is nowadays as as ever and that only 13% of people in the UK "trust politicians to tell the truth" according to an October 2009 poll by Ipsos Mori. The given reasons for that are: "the stories in the press", unreasonable and not trustworthy behavior, politicians are "out of touch with the needs of people", "too many promises that haven't been fulfilled". To read more: "Trusted" professions asked about faith in politicians.

Moreover I found the Edelman Trust Barometer - the 2010 Annual Global Opinion Leaders Study - which is a very curious document reporting globally a modest increase of trust in government, business and a CEO as a spokesperson for a company, and a decline of trust in media.

So how can people trust politicians if they are not being honest? How comes that their policy often changes when they win the elections? Of course we cannot generalize and call all politicians "liers" or "spin doctors", but the actions of a few damage the reputation of a 100. Citizens should say their concerns and disagreement aloud otherwise we will get only more untruthful politicians to threat our democratic health.

Can PR ever be ethical?

Ethics is a sensitive and almost "eternal" issue in PR.

I have such an impression that this question is discussed nearly in the course of every possible matter. People often accuse PR of being unethical. Political propaganda and spinning have undermined PR's reputation, but the profession itself is not immoral to a 100%. However I won't agree with that NGO and voluntary sector PR are the most ethical ones. Might it be simply new names for calling or to "veiling" means to achieve someone's interests? To me these organizations' real intentions seem doubtful and contradicting to what they tell people about their goals. But this is a completely separate question.

Nonetheless I believe that PR can become ethical. Codes of Conduct and Ethics are essential to establishing legitimate PR practice, better PR reputation and trustworthy relationships between any organization and its audience.

Openness and transparency are another issue on the way to ethical PR. In my opinion social media is today's key benefit: independent users who are now writers and publishers of their own unedited content advocate the truth and critique any lies, - so modern Internet users have the best opportunity to represent the voice of a company. Such people reveal the tales. Consequently it's in organization's interests not to disappoint its customers, to follow their expectations and respond to their moral values.

Actually its is more about the duty of PR practitioners to follow ethical regulations in PR. This is something that a child is explained by his parents, but has to be taught during all his life, as he grows up, according to life situations.

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Social media crisis management

I've been recently thinking about my post on crisis management from the 19th of February and the role play crisis management exercise we had in class on February, 17th.

I came to the conclusion that it is a hard job to foresee a crisis, to know where it may come from and who can be involved in it and to plan ahead how to deal with it. However it is what a PR practitioner should be striving for.

There are hundreds of tips and instructions available on how to handle a crisis, an uncountable number of books and articles, though none of them can predict the situation you can face. On the one hand, as soon as these written pieces are released they are already out of date and, on the other hand, crisis one can get into is always unique in its details. Still all of such reading sources are important and very useful, but they can only help a general understanding of what a crisis is and how to manage it. Other issues are a matter of personal, situational and individual means of crisis management in real life.

Present time sees a dramatic rise of social media, what can affect any business reputation, equally. Therefore every organization must include in its crisis management plans the impact of social media and its influencers and the steps to be taken to deal with the crisis online. The
New Media Age magazine has published on the 25ht of March this year an article - Nestle's example of how to damage your reputation through wrong actions on the Net.

Right after this article I found a piece by Mike Johansson on crisis management in the "Twitter Age". It is worth reading if you care about you reputation and if you are present in any social networks on the Web.

Finally, it is definetely a must to respect your customers in any community in any place in the world through all possible means and tools, to be transparent and keep your followers up-to-date with all relevant information presented in an appropriate tone of voice.

Women over exceed men in PR

During our last class we had a debate on the topic: “Women will always work in PR but will never run it”.

My position is the opposite - women will work in PR, will oust men and occupy top positions.
It is obvious that the PR industry once dominated by men is now outnumbered by women and the trend shows no signs of abating.

The mark of women’s presence in PR over the last 25 years is a major shortage of men coming into the profession, and that's official.

According to figures released by the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) in 2004 women outnumbered men by 60:40 - a massive swing since 1987, when figures highlighted the opposite at 20:80.

Over the last two decades, women have risen up the ranks to practice leaders and office leaders, but are still not appropriately represented in the senior positions. However, many of the up and coming independent firms are led by women entrepreneurs who create their own path to success.

Powerful women in PR, industry veterans who actually helped shape the more balanced public relations field we have today: Christine Barney (CEO, rbb Public Relations), Melissa Waggener Zorkin (CEO, President and Founder, Waggener Edstrom), Donna Imperato (CEO, Cohn & Wolfe), Margaret Booth (President, M Booth & Associates) and MaryLee Sachs (Chairman, US Hill & Knowlton).

There are more of great examples of women who made it to the top: Gail Heimann, for example, is a major player at Weber. And Margery Kraus (Chair, President and CEO, APCO Worldwide) is someone who built a $100 million business. Other brilliant women in PR include Aedhmar Hynes of Text 100. She is someone who has made a huge impact in the technology driven space, which is very male dominated. She is a real role model and has built a spectacular company around the globe.

It is a fact today that more women than men are enrolling in college. PR feminization is not simply coming, but is already the reality. The younger generation is much more open to female leadership.

Kathy Obert, Chairman and CEO, Edward Howard: As women become more comfortable – societally and financially – with being hunters and with taking personal financial risks as owners, we’ll see more women at the top. And by the way, our industry needs men and women, in both management and client service roles.

Expect that change will come slowly, but it will be more rapid in geographic areas that demonstrate higher tolerance for diversity generally. Expect to see faster parity on the coasts and in markets like New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Change will come more slowly in the Midwest and Bible Belt regions. That’s not a PR-specific issue, it is a societal issue.

Women tend to be more practical than theoretical, particularly when it comes to attention to detail, and are better than men at thinking on different levels all at the same time, which are critical success factors behind award-winning PR campaigns.

Gidon Freeman, editor of PR Week, noticed that in 2004 the gender readership split for the industry's magazine has moved in favor of women with a 65:35 ratio. According to his words "PR is all about developing relationships and bringing influence to bear, which historically women have always mastered better that men".

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Ethical PR vs. spin and propaganda

The debate around ethics is based on the understanding of what moral right is and how to distinguish it from wrong.

Key theoretical concepts of ethical issues are in brief discussed by Alison Theaker in The Public Relations Handbook (2008, p.145-149). Main terms characterizing ethics are: “common good”, “rights”, “duty” and “responsibility”.

PR is the core element in corporate communications; consequently, it “plays the major role in managing the moral dimension of corporate conduct” as stated by Pearson (Theaker, 2008, p. 148). This author advocates a significant role to PR similar to what Gruning and Hunt call two-way symmetrical model.

“Ethics, - as Holmes says, - is about the good and about the right” (Theaker, 2008, p. 143) while spin and propaganda are seen as manipulation and lying.

According to O’Malley PR is about “the advocacy and dissemination of the partisan viewpoints of those who engage our services” “to promote the lawfully-pursued, self-defined interests of those we serve” (O’Malley, P. In Praise of Secrecy: The ethical foundations of public relations - ).

PR practice is regarded as public responsibility as it is stated in the Code of Ethics. However if practiced by government people often associate it with manipulation, spin and lies.

As Edward Bernays wrote in “Propaganda” (1928): “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”(Burton, B. (2007); Inside Spin: The Dark Underbelly of The PR Industry. P. 2). Such an invisible PR is practiced through spin and propaganda techniques and with the help of manufactured stories, pseudo events, skewed survey statistics, overuse of celebrities and non-disclosure of information.

It is not a secret any longer that people are often being fooled and told lies. The question is: “What could be done to regulate the flow of spin and propaganda and to establish more ethical communications?”

It is always of big advantage to establish an official regulatory body to monitor PR and government communications. Alternatively PR associations’ vigilance role could be reinforced by codes of ethics modification, more severe members’ discipline application, stricter penalties and higher entry qualification demands. However individuals also have to be aware of possible misleading messages sent by government through the media and should neglect its intentions. Moreover it is of great importance to provide them with the possibility to get PR education and be able to participate in controlling the flow of spin and manipulation.

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Five steps to better crisis management.

Dear reader!

I found a nice article “Five steps to better crisis management” published in PRWeek on the 26^th of February 2010. This piece is about how to successfully deal with a crisis in today’s society.

The five given steps describe modern changes that affected crisis management giving some examples and tips on how to prevent or cope with a crisis. Shortly the advice here is the following:

1. Social media and key online influencers are crucial,

2. Internet makes everything of global importance, consequently, communicate clearly with different markets tailoring your message in accordance with their individual characteristics,

3. Legal route is still a valid approach and is sometimes the right course of action comparing to information suppress,

4. Third-party endorsement is very influential, so make friends,

5. Get your own house in order.

These are really useful recommendations that every business should be aware of and should apply to their crisis management strategies.

Is CSR mere “window-dressing”?

The more frequent question about CSR is whether it is good intentions turned into benefit for others or whether it is “window-dressing”.

As I wrote in my previous post (“Social conscience of good business”) CSR is often based on self-interest and profit-making.

Christian Aid puts the following point: “…companies make loud, public commitments to principles of ethical behaviour and undertake “good works”… The problem is that companies frequently use such initiatives to defend operations or ways of working which come in for public criticism.” (Moloney, K. (2006); Rethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy; p. 107).

Roberts thinks of CSR as of a new form of corporate self-presentation associated with PR, “of prosthesis… that repairs its appearance [corporate body] but in no way changes its actual conduct” (Moloney, K. (2006); Rethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy; p. 110).

These two statements support the idea that CSR is “window-dressing”. This means that “wrong” organization’s actions are masked-up by “good” deeds towards people. Pretending to care about the society the company in fact pursues its own ends that may be in variance with society’s interests. Corporations call it CSR and spend their money to please people and to make them unaware of their malicious actions.

Consequently I’m more likely to say that in addition to “window-dressing” activities companies are weakening their ethical grounding and decreasing their truthful social responsibilities. The only way to stop this tendency is to increase the meaning of PR people’s morals and develop the value of individual ethics. And it may be that CSR will regain its credibility if people will trust single PR practitioners whose ethical principles will lead companies’ businesses along the good and moral path benefiting the society.

Social conscience of good business

Good business is all about ethics aligned with the CSR.

Essentially CSR is about how business maximizes the benefits and minimizes the downsides of its operations’ economic, social and environmental impacts.

There are different opinions about CSR. In general they are divided into groups contrasting each other’s views.

Milton Friedman, for instance, argued that companies are being socially responsible in their profit-making, wealth-creation role. The only CSR acceptable, after him, is the one “motivated entirely out of self-interest and justified on those grounds” (L’Etang, J. (2008); Public Relations: Concepts, Practice and Critique; p. 89).

Companies operating at the societal level (contributions towards improving the society, according to Peach) are increasingly obtaining public recognition and visibility for their corporate actions (Tench, R. and Yeomans, L. (2009); Exploring Public Relations; p. 99-103).

CSR acts show organizations’ “human face” and “a caring side” (L’Etang, 2008, p. 191). Wonderful! Now people are aware of your kindness, compassion and helpfulness. However one of the issues here is whether business acts in its own self-interest and those of its stakeholders or in the interests of the larger society.

Russian culture context

Speaking about my native culture, which is Russian by the way, in terms of Hofstede and Hall theories, I can say that Russian culture is a high-context culture. Generally, Russians tend to be indirect in their communications and their understanding of a situation is usually based on a whole host of factors.

To find more about the Russian culture (which is quite true):
http://old.goinglobal.com/hot_topics/russia_jerome_business.asp

To find more on the difference between high- and low-context cultures:
http://crossborderproject07.blogspot.com/2007/10/high-context-vs-low-context.html

There is a nice site for Hofstede's intercultural dimensions theory that also displays world map for each of the dimensions indexing almost every country's score:
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/intercultural/dimensions.html

Geert Hofstede's theory analysis with each country's example page can be found here:
http://www.cyborlink.com/besite/hofstede.htm

Good PR is global or context and culture specific?

Allow me to continue my today's flow of reflection but on a different topic - "Can global and local PR coexist or will the first replace the latter?"

In my opinion global PR can't cope with every task on its own today. I can not predict what will happen in 10-20 years but presumably the situation will improve, however nowadays the knowledge of specific context and culture is essential.

To back up my idea I will refer to the International Public Relations In Practice book edited by Margaret Nally who stresses that: "The successful public relations professional... recognizes that what works in one country does not necessarily work in another: individual countries need individual strategies" (1991, p.117). Failure to recognize and respond to local market conditions can lead to inappropriate work.

Alan Macdonald (ibid, ch. 3) considers a local national to be the "ideal consultant" (ibid, p. 49). Moreover local PR professionals know better which journalists and writers to sell the story to and how to gain editorial coverage and to reach suitable media.

Global PR is vital and transcontinental messages are acceptable, though these are not possible without domestic communications. This makes the saying - "Think globally, act locally" - very appropriate and correct.

PR 2.0 & Authenticity

Good evening, my dear reader!

The book PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences by Deirdre Breakenridge (2008) made me think over the authenticity of PR messages transmitted online.

The author speaks of “viral marketing as the “Word of Mouth” of the Internet”. He also calls it “Astroturfing” on the Internet”, giving the term a Wikipedia explanation - “fake grassroots support online”.

Converting this to PR it means that a lot of information published online can be inaccurate. The reason for that is the increased number of user-generated content articles and self-publishing platforms that enable individuals to expose virtually every “truth” that they want to share. So it is really easy to get lost in all this mass of data and to define which is correct and which is more of a personal users ideas and thoughts.

My premise is that in the world of Web 2.0 the function of PR practitioners has changed. It now requires more skills and duties from them and the ones that I’m talking about in this post are: sharing authentic and transparent information, creating word of mouth and building relationships of trust with communities.

For other new skills follow the link below:
http://www.theharteofmarketing.com/2009/07/pr-20-will-double-your-workload.html

And for more information on importance of authenticity in a virtual world have a look at those articles:
Social media: Being authentic in a virtual world
PR has never been truly authentic

Media War – Secrets of War Propaganda

With your permission I will return to the topic of war propaganda because I have a nice book to recommend to you.

Philip M. Taylor in Simon Cottle’s News, Public Relations and Power (2003, p. 63-79) points out the difference between “real war” and “media war”. He reveals some secrets of war propaganda that aims at gaining public support for government’s policies through “pictures” generation and control. The author brings some factors shaping the reporting of war. He also describes case studies on the Vietnam and Gulf wars.

I found this book great for giving new ideas on how world events are being misreported.

PR & New Media

Good afternoon to everybody!

While thinking through this topic I got curious about "What was first - the egg or the chicken?", or according to named terms: "PR 2.0 or new media?"
Which of the two was the stimulus for the creation of the other? And what were the reasons for that?

I raised these questions due to that every online activity, each message or e-mail are in fact Web self-presentation or, in other words, self-promotion and PR. That gave me the following idea: when PR professionals started to communicate with their clients through e-mails, they might have thought of a need to create a similar online tool that could help them reach masses of people who are not yet their customers. Is it possible that the development of social media was requested or was it the ITs, though, who made up new social media tools for people’s eased interaction?

However when new media appeared people began to subscribe to social networks, create accounts in blogs etc. for free in order to communicate with their friends, to post their thoughts and so forth. All this can happen under one single condition – to make a bit of personal information available to providers of the new services. Consequently these sites get no money from people. The only profit they may receive comes from advertising spaces sales. Their treasure is the information they get from people. These tons of data can be sold to access consumers and to send them tailored messages. On one hand, it is very useful for PR practitioners but, on the other, it is very similar to speculation of personal information without people’s agreement (BUT once more, it is definitely worth it for PR’s messages to be delivered to potential consumers).

Trust Us We're Experts

Good evening to all!

Having recollected in my last post the book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber I decided to read one more of their books: Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future (2001, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher / Putnam).

I expected to find some information on propaganda and political PR, but the book turned out to be about health, food safety, medical and environmental issues in PR. Though from the point of view of case studies in the named questions this book is really well written.

However on the first 30 pages of the book I found some interesting facts:
1. the website of Burson-Marsteller proclaims that "Perceptions are real... They can be managed... to motivate behavior... to create positive business results" (p.2);
2. Lindheim talking about the role of a professional perception manager says that the public is "emotional ans incapable of rational discourse" (p.3);
3. Walter Lippmann in 1921 described a "pseudo-environment" as "the adjustment of man to his environment... through the medium of fictions" (p.25);
4. the Wag the Dog movie (1998) showed the extent to which present media can manufacture false realities by demonstrating how "government advisers created a fictional war on a Hollywood sound stage to distract public attention from a presidential sex scandal" (p. 24).

All these points made me think over the role of American people in power in manipulating public's perception of reality. Was such a machine the USA's creation? Why do they speak aloud about the technologically manufactured illusion in modern cinema? Why people trust so easily what they see in news knowing that it is often a fiction?

The only answer that comes to my mind is that PR professionals play on people's emotions and compression while putting a message across, and that it is much easier for people to believe that what is shown is real, rather than think over it, analyze the information and search for truth.

Today virtual reality, "Potemkin villages" (p. 11-17) and made-for-TV fabrications are all around as an undiscovered part of our everyday life.

War spin & propaganda

Hello!

I would like to share with you some of the ideas that came to me after having watched a War spin video in class on Wednesday.

I began to question myself whether PR profession is ethical enough. Unfortunately what I've seen in this video was that all those war stories, journalists' reports, news etc. are half fake! It is really shocking how much false information people can hear, watch on TV and believe in it and trust it.

From this perspective PR can be accused of being an immoral profession. Nonetheless ethical issues depend on PR practitioners' moral values. The latter are individual qualities that differ from one person to another but can define the character of actions that people undertake. This suggests that not every PR professional acts unethically. Consequently we cannot blame PR in general of immorality and cannot judge it by results of some group's depraved activities.

However PR can be identified as a really powerful tool to manipulate people, their mind and behavior. It is worrying how easy people are being mislead... Still it is their choice what to believe in, though it is PR's duty to create a wrapping, not forcibly an artificial one, but a story to present an idea in the best possible light.

The two books that I've read recently and that are very relevant to this topic are:

Moloney, K. (2006). Rethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy (2^nd edition) (London and NY: Routledge) and
Stauber, John S. and Rampton, S. (1995). Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and Public Relations Industry (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

These books are interesting to read and raise very serious issues such as War time PR, Democracy and propaganda. So if you are interested in the question you should have a look at these books.