Does new media pose a challenge to tradional media?

As technolgy evolves, online sources of news are booming. This seems to be threatening not only the Journalists but also Public Relations professionals on the way they communicate across and to the public. Many people may have different opinions on the emergence of this new technology: some believe traditional media is dying while others think it may not just vanish so easily. The slidecast below briefly discusses how the new media is becoming a challenge to old media.

New Media Vs Traditional Media

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Understanding CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a complicated subject, and often dismissed as a public relations tool for corporates or organisations to keep a good image. Does it benefit your business?

According to Mallen Baker, a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on CSR: "Customer satisfaction is where it begins and the bottom line is where it ends?" He explains that customer satisfaction these days in not just about price and service. And he argues that if one thinks CSR is just "only a cost to the bottom line rather than an opportunity then you don't know your business as well as you think you do." mmhh! well said.

To understand CSR, it is important to understand what responsibility means. L'etang. J., (2006), in Public Relations: Critical debates and contemporary practice, notes that responsibility may be used "in different ways in the context of moral responsibility of business, perhaps which is what leads to some confusion over the morality of both practice of CSR and the role of PR in this field."

It therefore would be right to say that, CSR is about how companies manage the business process to produce an overall positive impact on the society in which it operates and keep a good image. It is presented largely as a technique or tool for enhancing reputation.

However, according to Tench & Yeomans (2006) in Exploring public relations, the authors refer CSR as "often associated with the phrase 'enlightened self-interest' - how organisations plan and manage their relationships with key stakeholders."(p.97)

During this week's session on CSR, discussed from a practitioner's perspective by Adam Garfunkel, he pointed out three core elements of CSR explaining that it should be a voluntary action of business -- which means being beyond compliance, commitment to ethical behaviour and managing processes. Secondly, CSR is about achieving positive social outcomes -- meaning that a company or organisation ensures quality of life improvements for their employees, community and society in the long-term.

Thirdly, Adam noted that whilst benefiting its business objectives -- apart from gaining benefits through CSR, the programme also created wealth among the society where it operates. From lessons learnt in this class and after reading further on this topic, I came across some important points on CSR below.Through an effective CSR programme, companies can:

• improve access to capital
• sharpen decision-making and reduce risk
• enhance brand image
• uncover previously hidden commercial opportunities, including new markets
• reduce costs
• attract, retain and motivate employees

Will women rule in PR? The debate

In my previous post, I talked about feminisation in PR. On this post I'll talk about the debate which really got people emotional in class. The motion: 'Women will always work in PR but never run it.' Mmhh! To start with, I think this statement is just too exaggerated. I opposed this motion because to use the word 'never' is not right. I mentioned briefly about this in my previous post, that I strongly disagreed because we had women running the industry even when it was male dominated. I gave some examples in my earlier discussion.

Those who supported the motion, gave a list of qualities and past theories to justify why women will never run the industry. Some of their arguments included discriminating gender qualities to handling of PR jobs, such as lack of self confidence, occupational stress, soft to be managers and many more.

It was rather sad to hear a fellow female pursuing PR to say that "a lot of women think they have it but they don’t." If we cannot believe in and empower ourselves as women who will do it for us? This puzzled me. Just because there are many men at top positions does not mean that women will never achieve the same. Having many women run the industry is just a matter of time as change is already in the works.

To explain how this process is gradual, we must understand that it's only in recent years we have seen more women in PR. Larissa Grunig in Perspective on Public Relations, explained this in 5 feminist phases showing evolution of how women got accepted in this field. They include:
1. Male scholarship - The field was mainly predominant by men. Despite women's contributions, their roles were ignored.
2. Compensatory -Progress was noticed, women's contribution and experience was accepted.
3. Bifocal - Both men and women perceived to be separate and equal sexes. Women trying to self actualise themselves and overcome sexism at this stage
4. Feminist -- Women were more confident here and their activities became central
5. Multi focal --this phase redefines the field and develops understanding of men's and women's experience to achieve knowledge and practice that's truly inclusive.

This means women have made great strides considering that in the past they had no rights. Currently we can see many associations, groups and organisations exclusively for female PR practitioners such as Washington Women in PR (WWPR) and the Women in PR Group for Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

According to PR Week, articles and other studies, women now account for about 70 per cent in the industry, and many more are enrolling for degree courses in PR to equip themselves to add to the skills they already have. Fewer men are now joining PR. All this means women already have a strong base to fight the stumbling blocks to push their way to the top.

Feminisation of PR

I must say this session was real fun. The subject was about feminisation of PR and diversity issues. To begin with, the course tutor, Michaela O'brien asked us to think about what makes a man and a woman.

It was interesting to hear classmates name characteristics attributed to Masculine such as: leader, ego, dominant, independent, objective, hunter and assertive. Some of those associated with feminine according to my peers include: emotional, sensitive, tender, soft, creative and adoptable.

The aim behind this was to show how society associates some of these characteristics with different sexes. After deliberations, students realised that some of these characteristics could apply to both female and male. And that stereotypes were very strong, just how peope look at others and perceive them differently.

How could some of these be applied in the PR profession. More of these was deliberated at length during a heated debate which I was taking part in. The motion of the day was "Women will always work in the Public relations industry but will never run it". I was on the opposing side. Firstly, I would like to say I found this statement not to be correct as we already have women running the industry even in the past when the profession was perceived to be male dominated.

I backed this with examples of women heading big PR agencies like Fleischman-Hillard, Edelman and Ogilvy PR Worldwide.

My colleagues pointed out some of the characteristics such as emotional, soft, ...etc to argue that women tend not to have what it takes to be in leadership positions. Ooops! did this actually come from fellow female students!

However, according to Larissa Grunig (2001), she has noted that women were perceived to be better communicators basically because they tend to build relationships, communicate with others, consider feelings of others and empathise with others. check out for more on this in my next post.

Can PR ever be ethical

Ethics is very important for crisis management not just in other industries but also in the public relations profession. At what point do you say to your boss you cannot put out some information? It is vital to be aware about ethical dilemmas in PR. It is a matter of concern that professional communicators are frequently faced with ethical issues in their daily life at work to arrive at difficult decisions.

In this session, we went through different crisis situations and what the course tutors wanted to see is how we can handle a crisis. One of them a simple one, was: you assume you work for a computer manufacturer. You send some samples of your new super-thin laptops to selected Journalists on a temporary loan for review. A Journalist asks to keep hers permanently before the review is done. What do you do? Different answers were given.
They included:
- Follow the company's policy
- Consult first with the director
- Politely and diplomatically tell the journalist that it would be unfair as others will also want to keep theirs. etc

What do we learn from this small example? Ethical professionalism is important because it minimises risk. Parsons (2004: 21) provides five pillars that's the claims carry the weight of ethical decision-making in public relations. And that is: "Veracity (tell the truth), non-malfeasance(do no harm), beneficence(do good), confidentiality(respect privacy) and fairness(to be fair and socially responsible).

Steps in decision-making
In Exploring Public Relations by Tench and Yeomans, Ralph Potter of Harvard Divinity School has also defined four steps in ethical decision making. That is:
1. Defining the situation -- get all the relevant facts on the situation and those involved.
2. Identify values -- personal values and what values can be drawn from professional codes of practice.
3. Select principles -- choose framework you and your company supports, and finally
Choose loyalties -- prioritise all stakeholders who demand your loyalty.

I would say if you are making decisions for a company or organisation it will be good to inquire and seek professional advise. Separate personal morals and codes of best professional practice.

Tench & Yeomans (2006) note that: "If a public relations practitioner acts ethically and professionally they are likely to be trusted." (p.290). This means if an expert is for instance not fair to others and is immoral in his/her dealing, then the public would regard that practitioner as unreliable.

Government and Political communications: The role of PR

There is a difference in many societies between political communications and government communications. In some cases government communications is poluted by political comms. However, the role of government communication or public affairs in politics and government is interrelated.

Obviously, the relation between media and government is definately essential and an obstacle to government communications with citizens. What nare the baarriers to this effective government communucation? Communication pratcitioners are perceived to have questionable ethics.

Too often, government communications is referred to as just PR. Secondly, communicators cannot just target a small segment of public but everybody. Government communucations can be handicapped by the opposition who prevent maximum effectiveness and accurate accounting of function's cost and ascertaining the coroporate value.(Cultip et al,.2006. pp 427).

In this class, we learnt some of the political communication tools that politicians use such as advertising, party political broadcasts, leaflets, stunts(demonstrattions), posters and newspapers etc to put their messages across.

What are some of the PR roles in government communications?

Firslty, it works to inform the public about the governments activities, ensuring active cooperation in government programmes, managing information internally, facilitating media relations and image management which is to have style over substance, media training (how to handle media)and voice coaching.
In media management, if you are a politician you need to build relationships with different kinds of media to ensure maximum publicity. The relation between media and government is definately essential and an obstacle to government communications with citizens.

New, old media and PR

Is new media taking over traditional media? I was scanning through articles on the Internet about how new media is evolving and came across an interesting blog by Brian Solis ,Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley.

In one of his posts, he explains why PR is not an afterthought and why new media is becoming essential in today's business. He noted that: "In order to be successful in Public Relations, you need to grasp what it is, what it isn’t, and how it works and why. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to build the right team, determine the best strategies to amplify visibility and gain traction, or have the ability to effectively measure it."

The public relations profession is also evolving and as part of communications, one needs to be up to date with the new technology in order to reach the targeted audience or achieve their mission. As a PR professional/practitioner, you to be aware that traditional media seems to be loosing audience to new media. There is the challenge of timeliness, whereas people want to read first hand information.

The new media is changing the way Journalists disseminate their information to the public and as long as this affects them, it does affect public relations as well. During our Corporate Communications class last week, a guest speaker Euan Semple gave an inspirational presentation on new media and how businesses are embracing themselves with new technology.

However, it's worth noting that at times credibility is an issue. Some people tend to trust traditional media, or word of mouth. The risk is that any one can comment or give their opinion online which may include some negative opinions. But then again, one cannot do without new media. I found this video useful and thought I should share it. It's about what is PR 2.0/Social Media and how can it benefit your business?

Is new media evolution changing how PR works?

It's inevitable and we have to learn the skills if planning to work in the public relations industry. What am I talking about here? PR 2.0. These are not those old days, when almost everybody read information on printed newspapers or listened to radio.

Many people are now turning to get information on the internet. With the advent of the first generation of the web in the 1990’s, and the more recent arrival of the community-centric “new media” phenomenon known as Web 2.0, public relations practitioners have no choice but to incorporate Internet functionality such as blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and social media into their PR campaigns, as well as adapt to a direct-to-consumer communications environment in an industry-wide movement dubbed PR 2.0.

My second lesson on issues in PR was about the revolution of new media and public relations.In that lesson, the course tutor, Michaela O'brien pointed out that: "If new media is proliferating the kinds of news people are looking for, then you might need to think who your audience is and where to put the news." The internet has drastically changed the way the communications industry works and will continue doing so.

Online sources for news are booming and therefore it also means that new media is creating new channels for public relations in terms of how information or news is disseminated either to the media/journalists or the public. For instance, public relations professionals used to write a news release and print it to send or hand deliver to each media outlets. But, nowardays they can email the news release and pictures accompanying the release on jpeg ..etc making it easy and faster to reach the news desks.