Lecture 10 - PR and Education

Our last lecture was on the topic of whether education was needed to work in PR.

My stance is a big YES.

Personal qualities may help after attaining a work position, but in order to get that position in the first place a degree in Public Relations or in a field related to Public Relations (such as Journalism, Communications etc) is needed.

Education provides you with the critical thinking skills, the theoretical and practical knowledge, the people skills and much more, needed to survive and go forward in the work place.

A degree specifically in PR is especially beneficial as it shows you have the specialized knowledge and skills needed to work in this exciting, yet competitive industry.

About to start on my dissertation, I feel these 6 months of my Masters have been the most rewarding and stimulating and will be of great benefit to me in the years to come.
I'd like to thank Pam and Michaela for their hard work with us and guidance for us. Thank you so much! :)

Lecture 9 - Social Marketing

In our most recent lecture we had a guest speaker come discuss social marketing.

I was not familiar with this area, as my main interest is PR so I looked this topic up.

Social marketing has its roots in the work of Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, who in the 1970's found that the practices and ideas that were used to sell goods and services, could be used to sell socially important causes for the benefit or good of society.

In Social Marketing in the 21st Century Alan R. Andreason gives an even more succint definition of the social marketing, stating that ;

"Social marketing is simply about influencing the behavior of target audiences".

In the book Anderson claims to re-think and re-define what is meant by social marketing, beyond just seeing social marketing to change bad-behaviors or negative attitudes, but reconceptualizing social marketing as something that can create societal good.

Anderson states that;

"I will claim here that social marketing has a greater and more powerful role to play in social change. The reason for such bravado is simple: social change requires individuals to act. For social change to happen, someone or - or many 'someones' - must bring the issue to our attention. Someone has to assemble possible solutions and evaluate them. Someone has to decide on the best courses of action. Someone - presumably many someones, in many kinds of arrangements - must mount efforts big and small to make change happen or to prevent change from happening. Finally someone has to keep track of how things are going, how modifications and redirections are necessary, and whether more or less effort is neccessary.Social marketing does this." (pg. 5).

However I am wary of these claims of being able to change behavior. As communicators I beleive our roles are to influence attitudes and beliefs, to convince and inform, not to alter or influence behaviour. As PR professionals we communicate certain messages and fulfill briefs, I would be apprhensive to promise to be able to change behaviour.

However I do find this area interesting and found Anderson's examination of how to move social marketing forward in the 21st century to be useful.

Lecture 8 - Crisis Communications

Recently we talked about crisis communications in class and took part in some really great exercises about crisis communications.

Crisis communications refers to how a corporation or organization reacts, in terms of communications activities and public relations tactics, when an emergency or controversy takes place or may take place.

I think what really stuck out for me, from our lecture, was the fact that crisis communications is an integral and well planned out part of most every large corporation today.

I think this video from Thompson Reuters proves my point;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD4kIHY4Lw8

As a the woman in the video discusses, crisis communications have become important to every corporation and issues such as how positively manage image during a crisis have become paramount.

This really reflects on how important public relations activities have become to large corporations. Corporations now see managing and creating positive image despite setbacks such a controversies or crisis as, important as successfully selling their goods and services. For me this really reflects on how important our role as PR practitioners have become. We have an important role to play in the corporate sector and our field work can no longer be seen as 'fluff' or just 'spin'.

Lecture 7 - International PR

Our most recent lecture was really interesting for its look at international PR and because we heard a really lively debate on whether international PR exists or not.

I mean even in today's world, where globalization is so apparent, can we really claim that international PR exists?

PR activities in each country need to be tailored to the society, culture, customs, consumer desires etc of that country. I think PR activities cannot be homogeneous to the entire world and hence the idea of international PR, in that Public Relations activities which encompass and can successfully target and speak to the whole world's population do not exist.

However after doing some research on the subject I found a website for the International Public Relations Association (IPRA).

However I don't think the existence of the IPRA substantiates claims for the existence of international PR.

The IPRA states its 'Mission' is to "be the world's most relevant, successful, resourceful and influential professional association for senior international public relations executives".

No where does it state to support or encourage global PR activities suited to an international audience.

However what I did find interesting was that under the 'Links' section of the website, there is a list of PR associations from different countries. There are official PR associations for over 20 countries, ranging from New Zealand to Serbia.

Here is the link: http://www.ipra.org/links.asp

Virtually every country in the world, it seems, have established PR activities. I think this is great. Whilst international PR may not exist, Public Relations as a field has become important and influential enough to be present and thriving in countries across the world