Are PR Skills and Professionalism necessary in the PR profession?

There is an ongoing debate as to whether PR qualifications are relevant to the industry with some people arguing that personal qualities and contacts are far more important. This largely implies that PR doesn't require skills therofere portraying it as a less serious or to some extent an inferior profession.

Like every profession, studying for a PR degree provides knowledge and skills needed to work effectively. If one wants to be a Lawyer it is relevant to study Law and likewise if one wants to be a doctor they should study medicine. As with many other professions, research shows that PR is becoming a graduate entry career, which means a university degree is a required qualification to have before entering the industry. True professionals as noted by Theaker (2001) posess a body of knowledge and have mastered communication techniques that are not known by the average citizen.

Employers are today also seeking to employ people who have PR education background as opposed to those who just have the experience or personal qualities and contacts because they tend to stay longer on the job and are less likely to wander away into ‘whatever other profession that is available’.

Training is also an expensive venture for most organisations and rather than spend millions in training employees, employers would rather recruit professionals with relevant background training.

However while PR qualifications could help in getting the first foot in the door, learning on the job probably becomes far more useful (Gaskell, 2006). This she explains is because there is no course that can teach how to come face to face with a real life crisis management or a hard to please client.

New media versus traditional media

Is new media a threat to traditional media?

Despite the improved output of traditional media (particularly newspapers) and increased circulation, there is an ever increasing fear that traditional media is being replaced by the new media also known as dot com media. Newspaper readership has fallen by considerable margins compared to the yester years with more people and particularly the younger generation opting to read news online.

Evidently, new media has an extraordinary power over traditional media. It has an advantage of convenience and accessibility. The explosion in cheaper high-speed internet access and is typically charged at a flat monthly rate, has led to an upsurge in the time web users spend online. According to The Guardian on Friday 7th October 2005 more than 8m households are now connected to broadband. According to the poll, six in 10 young people have internet access at home, with a quarter of those having their own computer in their bedroom. Many more have access at school, college or university. This therefore makes it more convenient and cheaper to access information online.

Interestingly this is not the case for magazines. Perhaps this stems from the general content and layout of a magazine as compared to a newspaper. A newspaper maybe perceived to be boring and unappealing to the reader whereas the use of colour and attractive texture and pictures in magazines may propel people to still buy magazines.

Having said that, a survey conducted by KPMG recently, showed that newspapers and televisions remain the primary sources of news across all age groups globally. The survey found that over 44 percent of respondents cited television as their primary news source followed by newspapers with 28 percent; 14 percent of respondents indicated the radio as their preferred news source and only 13 percent of all respondents preferred the internet.

The report cites that under 25s are increasingly looking to the internet as a source of news and social interaction. This trend continues in to the 25-34 age bracket with one in four favouring the internet over newspapers. Only 11 percent of those aged from 35-54 use the internet for news and this drops to 2 percent for those over the age of 55.

Writing a Winning Public Relations Dissertation

There exist four important factors to consider before embanking on writing a Dissertation:

-The topic for the Dissertation i.e. the big question
-The methodology of research
-A specification of what one expects to find or in other words a hypothesis
-Literature review

Choosing a topic for a Dissertation can seem like a daunting task for most students. Sometimes students choose broad and complex topics which become very difficult to explore. Also it is common for students to wander away from the main topic of discussion into more generalised theories that do not answer the question. When choosing a topic a student should address issues such as how academic it sounds i.e. is it related to Public Relations, if it is objective and more importantly if it is a broad or narrow topic.

The methodology of research that one chooses has to be justified and tested to confirm suitability. For instance one cannot interview 15 people and then make a conclusion from that particular finding.

Writing a hypothesis in Dissertation planning is confusing to some students as it implies looking for information that one already knows however a hypothesis is crucial as it helps guide the student not to wander away from the main question. This is especially common when students choose to explore broad topics such as CSR and Crisis Management.

Literature review forms the bed for the Dissertation. After reading around the topic one should ask themselves whether they disagree or agree. Comparing and contrasting what other authors have written in the past and giving one’s own opinion is thus crucial as it helps the examiner see that one has clearly explored and analysed the information rather than just describing and giving people’s opinion.

Lastly the Dissertation should show some originality i.e. what is new and unique that other PR professionals can learn from it in future.

The rise of Corporate Social Responsibility

The evolution of the Corporate Social Responsibility concept dates back to1953 when there was a publication of 'Social Responsibility of Businessmen', which posed the question 'what responsibilities to society can business people be reasonably expected to assume?' by Bowen (Corporate Sourcewatch, 2006) In the 60s and 70s the definition of the subject expanded which suggested that companies had certain responsibilities to society. The 90s saw CSR become an established industry with major companies such as Pricewaterhouse Coopers, KPMG and Burson Marsteller establishing CSR programmes in a bid to play a role of being responsible to the society.

CSR today has evolved into a much more respected and essential discipline for organisations whereby increasingly the organisations are taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on their stakeholders by voluntarily improving the quality of life of these stakeholders.

The answers as to why more organisations are adopting CSR strategies vary with some people arguing that organisations are interested enhancing their reputation and making more profit while others argue that some organisations do carry out CSR for purely philanthropic reasons.

From a business perspective CSR plays a significant role as it helps organisations ‘escape’ regulation and restriction from the government. Improved government relations means that organisations can enjoy trading without stringent regulatory measures. CSR in this case plays a significant role by ensuring a positive relationship between the organisation and the government.

Today’s media has become intrusive and can make or break the reputation of an organisation if not managed well. Most organisations therefore like to enhance their media relations by carrying out social responsibilities and inviting the media to cover some of their key activities.

In an era of cut throat competition in business; organisations are increasingly seeking a competitive edge in order to survive in the market. CSR is thus seen to provide a competitive advantage by shaping a favourable opinion from consumers.

Arguably CSR also helps strengthen brands. The continued association of CSR activity with certain brands helps strengthen the brand reputation and positioning in the market.

Why so many women in PR?

Evidently, PR is still an overwhelmingly ‘women’s profession,’ with far too few men according to recent surveys by CIPR. It is unlikely that the trend will change as the vast majority of PR university students and new entrants to the PR profession are female. The question as to why there are so women are dominating the profession can be explained by a few theories.

First, PR is still perceived to be a ‘girlie kind’ of profession. Most people still associate PR to fashion and glamour and thus a more ‘girlie’ like profession. The media has perhaps had a role in influencing this perception. The filming of programmes such as Sex and The City where one of the characters Samantha Brown acts as a PR Consultant has also largely influenced the perception of the industry. In the programme Samantha is involved in managing glamorous events, hosting parties and generally carrying out more outdoor entertainment activities.

According to a report by the IC Network in Birmingham (2004) the flexibility in the profession has enabled women to become freelancers. This means it provides the opportunity for career-minded women to have it all in terms of high powered jobs, while still balancing family life.
The genetic make up of women also enables them to be better in PR than men. The report cites that women tend to be more practical than theoretical, particularly when it comes to attention to detail, which are critical success factors behind award-winning PR campaigns. Women are better than men at thinking on different levels all at the same time. The report also argues that ‘women are better listeners, more methodical in their decisions, less confrontational and less likely to go off in unproven directions.’

According to Gideon Freeman, editor of PR Week, ‘PR is all about developing relationships and bringing influence to bear, which historically women have always mastered better than men.’
However as women dominate PR; the few men in the profession continue to dominate the top positions. This is particularly true according to CIPR, among the large London-based agencies, where a major proportion of directors and chief executives are male and continue to seize the high ground, having worked their way up through the industry since their domination during the 1980s.

Men also tend to work longer hours than women. Faced with challenges such as childcare and maternity leaves women are likely to be placed in less serious positions and employers are more likely to pick men to hold top positions.

Finally women are also more willing to take up administrative roles initially and work their way up which means it takes longer for them to get to the top.

Diversity: How representative is Public Relations in organisations?

The Commission on Public Relations Education Report, 2006 explains diversity as the differences that exist between and among people. Typically, diversity is divided into primary and secondary dimensions, primary being characteristics that are innate and can’t be changed (such as gender, age, nationality, sexual/affectional orientation, ethnicity and race) and secondary being characteristics that can be altered (such as religion, geographic and marital status).

In every organisation diversity in employee workforce is recognised as an important factor in contributing to effective performance and strategic management. More and more organisations are adopting and ‘all inclusive’ recruitment programme that cuts across the divide of race, sexuality, nationality among others. Practising diversity in resourcing is also fundamental in order to gain access to the best people and in order to help achieve organisational goals.

As the PR profession grows, it has become more diverse and inclusive. Recent surveys from CIPR show an astonishing growth ratio of women in PR. Women now outnumber men by 60:40 - a massive swing since 1987, when figures highlighted the opposite at 20:80. In essence PR has already broken the mould which restricts many other professions however; there is a growing need now to have more men in the industry to strike balance.

PR is also still an overwhelmingly ‘white' profession, with far too few high-profile PR role models from minority groups. One study carried out by the PRSA found that the reason why there was low visisbility of minority groups in the industry was because they tend to get boring and tedious or menial jobs therefore end up leaving the job eventually.

Publics, Audiences and Stakeholders

Public relations largely depends on the understanding of Publics, Audiences and Stakeholders. This in turn helps in planning and carrying out effective Public Relations campaigns.

There is a slight distinction between the meaning of stakeholders and publics although the terms are sometimes used synonymously. Stakeholders are those who have a stake or interest in an organisation and influence or are influenced by the organisation’s activities. They can include employees, customers, suppliers, local community, government and the media (Tench, 2006).

Grunig’s Situational Theory (1984) however distinguishes publics as stakeholders that have an issue with an organisation. Thus stakeholders are potential publics with the critical factor being the start of a problem or issue.

Stakeholders are very critical in the strategic management of an organisation’s reputation and should be the primary concern for Public Relations. Grunig cites that communication at the stakeholder stage helps develop a stable and long term relationship that an organisation needs to build support and manage conflict when problems arise and this helps in preventing them from becoming publics. Grunig further classifies publics as latent, aware and active publics. Latent publics are the ones that have not yet recognised that an organisation has a problem, aware publics recognise the problem exists and active publics discuss and respond to the organisation’s problem. It is thus in a company’s best interest to address an issue while it’s still at latent or aware stages rather than wait until it gets to be active public.

Audiences on the other hand are often classified into two groups: Passive and Active. The passive audience passively responds and accepts media content. A good illustration of a passive audience is the perceived influence of violence on TV shows on children and teenagers. An active audience is the opposite of a passive audience in terms of it is a reflection of what the audience does with the media rather than what the media does to the audience. Active audiences are selective in terms of media to be used to satisfy individual needs.