Power inequality in PR: Activism and Brands in action

When we think of public relations, we think of a few different personas with the same characteristics, trendy, stress coping, persuasive in pitching clients, overly networking… And then there is that image of the mystery PR practitioner that nobody has ever seen, who is standing behind the CEO, whispering their secrets to the boss’ ear, and who can manage any PR crisis your company would ever face. Despite being professionals of pubic image, public relations practitioners tend to see their own image suffer from their very own job stigma. The image of public relations practitioners may have taken a toll when PR got divided.

The excellence theory considers that public relations is closer to management functions and contributes to strategic planning. The theory claims that PR utilizes the two-way symmetrical model of PR (Coombs & Holladay 2012). Activism creates a need for communicating as it raises issues, and the people leading activism are members of the public. They use power even though they have less of it than organizations. Activists can be seen as obstacles of the two-way symmetrical PR practice. This raises the question, is there a division in PR, from a practice of ethics and values, to a practice of capitalism and power? Activists in theory could now be considered as charities, governments, and NGOs public relations practitioners as they hold a big part of power, opposing big corporations and brands which have another share of the world power. Both use persuasion. Both rely on emotions and scientific evidences. Yet, both also build relationships, using that two-way symmetrical communication despite what theorists like Grunig may say (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). Nowadays, public relations mix asymmetrical communications (based on persuasion, elitism, power and authority) and symmetrical communication (based on mutual understanding, equity, conflict-resolution). The excellence theory claims that “publics have more power than organizations, by becoming activists and using public relations to create power and to exercise influence over organizations” (Cooms & Holladay, 2012).

I believe that this theory interpretation of a power switch to the public seems highly inaccurate in regard to what the world looks like today. We live in a world where powerful brands massively create products that the population does not need and that are mostly dangerous to the environment as well as the human body. Although activists know and try to educate the general population about this, the public will still lead a life in which consumerism wins on a daily basis. Do publics have more power than organizations when brands like Zara, H&M, Primark, Nike and many other still convince publics to live by them? Do publics think freely for themselves when they know about endocrines disruptors and chemical disasters and still buy the brands causing them? This looks a lot more like corporate persuasion to me. WWF, Peta, Greenpeace, RNIB, RSPCA and other ‘lobbyists’ organizations may have won a louder voice, but the consumerism war is still happening, and so far corporations and brands are winning at it.

References

W.T. Coombs, S.J. Holladay. (2012). Public Relations Review 38. pp880–887.

 

The Social Media era redefining Corporate PR

Traditional public relations before the social media era, were mostly about building relationships with media and endorsers. One other important point includes the marketing part, using integrated marketing communication. Public relations professionals belonging to this era think they “can control what messages members of publics are exposed to”. The new era or social media comes to challenge that (Grunig, 2009). With the new era of social media, media, advertising and public relations spheres have evolved, we are now talking about ‘search engine optimization’ and ‘analytics’, ‘twitter sentiment’, big data for facebook, ‘twitter outrage’, ‘facebook backlash’, among other emerging curious internet-related casualties.

Even though social media brought up questionable influencers who seem to be considered legitimate according to metrics of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, this new way of living in a connected world also changed for the better the way corporations communicate. As Grunig explains, corporation PR practitioners used to ‘target’ ‘audiences’ instead of ‘communicating with their followers’ (Grunig, 2009). For Grunig, the use of semantics make a difference, and social media taught companies that the control of a reputation comes less with what we think we communicate, and more with how we are trustworthy and committed in our communications.

The use of public relations in this new era however tends to go further than talking about “reputation, brands, impressions, perceptions” with a purpose to “help all management functions including (…) to build relationships with their stakeholders” (Grunig, 2009). Building relationships with the public rather than just the media is now tremendously important for the corporate PR practitioner. The goal of an organisation remains to sell but its purpose is all about the image it built, the image that the stakeholders like and decide to contribute to. Organisations thus have to “anticipate and (…) highly communicate with publics at all stages of the process”, the corporations that succeed in doing so, “should be more likely to develop relationships with their publics”.

Netflix could be a case study to highlight the importance for a company to communicate both ways, by listening to their stakeholders and answering back to their concerns. When the company decided to raise their service cost without communicating about it, Netflix customers and even employees started to share their resentment on the company social media accounts. The brand suffered from that omission in terms of subscriptions numbers. If social media added elements to the current paradigm of communications we live in, it seems that they still did not change the codes of our mediatized society. If anything, social media made situations more dramatic and massive. And perhaps that is a reminder to corporations that stakeholders are the one holding the company together, and can decide to remove the stake at anytime.  

References 

Grunig, J. E. (2009). Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalisation. PRism 6(2): http://praxis.massey.ac.nz/prism_on-line_journ.html

The nudge theory: manipulation and environmental campaigning for change

Here is yet another form of ‘manipulation’ that public relations tend to use, the nudge theory. Unlike propaganda and other forms of thought manipulation, the nudge theory may actually open the door to rethink how, and why human beings dislike the notion of manipulation itself. Is being manipulated always evil? Is it something that should be banned from society? Or should we see how we tend to accept some sorts of manipulations when they do not bruise our egos by being revealed?

If we think about what could come to mind as a counterexample of manipulation to some, we could think of the president of United States. Mr Trump counts on the fact that a part of the American population is convinced that talking frankly for a politician, means that he is leaving aside any kind of manipulation. Most of Trump’s voters admitted to liking the character because they feel he addresses problems the population faces directly, without ‘sugarcoating’ things. This ‘truth aura’ feeling that surrounds the current president extended to what he decided to dismiss as fake news and corruption. Indeed, what Mr Trumps calls out, many of his voters will take for legitimate accusations.

In the end, Mr Trump seems to act more like a ‘spin-doctor’ regarding the credibility of media and the government, than public relations practitioners themselves.

Like any form of manipulation, ethics should be implemented. An agency worked with Unilever brands like Magnum and Comfort. They asked people participating in a brand competition and compared the results with webpages that pre-ticked, therefore suggested that people share the competition with their social media, and webpages that left the box blank leaving it to the people to decide if they wanted to share this or not. The first experiment worked brilliantly and got Unilever to save paid advertising money to promote the competition (Benady, 2014). This type of experiment could be considered like an unethical use of the nudge theory.

However, manipulation may happen to be positive. The nudge theory is for instance about encouraging a change by the means of positive suggestion, reinforcement. It is about ‘sugarcoating’ an option that usually actually leads to better and positive outcomes. This theory applied to public relations can have an effect on environmental campaigning for instance, and is often used for environmental outcomes.

Environmental campaigns can be difficult to lead to actual changes in the general population habits. Framing revealed to be effective when used by international campaigns to change a message about food habits and to fight malnutrition. Instead of trying to limit how much proteins and fast food the general population consumes, governmental campaigns started to use the “5 a day” slogan (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008).

I think modern public relations are finding ways to become more ethical and subtler. This combination seems to be very important and can lead to great environment changes. I first started to be highly aware of vegetarianism when I stumbled upon videos showing the abuse on animal treatment and meat production. But it was when I really heard of positive messages with the right influencers who were able to bring vegetarianism down to my level, that I took my first steps in changing my diet. I owe the nudge theory my current diet, which I am proud to have achieved.

 References
Benady, D. (2014, September 30). WTF: A nudge in the right direction. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from PR Week: http://www.prweek.com/article/1314980/wtf-nudge-right-direction

Thaler, R., & Sunstein, C. (2008). Nudge, Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness.

Public Relations degrees can save your company's reputation

Public relations are seen as a practice that relates to ‘common sense’ using ‘writing/speaking skills’ in a way that slightly undermines what a PR practitioner does. If it is true that, to some extent, public relations are about maintaining relations in different forms, it cannot only be reduced to a public performance or an act. While the practice remains very accessible unlike medicine or law, mistakes can also cause just as many consequences.

Handling public relations crisis for instance, require more than skills and field experience. It takes a person with some wisdom, some psychological knowledge, some theoretical mind and a good anticipated crisis communication plan. One good safety net in that case is a university degree in public relations, which gathers a panel of skills and theories that give one person the basics to handling a public relations situation.

From soft skills like networking events, internships, workshops, debates, to ‘hard’ skills like putting together client briefs, PR campaigns, reputation audits, press conferences, university degrees offer a wide range of necessary and modern skills for an aspiring PR practitioner. It also teaches about accurately using multimedia tools like video editing, design, social media, in accurate PR contexts.

Anne Gregory, president of the Institute for Public Relations, supports that idea and says “We should welcome the increase in PR degrees. If people are prepared to learn about their career it shows they're committed to it and understand what PR can achieve.”

She also says “Experience means always looking backwards; education helps you look forward and question how you do things” (Bowman, 2004).

Some professionals may argue that public relations are all about connections and maintaining relationships. The Edelman Public Engagement Model for instance explains that professionals and academics no longer determine influential people. Influential people are instead people who can happen to be amateurs in a particular field and therefore more legitimate in talking about it (e.g. food bloggers). An influencer is a person who experiences passion and shares knowledge about a given topic for which they will be entitled to. This approach to public relations — and business — has proven to be effective; who better than a mother can talk about the efficiency and safety of certain baby products, and who more influential than a food blogger that has a passion for gastronomy or cooking can persuade the general public on the quality of a product? As the Edelman Public Engagement Model defines, public relations campaigns work more effectively since practitioner started to involve influencers, the message therefore came off as more accurate and the audience was more trusting.

This theory is thus true and effective, as well as being less of a ‘manipulation’ than older public relations practices. However, it seems important that a professional and certified public relations practitioner stands behind the non-professional influencer. Just as Anne Gregory claimed, education helps one person look forward and question how they do things, including how to prevent mistakes or deal with the consequences.

References

Richard Edelman, “Public Engagement,” Richard Edelman 6 A.M., October 30, 2008, http://www.edelman. com/speak_up/blog/archives/2008/10/public_engageme.html

The rising power of social media can prevent democracy from weakening

Modern democracies were first created based on the rights to vote, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, and the freedom of cult, along with having independent media. Political parties gather ideas on given topics so that they can conform to a majority (right wing, left wing, far-right, far-left, democrats, conservatives, etc.) (Aeron, 2013). The media then discuss the points of these political parties in a way that reminds of a marketing SWOT analysis (candidate strengths and weaknesses within their political party and program, and opportunities and threats within the actual economy and society). However, is it possible to talk about democracy when existing political parties are undeniably strong? Is it possible to talk about democracy when the media are still using the agenda setting theory? — A theory that explains how the media tend not to tell the population ‘what to think’, although they tell the people ‘what to about’. (McCombs, 2005)

Aeron argues that citizens are getting more and more interested in independent, new emerging political parties and newspapers, as they start to seriously mistrust national parties and traditional mass media. He claims, “The power of global trends and institutions suggests that voting for national governments is futile. Mass media have changed the organization of parties themselves and eroded the direct and local links between politicians and voters” (Aeron, 2013).

In 2017, it seems that the bases on which democracy stands, are getting more fragile in the Western world. The right to vote exists and is respected for citizens of a given country, like the United Kingdom. Although it could be interesting to debate over giving the right to vote to people who have been living in the U.K. for years, without having the adequate citizenship. Going a lot further, the freedom of association is taking a step back in France. The government prohibited demonstrations for months, behind the explanation of a ‘state of emergency’ coming into force in the aftermaths of the terrorists attacks of 2015 and 2016. It became difficult and dangerous for the people in France to demonstrate about the outstanding rate of unemployment for instance, in fear of state violence — also explained by government on the grounds of ‘state of emergency’. Democracy is being challenged.

Perhaps it would be time for public relations to ethically take a turn, a turn for change and for a modern type of democracy, that does not hide behind the mask of ‘democratic’ social media. The real opportunity to link democracy with social media is not to let presidents use twitter and show how they can be the voice of the people (according to them, perhaps). It instead would be to have social media bring up new political figures, a reverse use of social media, per say.

Social media can end up being a gigantic democratic tool when correctly used — perhaps it is time to build new, alternative traditional media and political parties, that will use social media instead of being completely owned by social media and therefore, anonymity. LaPrimaire.org is for instance a French initiative, much inspired by the ‘debating nation’ that aims to let the website users pick their favorite lambda political character based on their programs. A final candidate is eventually thus democratically elected and stands in the elections. This avoids campaign-funding corruption and suggests political representatives that are truly, democratically, elected.


References
Aeron, D. (2013). Promotional cultures; the rise and spread of advertising, public relations, marketing and branding.

McCombs, M (2005). "A look at agenda-setting: Past, present and future". Journalism Studies. 6 (4): 543–557

Working in diplomacy and in public relations. Did you say propaganda?

As a first blog post, I thought that would be interesting to think about the role of public relations and the diplomacy parallel, in reflection to my own professional experience. I worked as an intern in French diplomacy for a few months, and this is where I started to take a deeper interest in media relations. As a master student in PR I also start to get some insights on this profession. PR practitioners explain that PR, diplomacy and public diplomacy are divisible - even though the concepts are tightly connected. Diplomats would thus benefit from PR knowledge; all while the latter could extend their vision and actions and learn from public diplomacy (L’Etang, 2009). The IPRA for instance, calls for PR professionals to add up the ‘corporate diplomat’ hat to their skills as states Robert W Grupp, IPRA president (PR Week, 2008).

In practice, working in diplomacy and working in PR seem to be quite similar. A great deal of confidence and secrecy is expected, as well as surveillance of news and upcoming issues or crisis. The public opinion on both these careers also tends to picture them as “propaganda” (L’Etang, 2009). From what I remember of my internship at the Embassy and from what I can currently observe studying Public Relations, I tend to agree with L’Etang, the value for these professions does not lays in a particular wisdom or knowledge, it rather is in how the practitioner communicates. I would add that it is all about having a head start on what the organization could be facing by constantly anticipating and updating tools and news surveillance.

As L’Etang writes in her article, and even the title of the article, PR and diplomacy have this common point to be considered propaganda. I was expecting a lot more public opinion manipulation and having to deal with highly sensitive information back when I started to work in diplomacy. My experience was different than my imagination. Two of my main tasks consisted in actually making an effort to observe and sum-up the daily news, using main national sources from all political wings, as well as promoting rising companies, scientific personalities and artists, all of which evidently had to be French. Indeed, governments do “build national and cultural identity through tourism and sport as forms of public diplomacy and internal PR as well as external PR (…)”, as L’Etang states. Is the “public agenda” that comes with these initiatives propaganda? Or is this all simply public relations? Do public relations constantly have to be assimilated with propaganda?

In my press officer internship experience, what I had to do was promoting the French culture — and it happened to be in an ally country. I was also summing up everyday a general portrait of the “today” press opinions. Despite the rather negative feeling the general public have towards diplomacy often considered propaganda, I did not have the feeling I was participating in corrupted or sensitive ways to communicate. I would argue that to me, the private sector often tends to imply more “propaganda” on an individual level. Perhaps was I just occupying a “values-based” PR position rather than a “power-based” PR one (Richards, 2004).


References

L'Etang, J. (2009). Public Relations and Diplomacy in a Globalized World: An Issue of Public Communication . SAGE Publication.

PR Week. (2008, November 7). 'Diplomacy is key' - IPRA. Retrieved January 26, 2017, from PR Week: http://www.prweek.com/article/860199/diplomacy-key---ipra

Richards, B. (2004). Terrorism and public relations. Public Relations Review, 30(2), 169–176