December 6, 2009
Mass Media and Society
Research Paper
The Future of PR
PR…when people hear the term they have no idea what it really means. PR is an abbreviation of Public Relations. The exact definition of Public Relations according to wikipedia.org is “is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics, it gains an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news.” Public Relations is a major outlet in Mass and Media. The information that comes from PR can be distributed through newspapers, magazine, radio, television, Internet, or any other form of media.
But with all the advances in technology, especially in the media aspect, it is becoming much more complicated to “manage the flow of information between an organization and its publics.” There are many contradicting accounts on where the future of PR will stand in the years to come. Some believe the future looks very bright and that it will evolve with time, while others like Ross Dawson believes its future looks very brim.
Ross Dawson is a business futurist, best-selling author, and the CEO of the international consulting firm, Advanced Human Technologies. In 2006 he published an article in Marketing magazine called, the Six Facets of the Future of PR. In the article he looked at the future of the PR industry and ways in which PR can avoid these problems or solve them. In his article he quotes Professor Brenda Wrigley of Syracuse University, “PR has a PR problem.” Some of the main problems PR faces, ranges from ethical to financial issues. A main problem that is expressed in the article is that many executives are not taking PR seriously, and are not thinking it is “critical” enough to be used. According to Dawson, PR is not longer “traditional…It is far more about being engaged in the flow of messages through an intensely networked world than it is about formal communication.”
The first facet Dawson examines as being a future of PR is that “Clients Expect More.” He believes clients have become more demanding and that an entire new industry has developed from it. He says that there are now consultants who help “companies pin down their suppliers, expose costs, cut fees and enforce accountability. In short, clients are seeing their PR agencies and marketing peers as readily replaceable commodities.” Many PR companies are becoming “black-box providers.” A black-box provider is a PR firm, whose services have become outsourced, “disengaging the client from the process.” As a result of this clients find it easy to replace them. Dawson believes that the only firms who can survive are the ones who include the client and have a lot of knowledge. He says, “The future belongs to those firms that can successfully engage their clients in true knowledge-based relationships that are based\on deep mutual knowledge, and a high degree of collaboration in achieving outcomes.”
The next facet he examines, which is probably the most important, is the transformation of media. “Mass media will never disappear,” is a statement that all experts can agree on. An important statement that describes PR is Dawson claims, “societies are bound together by having a common reference point to discuss and engage with.” Blogging has become a huge, new media outlet, and it is having detrimental effects on PR journalism. According to Dawson “Media has become a participatory sport, in which not just journalists, but literally anyone can provide their perspectives on what they are seeing and what is happening. If the content is interesting or they uncover something of note, they can quickly garner a significant audience.” As a result of this it leaves publicists and journalists not needed for their expertise, which results in lay-offs.
The third facet Dawson looks at is, “Business is a Conversation.” He believes business will become personal and not so formal and stiff. All businesses deal with people, they employ them, and their consumers are people. He compares the current interaction people have with companies is the language seen in press releases, which no one can relate to, he says “Why then is it surprising that people do not like companies that strive to be impersonal on every level?” The future trend he predicts are companies becoming more human interactive, and “enabling more human conversations… While this is fraught with challenges, there is no question that customers will flow to companies with which they can have human interactions, and move away from companies that persist in presenting unassailable formal corporate faces to the world.”
“Information Flows in Every Dimension” is the next facet that is the future of PR. Before, information was very “unidirectional,” but now it flows in all directions. Many articles now contain a list of blog postings that are related to the article, “Increasingly, newspaper articles quote – sometimes exclusively – blogs as their sources.” Companies are now leaning towards information that is provided, “News Corporation bought the social networking site MySpace in July 2005, because that is where information is now flowing. By positioning itself in the interstices of the networks, it can continue to access the crucial 15 to 30-year-old demographic, which is rapidly switching off mainstream media.” But the biggest future trend is “massive and widespread audio and video production and communication. From podcasting to
mobile video calling to home video studios, and video screens soon to appear on every surface you can imagine, audio and video will predominate in our world.” Words having always been the most important tool in PR, but in order for it to keep up with new important forms of media it will have to become more “critical.”
Information will no longer be able to be hidden, “Do not expect to be able to hide anything.” This leads readers to his next prediction “Transparency is a Given.” In order for PR firms to stay afloat in the future they will have to become more transparent, “In this world, PR is not about hiding or manipulating the truth; it is about providing access, being open. Know and expect that the truth will come out.” PR has done a complete 360, before it was the job of PR firms to hide damaging information about its client, but now the best approach in this new age of information is just to be completely truthful. PR has to become trusted or it will not survive, “broken trust is not soon forgotten.” Dawson claims, “The only way to gain trust, to be credible, is to be transparent. It is an immensely challenging shift to make, yet those who do not truly believe this will soon find a day when their credibility and livelihood disappears.”
Last but not least is “Influence Networks are at the Heart.” The future of PR will be sought at in the people, “Organizations need to understand and get involved with the influence networks that really form decisions. People form opinions and make decisions primarily from the input of the people around them that they know well and trust, not from advertising and media.” In order to survive they will have to take the consumer’s opinion into consideration, and actually make it its top priority. Dawson says, “PR will become largely about how to identify, access and influence the key influencers, either individually, or by understanding how influence networks are structured.”
All of these facets provide challenges for the future of PR. But Dawson believes if PR companies go back and “re-conceive their role and potential impact, they could well be masters of the universe…We are entering a world in which the flow of information and perceptions will drive much of the value creation in a highly networked global economy. The PR industry should be looking forward to a time of massive prosperity, in which it extends itself to play in entirely new fields of media and communication.”
It is clear that future of PR is evolving and changing completely, if companies are willing to evolve with the new times they will be very successful. A blogger and website creator named Jeremiah Owyang posted a blog on his website, WebStrategy, in March discussing the future of PR. He like Dawson had many similar ideas and inferences on how the future of PR will be. He believes that the future of PR will be represented in communities and not in brands, “We continue to see that communities will continue to gain more and more power as they lean on each other to make decisions, support each other, and share their lifestyle.” There is evidence of this already in websites like Facebook and network blogging sites. PR agencies would flip flop, and no longer represent the brand but the consumer, “a shift will happen as communities can define the spec of future products and therefore multiple brands will bid for their business. As a result, we should expect the agency model to flip over, where PR agencies start to represent communities of customers –rather than brands.”
Technology has expanded Public Relations in a major way, it is everywhere you look. The internet has rapidly become the most-used resource for information. Companies have now began to save money in printing costs and distribution by getting messages out via the internet. A company can display employment, products, services, its mission, and values. Many computer experts have the knowledge and knack for design, but they cannot write to reach the company's publics like a public relations writer can. As public relations course offerings are evolving to include web design and HTML writing for students, the practice is evolving to include public relations practitioners that can design and write an entire company web site. "Public relations have shifted from a traditional, print-oriented emphasis to that of a multi-faceted marketing discipline. P.R. used to mean writing, media relations and special events. Now there are no limits; it may be direct mail or a presentation to Congress. There isn't anything under the marketing umbrella we aren't capable of doing. We never say 'that's not our job'. If it's part of the marketing mix, it's our job." The future of public relations is limitless. This is the very reason most people do not understand exactly what it is now. The hardest thing about public relations sometimes is getting a company's executive board to recognize exactly what it is and why it is needed. The new president of Public Relations Society of America, Kathleen Lewton, commented on the biggest issues facing public relations practitioners today, "First is the need to continue to precisely define the role of PR in terms of providing counsel, building relationships with constituents, and helping to shape strategy, rather than being seen only as communicators or publicists. Yes, media relations and shaping/delivering information are part of what we do -- but they're only one part, they're the tactical part, and they're the last stage of a PR program." The future of public relation students seems very difficult when it comes to finding a career. Most companies have public relations in some form, but have labeled it marketing, human resources, or customer service. People with human resources or marketing degrees are not disciplined in writing for mass media or writing for specific publics. Any large company that does not have an internal public relations department might have to hire a firm that knows little about the issue in a time of crisis. Although these external firms are seasoned in handling crisis, an internal public relations practitioner would be more cost-efficient. Public relations will continue to evolve as technology evolves. The secret to being successful in public relations is to rely on two-way communication, be proactive - do your research and issue tracking, and have a clear consistent message.
Works Cited
Dawson, Ross. "Six Facets of the Future of PR." Marketing March 2006: n. pag. Web. 7 Dec 2009.
Owyang, Jeremiah. "Future of PR: When Agencies Represent Communities –Not Brands." Web Strategy. March 29, 2009. Web. 7 Dec 2009.
Bennett, Laura. Meet Us. bennettandco.com. http://www.bennettandco.com/meetus.php3?Main=AboutUs&firstSub=MeetUs
Lewton, Kathleen. Talk from the Top. February 2001. http://www.prsa.org/Tactics/tac0101.html
