Week 6 comments

This week I commented on Ngaio Stobbs' blog page, her week 5 reading!

Week 6

The readings from this week were both taken from Johnston and Zawawi's text book, 'Public Relations-Theory and Practice', chapter 4 (the legal environment) and chapter 5 ethical practice.



The points from chapter four that I found to be especially important to my public relations education, included:

• It is important for practitioners to take into account the legal context through negotiation with lawyers on the strategies they emplyed to minimise harm and to ensure that their outcomes are not "compromised". I found that the example of the law suit between McDonald's and London Greenpeace, was really helpful in understanding a situation that the chapter describes. It is relatively obvious that what the PR practitioners have done for London Greenpeace would be negative in relation to the law.




• The tort (described by the text as a "..legal way of saying a civil wrong") affects/limits what can be published by PR practitioners, providing a method to protect the reputation of the practitioners and their clients.




• The text states that "...words could assume different meanings by a person drawing inferences or having knowledge of additional information...". I found this point to be really interesting and true! It expresses one of the difficulties of symbols (both word and image) and the effects and connotations that they can carry, a barrier in PR.




• It is important that PR practitioners state the facts and then draw conclusions from those facts rather then simply saying what they think.




• When determining wether a piece should be publishing, a court will consider "the extent of the publication, the proportion of reader..." who are interested in the item and whether the item is purely for "commercial gain".




• I found this point especially relevant to the story of PR; "When organising campaigns and lobbying for support for a particular campaign, care should be taken to verify claims to ensure they are not misleading and deceptive, which means looking at the way the material will be received and not what it is intended to mean". I think that this could involve collecting response data to ensure that people do not get the wrong idea about the publication, then what was intended by the practitioners. Contrastingly I can not see how a publication can be free from negotiating meaningings by all, as each person has something new to bring to an idea and therefore may interpret it differently to it's originated meaning.




• I found the information about the property law interesting, as I didn't actually know about the codes for protection of property including creative works and inventions. I think this is important for PR practitioners to recognise and acknowledge in their campaigns because (obviously) otherwise they could be wrestingly with law suits. I think the most important point made in the text in reference to copyright laws would be that "Public relations practitioners should vet all public statements, press releases and promotional material for obvious breaches of copyright."



• contracts "defind the relationship between parties and are used in all facts of public relations..." The standard form contains "'a uniform set of printed conditions which can be used time and time again and is oriented towards servicing a large volume of clientele as expeditiously as possible." I found that the texts desciription of the essential concepts within a contract was especially basic and therefore easy to come to terms with. The text states that "The essential ingredients of a contract are an offer; acceptance of that offer...and consideration."



• A contract may specify a particular level of duty of care, and if this standard isn't met it can lead to issues of negligence and action. This level of duty of care is dependent on two things: "forseeability and policy."



• It is important that organisations develop a legal strategy, thus minimising the chances of harm arising from legal problems.

I found this chapter of this weeks readings to be extremely dense, although it seemed to become easier to read as I got further into the chapter. Chapter 4 made me think about the legal side of public relations alot more, something that I had barely taken into account up until now. It is suprising to see how careful PR practitioners need to be in accordance to freedom of speech, copyright laws and individual rights. I think that this chapter was really important in demonstrating my lack of understanding of the legal objects involved with PR, therefore it was important that I read the chapter.

The next chapter (chapter 5), ethical practice, was also really important to the demonstration of appropriate PR practice. The points that I took to be especially important from this reading included:

• The reason for a rise in ethical consideration is put down to being due to a public demand for "greater moral accoutability". Technology has influenced practitioners ability to relay information truthfully.



• The encarta dictionary from Microsoft word defines ethics as "a system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct for an individual or group." I.e. ethics involves acting the right way, "doing the right thing". The text supplies a detailed definition of ethics in business practices, describing it as the process or "prioritising moral values for an organisation and ensuring its behaviours are alligned with those values." In the case of PR, ethics inter-relates with both the practitioner individually and the organisation itself.



• I think that the five duties of PR professionals, as proposed by Sein and Fitzpatrick, are important to understanding PR ethics. The duties included as being to "oneself, the client, the employer, the profession and society."



• Often ethical dilemmas can involve a decision about two alternatives that are both undesirable.



• The text relays study by Professor Ralph Potter of Harvard University in relation to the constructs of ethical decission making, these including; "...the situation and the person's values, principles and loyalties." Also expressing his method of ethical decision making through the concept of the 'Potter Box'. From the given example and my own opinion, I don't feel that the 'Potter Box' should be a critical tool for decision making as it excludes alot that may be neccessary when forming a decision, for example legal rights for confidentiality.



• The theory of utilitaianism is based on the belief that "...judgements should be made on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number."



• The 'fathers' of PR, Edward E. Bernays and Ivy Lee, aided the development of ethical practices in relation to PR. Ivy Lee proposed a number of principles (the 'declaration of principles') in 1906 about the practice of PR.


• "Best-practice public relations serves the public interest by developing mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics."


• The text claims that advocay is closely linked with the ethical debate, defining it as "...the act of publicly representing an individual, organisation or idea with the oject of persuading target audiences to look favourable upon, or to accept the point of view of, the individual, the organisation or the idea." It is important that practitioners ensure a balance between an advocay for an organisation's interests and other outside interest groups.
• Ethical dilemmas can occur on a number of levels: 1. Interpersonal (between a practitioner and others in the work area), 2. Organisational (the effect of an organisation's protocal or policies on the practitioner), 3. Stakeholder (between an organisation and publics/groups that have an interest in it's motives and actions).
• An important fact that I have taken from this weeks reading and in-class learning is that there are a variety of codes and conducts that practitioners must follow. This includes not only the policies of the organisation and the law, but also ethical codes such as the 15 point code provided by the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA). It is also important to note that such codes are different for various locations, eg the Canadian code for PR ethics could be very different to the Australian code.
• The text states that "An ethical culture is central to good corporate governance (ie the method of direction/control)."

I learnt alot about the legal matters of PR from this chapter as well, expanding my knowledge of the relevance of ethical considerations. The text emphasises the relationship between what is and what isn't ethical in well performed PR practice.

A massive reading for this week, but glad we got through it!

commenting in week 5

Today i will comment on Deborah Wise's blob! Thanks!

Week 5

This weeks reading from 'Chapter 4 - A Typical Public Relations Program', In C. Tymson, P. Lazar, P and R. Lazar's 'The new Australian and New Zealand public relations manual'; has provided me with real insight towards the role or public relations practitioners in practice. Their ultimate position as "proactive" (playing an active role in voicing the communities perspectives), managerial, public relation practitioners. I was suprised to read that often a public relations program is formed without "clear objectives in mind" and that it is purely the role of public relations that designs and emphasises particular objectives/strategies. The points that I thought were those that were most important from this particular reading included:

• that "identification of target audiences is the first major step in program planning",


• that John Bulbeck states that there are three methods of researching current opinions of the populous. These include desk research (eg journals, online sources, library resources, existing research), field research (includes observational research or research through contacts) and formal research (hard research involving quantitative and qualitative research methods).


• that there are sound (quantitative, measurable, realistic, time-bounded) objectives and probably unsound (qualitative, unmeasurable, optimistic/pessimistic, time-extended) objectives.


• the process of media selection involves four steps: 1. to look at and divide your target audience 2. work out which forms of media are best suited to your campaign 3. "...process of media selection (involving) further definition of the media that have been selected." 4. to implement your media selections through tests to ensure that they are appropriate.


• Suprisingly some public relations practitioners do not believe in evaluating their campaign results. Personally I feel that this practice of public relations is lazy as evaluation is important to development and can increase one's skills through recognising negative and positive points within a project/campaign.


• that if the right public relation techniques and methods are used in a campaign then the success and results can be measured and effectively evaluated.

I found the case study 'AMP sponsorship of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Torch Relay' really helpful in broadening my perspective of strategy and method behind public relation campaigning. I also found the outline of the role of PR practitioners and the methods of campaigning described throughout the text to be helpful not only to the personal growth of my understanding, but also relevant to the annotated bibliography assessment (in reference to public relation tactics). Although dense in some areas, the text was successful in broadening my perspectives of PR campaigning.

The second reading for this week; "chp 7: strategy, planning and scheduling" from Johnston and Zawai's text 'Public Relations - Theory and Practice' became an insightful read and was inspirattional to my educational development. The points that I found to be most relevant from this reading were as follows:

• the strategic public relations program is a proactive method that "...recognises the cause and effect relationships between our communication activities and the achievement of the ogranisation's mission."
• For public relations to be effective, the practitioner needs to have direct communication with the "decision-making dominant coalition of the organisation."
• Public relations strategies are necessary for ALL target groups.
• The relevance of two-way communication not only through the action of a campaign, but also in the strategic development. The text focuses on internal communication between the Public Relations practitioners and the CEO or head office.
• I liked the text's definition of one particular role of Public Relations in beneficing communication and relationships; "Public Relations can further be explained as building, consolidating and maintaining relationships, centring the function more on the relationship and on communication as the tool that helps to achieve this relationship."
• A vision statement is defined as "...the future state of the organisation at a selected time." The text expresses that this is ideally developed through participation within a group.
• A mission statement describes and plans a number of practical steps for achieving the 'vision' set in the vision statement.
• Key performance indicators (KPI's) measure the progress of the mission in achieving the vision. As some areas of a public relations campaign can't be meausred (public relations is not often measured by quantifiable data), often KPI's are irrelevant to the measurement of progress.
• Lester Potter's (1997) 'ten-step strategic communication plan' portrays the basic structure of a communication plan. The steps include (in order and quoted from the text) executive summary, the communication process, background, situation analysis, main message statement, stakeholders, messages for key stakeholders, implementation, budget, monitoring and evaluation.
• According to McElreath (1997:158) "A budget is a plan for coordinating resources and expenses over a period of time by assigning costs to goals and objectives for specific activities." The text suggests that there are two tyoes of budgeting. These include financial budgets (gives the estimates of the incomes and spending for an organisation) and operating budgets (which "estimates the cost of the goods and services that the organisation will use for specific purposes."
• All Public Relations plans must involve dedicated scheduling to make it a successful campaign. Scheduling helps to ensure jobs are timely and identify a number of steps and strategies.

This readings made me think more about public relations theory and the design of a public relations campaign plan. The text emphasises the relevance of detail and precision in creating a designated campaign outline which justifies budget and strategy. The case studies provided relevant examples of a public relations plan in action and were insightful to the more systematic concerns of public relations practice.

The focus of both texts on the development and before math of proactive campaigning reveals the relevance of development in creating an external and internal, two-way communication strategy.

Thanks guys

Alyssa

Comments

Today I will be commenting on Jess's blog!
Stay tuned

Week 4

This weeks readings were really helpful in again showing what kind of jobs are out there for people who have successefully completed a public relations degree. It was interesting but also humerous to find that each person giving their career experience claimed their job to be perfect for their lifestyle situation. I was suprised by the salaries that the public relations practitioners were being paid; higher then i originally expected for this work.

Both readings shaped public relations as a career revolving around teamwork. For example, this is recognised in the text 'Public Relations - Theory and Practice' (JaneJohnston and Clara Zawawi, 2004) in chapter 11 'Internal and Community Relations, in the statement;

"Senior managers are now recognising that one unhappy employee has the potential to damage a company's polished image in the community."

Therefore it is idealised that each employee must work together as a team to build a reputable position for the company and achieve a greater respect amongst the community. One disgruntled employee has the opportunity to disrupt the process of public relations campaigning.

Basically, the chapter in 'Public Relations - Theory and practice', explores the inter-relationship of employees in an organisation. Reliance on each employee to perform actively and effectively is crucial to that companies development. I thought it was interesting to read that the solution to gossip and rumours in the workplace is the provision of factual information, a theory that is basic but one that I did not expect to be discussed in this text. The focus is on the relationship between the staff and employers, as the staff rely so heavily on the information that is fed to them from the higher positioned workers within the organisation. The formula can therefore be placed as:

a happy relationship between employer and employee + an informed employee = a happy and productive practitioner which therefore leads to a successful business.

I believe that (as stated in the text) face-to-face communication would be the most formal and successful method of creating a strong relationship between employer and employee. Although other methods (for example memos, events and newsletters) may aid in building relationships, the sole reliance is on face-to face communication as it has always been the method that builds a strong and familiar connection. For example, where I work a monthly newsletter is supplied in the lunch room on organisation developments and staff experience. From observance, these newsletters are rarely looked at and if so, are only skimmed over. In contrast, the managers can provide information to employees at the start of a shift that becomes successfully memorised.

I found it interesting to observe that each of the other suggested methods of creating relationships between staff and employer, dabble with public relations as a communication role.

An organisations relationship with the community is perhaps the most important relationship for profit and professional gain. Ofcourse, in public relations, communication between the community and the organisation is the most powerful link between gaining influence in the society. The text outlines the fact that it is important to achieve opinion and response from the people that are involved in the public relations campaign. To do this successfully, the community must be provisioned with descriptive and concise information on the campaign, it's methods and purpose. I think it is important to keep the community involved in the developments of the campaign (as suggested in the text) because they can therefore see not only the aims and ideas behind such a campaign, but also the methods of obtaining the ultimate goal intended.

Thus, I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were circulated around the importance of contacts and building relationships to imply a successful organisation, both internally and externally. The company cannot rely purely on it's relationship with it's customers but must also take into account the attitude of it's staff. A company must also not only focus on the relevance of it's internal memebers (staff) but also the community as this is where the profit and development of the company is promised.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that it broadened my understanding of the jobs that are available to those that have completed a public relations degree. The information providedby the different practitioners in Melanie James text, about what people should take into account when in interviews. I have discovered that, in terms of public relations, success comes with individuality, accurate gramma, concise language and personality. From what these people describe, a formula of the above characteristics enhance your availability to become involved in a job in public relations.

Cheers guys for your advice!

Week 3

This chapter seems based on the theory of public relations through analysing a diverse range of differing theories that aid in explaining the methods of public relations practice. Theories can continue to develop from differing individuals who propose particular methods of public relations. The text explores the prominent theories for public relation theory. I have provided a short summary of each theory as i feel that these are the most important points to note:

• agenda setting: which controls what, where and how a story or issue is placed in a media outlet. Judged according to the agenda of the editor, this technique allows the editor to control and manipulate the priorities of the reader through providing dominant coverage to one issue over another. This can be linked to the clients or relationships between the media personnell and other organisations. I feel that this links closely with gate keeping; defined by Michael O'Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler in their text 'Media and Society - a third edition' as being "the process of controlling what gets involved and whose voices are heard in the media, particularly in the news". (Shaughnessy and Stadler, pg. 460). Public relations administers ensure that their clients advertisement and readings are placed in high priority in dominant media outlets through understanding the process of gate keeping.
• General systems theory: the concept of "closed" and "open" systems. A "closed" system (described by Jane Johnston and Clara Zawawi the sealing off of an organisation from "all external influencing factors") is a ceoncept that is perhaps best applied to the promotion and informing of employees involved in the organisation rather then reaching out to a wide public level. An "open" system, however, involves the outside picture, taking into account the opinions and involvement of the public and groups/organisations outside that particular clients development. Basically, both systems have negative aspects to their methods. A combination of both closed and open public relations would be adequate to forming a successful public relations program that envisages both the outside and inside organisations and personnel.
• semiotics: the study of signs and sign systems. I feel that this theory is particularly important to public relations as it allows practitioners to understand methods of meaning and interpretation in according to advertisement strategies, etc. When a public relations practitioner creates a piece of information (for example a leaflet) the order and construction of the wordage and images is important in creating a particular meaning. This study allows practitioners to understand the reactions of the public eye in response to methods of public relations. The study is about expression and the manipulation of the diverse population to share ideas through images and language connotations.
• Habermas, critical theory and the notion of the 'public sphere': I can not find a link between public relations and a theory that involves freedom of speech and eqaulity. The text does recognise that public relations is often expressed negatively when applied to this theory and i share this view. Public relations works to promote a company or event through prmototion and relationships. Although it does dedicate some research to the approval and opinion of the public, I believe that the profession bases dominantly around the opinion and influence of larger organisations and even the public relation practitioners.
• Grunig's models:

1. Press agentry: involves little research that often leads to false or basic propaganda formed around the concept of advertisement for profit. My understanding that public relation practitioners have moved away from such simple and ineffective methods of practice, yet as shown in the example in the text of Richard Branson's public stunt in promotion of Virgin Mobile, it is evident that such a method continues to be used in this century.

2. Public information: based around the one-way transition of information to the public. An example of such a model can be found in the "Bali bombings: Supporting Western Australian's after the tragedy", sourced from the case studies proposed in the Public Relations Institute of Australia Golden Target Awards website. I identified this case study to suit the methods of this particular model because it bases around the dissemination of information not for personal gain but rather to give aid, support and advice to those that sufferred from the Bali bombings. The ultimate goal of the campaign was to provide contact information for the public so they could contact, access and receive consultation and assisstance.

3. two- way asymmetric: a system that involves a two-way relationship with the public but dominated by the organisation who's public relations practitioners work to prove are correct. An example of this is evident in the campaign for "Elders Rural Bank Launch" which is also sourced from the Public Relations Institute of Australian Golden Target Awards website. The ultimate goal of the public relation practitioners is to gain customers and therefore profit for the organisation. Although a small survey was taken on customer attitude, the focus is not on response but rather the gain through informing. Their purpose of persuasion is especially evident in their campaign goals to inform and gain.

4. two-way symmetric: described in the text as being rare, it involves the balanced relationship of response and informing, one that is not as prominent in public relations campaigns because of the need for personal gain and profit. Although above I had labelled the "Bali Bombings: Supporting Western Australian's after the tragedy" as an example of the public information model, it also achieves recognition in the two-way symmetric model. For example the campaign benefits a two-way relationship between the sufferring of the public and the aid of the organisations. The methods of research are especially closely linked with public opinion, for example scenario testing. The campaign also aimed to develop a mutual understanding between a variety of organisations, even going as far as to develop a relationship and understanding with Australia, accepting their aid.

• The rhetorical theory: i understood this model to be based around radical, free opinion when public relations campaigners use a strong voice to present a particular vision towards an idea or issue.
• The relationship management approach: I feel that this model is based around the focus on relationships between organisations or social groups. For example the relationship between the cancer council organisations and stores selling products such as approved sunscreen. Through identifying and analysing this relationship, public relations practitioners may be able to develop strategies to further their involvement or enhance participation.

These dominant theories are all relevant, and although one may take or seem to take higher priority over another, my interpretation is that public relations practitioners need to understand each model and attempt to apply each to a campaign so as to encourage a specific and adaptable action. The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that they express the diverse methods of public relations and the systems that public relation practitioners in the industry use to gain loyalty and support from the public eye, it's almost like cracking the clam that holds the pearl inside, as you become deeply involved in the pearls colours and textures, you become to understand its' beauty and need.