One comment during my “Problems in Public Relations” class stood out to me. My professor, Sam Bufkins, commented that PR is no longer a “one-way street of information,” but rather a “conversation” due to the influx of social media.
I have to disagree on a technicality. PR, good PR, has always been a two-way street/conversation. That is what sets PR apart from marketing and advertising, or general publicity. They send the information they want to the public. It’s a constant blather of “please look at only what we want you to. Kthanxbi.” They don’t have to listen to the public in the same manner.
Thankfully, Edward Bernays agrees with me. Whew. And since I consider him the father of public relations, I default to him. Otherwise, I would have to side with Barnum and that guy was a touch crazy. And devious. And another touch crazy.
Public relation specialists must talk to everyone and listen to what they say, digest it and produce something that reflects the previous conversation. We’ve always been asked to listen to all of our publics and make a decision for the company based upon this understanding.
Bernays explains that by doing this, in an ethical/legal manner, encourages competition and will manage to push society in a forward motion. It’s a cylindrical relationship that allows all points of views to be heard and considered. Public relations is not a democracy, rather it’s a sense of pluralism. Or what Dr. Land adores, communitarianism.
This is why I have to disagree with my professor, someone who has been in the business years upon years. We simply should have always been having a conversation. If we weren’t, then what we were doing wasn’t PR.
Have I mentioned that I’m also insanely idealistic? It’s actually a fault- I see how thing ought to be, and forget to adjust for how things are. Granted, I think I would rather not adjust mindfully and see where I settle and then readjust myself back towards my ideal. Yes, it’s a lot of adjusting, but I honestly believe work, especially work that reflects the morals of a company should always be striving upwards and not downwards toward reality.
So the real question here is, does anyone else agree? Or am I alone in my thoughts destined to be forever unemployed and scorned by my grandmother?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
While I agree wholeheartedly with your post, you may have missed part of what I said. I said that PR has always been a conversation, but too many people have been approaching PR from the "public information" model, which is traditionally one-way, as in "I tell you, you listen and act." Social media is forcing everyone working in that old, militaristic model back into conversation mode so that PR is truly public relations.
ReplyDeleteAnother place I mildly disagree is the characterization of marketing as one-way. Successful marketers do listen to the customers and the competition, and in many ways PR people are now taking a page from their playbook, especially in the evaluation of programs. Unfortunately, many people blur the lines between marketing and PR, and that's where we often have problems.