Trends and Issues in PR

PR degree: to study or not?

2009-03-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

I read in Rock Star PR about the some argument we had in class: Is a PR degree necessary or not? As a graduate Journalism student and a current PR student I would like to think yes but in reality I believe it depends on each person. For example some of my Indian classmates argued that a PR degree is necessary because their industry it is still growing. However in the UK the PR industry is mature and most PR practitioners in junior position do not come from a PR degree.

A believe a degree in PR is the some as a degree in Journalism, Arts and Humanities they are general topic where student acquire general knowledge but it is working where they gain experience. Also I share the opinion of the Rock Star PR's author that to become a good PR practitioner you need to have a certain personality and that cannot be thought in any higher education college. You can come from any graduate degree and all the PR technicalities can be learned throughout work but you are born with a personality.

I believe PR should be a postgraduate degree and not undergraduate because people need to learn other skills and know how to do a good research, have excellent writing skills and be able to argue and have their own opinions.

I am studying a postgraduate PR degree because I come from Spain and I wanted to understand the UK PR industry, develop my English and learn new skills. At the end of the day I think it depends on where you are and where you want to go and if a PR degree is going to take you there, I say go for it!

Social Media: democratisation of the media

2009-03-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

One day in Corporate PR an expert in social media asked who likes blogs and most of my classmates said yes, apart from some classmate and me. I have always felt that blogs, and social media in general, are overwhelming and crowded with so much information. I thought that a was never going to love this “social media” phenomenon but without realising that I was really a big fun of some social media sites such as Youtube, Wikipedia and Facebook.

While studying Journalism we analysed the social media phenomenon and we learned how to search, write and create blogs, podcasts and web pages. Anybody can create and write a blog or a podcast and anybody can upload a video in Youtube. That is the magic! However there is so much information that it is really difficult to select the ones that you are interested.

From the point of view of a PR practitioner I think it is important to find where your target audience goes so you can build a two-way dialogue, get to know their opinions of your client or organisation. Organisation and companies need to have a proactive approach. Though, it is essential PR or marketing practitioner know that the social media has it own rules and that it belongs to the people. People feel this media is theirs and that it is an alternative to official information coming from governments and organisations.

The following Youtube video is about PR and Social media and the changes in the PR practice due to this phenomenon.

We have to be honest where are we coming from and I think official sources have the right to defend their point of view with arguments and respect. We need to be able to share information, create interesting dialogues and find interesting and odd facts from places around the world. It is now that two-way symmetric communication truly exists.

Communication in moments of crisis

2009-03-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

The added value of SMEs and multimillion pound businesses lies less and less on their products or services instated it is their intangible assets (corporate image and reputation) that are gaining more importance. During a crisis a company has to pay special attention to their intangible assets and protect the organisation, their employees, shareholders and general public.

Experts have identified many types of crisis but all of them have common elements: it is a threat the company, it has the element of surprise and the employees have a short period of time to make decisions. However, it is important that the company affected by the crisis understands the nature of the crisis so their can tackle the problem appropriately and implement the necessary strategies to succeed from the crisis.

Scholars have created several models and theoretical bases for crisis management. In theory most companies should have a crisis management plan establishing basic procedures to follow during a crisis. Getting ready a contingency plans in advance will help the crisis management team and the organisation to be prepare in case of a crisis. It is important that the crisis management team understands all possible crisis that their company or organisation could undergo. The clue is to be calm and prepared.

However, the advances in communication and new media could be an allied or an enemy for an organisation during a crisis management. The major inconveniences are the capacity to magnify a minor problem into something much bigger among the general public. Also the sources of many (not all of course) crises are the rumours created by people in the web through web pages, emails and blogs. The advantages are that the company’s spokesperson or team can communicate in real time how the situation is developing and also they can reach a bigger audience.

The Windsor Tower fire in Madrid in February 2005 turned one of the capital’s skyscrapers into ashes. The international consulting group Deloitte and tree departments of the Garrigues law firm had their offices within the Windsor Tower. They lost important documents and database files that they will never recover. This fire produced an enormous financial lost only within the clients but also the companies and its employees. In this case each company had a contingency plan and back-up centres that help them to start operation in a matter of hours. These companies implemented the crisis management plan successfully however authorities could never determine the cause of the fire.

Also this case is an example of what modern communication can do. This incident happened during Saturday night and lost of pedestrians had the opportunity to take pictures and videos with their mobile phone and home cameras. The Spanish newspaper El Pais gather together the images taken by the general public. The photo gallery is El Incendio del Edificio Windsor visto por los Lectores.

If you want to know more about Crisis Management and read about successful and not so successful crisis management cases you can click of Crisis Management and it will send you to Wikipedia. There you can find a clear explanation of all basic things you need to know of a crisis, theories and real cases.

Global PR does exist!

2009-03-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

Global PR is a fantasy dreamed by International PR companies to generate business? I believe that global public relations is a reality because in today’s world, multinational organisations have the need to communicate with an enormous amount of audiences.

International PR agencies can offer this type of service. Not only to generate business but also, and most importantly to make good use of the money and time of their clients.

International PR agencies can develop and implement an effective PR campaign for an organisation that operates and targets audiences situated in different countries.

How can they do that? International PR agencies have an international network with local offices in different countries. These local branches have a deeper knowledge, including language, culture and values, also having already gained experience and built contact networks and relations. Therefore, an international PR agency can tailor the messages to the needs of a specific public.

An organisation and its PR agency will create objectives that are global, but some strategies and tactics will be local and tailored to audiences.

This idea can be understood in four simple words “THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.”

In the last few decades the necessity of communicating with international audiences has created the need for effective global PR campaigns and international PR agencies to implement them. International PR has been shaped by today’s world. Governments, organisations and multinationals should always thinking globally but act locally.

Check out how a Pete Pederson, Edelman Seattle, explains how they did the global PR campaign for the launch of Halo 2:

CSR

2009-02-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

Corporations are applying Corporate Social Responsibility programmes to show to society that they are more than a company that only cares about providing products or services that produce profits. They want to do contribute to society by improving life and helping the environment. However, many critics believe that some companies apply these programmes only to get good coverage in the press and having a better reputation, and they question their motives of their honest action to help society and the environment. They also question some business’s nature arguing that they will never be credible to the public eye about the application of CSR programme. For example, oil companies by nature will never help the environment or tobacco companies will affect people’s health.

It is important all corporations have a CSR but most importantly are the companies such as British American Tobacco, petrol BP and others implement CSR programmes and not as a distraction to unethical behaviour due to their core operations. I am not saying that all corporations will be ethical and socially responsible for having a CSR programmes. On the contrary, I am saying they need one and they have to implemented ethically and not only to get good press.

Therefore it is important that the PR practitioner in the corporation has the authority to change unethical practices of their company or client. At the end of the day the costumers and the community will know if a companies is doing good through their actions and not their promises.

Most companies announce in their webpage their CSR and if you are interested in a specific company you only have to Google it!

Feminisation of PR

2009-02-20T07:24:00.000-08:00

In the Anglo-Saxon countries the debate around the feminisation of public relations is in vogue. Interestingly enough I Google “mujeres y relaciones públicas” and I did not get a single article about this topic. This made me think that this issue (if it is an issue) was only happening in the UK and US.

After reading a few articles, statistics and studies I came to the conclusion that the feminisation of public relations is a really but, also, that they are not promoted into highest positions within the agencies and in-house organisations.

Is this bad or good? Well, I would have to say that I do not know and it is very subjective because each individual is different and maybe particular circumstances have not given the opportunity to women to be in bigger positions. I do believe that women are more than capable to excel in their work and both genders should have equal opportunities and salaries.

Once a person asked me if I was proud that Michelle Bachelet won the Chilean presidential elections. I answer that I did not mind who won as long as he or she was a good leader.

In this century in most countries, women have great opportunities to develop professionally. More and more young girls are going to university and recent graduate girls are eager to work hard. I currently we can see many examples of exceptional women leading in different industries.

Two views on "Women in Public Relations: How Gender Influences Practice" is an article reviewing the book and talking about the feminisation of public relations in the UK.

Can any industry be ethical?

2009-02-15T06:04:00.000-08:00

That is the main question! Now a day’s is the Banking industry that is in the spotlight due to the economical crisis or credit crunch. Next, probably, it will be the Oil industry…? There is always someone to blame about unethical decisions and practice in each profession. So why mark PR as an industry that maybe will never be ethical?

Public relations department manages the communication flow between the client, shareholders and community. They are the responsible ones to communicate any type of news, from bad to good ones. In some organisation the communication director would work with CEO drafting the company’s mission statement, strategies and vision. The PR stuff is also in charge of managing a crisis. PR is the mediator between client and public. I we cannot forget our dear friends the journalist. So maybe because the PR practitioners are in that unique position they are the targets of all criticism.

I do believe that is come to each individual to blame responsibility when they have worked unethically and not the whole industry.

PR associations have created Professional Codes of Conducts as guidelines for the PR practitioners. Academics have developed and analysed several ethical frameworks to understand the origins of approaches that practitioners could use when a dilemma arises. In an essay I wrote in the first semester I discovered that the decision-making theory was the most accepted in the PR industry. Also, PR practitioners sometimes will find their self in a case of loyalty conflicts and in those cases it is important to remember that practitioners must be responsible to society and above all public interest but without living aside clients, employees and especially oneself.

A problem with the Professional Codes of Conducts is that each association has their unique approach to make their codes effective and enforce sanctions when their members have committed unethical decisions. Therefore, having o many PR associations it is difficult to who is the conscious voice in the PR industry.

To know more about Professional Codes of Conducts please click on the following associations:

PRSA

CIPR

IPRA

Obama's campaign will go to history and some will not.

2009-02-06T05:04:00.000-08:00

Thanks to our American classmates in yesterday’s class we had an entertaining and interesting presentation of Barack Obama’s campaign. It was his unique massage and innovative ways of reaching people from all spectrum of society that made this last long campaign much more exciting.

Obama’s PR advisor marked a new way of how political candidates should take their campaigns. The most innovative tool was the use of the new media. Facebook, YouTube and MySpace are some examples of how social networks can help you boost your profile among younger people and how they can support your battle.

No longer the old slogans and proposals can be used as the only way to reach voters. Political PR practitioners have new opportunities to create more appealing campaigns.

In the analysis of Obama’s new media campaign we can see different elements that made his campaign a success and something that other PR practitioners can look at.

There are also examples when political PR goes wrong. John Plunkett from The Guardian wrote about, according to PR Week, When political PR stunts go wrong. It is not a long article but it is funny to remember old political stunts that went wide of the mark.

For the public it funny when the stunts do not according to plans, however, political PR also has a dark side, the “spin doctors”. According to Wikipedia, “spin is providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure.” In the UK, the most well-known “spin doctor” is Tony Blair’s Director of Communication and Strategy, Alastair John Campbell (click on name to see his webpage).

Confessions of a Spin Doctor by Eric Sparling is an article published in PR Watch. He talks about lying and manipulating information whilst he was working in a PR agency.

Is New Media the future within Public Relations?

2009-01-29T19:51:00.000-08:00

Is the new kind on the block! New media is changing the PR industry in many ways. Even the name of this specific field in PR has change to PR 2.0. If you Google PR 2.0 or PR and new media you will get hundreds of articles related to this topic.

New Media and Education

Everybody in the PR industry is talking and learning about it. It is a must-have for entry-level PR practitioners to develop a deeper knowledge of new media and its tools. The following video is a brief interview with Rick Murray, President of Edelman Digital, at the 2008 New Media Academic Summit. He explains the importance of new media for graduate students that want to get into the PR industry. Also he mentions that it is important that academic courses start incorporating new media as an essential module for communication students.

But why is new media so important?

Public relations has to adapt to the new trends in society so they can reach new audiences in a creative and innovative ways. Not only PR is changing their working methods, even mass media outlets, such as TV news channels and newspapers, created new online version a few years ago. New media has transformed the way organizations, CEO’s and politicians communicate with their public. However, most of them do not understand new media and they are afraid of it. Senior PR practitioners feel obsolete because of new media and even young PR practitioners feel threatened by it. But they should not suffer PR 2.0 stress because new media should be seen as a new opportunity to communicate with your target audience.

Harold Burson, chairman founder of Burson-Marsteller, and Mark Penn, worldwide president and CEO of Burson-Marsteller, talk about some trends and the future of the public relations industry.

How is the source now- the journalist or the public?

The new media allows an easier interaction between sources and publics. The public is no longer anonymous. They have their own voice that can be heard through the blogosphere. The raise of Internet means that the communication between media, journalists and the public is much faster and interactive. The feedback is almost instantaneous and the communicational channels are always open. It is now that PR practitioners need to know its public with a deeper knowledge so the massages can reach the desire individuals through the appropriate channels. Also by understanding their communicational tools, PR practitioners can build relationships based on the two-way symmetrical communicational model.

New media has raised the public to a different level of power in the communication system. Here there is another interesting podcast about the role of PR in the new media. Rob Brown, PR director of Mc Cann Erickson Communications House, did the podcast for PRWeek.

What ever happens in the future, one thing we have to know is that communication evolves and we have to adapt if we want to be successful in any professional industry. Especially PR practitioners have to see this new trend as an opportunity to reach the different audiences. However, it is important for PR practitioners that new media has its own rules created by the public and if they do not respect them, they will be alienated and attacked. In conclusion, new media is part of the future of public relations and no one can stop it.

Click in this link to read an interesting article in The Guardian written by Jack Schofield about What do bloggers want from PR 2.0? on what journalist and bloggers would like from the PR practitioners.

Is PR equals propaganda?

2009-01-23T04:38:00.000-08:00

Most people know that during war, the countries involved in it will influence the public opinion to support their cause. The methods they use are sophisticated campaigns and messages aiming to change the behaviours of a target audience, usually a large number of individuals.

There are many and many examples of propaganda, so many that we could go back to Ancient history and find examples of leaders making use of a basic and rudimentary propaganda. But it was in the last two centuries that human’s mastered propaganda. In yesterday’s class we saw how the U.S. and British government were making use of propaganda in the Iraq war. It is a documentary done by the BBC that explains how they manipulated messages and spin information to convince the population that the war was necessary and it was being successful.

The debate around propaganda and war is especially interesting and can become awfully passionate. However there is another topic equally attractive, PR and propaganda. Many critics refer to PR as a synonym of propaganda. In Le Monde Diplomatic, the American writer Noam Chomsky talks about democratic governments manipulating the media and communication and how they also make use of propaganda. He also states that PR “is a major advance on totalitarian rule, as it is much more agreeable to be subjected to advertising than to torture.”

PR can be used as propaganda but it is not the ethical practice of this profession. PR practitioners want to take their massage across but also they want to understand the public and build relations that can benefit both sides. In this industry, like in any other, there will be “bad” PR practitioners that will manipulate the facts or restrict essential information to the media so a pre-design massage will come across to the public.

In this YouTube video the author and co-founder of PR Watch John Stauber also criticizes PR firms as a multibillion-dollar industry that manipulates the media and masses. Also, how they are trying to expose this PR firms that are manipulating public opinion.

I do not know if people can avoid manipulation and propaganda but an important habit that will help individuals to have a bigger perspective of what is happening is to read different media outlets. Now a day, the Internet is an enormous source of information and points of view that we can get information of the current issues in the world and our country. We cannot be naïve that there are authorities, opinion leaders and organization that will attempt to manipulate public opinion. However, I do believe that there are PR practitioners that work hard to give accurate information, build solid relations between shareholders and carry out an ethical PR practice.

Future of International Public Relations

2009-01-09T15:41:00.000-08:00

Clearly, culture matters in international public relations. Its practice varies greatly around the globe through competing definitions of public relations and semantic nuances that suggest links to propaganda and persuasion. On a larger level, it’s the cultural subtleties that alter not only definitions of public relations but also what it means to do public relations internationally.

Culture represents the layers public relations must contend with to get to shared situations at the core of international public relations, whether building nations, attracting tourism, spurring economic growth, or controlling discord from opposition groups or nations. The layers of culture extend across international lines, from developed to developing countries, from democratic nations to authoritarian regimes.

Although it’s important to define public relations practice, such an endeavour can also limit theoretical scope. Definitions privilege worldviews, establish power relations, and attach names to communicative processes that are constantly in change, shaped by global forces that include economic and cultural waves.

International public relations is an area of the public relations practice that will continue growing with the development of PR in different parts of the world, specially with emerging countries in Asia and South America. They will add value to this profession and possibly develop new theoretical frameworks. The future of public relations, most importantly of international PR, is a global world without limits.

Ketchum Senior Counsel John Paluszek shares his perspectives on the future of public relations in an address to the Florida Public Relations Association at its annual conference in August 2008.

Education for IPR practitioners

2009-01-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

The activities developed by IPR should be done by professional PR practitioners. This type of PR practitioner has to understand what is international public relations and also have a strong knowledge of International Relations. Expert in this field of International PR or Global PR are cultural interpreters of each host country, they have to be able to translate the cultural differences between the client and their audiences, being the last one of enormous dimension and diversity.

There is a complete article IPRA (International Public Relations Association) analysing A Model for Public Relations Education for Professional Practice.

IPR South America

2009-01-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

PR is emerging as a socially mandated profession in South America just as it is in other parts of the world. Advancements in democracy and communication technology, along with growing economic and environmental interdependence, are the primary globally shared reasons for the profession’s growth and development.

In South America the social role of PR is truly reflected in the special characteristics of the PR practitioners. The social and economic imbalance in the countries in Latin America is a major factor in the development of the PR profession and practice, where PR practitioners are active agents of social and political transformation.

A continuation a will name some of the current characteristics of PR is South America:
· Licensing of public relations.
· The creation of public relations universities programmes and courses to develop student’s skills.
· Growth and development of professional organisations and the arrival of international PR consultants.
· The advancements in democracy, particularly in the transparency of government.
· There is a holistic concept of public relations.
· There is a need to balance relationship of public relations and journalism. In the region they can see difference between the two profession and each other roles.
· Development of stockholder owned corporations

The PR industry in some Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Chile or Argentina, is at the same level as some of the European countries. However, there are other countries that the PR industry is synonym of propaganda.

IPR China

2008-12-28T15:29:00.000-08:00

According to a 2004 survey, China has more than 1,500 public relations firms, and public relations is one of the top five professions in the country. The growth of the profession in China has caused a shortage of qualified public relations professionals.

Many scholars have pointed out the historical association between public relations and propaganda. That link is still fresh in Asian countries including China and the Philippines. In these countries, public relations practice is not a wholly separate concept from that of propaganda. Reforming communication from the negative of propaganda to the accepted area of traditional public relations is a slow process.

Please read this interesting report that wrote Weber & Shandwick about The Challenges of Public Relations in China.

This shift arguably created the need for public relations and redefined it. No longer was the emphasis on government communication and one-way messages pounded into powerless publics through propaganda. Now it could be used in new ways by private organisations. The contested definition of public relations changed as the political paradigm shifted in China, making it more varied, open, and flexible than ever before, but still far away from the idea of PR we have in the UK.

CNN report of the Olympic PR in China

China is still one of the most prosperous for the development, not only of public relations, but every economic or business market. Nevertheless, the article of Weber & Shandwick says that “consultants who are growing up with the industry are becoming experts in balancing creative campaigns with a deep understanding of the unique media environment. In recent years the Chinese media has had more flexibility and editorial control, but the regulation of media outlets by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) can still be a challenge. It is important to keep in mind that the government has tight control over all media outlets, and media are required to cover important government events.”

Structures of International PR

2008-12-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

Each organisation can choose if they want their international PR department to follow a centralised (control) communicational policy or decentralised. The first one would be a model where the parent company’s PR team is responsible for planning campaigns and for the development of communicational policies, procedures and strategies, and the PR departments of the local offices have to follow. The decentralisation, the local PR departments have partial or full autonomy of policy making and planning.

There is another debate in IPR and in many communication disciplines, these are: Standardisation against Adaptation. Standardisation is a uniform approach in the different countries, for example McDonald’s. If you go to a McDonalds in Paris, Japan or Chile you would see the same corporate colours, logo and possible menu, specially the Big Mac. On the other hand, adaptation is a culture-specific approach.

This McDonald’s advert show the diversity of consumers they have and proves you can find the same burger in different countries.

The structure of IPR will depend on the company or organisation, usually smaller multinationals tent to centralise their decision-making.

General Principles in IPR

2008-12-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

Many scholars have been interested in whether PR principles are universal and also which factors have to change of an international PR campaign into each country. Most of the theoretical background of PR evolved in the US and in the UK, so the question is if these theories are applicable in other nations and if other theories have been created in other regions of the world.

Dr George Yip, President & Director of Research and Innovation, talk about Global Account Management (GAM) framework that multinational telecom, media and Internet players can leverage to grow revenues and customer satisfaction within key accounts.

Culbertson in his book (International Public Relations, A Comparative Analysis) says there are nine generic principles of PR practice:

1. Involvement of PR in strategic management

2. Empowerment of PR in the dominant coalition or a direct relationship to senior management.

3. Integrated PR function.

4. PR as a management function separated from other functions.

5. Role of the PR practitioner

6. Two-way symmetrical model of PR.

7. A symmetrical system of internal communication.

8. Knowledge potential for managerial role and symmetrical PR.

9. Diversity embodied in all roles.

This shows that public relations have generic components that will work normally in most cultures and political systems. However, the specifics applications, such as strategies, techniques, and PR practice, will differ in each location, organisation or country.

For example, a study conducted in Greece, India and Taiwan identified two models. First the ‘personal influence’ model, where PR practitioners have to develop relationships with key opinion leaders. Then, the ‘cultural interpreter’ model, the PR practitioner interpret local cultures and practices to a multinational company or organisation.

Nevertheless, it is essential that PR practitioner know that the application of the general principles cannot be applied if there is no extent research and strategy research so they are adjusted to each different culture and political system in each country.

PR agency with an international network

2008-12-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

International public relations consultancies have offices in many different countries. Most of the top 10 IPR agencies were originally created in the US or in the UK. For an international campaign, a company, organisation or government can hire an international public relations consultant that has several offices around the world. These local offices’ knowledge, expertise and their relations with the media give more credibility to communication actions as well as strengthening the legitimacy of the campaigns.

This original and fun video is a global showcase of all the offices that Lewis has around the world.

Currently there are several options to the purchaser of public relations agencies services across national boundaries:
- In the parent client's country, they can commission the PR services of a local branch of an international PR agency, which has an office in the target country.
- The client can also hire a local PR agency in the host country to work on its behalf.
- If the client has an office in the host country, its in-house practitioners can also engage in the public relations.
- Also, an organisation can directly target the public in the host nation.
- Another approach is to bring some of the ´key public´ of the target countries to the parent country. For example, a government can hire a PR agency to improve the image or reputation of a region of the country. A strategy could be to bring key journalist of the different target countries to show them the region and its beauty, and when they go back they can write in their country about the place they were invited.

We can see then that international PR becomes domestic.

There is a large list of international PR agencies, but these are some of the top ones:
Burson-Marsteller
Fleishman-Hillard
Hill & Knowlton
Golin/Harris International
Citigate Cunningham
Ketchum Communications
Edelman Public Relations
Weber & Shandwick
Porter Novelli
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

This video is a collection of Skagen's international public relations events, advertisements, magazine features, and appearances in film and television. Skagen is a Danish company that designs accessories and jewelry.

Main players in international public relations

2008-12-19T16:29:00.000-08:00

In the international system, IPR has to deal with several multinationals, governments, global mass media organisations and nations, to name a few. Furthermore, one PR agency can work simultaneously for a country, a MNO or NGO. But who are these main players? It is important to understand that reputation; nation’s image, understanding and building relations, are main objectives for why companies, governments and organisations will hire and have an IPR service.

Multinational organisation (MNOs) with a variety of global business such as increased global sales or creating global brands and raising brand awareness. Multinational companies have societies of production, sales or distribution in other countries, although the head office is settle in an specific nation, they will make decisions with a global perspective to get the commercial and economic advantage of each country they operate.

Nation-states and governments: the images of nations are important to attract investment, to boost tourism or to achieve foreign policy goals. Reputation is one of the most valuable currencies in international politics and governments often compete for credibility. For the nation-state, PR means the planned and continuous distribution of interest-bound information by a country aimed, mostly, at improving the nation’s image abroad.

This news video shows a Chine’s PR campaign against the Tibetan manifestations in China and around the world, and the their intention to mitigates the consequences of this internal issue on the Olympics.

Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) are those whose members are national states. They can be (inter) regional, such as the European Union, Association of South East Asian Nations, League of Arab States, the European Space Agency or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or global, such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organisation (WTO), UNESCO and World Health Organisation (WHO). These organisations make collective decisions to manage particular problems on the global agenda.

International non-governmental organisations (NGOs) NGOs represent every facet of political, social and economic activities and their worldwide number is around 30,000. They claim to be the ‘global conscience’ and often mount IPR campaigns against large for-profit organisations or government, ‘naming and shaming’ them. Some of the most well-known are Greenpeace, Red Cross and Amnesty International, the list in big.

Virtual communities are does that develop on the Internet, ignoring the limitations of space and time. Blog are part of the virtual communities, and has become an important tool of communication and people can share information, opinions and build relashionships. There is an interesting website of blogosphere and the importance of virtual communities in Into the Blogosphere by Anita Blanchard, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

In a virtual world of their own is an article in The Guardian about Mohamed El-Fatatry, an Egiptian working in Finland, that created a virtual world aimed to the Muslim community.

Muxlim Pal creator Mohamed El-Fatatry

Also, we cannot forget the media conglomerates (companies that own large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet). The world’s largest conglomerate is News Corporation, then Timer Warner and third in the rank, The Walt Disney Company. Other major corporation are Bertelsman, CBS Corporation, Grupo PRISA, and Vivendi.

Critics point the finger at the media conglomerates accusing them of controlling media, in particular the news, and not making public newsworthy information that go against or can harm their own interests. Also, detractors blame them for being the leading forces contributing in the standardisation of culture, especially Americanisation.

Jeff Chester is an executive director of the Centre for Digital Democracy, based in Washington DC. In this youtube video he critics large media conglomerates.

Scholars say International PR is…

2008-12-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

Since 1990, the concept of international public relations (IPR) is attracting more and more attention of PR practitioners, scholars, PR associations (International Public Relations Association) ) and international companies and organisations. This growth is extraordinary but also haphazard. An increasing number of countries are adapting American or European public relations principles and they are also making it their own by adjusting these principles to their cultural values and believes. (Wakefield) However, other countries consider public relations practitioners only as communications technicians and usually they do not reach management roles as an expert and responsible of communication, where they are in charge of the PR problems and their solutions, as well as developing programmes for their client or organisation.

IPR in the twenty-first century is the area of PR practice that has grown most rapidly. Despite its interest, IPR theory and investigation has been poor and most of the existing studies come from other disciplines such as marketing, human resources and management.

Now lets see some of the current definitions:

Dennis L. Wilcox (2001), Agee and Ault defined IPR as “the planned and organised effort of a company, institution or government to establish mutually beneficial relations with the publics of other nations”.

Tench, Ralph (Exploring PR) says “IPR is the planned communication activity of an (multinational) organisation, a supra- or international institution or government to create a positive and receptive environment through interactions in the target country which facilitates the organisation (or government) to achieve its policy or business objectives without harming the interest of the host publics”.

Booth (1986) implied that the only true international practicioners are those who ‘understand how business is done across national borders’ and perform in that context.

However, in all these definitions there is an important aspect, and an essential practice in public relations, that is missing. That is mutual understanding and relationship building between an organisation (global) and its public (local country)

The CIPR has a number of sectoral groups run by members of the Institute and one of this groups in International Public Relations, for members working in-house or in consultancy in an international context, or who wish to develop their careers in an international direction. It is an opportunity for both networking and training.

The New Era of Global PR

2008-12-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

I have always been interested in international relations and communication. I have lived in three continents and studied Journalism in Madrid. Currently, I am a PR master student and my obvious topic for this blog is International Public Relations (IPR).

Our world is completely global. Cultures and societies are interrelated and they influence each other. Also, communications and technology have an essential roll in modern society and have shaped the ways in which we share information, where individuals have more power than before thanks to Internet.

In my blog I would like to discuss and understand the current situation of International PR and how practitioners in this discipline have to juggle between global solutions as well as more focused approaches for each country, company or organization. Also, an important topic is the analysis of barriers and factors that affect this discipline and the generic principles in IPR practice. We know that most PR theories have an USA and UK approach, and it is why I will give an overview of how PR practice has developed in different regions of the world. Finally, what will be the future of International Public Relations practice?