How useful is PR education?

For our last class we had a debate on the motion “success in PR is determined by your personal attributes and your contacts. PR education is irrelevant”. So the debate could also make us wondering, in this last class, if all that we’ve done for months was really useful! Maybe some were wondering “well what am I doing here?” Of course the motion is very Manichean, and I guess most of people would agree that personal attributes, contacts and education are all useful for having success in PR industry. So to me the real question is to what extend a MA degree in PR can really help me for my future career?

What brings you a PR degree?
A first asset that a PR degree offers is to show the employers a real commitment to the industry. That is what our teacher Pam Williams highlighted to us: having dedicated a year of your life to study PR is a solid proof that you take your career in the industry seriously, and therefore employers must think that you will commit to your job. That is the idea that supports Kirsty O'Connor, a Leeds Metropolitan PR student: she expressed her own personal opinion on the subject by sending PRWeek's magazine a letter entitled "Forget English grads and hire PR students". In her letter she supports PR Degrees by adding that those who decide to enter the industry and haven't got a degree in PR, usually quit.

A second asset of having a PR degree is what studying a topic at university can bring for all topics: an in-depth thinking about it, and argumentation skills. I personally think that I’ve really enhanced some of my skills during these months: my presentation skills are much better now, as we’ve had a lot of training for talking in public and convey a message orally, and I’ve also learnt how to improve my creativity. You may think that creativity is only a personal attribute, but actually if you’re trained through exercises that ask you to be creative, you realize that it is a way of thinking that you can really improve, as it’s also shown on the diagram on the right.
Also, this master has really made me think more in depth about issues related to PR, and how to argument and sharpen my own opinion about them. As Trevor Morris, one of my teachers, said in an interview given to PRWeek’s video podcast, the value of a PR degree is, like for all kinds of degree, to get people to think , to analyze through researches and to be able to argue about PR issues, which are very broad as PR interfaces with culture, society or politics. So a PR degree makes you think and understand the industry in context, it sharps people’s minds about the industry… Like by doing what I’m doing right now, writing this blog which is an assignment! And I have to say that I really enjoy doing it, as it really made me have some useful thinking about a number of issues, especially about current trends in our society. Trevor also said that employers would expect a PR degree to bring to the job applicant some academic and intellectual thinking, a mixture of analysis and basic vocational skills.

I think a third asset in having a PR degree is that it participates in giving the profession a greater status, and therefore gives a more serious status to PR practitioners, so to you if you want to work in PR industry. That is why PR education is supported by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR): the CIPR Code of Conduct encourages "professional training and development among members of the profession". But let’s not forget that only 8000 PR Practitioners have become members, which means only 1/3 of the PR Practitioners in the UK. However, the CIPR “mission” is stated as fighting for a better, "healthier" Public Relations profession, and it is "committed to enhancing professional standards in public relations through the emphasis on education training and lifelong learning initiatives in their strategy". As a worldwide-based institute it has managed to provide to young people who want to enter the industry the CIPR Diploma which is taught in more than 13 countries around the world. As Lis Lewis Jones, President of the CIPR stated: "The CIPR Diploma provides practitioners with the knowledge and understanding of theory and practice to develop as effective and efficient professionals"

Is having a PR degree a key or a bonus?
And that raises the question: how can PR Practitioners don't need a degree to work in Public Relations? Indeed, to become a lawyer or an economist you have to study law or economy, so what makes PR industry different from these? Well the thing is you don’t compulsorily need some knowledge to work in PR, as PR jobs are mainly maintaining good relationships and reputation, and you don’t need a particular knowledge for that. However, you need a few skills that a PR degree can really help you to enhance. But, as Trevor said in the PRWeek interview, a PR degree will never be a substitute for learning on the job, and the most important for employers is clearly the attitude and abilities of the candidates. Personally, I’ve always considered my MA as a bonus for getting a job, compared to candidates with the same experience and personal attributes but with no PR degree, and I’ve never considered this MA as the key for getting a job in PR.
Also, PR works a lot with networking and contacts, as it’s all about being known. So some can argue that studying PR is a waste of time when it is so crucial to build some personal contacts and learn the practice in reality, as for relationship focused jobs work experience is essential. Moreover, in the debate some pointed out that 80% of PR practitioners don’t have a PR degree.

But the limit to this argument is that for most of nowadays’ practitioners PR degrees didn’t exist when they could have a chance to study PR: they are very recent degrees. So probably the best argument for the PR degree defenders is to use the same kind of argument that I used in my “women and PR” post, when I said that women being presidents was unthinkable a few decades ago but now actually happening: as some degrees, like in business or politics, were rare and a bit looked down upon 20-30 years ago but now totally recognized by the society, it may be just a question of time for PR degrees. As Trevor Morris said, cynicism from PR practitioners who don’t have a PR degree is dropping very quickly. He thinks that in the future PR degrees will be more recognized as, first, far more people working in the industry will have one, and secondly, increasingly employers are seeing the value of people that have shown this commitment to the industry and got that depth of thinking about it.

Sources:
-Pam Williams and Michaela O’Brien’s 2nd April 2008 presentation, University of Westminster
-Trevor Morris’ 1st November 2007 interview, PRWeek’s video podcast: http://www.prweek.com/uk/login/required/764188
-Myrto Tofaridou’s blog on PR education: http://myrtopr.blogspot.com/

PR and new media

For this class, in order to present us the new media world and its links with PR, we had a great presentation from… 5 students from the class! So I would like to thank Yiting Xu, Ran Huo, Ameesha Lathia, Candace Hughes and Julius Dake for the very useful summary they made of what they learnt in the optional module in new media.

E-business
For me, this presentation really made more sense to the idea that internet is a socio-economic community, as well as a channel for e-commerce. And the diagram on the left proves that nowadays it is unavoidable for companies to be on the web. Actually, internet is a very useful tool that makes media relations much easier, as it can be displayed online the latest company news, product and service information, biographies of key executives, copies of any recent executive speeches, statistics and reports, podcasts, consumer opinions and of course, endorsements from third party advocates. This is where PR plays its role, and I guess “e-PR” will have a more and more central role, as more and more people are looking on a company’s website when they want to get some information about this company. That is what PR resources on the Internet are for, like Romeike Media Intelligence: www.romeike.com, Advance Features: www.advancefeatures.com or Factiva: www.factiva.com.

Viral PR
It’s Yiting who told the class about viral PR: she explained that it is the use of viral marketing in Public Relations: according to Steve Jurvetson, viral marketing is network-enhanced word of mouth. And Yiting added that this was made through existing on-line social networks, like emails or facebook. I think viral PR can be wonderfully powerful once you’ve found a hook good enough to make people circulate the video or picture to their friends. A very good example of that is the Subservient Chicken website, a viral marketing campaign launched by Burger King: http://www.subservientchicken.com/. You can for example enter phrases like ‘sit down’, ‘switch off the lights, or ‘dance’ to the little box, and the guy in a chicken costume would do what you asked him to do… The outcomes of this campaign were a real surprise: the website had 1million hits only one day after released to the public and 20 million hits in one single week! However, I’m not sure if Burger King’s sales have risen as much… I think it can be a great way to raise awareness, so make latent public an aware public, but it is more difficult to make them an active public with just a fun video… I think where viral PR may be the most useful is for NGO campaigns, as raising public awareness is crucial to them; moreover, I think good videos may make people taking actions more for the third sector cause than taking action by buying products or services… I still remember very well this dreadful video from Peta that I received on facebook, against cruelty on animals in China for the sake of fur traffic. I circulated it to my friends straight away, feeling like a missioner: ”people have to know!”… Here below is the video:



Search Engine Optimization
Concerning SEO, Ran gave us very useful tips about how and why making a press release available on-line: first, millions of visitors search for a story by using a search engine; then, editors may contact you based on your properly optimized press release; moreover, your chosen keywords build brand awareness, it’s a good PR strategy and it’s cheaper. Furthermore, it drives traffic directly to your site, though you shouldn’t forget to personalize your release, to publish it on your website too, as well as study your web stats in details… These were definitely very interesting points that I’ll bear in mind in my future PR jobs, thanks Ran;-)

Social networks
When came the part on social network presented by Ameesha, I was really surprised to learn that British businesses are loosing up to £6.5 billion in productivity, because of employees being on social networks! Also, one FTSE-listed company reported up that to 30% of its internet capacity is clogged by its social-networking employees… That definitely makes you less guilty to have a quick conversation on msn at work around lunch time! The good news for PR is that these networks offer a specialized and a more willing audience; also, messages can be presented uniquely and the direct monitored contact with the audience makes easier to get feedback. Also, 62m people on Facebook are averaging 28 minutes a day it, so it’s a shop window that business can’t ignore. But I remember that one of our teachers, Trevor Morris, had highlighted to us that companies must be very careful using these networks, as they are some privileged areas for some people on the web, and these people may not always welcome every kind of ad or PRing on their network, especially coming from a company which doesn’t really understand the network and “try to be cool”.

Blogging
The blogging part was presented by Candace. She said that if you want to use blogs for PR purposes, you need to personalize your messages to bloggers, to respect bloggers’ time and intelligence as you would do for mainstream media, and to learn the blogging hierarchy in your field (you can check Technorati for finding the top 10 influential blogs in each specialty); also, you should participate in the discussion in your field on these blogs or on your own one. She also said that quality always wins over quantity, and that in the blogosphere transparency is Key; indeed, PR must be transparent in blogosphere, where it might not be in traditional media, as failing to be transparent will result in negative backlash. Well, I was not persuaded by this last argument, as I don’t see how we can spot all the people not being transparent in blogs, or those supposedly having a neutral blog whereas the blogger is working for the interest of a company… I think it’s very difficult to check all blogs all the time, isn’t it? However, it can be a lethal weapon from the public to the companies, and can seriously damage a company’s reputation, whether it’s justified or not. That is why companies need to be extremely vigilant so they can react quickly to any attack. A good example of the reputation damage, followed by a decrease of sales, was against Sony and their bad customer services. Then Sony had to make a real effort to gain a more trustworthy image. I even heard that some companies being criticised by bloggers invite these bloggers to take part in their work and decision making. Bloggers are usually flattered and then neutralised. But I guess there will be always other bloggers accusing the first ones of corruption.
Also, I think blogs are a wonderful step towards democracy, as any ordinary people can become an influential citizen journalist. But I think blogs are more completing traditional media than fighting for influence, as I personally believe that we still need official sources of information.

Virtual worlds
Then Julius told us about virtual worlds on the web: they are computer-based simulated environments intended for its users to inhabit and interact through avatars; the best example of these worlds is Second Life, where millions of people are living a second virtual life, and where even some lead brands are present. He explained that virtual worlds may appear similar to the real world or some hybrid fantasy world. They have an increasing number of users, and therefore provide a source for businesses and governments to gather and collate information for their use. I may seem old-fashioned, but this idea of virtual worlds scares me: I can’t help thinking they are made for people who want to escape reality because they are too weak to face their real life and its problems. Well, it’s only my opinion, of course. I understand that for people who have a boring life, it can bring some fantasy and fun to it; but I still think that the concept is a bit dangerous: we have plenty of great and useful things we can do in our real world, if we want to, so why staying in front of our computer and living some fantasy? Anyway, back to PR issues, I guess virtual worlds can offer interesting parallel opportunities; also, observing what’s happening there can certainly give key findings about audiences: what they like to do, what are their dreams etc… But let’s not forget that virtual worlds would make no sense without our real world, so my guess is that PR will always aim to make its truth a “real reality”.

Sources:
- Yiting Xu, Ran Huo, Ameesha Lathia, Candace Hughes and Julius Dake’s 26th March 2008 presentation, University of Westminster
-Francis Mulleady’s 8th January 2007 presentation, London School of Public Relations

Our MA dissertation

During one class, we didn’t talk about any particular issue related to PR, but about our dissertation topics, as the 3rd semester of our MA will be dedicated to carry out researches and write a dissertation, to hand in by the end of August. The dissertation aims to be an academic piece of research, which findings come from secondary sources (books, articles etc about the topic) and primary sources (our own surveys, interviews etc). In order to help us define our topic, we had to write a 2000 words essay about it.

You may think that this class was a bit more relaxed than the others, open to various discussions about all the different topics we can decide on… Well that was the most stressful class of this module: the teacher made us try to explain our topic to the rest of the class, and this was a 1st step towards some confusion, and I think most of us were thinking “erm, is it really clear what I want to talk about?”… But then it got worse, after the dreadful question: “so what do you expect to find out?” If not confused, the answers were just blank. And if ever we managed to formulate some hypothesis about our findings, well then came: “but how are you gonna be able to prove this?”… And we were struggling again.

Then the teachers left the class for a while, just after having said:”by the way, there is something hidden in the class”. Instantly, as it was the Wednesday before Easter, I thought about Easter eggs, and most of the class started to look for them… We looked everywhere, but found nothing. When the teacher came back she said: “have you found it? And did you have any idea about what it might be?” She looked a bit confounded when we told her about the Easter eggs… Then she took the white board’s sponge and said: “what if I tell you that it was this thing that was hidden?” What a disappointment!! Personally I really thought we would get chocolate eggs… Haha, but anyway this little game had of course a purpose: make us realise that if we don’t know what we are looking for, we can’t find it! This was of course related to our dissertations…

So in the end, most of students were quite panicky about their dissertation topics, as the difficulties seemed to suddenly pop up in front of our faces… However I was among the lucky ones, as my essay had been really appreciated, so it encouraged me to keep the same thinking for my dissertation and gave me some self confidence. But I also realised that I really needed to define better my key question about my topic, as it is a very broad one in which I could easily get lost if I don’t find an angle to approach it: the communication and manipulation about climate change… Huge.
Today luckily I’ve finally found a clear angle, from which I can build a structure and a hypothesis: I'll write about communicating on science: how science can be objective given the needs of the media (good stories and a language accessible to the public so simplifying) and given the scientists' needs of funding, and how scientists can be used as third part endorsements, so as PR tools, to serve some organizations' motivations. And I'll try to illustrate this through examples of the communication made on climate change. Well, that still may not appear very clear, but work is in progress!

The rise of CSR

What is CSR
We had a very interesting guest speaker, Adam Garfunkel, who came to tell us about CSR, as it’s his job to convince some companies to raise their Corporate Social Responsibility.
To him the core elements of CSR are:
• voluntary action of business
– beyond compliance, commitment to ethical behaviour, managing processes
• to achieve positive social outcomes
– quality of life improvements for employees, community and society in the long-term
• whilst benefiting its business objectives
– creating wealth

What I’ve retained most from this presentation is that an effective CSR must be core to the brand, not added. Therefore, a strong link is needed between the PR team and the sustainability team, in order to make it consistent; and, as I’ve found out for my stakeholders’ post, consistency is essential as it enables the company to build trust with its stakeholders. Adam gave Mark & Spencer’s plan A as a very good example of this consistency, by having their different environmental initiatives under the umbrella of this five year eco-plan.

Adam also highlighted to us how so many companies, even the big ones that constantly claim that they are innovative, are in fact scared of the changes that having a CSR imply for them: actually, he said that the hardest part of his job was to convince them that it’ll be all right! Indeed, not only companies generally lack ambition, vision, courage, but also communication skills in this area! To support this, he showed us how The Bodyshop, even willing to have a valuable CSR, didn’t manage to communicate it to the public successfully, as their communication tools were inefficient: the too many labels on their actions were confusing and therefore their message was not consistent. So this made me think that there could be increasing PR job opportunities there, as CSR’s importance is rising…

Business dilemmas
According to Rob van Tulder and Alex van der Zwart in International Business – Society Management: Linking Corporate Responsibility and Globalization, there are 4 approaches to CSR: the ‘inactive’ approach relates to Friedman’s theory: the only responsibility for companies is to generate profits; so it’s an inward-looking business perspective, where good business equals to operational excellence: a Corporate ‘Self’ Responsibility! The ‘reactive’ approach is focusing on efficiency as well, but also manages primary stakeholders, so as to keep mounting issues in check. This approach aims to respond to actions of external actors that could damage their reputation, and therefore relates to the concept of ‘conditional morality’. These 2 first approaches are both strongly means and wealth oriented, and so regularly create conflicts of interest with societal organisations; for example, tobacco producers gaining loyal customers by increasing the addictive effect of tobacco…
Opposing these, the ‘active’ approach of CSR is, according to Rob van Tulder and Alex van der Zwart, the most ethical entrepreneurial orientation: the company’s objectives are based on ethical values. Therefore, it’s an outward oriented business, through a ‘missionary urge’ that makes the company a hero to NGOs, but an annoyance to the ‘true’ entrepreneurs. Indeed, this approach implies the risk of neglecting business efficiency; moreover, in a society that is structured around the principles of business production methods, it can also be regarded as socially irresponsible.
Therefore, it seems that a balance needs to be found: like Shumarer said (1973), as societal issues involve a range of interests, a variety of ‘right’ answers are possible. For Rob van Tulder and Alex van der Zwart, the solution could be the 4th approach to CSR: the ‘proactive’ one, as well as interactive business practices. This relates to the ‘discourse ethics’ (Habermas, 1990): actors regularly meet in order to negotiate/talk over a number of norms to which everyone could agree; this approach implies ‘situational’ and ‘relativistic’ ethics.

Why this rise nowadays?
After having read this, I was wondering why companies are nowadays pushed towards the 2 last approaches, whereas the 2 first ones now seem to belong to another age? According to Adam Garfunkel, there are a few reasons explaining why CSR is here now: among them are the globalisation and the information age; these may have created 2 other reasons given by Adam: international agreements and government regulation, as well as a consumer demand. Also, more and more people are environment conscious, as environmental issues are more and more present in the media. Another reason he gave to us is the development of risk and reputation management, which actually relates to my posts about crisis management and stakeholders…

Also, Adam explained that the rise of CSR is also due to the fact that having power, for some companies, also means having responsibilities. I personally also think that it helps them to look good, and to differentiate themselves from their competitors, as nowadays the competition is more and more tight, and the public scrutiny sharper, especially through bloggers. Adam didn’t deny it when this question was raised after his presentation: he said that it can happen, but that it’s usually not the 1st motivation for companies.



Sources:
-Adam Garfunkel’s 12th March 2008 presentation, University of Westminster
-Tulder, van R. and Zwart, van der A. International Business – Society Management: Linking Corporate Responsibility and Globalization, Routledge, 2006