Looking for a job in PR?

I have observed that students who get ready to face the industry either while they are seeking internships or jobs,face a few hurdles.

The lack of knowledge of current affairs is one of the primary concerns.Second,no  basic knowledge of finance terms. I remember one student came back and told me that she was asked questions on shares and IPOs and she didn't have the answers.

You are now even required to possess basic knowledge of computers and some Microsoft office skills. And yes a mobile device where you can have your contacts stored in the in-built messenger.

These mind you are over and above the basic requirement of communication skills, both spoken and written.

With fast moving times and advancement in technology students have to remain in touch with latest developments or else they will be left behind.

One of my students told me how knowing a regional language was useful to her. So times have come where knowing an additional language is always useful. So you can no longer ignore reading writing other languages.

These are a list of some 'to do list' which every newbie practitioner in PR should know especially in Mumbai. But I am sure these are common elsewhere too.

As a teacher I try my best to help the freshers in imbibing these skills but are there any additions on these?

Can you suggest some more to-dos?

Building Credibility through Public Relations

A discussion on the Indian-PR forum gave an idea to this article of the credibility of public relations in increasing sales.So thought of discussing some other issues too.

Public Relations plays a very important role in informing and educating publics on issues that is important to them and the organisation. For example, if you were to represent your institution for seeking future candidates for jobs or admissions to a course in your organisation, wouldn't you do all the homework required before you could even start promoting it? Yes, it totally depends on what kind of awareness you are trying to create. For example, if it is only about driving down a point "Do not drink and drive" then it actually has to be put the way it is, as it is plain awareness.But campaigns are not always that simple. I am sure you will agree that even the do-not-drink and drive campaign is not longer simple considering the number of accidents increasing in our Mumbai city.

Sometimes it requires you to tell the publics on information on new products or stores, but again here education is still not the focus.It is a step beyond creating awareness. It could be informing them about a launch of a store or a product which could be useful to them.

There are other times when the publics sometimes need to be educated on subjects like new mobile phones or softwares releases in the market or new devices which would require extensive manuals with detailed instructions. It is said that Windows XP the operating software was sold merely on around 20,000 articles written on it across the globe.

 The more difficult and usually very time consuming campaigns are ones where one requires to help the publics change their beliefs on a certain issue and thus leading to attitude and later behaviour change. All health campaigns are like that. Campaigns leading to stopping of social evils like dowry, children education, female foeticide etc are some more examples. But this usually are the tough ones and time-consuming. We can put our drink and drive ones into this range now.

Public Relations plays an important role at every stage of the campaign. Organizations have to create messages and keep persistently following up the efforts to understand if their campaigns were effective or not and if not why not. The profession of public relations adds credibility to any other promotion effort as it takes pains to educate and inform people on issues and products. So public relations does play a role in increasing sales and reaching the masses through patient and consistent persuasion.

A lot of hard work goes behind creating a message and finally converting that into a sale or a change in the mindset for other issues. Sometimes it is diffcult to exactly measure if the conversion was due to public relations efforts as there are other promotion tools also avaliable which could be working simultaneously. Sometimes plain "Word of Mouth" plays a very important role too either for good or for bad. As a PR practitioner one has to understand the product or the issue at hand to decide the course of action.

A lot of research work ideally goes behind a subject being presented for it to appear credible. Public relations practitioners is like that backstage worker who cannot be seen but is working tirelessly away to make sure the client and the works are being well-represented to the publics, constantly adding credibility to the efforts. As a PR practitioner one has to decide if only PR efforts will work or there has to be a blend of other tools. But understanding the strengths and limitation of public relations efforts is a must.

For more knowledge on developing campaigns, this might help you to begin with, "Theoretical models of Public Relations Campaigns" by James K.VanLeuven and Types of PR campaigns means of raising sales by Dr. Flaviu Calin Rus.

Your views?

Technology and the Budding PR Practitioner

I remember sometime back when one of my students was refused a job at a PR agency because she did not possess a Blackberry phone. The reason given was, how could she then maintain contacts much needed in the PR profession? 

I  also noticed the increase of endorsement requests on LinkedIn from current and previous batch students to elaborate on their educational and communication skills. 

Thus Blackberry and LinkedIn have become important tools to show that you have arrived as a professional.

Facebook so far seems untouched by prospective employers as otherwise the young budding practitioners would be more alert before posting random status messages and pictures. Or worse be found playing games.

Twitter is still used as a medium to speak out on issues, if you go by the "trending" issues. Again, doesn't seem to be under the scrutiny list.

YouTube could be used for uploading fun videos by students. Are they checked?

These products of technology have quietly entered our lives and somehow have becomes an extension of ourselves which could be under scrutiny by future employers. How many of these tools or more such tools are being used by employers in India to study prospective employees? Do students need to be trained to use this sites more carefully in the future? What are your thoughts?

My Post at Indian PR forum blogsite: We are like this only!

I have been recently invited to author a PR blog on Indian PR Forum blogsite. Below is the copy of the post.

It is on the link: http://indianprforum.

wordpress.com/2012/03/12/we-are-like-this-only/
                                                  

We are like this only!

It has been established that in India we do public relations, using the personal influence model. This model states that public relations practitioners try to establish personal relationships, friendships, if possible with key individuals in the media, government or political and activist groups.These relationships with key people were known as contacts from whom favours could be taken.Krishnamurthy Sriramesh has done some extensive studies in the 1990s and has further developed this model. In 1991, he identified a technique which led to the further development of the personal influence model, it was called hospitality relations.The main idea behind hospitality relations was to build a strong bond with journalists or other individuals which could later help in important decision making situations.He added in his observations that a public relations practitioner working in India said that 60% of the reason a news release gets published is because it has its roots in personal influence and only 40% has news value. Thus personal influence model played an important role in practicing media relations, a function of public relations.

I did a research sometime back on the effect of the rise in regional journalism on regional public relations. The study was presented at an international conference organised by AMIC (http://www.amic.org.sg/) in Hyderabad in 2011. A significant finding was that most of the public relations practitioners felt that there was an increase in public relations practitioners servicing the regional media, though the trend for all organisations to hire more practitioners was only slowly rising. Respondents from all categories interviewed such as public relations practitioners, academicians and journalists gave their views on the education and skills, understanding of regional cultures, to name a few, required by current and future practitioners while practicing regional public relations.

A thought that arises from the above discussion is that is there any practice in public relations which is peculiar to a region in India which is clearly distinct from other regions? Have you observed this in media relations, event management, CSR or any other functions of public relations? So for example will a public relations activity conducted in Maharashtra, influenced by its regional culture, be different from say another state like Gujarat or Tamil Nadu? Do we have a 'regional public relations practice' which needs to be studied?

What has been your experience?

PR on the internet through Photos & Videos

The internet offers so many opportunities to project public relations works through photos and videos. Sites and software offering services to host photos and photos are plenty and have been extensively used to promote products and services of clients.  Sites such as Flicker, Picasa, Kodak, Ovi share are some to name in the photo share category. Youtube and Vimeo hold prominent place in sharing of videos. Video Blogging or vlogging is a phenomenon catching up slowly. There is a very new website called Pinterest that seeks to catch your attention in bringing both these channels of photos and videos together and this set me rolling in knowing a bit more on it and I thus self-invited (you have to be invited) myself to get on-board and learn a bit more on how a platform combining photos and videos can create a revolution and change the way public relations is always known for most of the times: "It is all about writing". This platform breaks away from the usual writing grind and helps us discover people and things through photos and videos hosted on their original site. Of course, the photos or videos may carry a writing on the original site, But the best part of this was giving full credit to the original author. So no cheating please! 

And I am not doing PR for any of the above mentioned names of sites or softwares :-)

Building customer relations through public relations on airlines websites: A study of airlines companies based in India

This paper was presented by me at the International Conference on Diversity & Plurality in Media - Reflections of Society, 27^th and 28^th December 2011 Organized by Makhanlal  Chaturvedi National University of Journalism and Communication, Bhopal.

Title of the paper: Building customer relations through public relations on airlines websites:  A study of airlines companies based in India.

Abstract

It has been observed that the Internet has become an important tool of communication, which facilitates business-to-consumer and business-to-business electronic commerce.  It is essential to create loyal customers to increase your business. James Grunig has emphasized that the two-way symmetrical model of organizational public relations depends on an honest and open two-way communication. It comprises of a give-and-take is usually reciprocal, rather than a one-way persuasion. This he adds, should be the driving force, for all public relations practices. The Internet brings Grunig’s two-way symmetrical model and Habermas’ (1962) ideas of open, transparent and responsive ideal speech into its domain. Esrock and Leichty (1999) stressed that corporate websites allow companies to engage in multi-stakeholder dialogue. Cooley and others emphasise the strength of the Internet’s interactive capabilities to transform public relations practice by enabling symmetric relations with publics. Kent and Taylor have also highlighted the importance of this concept in their five criteria for a dialogic web site. Thus websites of organisations can play an integral role in building relationships with their audiences.

The researcher studied: -

• What are the various information and interactive feature on the airline websites?
• What are the various types of services offered to enhance dialogic processes?

This study examined the interactive and information and service features on the homepages of airlines companies in India thus checking for presence of public relations elements on their sites. The research method used was quantitative content analysis. It gave an idea of the various techniques that airlines companies adopted to attract audiences to their websites, and if helped in building relationships with audiences. This study is expected to be useful to teachers, researchers, the current and future public relations practitioners.

Keywords: public relations, airlines, gatekeeping, internet, website, promotion

Is the Internet really free?

Internet is a public sphere where one can speak out without intervention. At least that is what various platforms on the Internet are being  used as. But as public relations practitioners and students we have to understand that "gatekeeping" may not always come from the press.

Let us understand the term public sphere. "By the 'public sphere' we mean first of all the realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed... Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion - that is, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions - about matters of general interest... The expression 'public opinion' refers to the tasks of criticism and control which a public body of citizens informally practices... vis-a-vis a ruling class." (Habermas, 1964 quoted in Pusey, 1987: 89)

Habermas' ideal type of the public sphere is described as an ideal speech situation. Robert Alexy states rules for the ideal speech discourse based upon Habermas' work, of which the following below is the third one:-

3.1 Every subject capable of speech and action may take part in discourses
3.2 (a) Everyone may challenge any assertion
3.2 (b) Everyone may introduce any assertion into the discourse
3.2 (c) Everyone may express his/her attitudes, wishes and needs
3.3 No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising his/her rights under 3.1 and 3.2
(Diskursethik, 1983: 99, quoted from openpolitics.com)

But is the media really free to use as one would want it? History has something different to say. The radio, invented by Marconi in 1895, is an apt example. Had it not been for the Sound Broadcasting Act of 1972 in Britain, anyone would be broadcasting a signal. The spectrum was soon licensed to commercial bodies such as the BBC, and any breach by any other entity was considered a criminal offense. But then these spectrums are not infinite and so restriction on radio and TV must have been seen coming. If we look at the other medium such as print it is not possible for each of us to start a newspaper or a magazine where one freely expresses one's opinion.

Such restrictions naturally leave the only option to be used - the Internet.

One cannot forget to mention Uses and Gratification theory when discussing the use of a medium. This theory states why people use a particular media rather than content. There have been plenty of studies on why people choose Internet over other mediums when given a choice.

But again,

"...The claim that the Internet can lead to a greater democratization of society is founded on tenets of unlimited access to information and equal participation in cultural discourse. But will this inundation of texts and voices lead to anarchic, rather than democratic, forms of communication?..." (2002, search google.groups for 'Internet Habermas public sphere')

Does the Internet encourage "Herd Behaviour" or the "Bandwagon Effect"? 

What do you think?

Bibilography and References:-

"A Social Cognitive Explanation of Internet Uses and Gratifications: Toward a New Theory of Media Attendance", LaRose, Robert PhD, Department of Telecommunication, Michigan State University. 

Calhoum, Craig ed. (1992) Habermas and the Public Sphere, Cambridge (US): MIT Press 

Web References:-

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2007.0056

http://jakeg.co.uk/essays/habermas

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/4/1/9.abstract
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/usegrat.html

Role of Photos in Boosting Public Relations Activities

I had recently conducted a study on how public relations practitioners use photos to enhance their public relations activities.I received quite interesting responses, on the use and this term evolved from their replies "PR photos" The respondents have given elaborate replies where ever necessary.
This paper "Role of Photos in boosting public relations activities" was presented at the National Seminar, November 11-13, 2011 Media, Literature and Language jointly organized by Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Mumbai & Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Communication & Journalism, Bhopal.

The abstract is as below:-

Abstract

Public Relations practitioners use photos other than written material about the client/organisation to be given to journalists for publication. This exploratory study seeks to find the use of photos in increasing public relations and its publication intricacies in the media; it will also examine the parameters of selecting photos, before they are sent off for publication over the Internet. The study used questionnaire-survey method and the respondents were PR practitioners from various capacities in PR agencies and companies in India.

Keywords: Public Relations, Photos, photographs, image, Ronald Barthes’ theory of the photographic message, Daniel Boorstein, Agenda Building. 

Building confidence in online shopping: My shopping experience in the U.S.A

It has been now almost 3 weeks since I have come to Seattle in the U.S.A, I observed an interesting way they shop here.If it is groceries they have fantastic malls here, well organized, where people are seen shopping for their daily needs.They have Indian malls too which cater to Indian spices,grains and vegetables etc.Though of course the Indian malls do not hold the same grandeur as the ones that are local to the place.By grandeur I mean, organization, branding to food items, category-wise and the clutter is missing.


But when it comes to shopping for clothes, electronic goods, books, medicines and many such items. the people shop here online.If you check out their online shopping malls and marts you will realize it has been so well marketed that you would want to shop online.The goods bought online are delivered to your home by the UPS or FedEx service.So when I wanted to check for a laptop bag or coat or a skirt or any accessories I was told Google it!

Even if you want to go shopping offline, the culture here is to first check the product online, in case you need to see categories or varieties.The shops therefore are not crowded, More people are buying things online (well that is my hypothesis).

What caught my attention, is that in India we are so suspicious of online shopping, we want to touch and feel the product before buying it, so we all run to the shops to buy, wasting time traveling and crowding shops, but here the reassurance of online shopping is amazing, which shows a lot of hard work must have been done on the part of marketing and public relations departments.

Is this just a cultural thing or a trend that can be changed in India?

Use of Photos to Build Client Image in Public Relations

I m doing a research to know the use of photos to build client image in public relations.This research is a borne out of curiosity of photos as means of visual communication, to check how much importance they hold when promoting your organisation or client's work.


Please fill in the following questionnaire to share your views:-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/

N6L26XM

Do come back on this space to know more...as I learn and share.

Thank you!

National Seminar on Media, Literature and Language

 Department of Communication & Journalism, University of  Mumbai and Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Communication & Journalism  are organizing a national level seminar on Media, Literature and Language on November 11^th -13^th, 2011 at the University of Mumbai, Kalina Campus.

Is news writing literature? Is it literature in a hurry? Is it the responsibility of the media to upgrade language? Can media shoulder this responsibility? What is the interface between media, literature and language? These are the questions that the seminar will aim to address.

Proposed Themes

Ø  Cinema, Literature and Language

Ø  New media, Literature and Language

Ø  Globalised media and Language

Ø  Media and the emerging diasporic cultures

Ø  Multiculturism, Literature and Language in Media

Submission of abstracts and full papers

Send the abstract and full papers to Prof. Meenakshi Upadhyay on the following email address: dcjconferences@gmail.com

All abstracts are peer reviewed by an expert committee in the respective fields. Only abstracts accepted for presentation will be notified for submitting the final and full papers.

Abstract Submission	September 15, 2011
Abstract acceptance notification	September 18, 2011
Paper Submission	October 10, 2011
Paper acceptance	October 15, 2011

Abstracts Submissions should include the following:

Title of abstract (maximum 150 words);

Names and titles of presenter and co-authors

Contact details of authors to include: Full name with preferred title, designation, affiliation, address and email address

Registration Fee

	Fee
Delegates (Outstation) Boarding and Lodging	Rs. 3000/-
Delegates (Local)	Rs. 1000/-
Students (Outstation) Boarding and Lodging	Rs. 1500/-
Students (Local)	Rs. 500/-

• Demand Drafts for registration to be made in the name of ‘The Finance and Accounts Officer, University of Mumbai’.
• Please send the draft on the following address:

Department of Communication and Journalism,

2nd Floor, Health Centre Building,

Vidyanagari Campus, Kalina,

Mumbai 400 098.

Receipts of those registered will be given at the time of the conference.

Please note:-

• Accommodation is on a sharing basis
• The accommodation will be provided between 10^th evening to 13^th afternoon
• Accommodation is on a first come first serve basis. Seats limited.

For any query on registration of the programme contact:

Ms. Archana Ramesh

Alumnus

Email id: archana.ramesh11@gmail.com

Conference Secretary
Ms. Meenakshi Upadhyay
Assistant Professor
DCJ, UoM
Contact: 022-26526068

Email id: dcjconferences@gmail.com

Media Analysis and Evaluation

In a 1966 lecture at the Kaufman Art Gallery in New York City, McLuhan said, “The medium is the massage, not the message. It really works us over; it really takes hold and massages the population in a savage way.”

Media evaluation and analysis is the first key step of PR measurement. It involves thorough research of media coverage given to your client and its impact on the publics thorough various methods.

In India, we do the study of media coverages by looking at the clip count of media found about your client, recording of your client news on broadcasting and searching for mentions of your client on the internet.The second part, i.e. studying the impact of the these coverages on the publics is an area which is not touched upon yet.I have been told by many that it is an expensive proposition.

So what about evaluating media coverage, lets for example take the print media.The ideal media coverage study would consist of the following parameters:- tone of the articles, bylines, headlines, length date of the appearance of articles, placement, graphs, photographs, financial figures and other art work.If need be if one has to get into the detail of analyzing an article in depth on how the content was written one can check for thematic analysis of the news report and recurrence, repetition and timeliness. 

AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) and tone are the two parameters which are constantly only checked when analysing reports or mention of client names, it has been seen.

According to the Barcelona Principles for PR measurement http://www.instituteforpr.org/2010/06/the-barcelona-declaration-of-research-principles/ says two very important things among many others:-

Media measurment requires quantity and quality and that AVE are not the value of public relations.

So we undertsand that if media coverage is studied for all the above in detail one would know how the media is writing and percieving us.The beginners in the profession of public relations can get a cue about studying coverage of media from the above.

The idea is that if our works which results out of so much of hard work of pitching the media, if measured will result in understanding the value of our public relations work Was this really what you wanted the media to write? After all in case somebody is reading it, they better be reading what 'you' wanted them to read.

What do you think?

You need Public Relations

We have observed that public relations agencies help in media relations activity for an organisation.Many are also seen managing events for a company or a celebrity.Some are crisis management experts and yet others are financial public relations consultants.The many functions of public relations can be observed here.

I have heard of my friends being hired for managing the public relations function in companies, which was otherwise initially only concentrating on the marketing or advertising function. So which is that defining moment which buffers the move for an organisation to hire a public relations firm or shape up their own public relations department?

What are those reasons which inspire or motivate this move? If you are a public relations consultant when would you advise a company that they need public relations? 

What would you advise?