Feminisation of PR and its consequences

Wednesday 27th February, 2008

Today's lecture was on feminisation of Public Relations and it was quite interesting as we had a debate on the topic " Women will always work in PR industry, But will never run it" and i had participated in the debate and my group was against the motion.

During my research I found that today women dominate PR industry: according to PR week, in 2007, 63% of PR practitioners were women, and their number increases every year.

Gruing et al said of the research participants for Women in PR - how gender influences practice(2001) "many believed that female practitioners could empower themselves by connecting with other women. One aspect of this empowerment, interviewee mentioned, was mentoring and role modelling other women. Several identified learning from those women who have "gone through the hard knocks".

The Problem is some of the most powerful and successful women in PR - don't always want to speak openly about 'knocks' or 'barriers' they experienced.

In class the debate was quite a success, both the teams had good and arguable points to say. though I was in the team against the motion i neither agree with the statement nor disagree. I just feel it all depends from time to time.

Before the debate Michaela had given us an exercise to do which was to write down some of the attributes of male and female and we concluded that females are refined, committed, adaptable and flexible where as males are competitive, straight forward and egoistic. But then she made us realise that these attributes can be in both males and females it is just the society's expectations about men and women.

She showed us some of the examples of women in advertising in the olden times where women is shown to be stupid and are dependent on men.

Even in terms of salary men get more salary than women, this is also an expectation of the society that women get paid lesser and the role played by women is also a technician role where as men play the managerial role.

I believe the role of women in PR is growing and they have gained a lot of power and recognition in the society.

In the debate some of the points put forth by by group was that we already have women running PR practices such as Jilly Forster and Naomi Dector, the Washington based partner pf Brunswick PR.

In the book Rethinking Public Relations by Kevin Moloney said that there are more women then men working in the PR industry.

Lastly I would just like to mention that in our class of about 31 students only 3 students are men learning public relations.

Sources: Michaela O'Brien's presentation, University of Westminster, Moloney, K. Rethinking Public Relations: The Spin and the Substance, 2000-Gruning and al Women in PR – how gender influences practice, 2001

Theories of Publics, Audiences and Stakeholders

Wednesday 13th February, 2008

'Theories, concepts and models of audiences, stakeholders or publics, public relations and communication are important because they help us understand and explain our public relations campaigns and the situations these campaigns address. They determine how we plan and conduct public relations. Thus the different theories we hold will lead to different ways of planning and practising public relations'. (Source: Exploring Public Relations by Ralph Tench and Liz Yeomans)

In this lecture we learnt the theories of Publics, Audiences and Stakeholders and in a situation it can be done in many ways. Firstly there is 9 ways to segment stakeholders which is a very useful and effective in many situations. They are Demographic, Psychographic, Geographic, Organisational memberships, Convert power, Role in decision making, Influencers, Opinion formers, Decision makers. Secondly there is the theory of Grunigs’ situational theory which includes Dynamics, changing publics, situational theory: non public, latent public, aware public and active public. Lastly there is the social marketing approach in which there is a table of people adapted from social change media: Advocates/sales force, Influencers and Decision makers.

During the lectures we always have an exercise session which helps us to look into the situation in a practical manner and this further helps us to understand the situation in an industry. This time we were given a campaign about healthy success for Manchester festival and we had to apply the theory of social marketing approach. In this kind of a situation this theory does not help too much as it does not apply to the main target groups and we cannot come to conclusions with this kind of method.

Can PR ever be Ethical?

Wednesday, 6th February, 2008

This lecture was on PR and ethics and it was very interesting as with some practical exercises and debates things got very exciting.
There were some of the theories that we touched upon that were ethical framework and those were some of Bentham and Kant theories. Bentham said, “The greatest good for the greatest number”. Kant said that notions of duty and moral “to do the right thing”.

Cognitive theory: states that objectives moral truths exist and there is one right decision to make. There are 2 branches of this theory: do you choose the right action or the right outcome?

We were made into groups and given practical dilemmas to do and debate on them. It was very interesting as the situation and arguments heated up. I remember one of the situations that we were given and that was ‘you work for a computer manufacturer, you sent some samples of super thin laptops to selected journalists for temporary loan for review. A journalist asks if she could keep the laptop permanently before the review is published’. What do you do?

In such a situation, I feel it’s ok to give the laptop to the journalist and would also give all the journalists the laptop as I feel it would be more ethical to give to all instead of only one.

There is a formula which we discussed in class and that was:
- To get the facts and define the situation
- Identify your values e.g. fairness, honesty, respect for privacy, etc.
- Select your principles e.g. PR code of conduct; ethical framework; legal duty; corporate vision.
- Choose your loyalties: which of the stakeholders affected will you favour?