The Brighter Side of Public Relations

If you read the previous post you may be wondering why I continue to aspire to a career in public relations. That entry was a response to carrying out a work placement with one company and having had further education in PR from some of my second year modules at university, and meeting PR professionals from different companies I am forced to make an amendment.

It is true that PR is not quite as 'fabulous' as popular culture would lead us to believe, however it is still one of the most valuable media, marketing and communication tools we have. These days, there is only so much success a company can have with advertising. We are all too familiar with the formula and all too ready to channel hop, pop-up block and page flick. Don't get me wrong, there is still value in advertising, but public relations takes it further, pushes the boundaries and is constantly evolving innovative ways to reach its publics.

Unfortunately PR does still have a bad name. Before the term public relations was invented it was called propaganda, a word with highly negative connotations. Now it is thought that the PR industry is made up of 'spin-doctors' who are constantly sneaking around behind our backs to get us to buy products we don't need, donate money we don't have and vote for politicians whose policies won't benefit us.

Perhaps this can be said for some PR campaigns but it is not fair to generalise an entire industry in this way. To me, an ethical and successful PR campaign is noticeable but not intrusive, it has to give the public an element of choice; the option to visit a website, the option to read a news article, the option to attend an event and so on. It also needs to offer some sort of reward to their publics, so, if they do decide to visit the website for example, there is an entertaining video to watch, an interesting debate to take part in or an offer for website users, such as a money-off voucher.

Public relations, as the name would suggest, is all about building a relationship between a company and its publics and acts as a means for two-way communication from company to publics and back again. I personally can't wait to join this exciting industry where I will have the chance to work creatively and help to shape the future of public relations.

Fabulous?

Public Relations - swanky club openings, London Fashion Week, free champagne and so on, sounds fabulous right? But there is a down side. When working in public relations you constantly find yourself needing to impress someone more important than you, be it a journalist, a celebrity, a designer or even another PR agent. There's no point in denying it, successfully working in Public Relations is having the ability to suck-up to people shamelessly and relentlessly in order to get whatever your boss or client wants. The glamour is there by all means, but fabulous parties get a bit wearing when you are attending three a week, unable to fully enjoy the free drinks, due to the fact that you didn't have time to eat and have to be at work at 9am the following morning. But we're in PR baby, and that means that you do it all with a smile on your face and a pole up your arse. As I overheard one colleague telling another during my work placement in PR, "when you're at an event you keep your head up, your tummy tucked in and try not to look bored." This experience has got me thinking about the reputation Public Relations and the people who work in it has. 'Spin-doctors', 'sell-outs', 'bitches'. I've never considered these to be fair viewpoints but the more I learn the more I begin to realise that PR is not all it's cracked up to be. Sex and the City's Samantha Jones gave us a taste of the life we wanted but the reality is something quite different. Fabulous? I think not!

Media Morals

For a number of years violence in the media has been causing debate and argument, be it on TV, in films or computer games, especially in terms of its effect on children. The subject of the game Grand Theft Auto has arisen on more than one occasion during my course and I have always backed it up. As far as I was concerned if parents were worried about children playing this game it was up to them to regulate its usage and the majority of adult minds are unimpressionable enough that this sort of game would not have a huge effect on them. That was, until recently.

I bought the game for my boyfriend who liked the idea of being given a whole city to do what he wanted in. As I watched the game unfurl it seemed harmless enough, yes it is violent but both my boyfriend and I are aware that you can’t actually steal random cars and run-down pedestrians and to be fair if you are too reckless in the game you do have to escape the police.

However, I was horrified when one of the tasks that you are required to carry out, as Niko the main character of the game, was to arrange a date with a gay man and shoot him. It was bizarre, the player was given no reason to shoot this guy and literally the only thing we knew about him was his sexuality. I couldn’t believe that this had made it through the regulators. It turned out that later on in the game Niko has a friend who is also gay. I believe that this was put in so that the makers of the game could deny any kind of homophobic accusations.

This kind of gay-hate breeding material is shocking to me. The fact that I always used to back this game up in arguments of its morality makes me feel almost betrayed. To me, explicit violence and car stealing in this game does not have a direct effect on our society, criminals are likely to be that way for other reasons, not just because they played a game, otherwise we’d all be doing it. However, a homophobic attack on a character is a whole different matter. It seems to give the message that it is okay to hate gay people and although I don’t think that my boyfriend is now going to become a homophobic bastard, people who are already inclined to think that way would only be encouraged that they are correct and that is what is so worrying.

Online Social Networking Versus 'Real Life'

As a 21^st Century kid I have spent a lot of my free time during my youth on MSN Messenger, Myspace and, more recently, Facebook (the latter of which is still my main procrastinating activity). I therefore feel that I am, along with many other people of my generation, far more equipped to judge how detrimental this has been to my social health than middle-aged journalists who seem to think that Facebook is some kind of moral panic destroying the lives of young people everywhere. The idea that these social networking sites, which have taken over from the old methods of communication which have worked perfectly well for many years, could actually be beneficial and a positive addition to the human lifestyle surely can’t be true, can it?

The thought first struck me that online communication is far more beneficial than the critics make out when one of my lecturers proudly said “I’m so pleased that I took touch-typing lessons, it’s so useful.” I had heard the phrase but I wasn’t entirely sure what touch-typing was, when it turned out that it was just the ability to type without looking at the keys I stole his thunder a little by saying “Oh, I can do that” to which most of the students present agreed. It would appear that all those hours on MSN Messenger has in fact taught me, and many others like me, a skill which previous generations not only had to take lessons in, but see as an achievement and something of great use in their lives.

The other benefit of social networking is how many friends I am able to keep up with. I’m sure that when a friend of mine moved to Scotland when we were aged 14 I would have long since lost touch with her if it weren’t for these new technologies. However, I stayed with her in Arbroath a couple of years ago thanks to Myspace and will be seeing her next week in Birmingham thanks to Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I do still think old methods of communication have their value. I have a friend who I have known all my life but we have lived about two hours away from each other since we were quite young. Online social networking has helped us keep in touch but we also enjoy writing and sending each other letters. There’s something more personal about a letter and something exciting about received one in the post, the sort of excitement a new notification on Facebook doesn’t quite achieve.

In the case of online social networking versus ‘real life’ my opinion is that sites such as Facebook have enriched our lives. Their constant usage teaches us new skills and new ways of speaking. Critics state that no-one communicates in person as much as they used to but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Arranging to meet up with friends is made much easier with Facebook. We now have the ability to create events quickly and easily and arrange a catch-up with old friends you haven’t seen in a long time and probably never would have, had it not been for the availability of these sites. It is still important to keep our old ways of communication alive; letter writing, phone conversations and good old face-to-face contact, but just because these methods of communication exist doesn’t mean new methods are worthless, they just make all our a lives a little easier.

YouChoose

Regulating YouTube seems like a near impossible task and something that has sparked up a great deal of debate lately. Whilst discussing this issue in a seminar and hearing the views of some of the other people on my course it struck me that, in the future, the opinions of these people could be more than just opinions, they could be reality. The students on media courses today will be professionals in the media industry in a few years time. They will put their ideas into practice, deciding if sites such as YouTube will be regulated and they will be learning how to do this now.

So what are your opinions? Should YouTube be more restrictive about what users can and can’t post? Is it even possible and if so, is it even worth it? Already you are able to report videos which you deem to be inappropriate, a sort of public interactive regulation, and it is either removed or flagged as unsuitable for children, meaning that only those who are logged in as over 18s can view it. Of course these methods are flawed, inappropriate videos are not always flagged as such, if the right kind of ‘busy body’ never comes across them, and setting yourself up with a YouTube account where you appear to be a few years older than you actually are is not difficult. It is also possible to abuse these rights. My boyfriend and his cousin posted a video spoofing the Harry Potter films which was flagged as being unsuitable for children, presumably by someone opposed to this kind of Potter mockery. The video did not contain any X-rated material so he and his cousin appealed to YouTube and the restriction was removed, but it just goes to show that it is not a seamless system.

As far as I’m concerned, it is up to a child’s parents to regulate their internet usage, just as it is up to them to ensure their children do not gain access to inappropriate video games or films. The regulation of YouTube would limit the freedom the internet offers and where would we draw the line? What about blog sites such as this? Would we have to have everything we post approved by website regulators before anyone could read it? Have every Facebook post sent through a regulation office before it arrived on the intended recipient’s wall? Surely this would detract from the immediacy and freedom we are given on the internet? A place where everyone can become a part of the media industry, be it as a journalist, film-maker or photographer. The internet provides you with the opportunity to share your world with millions, no matter what it is you care to share, and that can’t be a bad thing, can it?...