Archiving the future of public relations

The International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC) at Bournemouth University again delivered much fascinating and thought-provoking insight into our past, present and future. None of the papers could be presented without extensive research – whether that involved interviews with those whose experiences are now valuable archive material, or investigating existing resources. It is also interesting to think about how we continue to create history and that even material such as PR Conversations itself could...

PRoust Questionnaire: Jane Tchan

The PRoust Questionnaire provides a quick insight into a public relations practitioner’s interests and point of view, as well as his or her professional beliefs and values. If you are not familiar with the original 19th-century Proust Questionnaire, please see details at the end of this post. PRoust Questionnaire answers from Jane Tchan: 1. What is your most striking characteristic as a PR practitioner? I am guided by spiritual and moral beliefs, so one of...

Grunig PR Masterclass: Insight into diversity and excellence

This post offers a video recording of a recent lecture given by Larissa and James Grunig at New York University – courtesy of Toni Muzi Falconi, who kindly introduces the video below. In addition, Heather Yaxley provides a brief overview of the highlights of the lecture. We extend our thanks to James, Larissa and Toni for offering the video to PR Conversations.   Introduction by Toni Muzi Falconi A few years ago, PR Conversations published...

Contending for content – PR, journalism and marketing

Back in the 1970s, there was a vision of a paperless office; whilst the futurist, Alvin Toffler predicted increased technology was creating information overload. The reality is that we’re using more paper than ever – alongside an ever exploding volume of online content. I’m sure I could find data to illustrate the trend, but I’m overwhelmed with infographics, slideshare presentations, YouTube videos and a zillion other sources. There’s so much stuff out there (and increasingly...

Closing the door on the gatekeeper role in PR

At a Sustainable Conversations event earlier this week (organised by Kantar Media), I started to think about the impact on both public relations and journalism of ongoing communications changes. In particular, it is clear neither occupation can maintain their traditionally exclusive roles as ‘gatekeepers’ in filtering and controlling the flow of information that is communicated to publics. With anyone and everyone potentially able to express an opinion and be listened to, many of the taken-for-granted...

PRoust Questionnaire: Al Clarke

The PRoust Questionnaire provides a quick insight into a public relations practitioner’s interests and point of view, as well as his or her professional beliefs and values. If you are not familiar with the original 19th-century Proust Questionnaire, please see details at the end of this post. PRoust Questionnaire answers from Al Clarke: 1. What is your most striking characteristic as a PR practitioner? Always open to new ideas and committed to help make things work....

Plotting PR narrative in social media

In public relations, narrative offers a way to enable ideas, opinions, values and meaning to be expressed within a broader framework than the concept of “key messages”, which tend to reflect slogans, headlines and other contrived statements. Key messages can be part of the organizational narrative but too often are simply BS corp-speak lacking any real human connection . Narrative draws on various literary and cultural principles, methods and practices; it is woven into the...

Nurturing Knowledge – a job for PR

‘Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge’ – Wikipedia’s blackout protest statement is a reminder of the value and reliance placed on repositories of online information.  How many of us turn to Google, Wikipedia, digital dictionaries, social media or online news sources routinely when we want to know something?  The English-speaking student population is apparently distraught that its primary place for ‘cut and paste’ assignments is offline for a day.  The Digital Natives haven’t been so...

Using Twitter for PR events

How should you use Twitter for public relations events?  This is a topic we’ve pondered among the PR Conversations team (Judy Gombita, Markus  Pirchner and Heather Yaxley).  Twitter offers potential for conferences, launches, announcements, stunts and many other PR events – and we’ve seen it used well, and badly.  We’ve used Twitter at events, and participated remotely in real world activities and those that only exist online.  So we thought it would be worthwhile sharing...