DummySpit

I’ve been asked by one of the leading public relations academic journals as to whether I would guest edit an edition on the history of public relations. This is an emerging area of public relations scholarship and so I’m making what we is a ”Call before the Call for Papers” to test the level of interest.

In the UK, Jacquie L’Etang has written a pathfinding history of the discipline and a Social History of PR was written in the US in the mid-1990s. As well, there are occasional articles in Public Relations Review. In most general public relations texts, there is a chapter or section on history of public relations, which reaches back to ancient times to show that empires and religions used strategies and tactics, mainly events, to communicate and engage support. This is followed by a gallop over the centuries until the end of the 19th century. In general, the beginning of PR as a defined discipline is either set at the turn of the 20th century or after the first world war. My view is that there was developed practice in what we now call public relations a long time before the supposed start date. It’s a rich and exciting topic to explore with the potential for journal articles, books of readings and histories.

In thinking about the journal special edition, Here is an initial list of topics:

- Public relations in history, before it became a named or defined discipline

- Archival sources for the history of public relations

- The evolution of public relations in nations or in parts of government or industry

- Key personalities or events that shaped the formation of public relations as a discipline

- Key books or articles that have influenced public relations

- The evolution of public relations theory over time

- Influences on public relations practice, such as in government, industry and consultancy

- The formation of industry and professional bodies and their impact, over time, on public relations practice and education

- The evolution of public relations education, training and continuing professional education

- How technology has shaped public relations practice and theory

These are just some initial thoughts and I would welcome feedback on these as well as suggestions of other themes. My own interest has been sparked by reading over many years and recent research into the application of sophisticated public relations strategy and tactics in 10th century England (before William the Conqueror arrived in 1066). My paper on the formation of the cult of St Swithun will appear shortly in the Winter 2007 edition of Public Relations Review.

Please contact me via comments on this blog or directly to twatson@bournemouth.ac.uk.  

Here is a scenario for a campaign on human rights issues. The opponents claim serial oppression of an indigenous population in the developing world and provide evidence from observers in the field. Their campaign is marshaled by a determined, highly moral individual who is supported by church people, legislators and, increasingly, the media.

The campaign’s target, led by another national’s leader, fights back by questioning the motives of the campaign, the accuracy of the information and the economic impact should it have succeeded. Both use the media to make claim and counter-claim. The opponents make special use of church networks to roll out their campaign on both sides of the Atlantic. Both proponents and opponents lobby governments to make or reject laws on the economic exploitation.  

The proponents on two occasions set up “independent commissions” to investigate and report on the situation. The results of these commissions are challenged by the opponents as only limited sections of reports appear.  These are characteristics of modern human rights campaigns like those fought over environmental issues in the Amazon, the claims of “sweat shop” manufacturing in the developing world and of health issues such as tobacco and obesity.

But this scenario is taken from more than a century ago when the King of Belgium, Leopold II, was opening up and exploiting what we know now as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for rubber and ivory. His opponents were led by a feisty British journalist, E.D. Morel, who later became an MP by defeating Winston Churchill in the 1920s. Morel was not the first to be appalled by the exploitation of the Congolese or the first to campaign against it, but he was the first to mount and sustain an effective campaign using methods that we would consider part of modern democratic debate. His campaign brought major changes to the government of the Congo and some relief to its people.

The oppression of the Congolese, of whom 10 million are thought to have died during the period that Leopold II reigned, is a genocide that was supported by commercial and national interests and by the communication resources that they used and abused. The whole story is told by Adam Hochshild, in King Leopold’s Ghost published by Pan Book*. It is a book that should be read by practitioners, academics and students as it shows how public relations and corporate communication techniques can support evil practices, as well as effectively oppose them.

Over the past century, there is plenty of evidence that unethical practitioners in exploitation, lobbying and communication are as rife now as they were at the turn of the 19^th century. As Adam Hochshild notes, “multinational have also been in on the take [in the DRC]” (p. 316). By 2004, there had been an estimated four million deaths and 2 million refugees in the DRC because of fighting in the east of the country and in neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi. He concludes, “Tragically, no powerful outside constituency, like Morel’s Congo reformers, exists to lobby for measure that would help” (p. 317). 

* Hochshild, A. (2006) King Leopold’s Ghost (2^nd edition). London: Pan Books. Also published by Houghton Mifflin in the US. ISBN 0-330-44198-1

One of the claims being made for new media is that it gives greater access for ordinary folks to express their views and debate politics. The current US election prologue is being put forward as the first real “Internet Election”, although this claim was made for the 2004 campaign.

In his ‘Read Me First’ column in the Guardian this week, Seth Finkelstein, takes a swipe at the limited access to citizens in the recent CNN YouTube debates with a column headed, New media is just another way to pull the same old tricks. Finkelstein argues that “new media bring new media manipulation and new media exploitation” and that the method of selecting YouTube postings by a gatekeeper was the same as “contests where the winner gets a cameo appearance on a TV show”.

He goes on criticise the process further with, “ss is typical of user-generated content, despite all the hype about empowering citizens, the individual is utterly powerless, except to try to please and serve the interests of the gatekeeper and thereby obtain some attention (but not remuneration).”

There is a raft of issues that arise from this critique: would the candidates have participated in an open-access debate where they didn’t know what issues were likely to be? That’s highly unlikely, although it might make edgy broadcasting. Would broadcasters, like CNN which staged this cross-media event, give up their control and their standards of presentation? Again, highly unlikely.

So Finkelstein’s hope that a true shift in power could have occurred was forlorn before the start of the process because the broadcaster as gatekeeper has too much to defend and he recognises this in his sign-off comment: “… we should never mistake a change in media style for any advance of citizens’ power in politics”.

New media has also brought unforeseen problems for two of the UK best known brands - Vodafone (mobule phones) and First Direct (online banking) which bought packages of online advertising space on Facebook and ended up on a page giving information about the far-right British National Party (BNP). As the Guardian reports, “the move may affect other advertisers on Facebook by highlighting a current lack of control over where the multimillion page network places their bookings”. The report highlights the problem that there is little control over where where advertisements appear.

Ironically, The Guardian’s online version of the report includes a Vodafone click-through advertisement across the top of the story (or it did when this blog was being written) which again shows the problems that advertisers have when seeking associative coverage of their organisation.

Perhaps these two instances of new media problems - lack of access to a range of voices and damaging associations - make a collateral case for well-researched, targeted public relations activity. The public relations practitioner as an intermediary can have a valuable and ethical role to play in promoting genuine debate.

After three months of discussion, the Study of the Priorities for Public Relations Research (PR Priorities Study - final report) has been completed. The initial piloting was undertaken on DummySpit in April and led to the setting of 26 public relations topics. These were sent to a Delphi study panel (of experts) in five continents covering top academics, leading practitioners and the CEOs of PR industry bodies. After three rounds of intensive email debate, the Top Ten PR research topics are:

1) Public relations’ role in contributing to strategic decision-making, strategy development and realisation, and organisational functioning

2) The value that public relations creates for organisations through building social capital, managing key relationships and realising organisational advantage

3) The measurement and evaluation of public relations, both offline and online

4) Public relations as a fundamental management function

5) Professional skills in public relations; analysis of the industry’s need for education

6) Research into standards of performance among PR professionals; the licensing of practitioners

7) Management of corporate reputation; measurement of reputation

Ethics in public relations

9) Integration of public relations with other communication functions; the scope of public relations practice; discipline boundaries

10) Management of relationships

Just outside the top ranked priorities are:

11) Client/employer understanding of public relations

12) The impact of technology on public relations practice and theory.

This report is the first completed international study on public relations research priorities (using a Delphi panel) since the mid-1990s and gives valuable insight into the ‘front and centre’ public relations research areas around the world.

The results will allow academics and practitioners to work closely together to improve understanding of public relations and its most effective and ethical use. It is a benchmark that all research plans and funding can be judged by for relevance and importance.

On a helpful new blog at the Institute for Public Relations, Sean Williams of Goodyear in the US describes low cost methods of judging the effectiveness of the tyre maker’s internal communications, especially on its intranet. 

They have used internal discussion groups to quickly evaluate the corporate intranet and a daily poll question of key topics. It has built dialogue with staff, with around 150 joining the intranet discussion groups and 800 a day taking part in the poll. Some 450 a day check the poll results. 

The outcomes of the Intranet review have been very constructive – “we did get opinions that differed significantly from those we brought to the exercise. Our intranet is better for the experience”, says Sean. 

Although he says the polling methods aren’t scientific, they are a good example of how “little and often” can build up a period-on-period picture of communications. By using internal resources and a mindset set that allows modification, it can be as valuable as formal research methods. 

In Paul Noble and my book, Evaluating Public Relations, we recognised that many communicators want to research but are stumped by cost or lack of knowledge. That’s why we have shown how media evaluation can be set up using a simple Excel-based spreadsheet or even a paper-based clerical method. The information obtained immediately assists media relations activity. 

Doing evaluation is not hard and it gives immediate benefits – Congratulations to Sean for sharing Goodyear’s approach.

In research I have been undertaking, two of the topics were the management of reputation and the management of relationships. One of my respondents, a top corporate communications person in a multinational firm, responded with a very good question – “Who is the owner of the relationship: the PR professional or the business line?” Acknowledging one of the favoured models in public relations is “PR = relationship management” (Bruning & Ledingham), he has raised the very challenging question of how can this model be operationalised.

Although public relations academics and practitioners are staking out this ground as their own, the reality in the maze of relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders is that they may not be able to control or even substantially influence this field. For example, they could do so in the relationships between the organisation and government and with communities in general but it is almost impossible to “manage” the relationship between a sales force and its customers, purchasing staff and suppliers, and the Chief Financial Officer and bankers. These are crucial relationships to the performance of the organisation and are “owned” by those who are responsible for, in this case, sales, purchasing and finance. 

In a recent Harvard Business Review* paper on reputational risk, Eccles, Newquist and Schatz propose that one person is put in charge of reputation in each organisation. Although 84% of respondents to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey in 2005 said it is the CEO’s job, the authors say, “the CEO does not have time to manage the ongoing process of coordinating all the activities that affect operational risk [including reputational risk]” (p.110).  

This person will be responsible for “assessing reputation, evaluating reality, identifying and closing gaps, and monitoring changing beliefs and expectations” (p.114). For this task, they suggest the COO, CFO or those with responsibility for risk management, strategic planning or internal audit as “they have the credibility and control some of the necessary resources to do the job” (p.114).

But what of the claims of PR/corporate communication people? “In general, those whose existing responsibilities pose potential conflicts probably shouldn’t be chosen. People holding top “spin” jobs such as the heads of marketing and corporate communications, fall into this category” (p.114). 

What strange logic. Why would the COO, CFO and functional managers not have “conflicts” which affect their bonuses and position within the organisation or their ability to take an objective view? As the heads of marketing and, especially, corporate communications are in contact with the widest range of stakeholders unlike the inward-facing senior management staff, surely they are best suited to the task of monitoring reputation and coordinating responses. They usually have a greater set of research skills than operations and financial senior management, too. 

What’s your view on this model of the single person to monitor and manage reputation and organisational relationships? Can it be operationalised or is it a coordination task? If it isn’t the CEO, then who should be responsible? 

* Eccles, RG, Newquist, SC and Schatz, R (2007) Reputation and its risks, Harvard Business Review, February, pp104-114

Writing negative comments about your organisation on a personal blog is seen as ‘ethical’ by almost 50% of PR people. That’s one of the results of an international survey by Prof Don Wright and Michelle Hinson reported in the proceedings of the International Public Relations Research Conference, which have just been posted online.

The survey of PR practitioners found that 45% the respondents are aware that employees of their company or a client’s organization have communicated on weblogs, and that the outcomes have been mostly positive. As to whether it is ethical to monitor employee postings and to discipline staff, there was a strongly positive view. Some 79% said that monitoring staff was “ethical” and 59% backed discipline for staff who write negative statements, unless the staff were representing a labor organisation or trade union.

Despite these strongly held views, only 3% actually undertook research or measured “information their employees are blogging”, although 46% expect to do so in the future. Wright and Hinson also point out there is little research into the impact of blogs and other social media on the theory and best practice of communication. Obviously, there is a debate to be had on the ethics and legal issues that surround employee blogging.

Recently, Weber Shandwick Worldwide (WSW) announced its latest research on reputation loss with the claim that “CEOs receive nearly 60% of the blame when company reputation is damaged”. That seemed to be a useful enough “wow” factor to headline the report and support the marketing of WSW’s reputation management consultancy services. And to make it stronger, there seemed to be almost exactly the same blame quotient whether the respondents were in North America, Europe or Asia which appears to be a strong intercultural trend.

But when you read further, questions about the validity of the research arise. The sample was 950 “global business executives” in 11 countries, which seems solid enough, but it’s not bizexecs who determine an organisation’s reputation, it’s all those “stakeholders” with whom an organisation has relationships. To quote from Charles Fombrun, who is well known to WSW, “better regarded companies build their reputations by developing practices which integrate social and economic considerations into their competitive strategies … They initiate policies that reflect their core values; that consider the joint welfare of investors, customers and employees; that invoke concern for local communities …” (Fombrun 1996, p.8). This approach to reputation management says that the organisation’s reputation is dependent on its behaviour as a corporate citizen, part of the societies in which it operates, and not above or apart from them.

So if WSW had polled 950 ordinary folks in 11 countries, it may have come closer to a realistic figure of blame on CEOs. It’s also worth noting that research by Prof Philip Kitchen of Hull Business School and Andrew Laurence of Hill & Knowlton found in 2003 that the percentage of an organisation’s reputation ascribed to the CEO in different countries was much more varable. In Belgium, it was only 26% but in Italy, it was 83%. Leaving Italy out of the data, the average for five other European countries was 36.2%. In North America, Canadians gave 66% credit to the CEO and the US, 54%. There’s no doubt that in a celebrity conscious world, CEOs are front and central on reputation issues because they are leaders but it is the range of stakeholders who give the organisation its reputation as a result of their engagement with it, not the CEO.

In the WSW research, the response that “online attacks or rumours” was only a 25% factor that can ’significantly damage reputation’ demonstrates either complacency among the bizexecs or misunderstanding of the role that online media and social media can play. WSW comments in a very controlled manner that “companies continue to overlook how damaging threats from online activists and pressure groups can be if they are not prepared to respond quickly and decisively”. The 75% who don’t engage with the online world had better wake up soon!

Just when you thought that Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) had been buried as invalid measurements, they pop up out of the ground.In the UK, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) has led the way in promoting best practice in public relations planning, research and evaluation with its PR Evaluation Toolkit which has appeared in three versions. But no-one seems to have told its members or awards judging panels that AVEs suck.The Pride Awards for 2006/07 which have rolled out over recent months have such howlers for its regional winners as:“Advertising Value Equivalent of more than £409,000″

The focus for public relations evaluators has long been on message delivery.  One of the key trends over the last 25 years has been an increasing focus on quality of coverage, not just on the volume.  And the prime indicator of that quality has been the presence or absence, strength or weakness, positive or negative reporting of key corporate messages.  That was easy enough when messages took a straight (and signposted) path via traditional media to their intended audience.   Now, the message can be changed, developed, added to, hijacked and contradicted along the way.  This provides peculiar challenges to communicators that can be met by the technology that begat them.  The tests for public relations evaluators in the 21st century are these. The first is that formative monitoring of “who is saying what about you” will become essential in order to enable the rapid intervention and rebuttal necessary to influence the online conversation before it is set in stone.  The Kryptonite bike lock in 2004 or the recent Dell Hell examples shows how control over online messaging is lost forever without rapid and early intervention. The second is how to divine the nature of relationships (planned and unplanned) that exist through social media. Despite the sound and fury around both Kryptonite and Dell Hell, which were badly handled, the two brands continue to operate and prosper. Was the damage to reputation as severe as it might have been in a traditional offline media “storm”? How do organisations The credibility of offline media is well documented. Many would argue that (in its media relations guise) the supposed “killer benefit” of public relations is the credibility afforded by the media’s third part endorsement. But with many bypassing the journalist/media interface and transmitting messages direct, how can “credibility” be weighted from online media coverage and social media commentary. The answer at this stage is a very indirect one. By tracking traffic, tonality of comments and responses, use of unique links and weighting of blog responses and cross-links, a very loose correlation of quality factors can be created. But without a precise “call to action”, this evaluation is about output measurement (message distribution) rather than outcome.  That’s the state of play on a lot of supposed online PR measurement at present. It’s just an online variation of the media measurement that has been delivered for decades now. 

Do we need new models of communication for online media and social media that use “out-takes” – the audience reaction to and processing of messages – as the ultimate valid measurement of effectiveness? For both formative monitoring and relationship measurement, out-takes may be the most effective route ahead.