Three views on Feminisation of PR and its consequences

Why are there so many women in Public Relations, but only so few women entrepreneurs? These are the two key questions which were mentioned in this week’s PR issue class.

Compared to Michaela’s presentation about female career choices, this topic doesn’t interest me much, especially when it came to our group discussion about why “women will always work in PR industry, but will never run it”.

I have no problem with women working in Public Relations, especially since women in many countries have only started to get the right to choose their career freely in the last 50 years.

In response to this gender equality issue, I have some different views.

1) The number of women working in Public Relations

Once I was told that if we look at the PR industry in the UK as a person, it would be a pretty young blond woman.

In China, the industry behaves in the same way. For example, Edelman China agency is considered as “a pretty women company”

Fist, I would like to say: Well done, girls!

From east to west, half of this industry is occupied by female practitioners, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing for women.

Secondly, as Grunig (2001) points out in the book "Women in Public Relations: How Gender Influences Practice", some people have the uneasy feeling that so many women in PR just because it is less important and easy to access.

I would argue that more females work in the PR industry not because it is easy, but because women are good at communication and interested in this profession.

Additionally, female professionals have increased their roles, influence and importance very dramatically over the last couple of decades. The so called "feminisation" has increased so rapidly that it is already threatening the roles of men within organizations.

2) “Women will always work in PR industry, but will never run it”

My question is, why must women “run” the PR industry?

Does it mean that all women must be at the top of the PR industry?

Is the only fair thing that 50% of women control everything and let men control the rest? Or should women take care of the board room and kick out all the men?

We all know that female can run the industry, since there are uncountable examples of women running PR practices as our group debater presented in the class.

Men have run their countries for thousands of years (at least 5000 years in China alone). Only in the last 100 years, have women enjoyed a better chance for a good education and all other aspects of life.

I think that it’s just a question of time.

I personally believe that in order to be the “top man”, you need to live a life like a perfect machine. Compared with me being a female CEO, I would rather spent my spare time enjoy other beautiful things.

3) Consequences of the feminisation in PR

I think that in order to succeed, the PR industry needs to manage its reputation as a sexier industry, which will in turn attract more and more talents, both male and female.

BTW, I don’t want to be a top performing robot woman, do you?

Reference:

Grunig, L. A., Toth, E. L., & Hon, L. C. (2001).Women in public relations: How genderinfluences practice. New York: The Guilford Press.

Jeannie Rea.The Feminisation of Public Relations: What’s in it for the Girls?

Hasan Suroor(2005)The myth of "feminisation"

Podcast assignment for PR and New Media: The PR industry has not been slow to adapt to the new media options

With the emergence of new media, some people may say that ‘the PR industry has been slow to adapt the new media options’.

Is this true or false?

This podcast aims to explore and debate this issue. Listen now.

The full audio lasts about five minutes[04:37m].

Publics, audiences and stakeholders

To be honest, this may be the first time that I really enjoy the “theory” section. Because it is useful indeed!

In today’s class, Michaela's presentation introduced several general stakeholder identification and positioning models that can be applied to help me think about the concept of “stakeholders”, which is a new word for me.

Although I learned something similar before in the Marketing model, there are three ways to identify an organisation’s stakeholders in a PR context.

I’m happy that I was in the ‘9 segments’ group when we did our stakeholder analysis exercise, because it was much easier to identify your stakeholders.

These 9 segments are:

Demographic

Psychographic

Geographic

Organisational membership

Covert power

Role in decision making

Influencers

Opinion formers

Decision makers

Ha-ha, I love theories now.

In theory as well as practice, PR can be considered as “stakeholder relations”. Please Mind that the gap between Publics, Audiences and Stakeholders is necessary in order to achieve your target.

In my view, this is especially true in the new media environment, because you need to know your audience as well as your stakeholders.

Though a project or campaign may only target one main segment, the actual base may extend beyond to include friends, family members, associations and other interested parties or only opinion formers (e.g. Bloggers).

Involving stakeholders is a tough task. The more you get key stakeholders to understand involved, the more successful a project will be. Stakeholders should get involved during every part of the program or campaign’s life cycle.

For the sake of love

Everyone knows that debates of ethical issues can be quite boring. However, our module tutor succeeded in leading an interesting debate in our class,especially through an interesting exercise. (My classmate Nathalie Bellanger had a post on her blog Can PR ever be ethical? describe more details about the interesting exercise in class).

There are many ethical issues in PR related to the public interest, such as justice, responsibility, respect and safety. There are often more complicated than you can imagine.

I am trying to compare this topic with my friend’s personal experience. Until recently, she was happily married with a good job as a chief editor of a fashion magazine, while her husband worked as the CEO of a big IT company.

Everything was fine until the husband found that the beautiful wife has been dating another guy.

He said: A family with lies is unacceptable.

And he wants a divorce.

She said: I did it for the family’s interest, and I still love our family.

The fact was that she lied.

Of course she did something wrong, but who doesn’t.

I think that honesty is one of the basic ethical issues in PR. Coming back to the love story again. If she has a short affair, should she tell her husband?

But if everyone tells, kids will lose their mothers, husbands will lose their wives and there will be no happy families. Is this the best ethical result?

I’m sorry but I can’t agree with that.

It is difficult to construct a single solution for all the ethical values. Putting more regulation and legislation into place is better than just following an ethical code. I think that governments will pay more attention and implement tougher PR regulation, similar to the Advertisement law.

In addition to this, different cultures should have different codes and ethical framework. For example, a lot of English people don’t accept why Chinese people don’t believe in god.

I have been asked quite a few times about why I don’t go to the church. My answer is: I do show respect to God and Buddha etc. but I’ sorry I have no religious belief, I just believe in love.

SEO Press Release for PR and New Media Assignment --- Survey Reveals Britons' Top Online Purchasing Lists

my fake press release for new media module, but I love it.

A new study from wedeliver.com has found out that more groceries are sold online than any other product in the UK.

Over 50% of internet users have bought groceries online, according to a survey by wedeliver.com, Britain’s largest online grocery retailer. Other top items include clothes, music, technology and DVDs.

The study also reveals that there is a massive rise in the number of Britons shopping online while work.

About eight out of ten of those surveyed have bought something online during work hours, in addition to nearly half of them worrying about their boss noticing signs of slacking off. The average amount of time spent on shopping while at work equates to 6 hours per week.

The study predicted that the growth of Internet shopping in the UK will continue to grow strong with the advent of technology and gadgets (TVs, computers, music players, etc.), the growing demand of furniture and clothes, and the falling prices for personal computers and increased Web access.

“Online shopping has increased dramatically in these years, compared with three or four years ago, when it was somewhat difficult for consumers to buy their furniture online", says Mark Gray, Director of Interactive Media for wedeliver.com.

“Today, online retailers don't just sell groceries and clothes anymore, we've now added an excellent selection of furniture to our product range combined with a high level of interactivity, excellent customer service and prices that have never been so competitive before.”.

For further information or an interview, please contact the wedeliver team on 020123456 or email wedeliver@x.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

- About The Survey
Wedeliver.com Shopping Survey was conducted by Fly Research from October, 2007 to January, 2008 via email invitation to online shoppers. The total sample size was 10,000 respondents.

- Further information of the wedeliver.com survey can be found at http://w.w.com/

- About The Wedeliver.com
The w.com is Britain's largest online grocery retailer with leading market positions and recognized brands in online marketing operations.

Propaganda – What PR is not

As a student from China, I cannot tell the true difference between Public Relations and Propaganda. Because sometimes, Public Relations ‘is seen as an instrument of persuasion ‘, as Shirley Harrison points out in “Public Relations An introduction”.

But the BBC Correspondent War Spin: the Truth about Jessica really told me something about Propaganda and gave me a very clear understanding about the difference between Propaganda and PR.

This is a story of Jessica Lynch, an icon of the Iraq war in 2003. On the US side, she was captured by the Iraqis and rescued by US Special Forces, and the whole Hollywood style story boosted American morale during the Iraq War.

But on the other side, a reporter from the BBC exposed that the whole story was just like a made up movie. The fact was that the US Special Forces rescued Lynch from the treatment in an ordinary Iraqi hospital.

In addition to this, almost all journalists from around the world gathered in a warehouse to listen to this story fed to them by the US military.

The question is ‘is this propaganda or public relations’? Almost our classmates including myself agree that this is typical propaganda.

Propaganda, which is often confused with PR, has an equally long history as PR and can be best described as a means of gaining support for an opinion or belief.

Propaganda is defined by the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), quoted by Philip Taylor, as

‘any information, ideas, doctrines or special appeals disseminated to influence the opinion, emotions, attitudes of behaviour of any specified group in order to benefit the sponsor either directly or in directly’.

Another useful thing I found is Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model (1988), quoted by Johanna Fawkes in Exploring Public Relations.

They suggested 5 “filters” including the size and concentration of media ownership, the role of advertising in providing income for media organizations, the “official” sources, the ‘flak’ as a means of controlling media content, the ‘anti-communism’ as a ‘national religion’ and control mechanism.

I personally think that in this model, Jessica’s story is absolute propaganda.

The question that our course leader asked us to think about is “What do you feel after watching this video? Do you feel comfortable or uncomfortable?”

To be honest, I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all, because things like this happen every day. Everyone knows that propaganda and governments work hand in hand. In addition, I am quite familiar with this type of stories in the mass media.

My main concern from War Spin is that the journalists and media just pick up the official story and create and twist it to generate publicity and money.

During a US Army news conference in the Iraqi desert, a reporter from the New York magazine asked General Vincent Brooks, “Why should we stay?” he answered with “that is your choice”. In the end, it is the American media’s choice to accept propaganda instead of gathering their own information in the middle of a war.

Reference: Shirley Harrison Public Relations An introduction