Reflection

Is PR education Necessary?

2009-04-01T03:44:00.001-07:00

A debate in our class about the relevance of PR qualification ended with a conclusion that PR degree is necessary.I too believed that PR qualification is a must. I had named by blog, A reflection towards enlightenment'. The way towards enlightenment is the degree that I will earn. This has enlightened me in a sense that I had learnt all those skills that I would never have developed living in my country and practicing PR in a way they do it there. Yes, as some of my friends believed, PR is practical, but if you learn by practicing, there may be chances when one learns by mistake. This can be disastrous in many fields of PR, for example when an organization is in crisis, and it tries to solve it using its armature PR professionals, think what the organization might be risking.
Denis McQuail says 'Filters' 'Stereotypes', 'jumping into conclusions as some of the barriers to communication. Before I started my course, I used to think that whatever idea I had on Public relations is the standard one. I thought it that way because the barriers as said by McQuail were stopping me to see PR from a different perspective. Whatever concept I had on Public relations was based on my past experiences. Had not I attended the course, I would still be relying on street dramas to communicate my ideas rather than using neo media. I would be thinking about organizing a press conference without collecting all information if I had to solve a crisis.
Academic course are designed in a way that it helps people find out what are the standards. People know the right way of doing things. Though it costs money, knowing the skills is worth investing. So, though there are people who still think that spending money on getting PR qualification is not worth, I believe that PR education is necessary.

Social marketing!

2009-03-21T04:05:00.000-07:00

Never ever thought that there is something like 'selling the ideas attitude and behaviour'. Social marketing the brainchild of Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman talks about using marketing principals that were used to sell products to consumers to sell ideas , attitudes and behaviours.According to Kotler and Andreasen, 'social marketing seeks to influence social behaviour not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society.'
When I read these lines, it reminded the father of our profession, Edward Bernays.He said,

' The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the ruling power of our country.'

Berney used his idea for his clients in commerce and in politics, and he though his manipulation was for positive reasons ' Berney believed ,' The 'good' is not defined but the implication is that which serves order in society is 'good'.'
Social marketing seemed the newer version of Berneys model to me. Berneys was more focused on making his clients happy using 'white propaganda ' . He had cautioned the manipulative part of propaganda and have talked about ' orderly life'. So isn't social marketing some how similar to Berneys version of propaganda, trying to sell ideas, attitude and behaviours for an orderly life.Is n't it positive manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses to serve them.
Berney lacked his focus on the welfare of the public, though he had talked about the orderly life. He was more focussed on 'creating consent , sometimes for benign purposes'(Rethinking Public Relations, Moloney Kevin 2006), that makes him different from Social marketeers, who try to sell ideas and manipulate people's views for positive outcomes in the society, for example smoking cessation programs, health awareness programs.

Crisis management? Do people in developing countries benifit from the concept?

2009-03-21T03:23:00.000-07:00

I was working as a secondary level teacher , when a child aged 11 committed suicide in Om Secondary School, in Nepal. Winter holidays had started and the boy was all alone and depressed as his parents had not come to take him home even after he spent a whole week in school.

The incident put the school in big crisis, there were questions on security in the school, some blamed the school of beating the boy to death, some created a story that as the boy saw some illicit relationship going on between a teacher and a student , the boy was killed.All these rumours were capitalized by local and national media, and everybody was talking about the incident.The hard earned reputation of the school in the time frame of 16 years had all been shattered into pieces.

How the school dealt with the situation? Did it send a press release to media, like they do in these countries at the beginning of a crisis? NO, they did not. Did they apologize with the sufferers, i.e the child's parents and relatives? No, instead, they were furious at the parents for not taking the child home on time, which depressed him and eventually leading him to a decision of committing suicide.This worsen the situation, the parents filed a case against the school telling that their son was murdered. The police took all blamed people into custody for interrogation. That was one of the detailed and highly interrogated case in Nepal. Samples were sent to forensic lab, all the children, teachers,and whoever were related to the case were interrogated.Finally the school got a clean chit.

Did the school , after this organized a press conference? No, not again, all those investigative process had shattered them. They had become emotionally weak and though media continued writing against them, they remained quite. And although they had not done any thing wrong this crisis cost them their hard earned reputation.

Crisis management thus is a handy tool for developed countries, but as people still do not know about it in countries like Nepal. So their reputation is at stake, when they suffer from crisis.As Nepal represents the developing country, we can assume that situation in all other developing countries would be the same.

Global PR, is it for making money?

2009-03-18T04:05:00.001-07:00

Global PR is a fantasy dreamed up by International PR agencies to generate money! Is it true? though the debate ended up with a 'draw', I still believe that Global PR is not only for making money. We all know that each and every activity of a human being is directed towards earning money, because money buys all those basic needs. So in a sense that International PR agencies want to generate money using Global Pr is true. But as the world is varied and with different people, different cultures, different languages,if International PR agencies only think about making money, it will always remain a fantasy. Some of my collegues said that , whatever interest big international companies are showing in the developing world or less developed world is for generating money.but when 'organizations move into the global economy, practitioners will need to adjust to see, listen, and speak to international publics. An internationalization of Public relation is both an opportunity and a challenge for professionals.'. (Heath.L. Robert Handbook of Public relations, 2002)
Though money making is an opportunity, there are many challanges, for example, 'socio culture' is the basic one. Sriramesh and White (1992) suggested that 'international Public relations will have to reflect the cultural and societal norms of the host nation.'
And if the organization tries to acclamatize itself with the host nation , only with a motive of generating money, without its concern for the socio cultural value of the society, its effort will not generate profits.
For example, MCdonalds India had to face controversy when a US attorneyclaimed that the restaurant chain has lied to customers for more than a decade by using beef fat in its french fries. Cow is revered in India and eating beef is strictly prohibitated among huge number of public. McDonalds India had to come up with a serious crisis plan to solve the issue.http://www.jphpk.gov.my/Malay/formaduan/English/May2001%207A.htm
So Global PR though is a concept to expand business and make money in this global village, there are many hurdles that PR companies have to consider , before they start making money.

Does the arrival of Neo media replace the traditional tools used in Public relations?

2009-03-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

Neo media is a recent phenomenon, it came into existence after 1980's but it revolutionized the world within a time span of 30 years. According to Edward j.Lordan , cyberspin chapter 52, Handbook of public relations, the knowledge base that had accumulated by the year 1600 doubled by 1950 and then doubled again by 1980. It now doubles every 7 years and might be doubling every 35 days by the year 2010. If the situation is like this, can PR personnel still depend upon traditional tools for the practice of their profession?
People may say, the primary objective of using neo media or traditional tools both are same.
Edward J. Lordan says 'regardless of the complexity and haphazard evolution of new technologies, they still are used primarily to gather , package, and disseminate information.But does the gathering, packaging and dissemination of information is as easier as it is if we are not using neo media?
The answer to both of the questions raised above is 'NO'. With the advent of Information Technology, timely information is necessary, and as information is updated every second, lack of knowledge about the update can be disastrous for a PR personnel.As PR highly depends upon information gathering, lack of neo media can affect the profession.
Similarly, though the primary use of neo media and traditional tools are same, that is gathering , packaging and disiiminating information but the arrival of neo media has made all these process faster, reliable and trendy. Neo media offers Pr practitioner an opportunity to maintain data about its clients, media, competitors, and industries and help them to analyze the trend which is almost impossible using traditional methods of storing and sorting information.( Edward J. Lordan)
In the same way , desktop publishing has a number of advantage over traditional methods of printing. The use of Internet,CD-Roms, easier graphic designing softwares, editing softwares has made the information packaging process much simpler than the traditional methods of doing it.
And as far as information dissimination is concerned neo media helps PR in so many ways. Like in traditional methods , people do not have to rely upon other media to get their message across. With their webpage ready, they can directly talk to the people who they want to target.Information dissiminatinon is just a mouse click far.
So we can conclude that the arrival of Neo media will certainly replace traditional tools.

CSR, is it a responsibility or a corporate whitewash?

2009-03-18T04:02:00.001-07:00

Adam Garfunkel in our class on Corporate social responsibility expressed that CSR is a voluntary action of business , to achieve positive social outcomes whilst benefiting its business objectives. A few days ago , I did a presentation in my corporate communication class and tried to express my opinion that though most of the business have CSR programs to achieve positive social outcomes, some corporates do it for a white wash of their activities. I had taken an example of Philip Morris USA a n Altira company, which produces world class cigarettes and is one of the largest cigarette producer in the world. According to WHO, 5.4 million people die annually because of tobacco.
This made me wonder, Philip Morris on the one hand is encouraging people to buy its products which is fatally harmful to them and on the other hand it has developed CSR programs to achieve positive social outcomes.Doesn't it contradict each other? Activists groups like 'Campaign for Tobacco free kids in USA' against Philip Morris blame that, most of its CSR activities focuses on young children, which is its tactics to attract young people so that it can keep on making profits. They have backed up their opinion with a researched data that 60% of young smokers smoke 'Marlboro' a Philip Morris Brand.
So isn't CSR an easier way for some corporates to make money? They look like a Messiah on one hand when they are contributing for philanthropic cause but deep inside they have their wicked intention of making money out of peoples sentiments.

Why cant a woman lead an agency, when she is capable to lead the world!!

2009-02-28T03:49:00.000-08:00

Unlike the picture of the woodcutter we were shown in the class, this is a picture of an Indian woman ,an Indian Joan of Arc, who possesses all those woman like character as told to us by my friends in the class, but still was a great leader and a fierce warrier in Indian history.

Some of my friends in class believed that woman can never run a PR agency, although they have their majority in junior level posts. They backed up their reasoning saying that woman are sensitive, emotional , lack focus and are not career oriented. They portrayed woman almost as a suppressed second class citizen, like woman before woman rights movement. They were suppressed class but no longer are!!They are leading everything, from household to stores, from streets to parliaments.

Men have ruled the world throughout the history, woman leadership is a new phenomenon . Their involvement outside the kitchen and household work started after 19th century.

There are 192 member countries in the United Nations, and 24 of them have female head of the state.Though the number is small but if we compare the time frame from when woman actively participated in politics, it is a big achievement.

I could not understand why a woman can not lead? As far as our history is concerned, we had many warrior queens in the past, who fought bravely for the nation's unification campaign or for a fight against foreign Invasion. A queen in Jhansi , Rani Laxmibaihttp://www.shaktimarg.com/warriors/jhansikirani.htm(India) for example had bravely lead her soldiers in a war against English. She had lead her troops. Is she like the woman whom my friends portrayed in the class?

Woman need opportunity. They are as good as men are. Given a chance they can do things better than men do. So I believe that though there are not much woman , leading PR sector now, One day they will be leading everywhere.

Weak propoganda and ethics

2009-02-14T03:56:00.001-08:00

Parsons(2004) in a guide to PR ethics writes ' In the name of strategic persuasion, public relations practitioners have, over the years, resorted to a variety of techniques that hover on the border between persuasion and balant propoganda, or between the truth and lying by omission,'

I came across another quote, ' public relaitions?' Don't be fooled by the grandiose title: it is simply propoganda in a dinner jacket'( ibid).

Kevin Moloney in Rethinking Public Relation writes,' PR in USA and UK has been , and still is manipulative communications, or weak propoganda- more 'ordering' and telling than 'listening' and 'talking', with a selection of supportive facts and some appeals to emotion in the message , presented many times without the source being identified. '

now lets talk about the code of conduct devised by CIPR,

There should be honest and responsible regard to public interest,and no misleading .

but after reading the lines from PR scholars , I wonder do PR practitioner really follow code of conduct and are ethical? If PR is manipulative communications as said by Kevin Moloney, can it be honest? If it is not honest, can it be ethical? and if it is unethical, whats the point in following it as a profession?

Morals are personal, and my moral says I should not do anything that is unethical,and if PR as a practice is manipulative communication and more like one way communication, it is not my cup of tea.

May be I believe in Cognitive theory and believe that objective moral truth exist, and to me PR is not manipulative, truth is not substituted by spin, reality is not substuted by perception and success by victory. PR to me is the sum of all those PR activities inside the nut shell of ethics.

If I am the only one to think this way, God save Pukar.

War propoganda and embedded journalists

2009-02-14T03:29:00.000-08:00

Tamil Tigers of Srilanka killed 28 people using a suicide bomber on February 9th. The bomber detonated herself when she was in a group of Tamil civilians fleeing from war zone.I wonder can it be true? Tamil Tigers who are fighting for a separate Tamil state in Srilanka and are dependent upon the support given by Tamil civilians can target and kill their own people for fleeing away from their land smells propagandist to me. The war video that we were shown in our first class talked about embedding journalists and trying to dictate the journalists on what they write.It also talked about how Americans used media to get international support for their war against terrorism portraying themselves as the rightful heir of Human right defenders.

No wonder International media covered the Tamil Tiger's case as a terrorist attack on civilians. click here,

http://www.france24.com/en/20090209-sri-lanka-tamil-tiger-suicide-bomb-refugee-camp

There is constant spinning of messages from the Srilankan government and the international media embedded with Srilankan government are consuming the message that they are being fed. The result, we have to believe that the sun rises in the west, as media creates social reality in contemporary world.

Barack Obama's election campaign

2009-02-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

Today's presentation on Barack Obama's election campaign took me back to my childhood days. It was 1990 and I was in grade 7. Democracy in Nepal was recently re-established and a new election was taking place to replace the old 'Panchayat system', direct rule of king.
There were different political parties participating in the election but there were no musical messages like that in Barack Obama's case and no huge media coverage. Obama had used musical messages and neo media to target his people but our politicians were not that clever enough. The only similarity was the use of accessories like caps, T-shirt, pen, note books and stickers for their election campaign. Things that I remember are small round stickers that had impression of election symbol of political parties and a small plastic plate attached to a safety pin, with a message to support that political party.As I had seen my soldier father put on all his medals and decoration , when he had to attend any formal function, I thought of copying him. When I went to school one day, I stuck all those small round stickers in my school uniform in a way it looked like medals and those plastic plates as my decoration. People on my way to school were giving me a queer look, but I was finding it normal. Things changed when I reached school and my friends started teasing me. I then realized how funny my medals looked. In my class that day, my teacher had elaborated about election campaign and all those accessories, and today's presentation on Obama's campaign took me back to those nice days..It was nostalgic..

Government media and spinning in Nepal

2009-01-01T07:01:00.001-08:00

Nepal is politically unstable. In the last ten years Nepalese have seen all forms of government, from Constitutional monarchy to absolute monarchy, and from absolute monarchy to federal republic.

Whatever forms of government were practised in Nepal, government media remained the same. Gorkhapatra,a newspaper serving Nepalese government from the last 100 years,Nepal television , a government broadcast medium and radio Nepal, which served the government regardless who came into power. And each government made a good use of these media for spinning their messages across the people.

Privatization in Media is a new concept in Nepal, so people relied on government media for information. This benefited government by giving it a monopoly in terms of media spinning. And although most of the world had democratic governments during the early 90's , Nepal still had absolute monarchy. People were fed with the spinned messages during those days that helped the kings government remain in power. But arrival of private print media during 1990, made people more aware about their rights, eventually leading to the fall of absolute monarchy and establishment of multi party constitutional monarchy. Nepal saw massive development in media after that. With a guaranteed press freedom and right to information, investment in media became safe. This lead to sprouting of Private FM stations, private TV channels and private print media. Though government's spinning still continued.

Situation was different when the king took all executive power in his hands shacking elected prime minister .Right to press freedom and right to information were banned, private media had to suffer censorship. Government media tried to create support on king's move. Most of the news during those days revolved around the king. Coverage like , kings visit to remote areas, patriotic songs written by the king, and news that showed concern of the king for the nation were heavily published and broadcast. This was the extreme time for government spinning in Nepal.

Although there were censorship, some private media heavily criticised the king's move. They helped in the formation of public opinion and created an angry mass of people against the king. Then the revolution started, the king overthrown and the Maoists came into power through election.

BUT things remained the same,though the Maoist claimed that they would guarantee press freedom and peoples right to information, there are incidence of killing journalists and vandalizing media office for writing news against them. And as usual government media is acting like a loyal dog and spinning these events and justifying every breach of fundamental right of people as legal phenomenon .

Corporate social responsibility and advertisement in Nepal

2008-12-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

This years monsoon created havoc in Nepal. Most of its grain basket, that is the fertile land of plains, was flooded. The flood took many lives , loss of property and left many people homeless.But this provided a chance to many people and organization to start a charity to support those people. Though millions of rupees was collected, people in the plains were dying of hunger, and of poor health conditions.
Chawdhari group,one of the main business organization,which produces Nepal's favourite snacks, Wai Wai noodles, expressed its corporate social responsibility saying that each packet of Wai Wai it sells during those three months, money equivalent to 1/4 pence will go to the funds raised for flood victims.
The aim of the organization seemed less like corporate social responsibility, it was rather an advertisement. Though people were in utmost need of food, clothes and a place to stay, the organisation was waiting for three months to help those people and that too from the money raised from the people who buy its products.
The concept of corporate social responsibility tells that an organization has to establish good relationship with its stakeholders as it is because of them it survives, but the case in Nepal is different, they do try to show their responsibility but its more advertisement than corporate social responsibility.

Public affairs and Facebook

2008-12-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

It may sound odd to many but a government minister of Nepal maintains his face book account to get people's view on his policies and to provide a platform for them to lobby. The leftist finance minister of Nepal, Baburam Bhattrai, exceeded the maximum number of friends allowed by face book and had to face a block on his account, and after a request was made with face book he could again use the advantage of this modern age marvel. Face book had given the minister a chance to reach the young educated generation who can help in the formation of public opinion.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?tab=3#/profile.php?id=1381880977&ref=mf

The minister's profile boasts of his photographs taken during people's movement, his visits to foreign countries and his participation in different programmes. Some photographs try to emotionally appeal the audience giving them an impression that this man is a real man for the nation.

Recent topics discussed in his profile are the issue of power cuts and nepotism in Nepalese government. The minister has tried to calm down the anger of Nepalese people over the increased hour of limited power supply that has crippled the country these days. people are compelled to live without electricity for more than 10 hours a day. The minister in his profile tries to defend himself by telling the people about the steps his government has taken to solve the problem.

Similarly , the minister had also tried to justify certain government appointments, which the Nepalese had blamed as a severe case of nepotism.

Whatever the context maybe , this is an extreme case of use of social networking for Public affairs.

Government messages and barriers to their communication in Nepal

2008-12-22T08:47:00.001-08:00

No communication is without a barrier. Denis McQuail defines ,Jumping into conclusion, Stereotyping, Emotions, Filters, Lack of Interest, Lack of knowledge, and personality as common barriers to communication. But these are not the only barriers at work, there are other barriers which McQuail did not describe as he developed all these barriers based on western World.
For a poor developing countries there may be some other barriers.

Nepal is a landlocked country situated in between India and China. It is one of the poorest country in the world with $340 average per capita income. The same for United Kingdom is $69,560.Developing world is a term used for the countries that are underdeveloped in terms of their economy or level of industrialization, globalization, standard of living, health, education or other criteria for "advancement”. Per capita income and human development index are one of the criteria that confirm whether a country is developed or developing. Being at the bottom level in this entire index Nepal is a developing country and represents all other developing countries.

All developing countries in the world have poor economy, have extreme gender issues and problem of HIV AIDS. Nepal is no exception, so lets see the messages Nepalese government tries to spread among its public and analyze the barriers that hinders the communication process.

Message One:
Do not smoke and drink alcohol as it can buy your family food and other daily necessary stuffs.
This message was broadcast in radio, Television and published in newspaper. All district health offices distributed leaflets and pamphlets in their corresponding villages. The message was targeted to the people of lower income bracket who spent all their earnings in smoking and drinking alcohol. Government was expecting to improve economic status of these poor people and also to lower alcohol and smoking related deaths by raising awareness on this issue.
27 years old Mansoor Ansari is a rickshaw puller ( not auto rickshaw). After a tiring 12 hours long shift of transporting people, this man spends half of his daily income in a local pub. When asked about it, he says I am too tired to fall asleep if I do not drink alcohol. Though half of my money is gone, I can have a sound sleep , which rejuvenates me for the next day.

Message Two:
‘CHOORA HOS YA CHORI , DUBAI BARABARI’
A son or a daughter, both are equal.
This message too was broadcast in radio, television and published in Newspaper. As the targeted audience was people from all economic status and all education background, we could see the message on big hoarding boards in the cities like Kathmandu. The aim of this message was to reduce discrimination among sons and daughter prevalent in Nepalese society.
Mr. Bhimsen Tiwari is a lecturer in Tribhuwan University Kathmandu. He says he always passes through the hoarding board that reads the message, but still admits that his wife is expecting the fifth child as he has four daughters he needs a son to look after his property and give continuity to his line.

Message Three:
CONDOM LAGAU, AIDS BHAGAU
Use a condom, avoid getting AIDS.
This message is the most common message one can see in Nepal. You can see it anywhere, TV, hoarding boards, bus stations, buses, newspapers, magazines, in the radio. It’s omnipresent.
But epidemic of AIDS in Nepal now has a status of ‘concentrated epidemic’ rather than the ‘low level epidemic ‘of 2001.

So what are the barriers then? In the first instance Nepal’s poverty is the main barrier. People are poor and are non reactive to the messages the government sends. They are more focused on getting their bread and butter rather than changing their daily routine based on what these messages say. According to UNICEF, more than 24% of Nepalese live on a earning below 60 pence a day.
Second barrier is illiteracy. According to UNICEF 51% of total adult population in Nepal are illiterate. Hence many of them do not understand or partially understand the message being conveyed to them.

Third barriers in Nepal's case is its socio-cultural ties. Gender discrimination exists in Nepal, no matter what the government has done to educate people on this regard. The belief that Sons open the door to heaven for parents make common people neglect their daughter . In spite of government effort to stop this, girl child can't go to a good school and has to help in household chores.So among 51% of literate population , woman literacy is very low. Though western Public relations is dominated by woman, it may take another 25 years for Nepal to have its public relations industry dominated by woman.