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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.