Public relations practitioners and social media: themes in a global context (original) (raw)
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While the introduction of Web 2.0 technology and social media is changing public relations practice, it is premature to presume that online public relations is now the norm across the industry. This paper reports on an exploratory, qualitative study that was undertaken to further understanding about practitioners’ use and perceptions of social media. Five in-depth interviews were conducted with practitioners working for different types of organisations––agency, government, corporate, nonprofit, and a sole practitioner––to give insight into the different perceptions, experiences and challenges associated with social media. This research builds on an earlier quantitative study (Robson & James, 2011) that found practitioners were trialling social media for public relations purposes and felt their organisation and the resources available to them prevented a more in-depth, ongoing engagement with social media. The findings from this qualitative research provide further detail about the p...
Is using social media "good" for the public relations profession? A critical reflection
Public Relations Review, 41(2), pp. 170-177, 2015
Scholarship in public relations seems to be overly positive about social media. The dominant discourse in public relations is that using social media is "good", because social media can help organizations in developing dialogs and relationships with publics and in engaging with them. Yet empirical evidence in public relations is mostly case-dependent and limited to the realm of understanding current organizational practices, with limited understanding of the concrete value for organizations or for publics. In this paper I question the utility of social media for publics, organizations and public relations, and I argue that the positive view of social media held by the majority of public relations scholars is grounded on the profession's need to reconcile the two sides of public relations identity-the rhetorical and the relational. A discussion of whether current public relations practices in social media reflect these two main identities is offered, as well as a discussion of the implications of uncritical use of social media for the public relations profession.
11-macnamara public relations and the social how practitioners are using or abusing social media
Widespread discussion of interactive social media and social networks enabled by what is termed Web 2.0 has led to discussion of 'PR 2.0' denoting the potential for these new forms of media and public spaces to realise the two-way symmetrical model of communication recommended in Excellence Theory of public relations, but hitherto regarded as normative and impractical by some scholars, or to reconceptualise public relations in some significant way. However, despite considerable excitement surrounding the potential of interactive social media, there is a lack of empirical data on the ways in which public relations practitioners are utilising these media and how they are influencing or changing PR practice. A number of reported case studies suggest that there are grounds for concern that some organisations are attempting to engage in public communication in the Web 2.0 environment using oneway information transmission and a control paradigm of communication characteristic of mass media and Web 1.0. Furthermore, case studies show that, in some instances, inappropriate and unethical practices are being adopted in social media and social networks. On the other hand, there are case studies of some organisations engaging in new productive ways with their stakeholders using interactive social media and social networks. This article reviews contemporary literature in relation to social media and social networks as well as recent case studies to identify their key characteristics, potentialities, and uses, and report findings of a survey and interviews with senior public relations practitioners in Australia investigating their views and practices in social media.
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Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 2017
This paper traces and documents the opportunities and potentials that social media offer PR practitioners while also highlighting peculiar challenges that such uses present to contemporary PR practitioners due, mainly-and paradoxically-to their widespread availability and usage by both PR and non PR actors. While proliferation of information, availability of modern technologies and availability of training of practitioners have greatly raised and shaped the profile of PR practice in recent decades, increase in the number of actors who are neither trained nor committed to the ethics of PR practice have posed special challenges and posed problems to the field. The mushrooming of technologies available to PR practitioners in the recent past prompts the need to rethink, re-evaluate, revisit with a view to re-assesing not only the promises that these advances bring to the practice but also the special problems that the new scenario may present to PR academics and practitioners alike. This is the exercise we attempt in this paper. There is no gainsaying the benefits of the largely direct and unfettered communication for the PR practitioners; immediate, democratic and participatory being just a few of them. However, in spite of their many benefits,, the uses of social media by PR practitioners is not free of drawbacks and threats, especially (but not solely) because of the scope they provide for abusive use. The same social networking and microblogging sites that have provided trained PR practitioners with platforms to conduct highly effective and ethical communication practices have similarly turned and empowered millions of people with smartphones and internet connection into an army of 'Journalists' & PR practitioners without formal training or commitment to ethical principles of communication; a scenario that provides much room for reckless and irresponsible usage of these platforms where everyone is free to speak "what's on their mind." An apt way to describe the resulting complications of PR practices under this milieu may be summed by the old adage attributed to American humorist, Mark Twain that, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Indeed, PR practitioners often find themselves resorting to fire-fighting and reactionary PR techniques in response to online uploads from a variety of unconventional sources. Thus, while conventional wisdom may readily celebrate the many virtues of social media for PR practitioners highlighting the way in which they lend themselves to two-way communication between the organization and its various publics, we caution that such assessment of social media use should be examined and understood in terms of both potential and inherent constraints and risks. The study uses critical and case studies approaches together with a survey method to argue the need to rethink and reassess
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