Report on the Problem facing by media and public relation specialization

Abstract of Problem facing by media and public relation specialization

This paper is describing the major findings on previous literature in order to increase the knowledge about present and future challenged that are caused by new media to public relations. It is still now known that the present theoretical framework fully covers the new media and many researchers had proved that public relation practitioners are facing the new challenge with new media and more with internet. Public relation educators now need to make new course keeping in mind the new media development. More possible opportunities as well as threats are imposed on public relations by new media so more research in this area is suggested.

Introduction of Problem facing by media and public relation specialization:

The corporate websites, emails facilities, chat rooms and electronic news release are thought to as the usual aspect of public relations practice (Galloway, 2005). Many practitioners on public relations are facing this problem with impacts of new media and especially internet. It can be seen through the research that practitioner is not at all embracing the new media, because maybe they have the fear of technology (Alfonso & de Valbuena Miguel, 2006). The practices in public relations is changing as the media is changing which cause the increase in stakeholder power by increasing communication between stakeholder groups (Van der Merwe, Pitt & Abratt, 2005).

Any person who has a computer that is having the facility of internet too are able to publish information and this is accepted by everyone that internet is revolutionary also with many angles of public relation practice and research (Taylor& Kent, 2006). Internet is giving the public relation practitioners the advantage of collecting the information, getting public views on any issue and can engage in direct communication with public about different problems (McAllister &Taylor, 2007). But through the literature it has been confirmed that public relation practitioner is just transferring the traditional approaches and they are not evolving their practices. They are not taking the advantage of the things posting by the web and it seems quite uncourageous. It has been found that ‘use of Internet tools to build strong and solid relationships with the media is far from ideal’ (Alfonso & de Valbuena Miguel, 2006). It is then highlighted that these companies might lack the well-designed strategies for public relation. Moreover, any shortcoming in the organization’s public relations practices were more evident because of the strength of internet (Alfonso & de Valbuena Miguel, 2006). Public relation practitioners do not bother to use internet in order to increase the interaction between public and the organization (Jo & Jung 2005, p. 27).

Defining new and emerging media of Problem facing by media and public relation specialization

For the range of media practices, new media is becoming the preferred term that use digital technology in some way or the other (Dewdney & Ride, 2006). The definition of new media is changing every bit, some of them are all focusing upon computer technologies and the digital content creation while there are some who focus on culture forms and area on which technologies have their role (Dewdney & Ride, 2006). The main aspect of emerging new media is that it is always portable and it facilitate the communication ways. The previous restrictions are gone as the wireless and the digital technology is improved. A report stated that the information technology especially digital contact has the properties of ‘general purpose technology’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005, p.3). new and emerging media is making people more accessible for as many times as they want. It is the striking fact when we examine those cultural forms and contexts on which these technologies are in use. Emerging media is able to deliver those contents as the desire of the consumers which can also be called as pull media. Examples include are Really simple Syndication (RSS) that help the information to get to the consumer as soon the information is posted online even the consumer will not need to search for that content it is surveys by researchers that only nine percent of the companies use RSS feeds. Email news and information subscriptions are also included in pull media. They allow the people to sign up there in order to get the regular updates of the subjects of interests that they have added and also allows the broadcasting that can deliver online programs, video casting that help in giving video programs delivery and it also include digital television that help the consumer to view what they want. This new and emerging media is facilitating communication between person to person by the availability of emails, SMS, multimedia messaging (MMS), chat online or blogging. Pay per view is also enabled through new and emerging media of electronic commerce, pay by the time spent and pay by the subscription. Websites where person can pay through credit card in order to reach the specific information. New media is changing the concept of delivery of higher education courses, dating or how the people will do the banking procedures. By the introduction of new media, the advertising is becoming sophisticated. Not the mainstream advertisers can have their ads on the websites of the new media like YouTube. In order to promote the products, online games are introduced which is called as advergaming (Bradshaw, cited in Galloway, 2005). There is a lot of efforts that are making the new media communication technology a great way of propaganda, controlling mind and hegemony (Hiebert 2005).

New media and public relations theory of Problem facing by media and public relation specialization

In order to examine the power of new media for building the relationships between organization and public, there is a two-way symmetrical model of communication by Grunig and Hunt’s (1984). It was concluded that new media allows the way of increasing two-way symmetrical communication but the present practice if talking in terms of online press rooms, are not able to achieve this Alfonso and de Valbuena Miguel 2006). In order to pursue the theme of two-way symmetrical communication, McAllister and Taylor (2007) researched community college websites in order to examine if the website is fostering dialogic relationships. It was then concluded that the weaknesses were decreasing the chances for public relation practitioners for collecting the information and to monitor the viewers opinion for some issue for individual, regional state or federal state entities. They evaluated that the website was giving one-way asymmetrical communication and are focused on sender receiver form of communication. The researchers then concluded that those websites for not helping the development of relationships with key public (Allister & Taylor, 2007).  For the excellent corporate communication, communication symmetrical as well as two-way communication is an important aspect. Researchers applied his approach to their study of relation of online investor and then they concluded that the process of corporate website for the investor though email are not equal to symmetrical communication. Overall, the researchers proved that corporations do not do well in organizing the two-way symmetrical communication that the investor require with the structure that could be quite different from the conventional one-way asymmetrical communication process (Hassink, Bollen & Steggink, 2007). Cross culture analysis was another approach having theoretical theme. This approach especially looks toward the Asian public relations practices as compared to the US practices, but focus less on middle eastern and European practices. It was determined by Beckerman’s (2007) about the middle eastern blogging that highlight the role of blogging as the personal open page as well as the diary that says that ‘a hidden trove of multiple perspectives in a world that the West often imagines as having only one perspective’. If talk outside this paper, to the one who are engaged in organizational communication, one researcher has a theoretical argument on the challenging aspect of media and social presence theory, it could be worth focusing. The way of investing online communications in the area of investor online debate board, give many theoretical approaches for the research in future. That also include typologies of interaction analysis, along with exploring strategic ambiguity and also applying network analysis (Hermann 2007). Another way of giving theoretical approach of new media is cultural concept which says about ‘an active and shaping set of ideas, and the underlying theories or wider discourses to which they belong, that informs what the practitioner does’ (Dewdney and Ride (2006). While theorizing public relations and new media, there is one more interesting approach, Galloway (2005) calls for the professional communicators to establish a new shape of culture literacy and refers as  ‘negotiating meaning systems in the mobile communications context demands use of a new language—‘txt’—and a knowledge of the protocols of this environment’ (p. 572). This is not just a know how technically, but it is also a know how on conventions of swift that caught the communication moments instead of long discussion (Galloway, 2005, p. 572). He looks at those moments as spontaneous instead of structures that can be use to communicate and to make social relationship sustainable and also to reach on emotional needs like feelings of belonging instead of just linked with outcomes that are task related. The dynamic communication touch can be referring as one possible concept of all this. If this researcher is not wrong then new media communication is fluid and spontaneous and it is all about feelings and public relation management that is going around the strategical planning and all this determination also need some more reconsideration.

New media public relation practices:

Reconsideration can be given to both skills as well as work practices of presented future practitioners and how the new media is getting used that also involve the outcomes that are linked through expectations and attitudes of consumers that they have on public relations practices. The new digital technology is getting developed and improved continuously and they themselves create challenges and problems for public relations professional regarding how to keep balance for not only what is there available but also what future hold in planning. There are many large projects on public relations like campaigns on national public information or also include major events internationally that lead plans that need to get revisited several times in order to accommodate the new technology trends among the major publics. It has been put forward by Galloway (2005) that traditional techniques of public relations are underrated by the whole mobile nature of emerging media and this all scene require the public relation practitioners to reconsider that how to link with public. The internet news is now not only linked with news wire services but spreading to other locations for raw material. The practitioners should know that budgets, transcripts as well as reports are regularly posting on web by the organization or maybe by the general public or mainstream that are trying to hold up on those organization account (Stephens 2007, p. 35). When something new happen, consumer need updates instantly in their inbox. The public relation practitioner can feel themselves under more pressure to produce the instant content. The public relation PR actioners who need to produce some material faster than ever before should keep in mind to produce what is requires instantly with a good level of accuracy in it with those processes that require clearance for the content to get posted or released and also should have the digital technology in hands to directly release the content that is being disseminated. All these things are putting pressure on public relation practitioners and not heir team along which they work. It also pressurizes the relations with their colleagues or even the senior members of the staff especially the CEO and people around him. It can also generate pressure on relationship with information technology team if the content that is directly uploading to corporate site is not available for public relation practitioners. The public relation PR actioners need to establish stronger relation with the information technology team and also should start engaging with legal advisors of the organization in order to clear the content procedure when the time for instant content demand comes. Bells and whistles are more exposing to the public who are attending regular events as the emerging media is going on with increasing number of people. The baseline requirements for the most of the events is PowerPoint presentation and ubiquitous digital projector and the present take help of the internet to incorporate online elements is now the most important part. Practitioners who are working on the events should start managing the expectations of the employee of the organization, their customer or consumer as well as their stakeholders which also include sponsors. If public relation practitioner needs to embrace the new media, they need more technical skill on parts like web analysis or the operation of web trend analysis. They need to have grip on enhance online information, skills to manage the increase amount of complicated information digitally. The major part of the practice will always be writing for cross-media delivery but the demands for multimedia elements are always changing and they are bringing more challenges in this area. After 2006, there are numerous articles explaining that how the media release is starting to evolve which also include multimedia elements. From couple of past years there is a big use of multimedia and interactive contents (Nowland, 2006). The demands to have access to multimedia elements are also growing as the trend toward multimedia is increasing. Public relation practitioners are all responsible for the creation of coordination or even producing the actual material. The budgets and skills foundations of the public relation units should be reconsidered in order t fulfil and accommodate those new demands from the public. There is also some requirement on area of target public like are the target public have access to emerging media technologies like internet because it could become a problem while the communication strategies are targeting the public who don’t even have access to those technologies due to their geographical or socio economic factors (Badaracco, 2007). All of the practitioners on public relation need to keep abreast of the new media and many of them are already planning on undertaking public relations, their implementation and evaluation in non-recognizable media areas. PR News Online started their PR Digital Report earlier this year and is now regularly covering stories on issues such as blogging, online communities and podcasting. A few years back, it was seeming to be impossible for many practitioners to plan the strategies in order to embrace the new technologies and website possibilities like YouTube or My Space but now it has been proved that many organizations even the electronic campaigns are doing similar. In order to enhance the internal communication level, the organization should consider the SMS text messaging in order to give the spatial and temporal constraints. In this way new communication structure and form can get establish (Galushkin, 2003). Through owning the website, the organization can tell the story of its side and can reduce the uncertainty of stakeholder and consumers needs and should work government agencies that are specialized in area of public safety (Taylor & Kent 2007, p. 146). Those public relations practitioners who have the command on communication should start advising the senior management on those problems and sometimes if have the chance should take part in implementation of new media initiatives. Practitioners should manage the expectations of the organization in the way that all the conventional media will be served fully as well as integrating the aspects of new media. Find time, support and budget in order to increase the additional skills and engaging in professional development that could be challenging for many public relation practitioners. There are a lot of companies who form alliance with different companies in order to deliver cross discipline multimedia services.

Impact on public relations education:

First all they need to do is identifying the challenges that educators face while managing technology facilities. ‘an urgent need for academics and practitioners to review current course and subject content and work towards ensuring future practitioners are capable of working in the new public relations environment’ (Alexander’s 2004, p. 4). Students have the perception that in their undergraduate courses they don’t have adequate preparation for the practices in the areas of new technologies and electronic communication. A recent study found that about one-third of students felt either not very prepared or under prepared to work in these areas (Gower & Reber, 2006). There is one study that showed the student from journalism reported they receive news online but they still expect the traditional way of printing and broadcasting (Heider, 2006). It looks like the options, opportunities and technology is changing faster than a single course can wind up in a university approval bureaucracy’ (Wickham, 2006, p.91).  this is also applicable in case of public relation course. The problem is not ‘ how to evolve and adapt the already present overloaded curricula to the future that is convergent’ but it is all about the debate that why we still need to educate the public relation practitioners, what are the sets of ideas on board and what is its role in society.

Conclusion of Problem facing by media and public relation specialization

The new media for the public relations and the its process of continuously evolving is far beyond the approach of this paper. Reaction toward the demands of emerging media in the area where the traditional media demands of the public relation practitioners are not decreasing will be the important area for the research in upcoming years this paper include those literature studies that had found the practices somewhat lacking the investigation area on why the situation is as they found. Further research is needed on determining that if it is lack of technology know how or not, forcing on the part of public relation practitioners to incorporate emerging media into their work. There is possibility that if the public relation practitioners will not step up, then others will do it. So, it could be a clear threat to the domain of public relations from the other departments within the company as the new media will cut cross the discipline. This review paper has provided the overall situation from recent literature and also had offered some suggestions regarding how the new media is impacting the public relations.

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