Change in the media, change in public relations

I’m new to this business. Throughout my studies here at Centennial, I’ve learned about how PR is changing, and how we as bright and shiny new practioners will participate in a whole new way in building key relationships.

But is it really a significant? Or are tactics adapting to a new medium?

In short, people are getting their information from a wide range of sources. Newspaper readership is dropping and TV viewership is significantly down and does not seem to be improving. As we’ve all heard before, the old broadcast model is not influencing the public in way it did before.

There’s more to public relations than simply relying on the media to broadcast key messages to target audiences. There’s building trust with the public and other audiences, and trust is something that is absolutely crucial in an online media environment where (however where your point of view is) everyone is a publisher.

Ross Mayfield of Socialtext talked with Voce about the “big shift” in PR:

I think we are shifting from a world of exclusives to inclusives. In the old days, you only had people like John Markoff that had the ability to publish. So, you would pay way too much money to PR firms, such as your own, that had these trusted, expert relationships with the only publishers in town. They would give the executives some media training and you could hone the perfect pitch for the short window you had with the big broadcaster.
Now it’s changed to where everyone has the ability to publish. The number of relationships with publishers went for a few to thousands, if not millions. As a result, it is much more difficult to determine what PR firm you want to work with to get your story published. At the same time, that has become a new opportunity for PR firms—to understand the more complex media landscape. It also means that it’s not just one executive that is the originator of the message—it could be anybody in the company.
Edleman’s Trust Barometer reported that in 6 out of 10 countries surveyed, individuals trust peers over institutions, such as media institutions. And, 50% said they trust a rank-and-file employee over an executive. The new PR challenge is how to enable and trust your rank-and-file employees not just to carry a message, but for them to engage in conversation

The media hasn’t so much changed, but it has become much more complex and the public has responded to these new habits. To maintain trust with the public, it then starts at the source: the company or organization.

I don’t think the notion of trust is a new idea in public relations, but in an increasingly complex media environment, a bad public relations story becomes more than a bad news day, but a viral conversation throughout blogs, and consumer networks like Get Satisfaction. Bad things do happen, negative stories get published, but if you’re already conversing with consumers, the labyrinth of online communications could be easier to navigate.

I don’t think there is a quick way to learn about or to get involved with the right people online. And it’s important not to forget about those who want their news and information from traditional and authoritative sources. But silence in the online sphere is not an option when younger audiences simply turn to the internet and their peers for sources of information.

Net Neutrality and PR

Net Neutrality. Definitely a thorny subject.

Downloading music. A potentially thorny subject, depending to whom you are talking to.

It all takes up space and bandwidth, and ISPs are responding in such a way that is alarming many of those who advocate an open model for the internet.

This article in Exclaim explains how this is not a potential issue, but an issue that’s occurring as you’re reading my blog. For better or worse, peer-to-peer file sharing has changed the way we get and even listen to music. Now streaming videos are the norm, and larger networks can handle a large volume of traffic to create online communities that could not exist before.

And apparently, ISPs (good old Rogers and Bell) want to put a cap on all that. Or actually have been:

“We’ve also seen Shaw (which provides telephone and internet services) charge its customers a $10 “quality of service” fee for using competitor Vonage’s VoIP phone services. Also not cool. Lately, and perhaps most uncool, we’ve seen Bell Canada do away with unlimited access plans, steer new customers into capped plans and bump existing customers out of the unlimited access they already enjoy by any means necessary. Bell is not coincidentally engaged in “traffic shaping” — slowing down and restricting the pipe at peak or specific hours — which has the immediate effect of choking traffic to file sharing sites and limiting peer-to-peer activity in general.”

Alison Outhit, Exclaim June 2008

Now with the music downloading aside, if ISPs continue to limit the amount of bandwdith available to customers and business, and it becomes a premium service to have unlimited access to the internet, what happens to the new notions of PR and conversing with public? It has been repeated in many blogs and publications by PR practioners that with the internet and online social networks, everyone from the CEO to the mail clerk can influence and build relationships with the public and vice-versa.

Does that adaptation go out the window if Net Neutrality is eroded? Does the public change their habits again if the internet as a medium becomes a top-down model?

There are many more articles I could cite about Net Neutrality, but this one brings up a point I could relate to: Whoever has the power to control the cables and hardware, will have the power to determine what kind of content will be distributed.

And unfortunately, it is going from an academic debate to your own surfing habits.

It’s a complex issue, but if you want more reading check out:

http://www.neutrality.ca/

http://whatisnetneutrality.ca/en/node/3

http://www.savetheinternet.com/