week-seven

From the readings, I found Public relations practitioners are about understanding the big picture of the issue, see an issue from diverse perspectives, uncover problems, building relationships with key publics and audiences, confidence in the communication solutions and to help create and implement the communication solutions.

It is an active profession that benefits from creative thinking, specific targets and good understanding of the operating context and the factors required by an organisation.

Although public relation practitioners deal with diverse issues and different outside conditions and pressure in their operating environment, there are common elements that apply for all such as: the Standards that must be met in how the job is accomplished that makes PR as a profession, Theories – common understanding for conceptualising problems, Communication tools (websites, news release) that vary according the needs of the situation, Focusing on the goals with respect to audience, Contribution and Effectiveness in an environment, and Work On Matters of importance to the organisation.

Effectiveness – as in responsibility to the job, seek & give advice, optimise company’s image, capability of strategies (and executions), solid experience, High degree, build own knowledge, honest and ethical, contributing to goals, good reputation in industry and profession, protects reputation, and sets standards of public relation.

In doing our job, we are affected by our values. We do things according to what we value. We make judgement out of everything and that what makes us a standard that guided our actions. It, however, built through family, friends, and community where we grew in.

PR practitioners had to have adequate skills thats required to do their work,one of which is reporting community relations performance (in business, future, etc).

Challenges and pressures include: (1.) Maintain good relationship between you, organisations, stakeholders, and community. (2.) Maintain good records, (3.) Budget & Time management, (4.) Being proactive.( 5.) Good networks (6.) Adapt with changes.

Chapter 9

Further...As studied in week 3, planning a strategy is essential. It has to have methods and processes of intentional representation that needs to be done in a contested space and have intended meaning to achieve certain objectives.

Also look beyond ‘obvious competitors’. E.g: if you are promoting a car company, your competitor may seem another car company. In fact, the real competitors (the first problem that’ll decline the urge to buy more cars) are public transportation (bus, MRT, taxi). People will be arguing whether to buy a car at all when they can still take public transportation at affordable price. So here, we may want to find out more about the problem; not the solution.

Types of Tactics

“plan your strategies and tactics in ways that will result in your audience
constructing only your intended meaning, not other meanings.”

In developing tactics, one must consider how many people available to do the task &people we are engaging with. Also the amount of time we have. When dealing with large no. of people, we may want to use printed publications(flyers), media relations or special events. If dealing with small no. of people, meetings or presentations will do. Often use someone that is potentially attractive to certain community.

Tactics can sometimes constructed intentionally to represent organisation’s meaning, such as: usage of logos, buildings’ style, and uniforms.

week 6 - Engaging with Media

Engaging with media is important because even though we often listen to the word-of-mouth, we are still exposed and influenced much by media unconsciously. So, PR need to develop strong relationships with relevant media outlets to ensure the proactive positioning of a company and continuous corporate messages in the media – McConochie, Public Affairs advisor.

Take an example of Organize Chaos Daily (or OCD in short). The company founder is aware that the new media has taken a big portion in the communication world. That's why she started her publication by writing a press release on the Internet (with keywords such as home-organizing, clutter) and also sent it local magazines. Followed by making a page of it on Facebook. These, interestingly, has made OCD the center of attention in 2009. OCD has been featured 6 times by local magazines and newspaper from June-November 2009 including Cleo and Men's Health magazine for free. And by such publications, it is no doubt that OCD gain a lot profit and become more and more recognized in Singapore.

From this of course we can relate that engagement with media is very important in reaching through the public. It is also the fastest way to reach consumers beside word-of-mouth.

Today’s readings talk about the many ways of using the media and how we should choose the one that’s suitable for the organisation’s needs. Convince the people in that media is important bcoz people who trust him/her will listen to what they say. Find something (media) that is the Majority, can also be a good tip to succeed.

Further, in involving the media, we should be able to frame something in a way so that the audience can speculate the intended meaning by reading or watching our program.

Later, there are 2 ways of communicating: controlled and uncontrolled. For uncontrolled, media is only as a ‘gatekeeper’, which is not responsible with the published news. They are the editors or chief who only sorts the story (like media releases, blogs, etc). Controlled communication is when the media has total control of what they have written down; they are the sender.

Some news values that can attract journalist and editor are: The material has to be the truth, up to date, celebrity involvement; usually works to get attentions, and something that has an impact to many people. Human or animal interest also often sells, unusual and remarkable issue also attracts people. Some also believe that bad news also more newsworthy than the good ones.

Lastly, Media vary depending on the cultures and environments. So, we have to ensure that we clearly understand the law and legal practices.

week 5 'Chapter 5 - Public Relations Research'

Research, analysis, and evaluation is needed to construct a strategy, so that the strategy would carry out the intended meaning.. it’s like how can you develop a strategy without knowing the public knowledge, how is your organization’s surrounding, and what is the background that leads to the problem?

Ron Kawalilak said that research is “central to communications planning” and can be defined as “ the process of systematically gathering information that will provide the basis to establish an understanding of situations and issues and make sense of them” (Synnott, 2009). “Good insights, developed through research, are essential,” adds Kawalilak.

As we all know, research are important in all aspects of work. With it we can support our essay or, in this case, PR plan with evidence and theory. Lot of communication problem & case required different levels of research, like fact finding, opinion assessment, message testing, planning, execution and evaluation.

To cut to the chase, Research provides info that helps us to plan (when done in the beginning), implement (during), and evaluate (at the end). Thus, everything must link back to the main role of PR practice which is contribute to organisation’s reputation and manage relationship, and has to make a Change.

EXAMPLE from the reading:
Your objectives is to create awareness of the problem of premature deafness through continual iPod use/loud music. In this case, the first step to do will be increase public awareness. Then after you reach the desired awareness of your target audience, your objective now (and they also want to know) about what can they do about it. Maybe to buy a specific earphone that you sell, or some therapy or whatever. But nothing too obvious!

So, here, research (in the beginning) can be a useful tool to establish the current level of public awareness which then allow us to set the target that need to be achived and plan a strategy. During the program, research helps us to monitor whether the objectives are achieved. At the end of the program, research could be used to measure how much the level of awareness has changed. We can test whether the audience has gain knowledge about the issue and opportunity as a result of the communication program.

Quick steps to conduct research are: (1) Understanding the problem&context, (2) constructing the research questions, (3) designing the research acticity.

The method used can be qualitative or quantitative. “Quantitative is the what”, and usually numbers and figures, often use surveys like to know ‘how many people do what’. While “qualitative is the why”; such as their opinions, ‘how’ things done, audience’s responses and is more in-depth.

*For chapter 6, you can refer to week 7 thank you!*