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100 Years On, Journalism Starting to Learn What PR Is

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One area of my scholarship in public relations is history. About 15 years ago I published an article about how the media portrayed the merging profession of “public relations” in the 1920s. Early practitioners had gone from calling themselves press agents, to publicity men (even though women were engaged in the craft early on), to counselor on public relations.

Historical figures like Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee and Arthur Page were pointing out that they actually rarely did press releases, and instead focused their attention on counseling organizational leaders on how to achieve and maintain positive relationships with customers and other “publics.” It was 100 years ago this year, in 1923, that Edward Bernays published one of his books in this effort to advance and brand the profession: “Crystallizing Pubic Opinion.”

The media was largely fair, although there were some real zingers in calling the practitioners of the new profession everything from flappers (those 1920s young women debutantes all about image) to less savory affectations. In sum, they characterized the profession as deceptive image crafting as opposed to honest communication.

Things haven’t changed much.

I recently read a headline in an online publication in Michigan where I live. It was about the governor starting a new parents council to give input on education policy. The story was a good deep dive into this effort and whether it would accomplish anything or was just part of a re-election strategy. But it was the headline that bothered me: “Public Service or Public Relations?”

The juxtaposition implies that public relations is the antithesis of public service, in other words, not an honest attempt at listening to the public, just a stunt. But of course, any public relations professional with a degree would know that PR is the epitome of public service–building mutual relationships, dialogic communications, two-way symmetry and all the terms you learn in PR 101.

I wrote the reporter, and then offered a commentary.. I heard nothing back. It was when this nonprofit donation-based publication emailed me a renewal reminder that I responded with a pledge and a concern that I got a response from the editor.

It was a good exhange, but at first he defended the headline and said “while I understand the point you’re making, I don’t see how the words used in the headline cast your profession in a pejorative light. I didn’t view the juxtaposition of public service and public relations as being polar opposites, but rather alternative explanations.” He went on to say “In short: Was this about policy or election politics?”

Of course I said “exactly.” This was about policy vs politics, not public relations.

I further explained in our email exchange what may be interesting to readers of this blog:

“Using the conjunction “or” between public service and public relations sets them up as contrasted concepts, with the connotation that public service is good and public relations is bad.

The media and public at large have a stereotype of public relations as just publicity or things done merely for image and not with honest intent. That stereotype is perpetuated by your headline.

I understand what the headline writer was going for, and it is a good article and important to address. But a better headline would have been “public service or just image” or “public service or politics.” As you say, the issue has to do with policy or politics.

Another way to look at this is to consider who are the actors in question. Were they actual public relations professionals, were they politicians? Journalism is about accurate attribution, right? Let’s not attribute deeds to people—or a profession—who did not do them.

Granted, public relations is also an activity, like communications, often done by non-professionals. But it would be honest, objective and a service to readers to make that clear. Some time ago a business editor in Grand Rapids asked me to lunch and complained about the bad behavior and judgment of “all these PR people.” I helped her realize there were a lot of CEOs, marketers, politicians and others doing the “bad behavior” and that the actual PR people she worked with were honest, timely, fair and professional.

For the record, public relations is defined by the industry itself as “the management function that seeks to identify, build, and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and all the publics on whom its success or failure depends.” Nothing in there about deceptive image crafting.

If I see a grocery store rag or a blog that’s extreme and misinformed I don’t call it “journalism.” I would ask you make the same distinction and courtesy toward the public relations profession.”

The editor responded by saying he saw the point and realized framing it as a ‘political gambit’ would have been more accurate. He thanked me for expanding his perspective and said he would share it with his staff..

So, 100 years on, at least one journalist has expressed a better understanding of public relations. I would hope more would make a distinction between the negative stereotype of a common activity and the actual description of an honest profession. I would encourage other public relations professionals to call out “misinformation” about our profession when you see it in the media. Just this morning I heard twice on cable TV news the term “public relations” used to describe ingenue and deceptive communication. We still have work to do to make the distinction between practitioners and professionals, and between poor communication and the honorable public service known as public relations.

What Americans want from corporations–what PR provides

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A recent survey from Just Capital has some very timely findings given the state of society in this turbulent year. It also reflects some lessons and reminders for public relations professionals at the top of their organizations, and the top of their game.

Among the findings from the survey are that most Americans think companies should promote an economy that serves everyone, but only half believe companies actually do this. Another key outcome is that the public increasingly thinks companies should balance the interests of shareholders with customers and employees. Most interesting to me is the ranking of most important issues for 2020 that show a high ranking for things like fair wages and benefits, ethics, environment, diversity and job creation.

This public sentiment about corporate performance is further evidence of my constant emphasis that public relations is a management function. Public relations is about maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with ALL publics. This sometimes means balancing competing interests between two publics, such as shareholders and employees, or customers and community. But the work of PR is to counsel management on policy to actually achieve this balance and not just proclamations to pay lip service to these notions. The publics are watching closely.

We are a century beyond the days of “press agentry” and the notion that PR is a mere tactical exercise to “raise awareness” or “get the word out” or put an organization in a “positive light.” Consider the emergence here in 2020 of terms and concepts that have been at the heart of enlightened public relations practice for years:

  • Stakeholder theory and stakeholder capitalism–the idea as I described above that public relations is concerned with far more than the news media, and more even than customers, to include shareholders, employees, community members and more;
  • ESG–environmental, social, and corporate governance are the integrated concern of companies, and in particular CCOs (chief communications officers) and those who lead the public relations for organizations;
  • Conscious capitalism–the philosophy that economic interests are bound in social interests and ethical practice;
  • Sustainability–many public relations professionals produce sustainability annual reports or include the “triple bottom line” of people, place and profits in their metrics;
  • Purpose—Corporate purpose goes beyond mission to stress not only a company’s interest but its positive impact on the world (what old economists call “positive externalities”).

Once again, what the public says it wants of companies and all the associated trendy management buzz words are what good public relations has done and is poised to do now. Listen to publics. Learn what they want. Creatively and ethically devise ways to balance organizational interests with those of all publics. It sounds trite, but work together for common good.

The intersection of normative theory and actual practice in public relations is upon us. I just hope that future surveys will show that people and executives will realize that this movement is something long called “public relations.”

Muck Rack media relations certificate good for students or pros

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As an educator I have been grateful to companies in the public relations tech industry that offer students the opportunity to use their product, albeit in limited fashion, as part of their coursework.

I had always mentioned to these company reps at conferences and in response to the email marketing that they should offer up demos and student use options as a form of loss leader marketing. Give for free a limited use of their product to students, who upon graduation will ask their bosses and clients for budget to become full, paying customers.

Cision was one such company that really became a significant part of my Media Relations Writing course. In addition to writing a series of assignments and completing a media kit for a client, students had to develop a target media contact list. They were able to do this using Cision.

Just last year, Cision offered a certificate program. I encouraged students to seek this credential for their resumes since they had been taught the concepts in my class and had used Cision. Several took me up on it, and I was planning to institutionalize the Cision certificate as a graded assignment in my classes beginning this fall. But then Cision’s university program disappeared like a journalist suddenly going into PR.

From Cision to Muck Rack

Muck Rack to the rescue. Cision’s announcement came with about a month to go before fall classes started at my university. I scrambled to devise a way to do the media research aspect without this industry leading tool. Muck Rack came along like a PR pro helping a journalist on deadline.

Muck Rack started as a way to track and interact with journalists specifically on social media. It has expended into a full service media relations service for all aspects of that part of public relations–engaging journalists, monitoring news, and generating reports that go beyond clip counts to look at reach, engagement and response.

Recently, Muck Rack partnered with Business Wire, a news release distribution service that has evolved in its own right recently to include investor relations and analytics. The combination of the two service providers will help PR pros reach audiences via traditional and new media, including bloggers and podcasters.

Get certified

Meanwhile, Muck Rack has also added Muck Rack Academy. The new venture currently offers certificates in Fundamentals of Media Relations and Fundamentals of Social Media. Both are free and serve a sort of white paper purpose–offering and demonstrating expertise in order to gain clients.

The media relations certificate will replace the Cision certificate I was going to require in my class. As a good professor should, I took the course (and passed!) to ensure it is appropriate and useful for students. I think it certainly is. It can be done in less than two hours, is free, and the content is well presented and savvy. Students can enhance their resume and LinkedIn profile by noting this certificate. New pros or those who have taken on a media relations role at times without any PR degree might find this certificate practically very useful.

To my fellow college professors, I would recommend the Muck Rack for Educators program. You get access to the basic Muck Rack features and can add your students as “teammates,” assigning them to various media database activities as experiential learning. I responded to an email invitation from them, but you can reach out to a Muck Rack rep and ask about the program. Your students will benefit.

Top Takeaways from International Public Relations Research Conference

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27a53c_64d944d00ee84f17b362b74a375bb178~mv2.jpgI participated March 5-7 in the 23rd International Public Relations Research Conference in Orlando. This conference had its origins 23 years ago when two legendary PR professors launched it. The legend is that Don Wright of Boston University told Don Stacks of the University of Miami to start it.

I’m glad they did. I’ve been teaching full-time for nearly 20 years, and when I was a new faculty member, I remember finding this conference very useful. It is still my favorite of all conferences I attend for several reasons. For one, it is focused exclusively on public relations, whereas other conferences include PR sessions among a legion of other communication disciplines. I also enjoy the fact that academics and research-savvy professionals participate together in this conference.

But my main reason for liking this conference is the format, which allows for participants to benefit from volumes of research. The round-table format involves six tables in one large room. Each table has one research presenter (or team) for an hour, and they present four times in an hour. Presenters give a 7-minute overview and usually a handout, and then everyone gathered at the table asks questions and offers comments for 8 minutes. After 15 minutes a moderator calls for everyone to switch tables.

This format benefits all. Presenters get to engage and get feedback in an intimate fashion from four small groups of interested people. Attendees get to consume four research projects per hour. Over the course of three full days, it’s like a fire hose of research including more than 100 presentations.

I always advocate that research should be a bridge between the academy and the profession, that is it should have implication for theory and practice (as an alumna just told me, the theory she learned in class has been most practical in her job). The theme of this conference is all about blending theory and practice as well. With that in mind, I offer a bullet list of top take-aways from the conference. This in no way does justice to rigorous research projects that took one or two years to complete. But it will demonstrate even briefly the value of ongoing research in the field of public relations.

(I’m saving my research presentation at this conference for another blog post, hopefully once it’s published in a journal).

CEO Activism

  • A critical theory perspective led to the conclusion that most issues are political in nature and public expectations are for engagement so company’s may as well engage or let others dominate discussions.

Framing Environmental Issues

  • A loss-frame message strategy is best for internal messages aimed at persuading preventive action, where a gain-frame message attributing responsibility to others is best for external messages.

Crisis and Discourse of Renewal

  • There is opportunity in crisis for growth, renewal and reconstitution, and post-crisis communications can aim to benefit whole community not just an organization.

Fighting Disinformation

  • Refutation, not just denial, is the most effective response strategy, and professionals should remember that fighting disinformation is a marathon, not a sprint. Any response lowers an aggressors’ credibility, and imagery positively affects believability.

Impression Management

  • Public perception of change is the result of regulation, public sentiment, and corporate culture. Companies after missteps need to adjust messaging to engage in image restoration, respond to threats with visual and textual cues, and engage in preemptive measures such as self-promotion or exemplification.

How Publics Process Fake News

  • It is important to cultivate publics’ ‘persuasion knowledge’ (i.e. media literacy, explain how certain actors try to deceive and expose nefarious tactics). Point out credibility issues of social posts. Cultivate public understanding of corporate ability.

Social Media Responses to Public Tragedy

  • Pay attention to culture, tie communication to corporate purpose, saying nothing is better than something inappropriate.

Crisis and Risk Preparation

  • Three contributions to successful preparation in order of success rate: advance preparation (65%), communication access (25%), and training and testing (10%).

Behavioral Intent Toward Nonprofits

  • Nonprofits need to show concern for specific issue and evoke empathy. Design thinking and the Situational Theory of Problem Solving apply.

Visuals in Crisis Communications

  • Four types—none, logo, CEO at podium CEO reflecting brand characteristics. The later was most successful in reducing anger and enhancing reputation in two crisis response types—attack accuser and excuse.

CSR in Social Media

  • Legitimacy in eyes of public is key, and organizations need to do more interacting vs informing strategy or they risk raising suspicion.

Taking a Stand on Public Issues

  • The fit of the issue to corporate purpose matters, and a key strategy is to separate potential boycotters from buycotters. Congruence of corporate stance leads to brand loyalty.

Japanese PR

  • In a high-context culture, “kuukiyomu” means read the atmosphere in every situation, and avoid uncertainty.

Current State of PR

  • Consulting firms are encroaching on PR functions. Writing, storytelling and social media are seen as top skills needed. Community relations is still mostly staying in-house

Social Media Influencers and Customer Response

  • 5 key qualities of social media influencers identified include: credibility, uniqueness, similar interest, cultural power, expertise.

Page Society Progression Model Tested on CCOs

  • A study showed a method to determine where CCOs are on a model of performance progressing from professional, to pathfinder, to pacesetter.

PR With Authority

  • It’s. not about popularity, it’s about authority—how do you know, not just what you say.

Fortune 500 Companies on Instagram

  • Conversational human voice is most successful in increasing brand engagement, and there are 6 markers—humor, emotional word choice, treat users as real people, positively address questions, invite followers by hashtag, first-person narrative.

PR Can Create Ritual Narratives to Ease Pain and Stress of Modern Live

  • Use stories, not just facts
  • Listen, don’t just tell
  • Limit the amount of information

Workplace Discrimination and Employee Communications

  • Transparent communication can lessen workplace discrimination and lead to organizational justice and better employee-organization relationships
  • “Justice” = procedural, distributive, and interactional
  • “Transparent” = participation, substantiation, accountability
  • Sometimes discrimination is perceived, but don’t just assume that.

Can Advocacy Posts Break the Facebook Echo Chamber?

  • Acknowledge that publics have contrary views
  • Strategically show there is agreement on other issues
  • Strategically evoke empathy and avoid evoking high negative emotions
  • Remember the goal is mutual understanding, not always persuasion

Hearing Organizational Human Voice

  • Remember the book “Cluetrain Manifesto”
  • Social presence and interactivity were the variables in this study most significantly associated with an organization being perceived as trustworthy

How to Combat Fake News on Social Media

  • Refutation of fake news about your organization is more effective than denial
  • An external source is more effective than an internal source

CSA and Perceived Corporate Hypocrisy

  • CSA (Corporate Social Advocacy) or “taking a stand” on social issues that are less relevant to a corporation could lead to perceptions of hypocrisy
  • “Relevant” = consistent with corporate values and behaviors (high-fit)
  • Strategy is to take stands on issues for which a corporation has already demonstrated concern and not jump on bandwagon of popular sentiment

CSR Fit and Message Framing

  • CSR is always better if the cause/activity is a fit (see above entry)
  • Thematic message frames work better if there is a low fit (emotional and general)
  • Episodic message frames work better for high fit (information about specific instance)

Theatre and PR

  • The skills of theatre lend themselves to PR practice, from staging to acting

Employee Commitment to Change Through Uncertainty Reduction

  • Transparent communication is more likely to lead to employee commitment to change
  • Channels should be mostly interpersonal vs mediated (rich vs lean)
  • Communication quality (transparency) matters more than channels

Increasing Reader Engagement

  • (A study done in the skin care industry specifically)
  • Article types that increase engagement most are how-to, advice
  • Human visuals are better than product visuals (or combination)
  • Medical influencers are the most effective compared other types of influencers
  • Multiple influencers help
  • Optimal word count is 1200-1600

Ethical Engagement of Marginalized Publics on Social Media

  • Offer an ethic of care
  • Ensure privacy and anonymity
  • Transparency and accuracy
  • A tone of authenticity and empathy

Expectation Management in Media Relations

  • Consider not only product, but process, roles, relationships

Digital Marketing and the PR Curriculum

  • CEPR (Commission on Education in Public Relations) schools have 86 “digital” courses, while marketing programs have 57
  • A future study will consider how they are taught

Perceptions of CSR as Traditional or Profit Scheme

  • A level of knowledge correlates with support for CSR
  • Positive attitude about “portion of profits” approach correlates with positive attitude about the corporation (i.e. transparent cause-related marketing)

Research, Measurement and Evaluation in Job Ads

  • Most have terms with “male” characteristics vs female
  • More job ads for research and evaluation require Com/PR degree than business

Using AI to Test Effectiveness of Crisis Response Options

  • In testing, AI can identify crisis, type of crisis, and potential response

What Amounts to a Crisis?

  • Semantic network analysis was used in this study
  • Implications are to: track reference points, detach and disconnect, respond to social tagging, extinguish emotion

Parents Don’t Trust Ugly Schools

  • People judge relationships with organizations based on sensory, spatial, symbolic factors

Network Analysis of Latin Countries’ PR in the US

  • Country image in another country is dependent on multiple actors, not just government
  • American PR agencies do much work for Latin countries on behalf of business, tourism, government and embassy

Online Risk

  • Social media risk is often mislabeled as crisis
  • ‘Paracrisis’ = situation preceding crisis
  • 6 ‘paracrisis’ clusters emerged in this study, and 7 paracrisis response strategies,

Beyond Finding Social Media Influencers

  • In a crisis, the level of involvement (from the Elaboration Likelihood Model) affects information search by the public
  • Utilitarian or hedonic motivation affects information search
  • PR pros should consider public attitude toward influencer, organization, and other negative word of mouth

Toward a Theory of Rebranding

  • This study applied Diffusion of Innovation Theory to rebranding
  • There was an initial negative sentiment
  • There is a need to move people through steps in a proicess to adopt new brand, not all at once
  • Eg: period of priming, exposure, implementation

DTC Ads and Legitimacy of Organization

  • Most media about direct to consumer advertising is negative
  • There is a “legitimacy” gap between an organization’s ability to address the issue and public permission

Crisis and Sincerity

  • Sincerity is directly related to an organization’s account of a crisis being accepted
  • Sincerity is derived from reputation, established prior to crisis

Viral Videos

  • Virality is dependent on video being funny, having value, a triggering event, a call to action, sociological response, and sometimes fame of person in video helps
  • Virality can be measured in hours; less than 3 hours is peak for virality
  • Integration of channels and messages enhances virality

Influencers and Distrust

  • Distrust = negative feelings regarding expected conduct;
  • Society is now centered on distrust
  • Distrust happens when influencers are perceived to be commercialized, offer bad content, or due to characteristics or actions
  • Micro-influencers are more useful, and then mostly for agenda setting

Preparing for a Fake News Crisis

  • Disinformation means deliberate
  • Misinformation means incorrect or misperception
  • Fake news is often misinformation in in news format
  • To respond consider: is it a re-emerging past issue, is it brief or gaining traction, what is the status of the source,
  • Also consider if the information topic is a threat to mission
  • Good practice is to engage in social listening by senior people in organization

Challenges of Competing on Social Purpose

  • People across all age groups think companies should address social issues
  • Why companies do it—keep consumers loyal, advocate for cause related to mission
  • What issues are popular: job growth, privacy and internet security, access to health care, sexual harassment, diversity
  • Considerations: stay relevant to core mission, consider employee sentiment, how to take action (beyond words), cost of inaction

Transparency in Crisis

  • Messages viewed as high in transparency are viewed as more credible and more effective across all crisis types and crisis response strategies
  • The “diminish” strategy is least effective
  • Transparency comes from clarity, accuracy, and disclosure

CSA and Brand Fit

  • Study looked at Nike as case
  • Leadership matters—not just adopting popular cause
  • Align with values and product
  • Know audience and stakeholder values
  • Be intentional about social branding

CSA and Deliberative Democracy

  • Deliberative democracy = those affected by decisions should have the opportunity and capacity to participate in making them
  • There is room for corporations and NGOs to have an increased role in public discourse since nation-states are losing legitimacy
  • Ex: Patagonia’s ‘Action Works’ platform for citizens to engage in environmental policy

Listening and Evaluation for Internal Communications

  • There are intangible contributions of internal communications
  • Social capital theory involves structural, relational, communicative dimensions
  • Internal communications impacts culture, building community, collaborations, confidence
  • Measure employee engagement in terms of personal/professional growth, confidence in company direction, feeling enabled and empowered.

MLK and the Character of Our Content

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Like many Americans, I have long admired the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. There are many reasons to admire the man. One reason I admire him most is for his speeches, beautifully crafted and delivered with compelling cadence and style. And of all his speeches, one line from his “I have a dream” speech comes back to me most frequently: his dream that one day “we judge each other not by the color of our our skin but by the content of our character.”

I often think that as professional communicators, we would do well to adapt and amend that and measure ourselves not by attention and sales metrics but by the character of our content.

Journalists should eschew click bait, sensationalism, rushing to judgment to be first rather than right, partisan and prejudicial in what is not covered, what is covered, and how it’s covered.

Advertisers should reconsider pandering to the perceived social cause of the moment to piggyback on public sentiment, and instead work to reflect authentic sentiment of brands and organizations they represent. They should hold back on inserting questionable language in a Super Bowl ad with the intent of getting it withdrawn so they can get more attention in a social campaign. They should value not edgy copy that polarizes their “market” but consider the effect of content on all stakeholders, whether customers or not.

Public relations “practitioners” should aspire to be public relations professionals and adopt a model of practice that stresses mutual relationships, not mere attention. They  should work not to craft an image, but to earn a reputation. They should seek not to distribute volumes of commodified content, but selective and appropriate messaging that serves a legitimate, specific and ethical organizational objective.

Now, some might say this is all naive. They would point out that there are significant competitive pressures, client demands, the boss’ expectations. Yes, but professionals can respond with character and resolve, can counsel not just fulfill, speak truth to power, influence organizational cultures and not be influenced by them.

Even at that, I’m sure some will call me an idealist. Yes, I have professional ideals. That’s another way of saying I have a dream.