global discussion. local perspectives.
May I attract your careful attention to a new site just developed by the German Public Relations Association in cooperation with the University of Leipzig? This is the link. Take a good look and comment. It is an amazing breakthrough for professional associations, for professionals and scholars alike and it certainly would benefit from your input.
I will attempt to summarise, and supply links to the original documents wherever feasible, of what is possibly the most interesting case of a US Federal Court debating an organization’s public relations activities since the Nike/Kasky story… remember?
An EuroAtlantic summit of senior social media and public relations academics and practitioners will take place, as already indicated in this and other blogs (www.euroblog2008.org) , in Bruxelles from March 13 to 15. The still preliminary, but almost definite, (I am a member of the organizing committee) seems to me rather juicy, as it combines the theoretical thinking of academics and scholars with the practice-oriented approach of senior practitioners from both sides of the Atlantic.
Portugal is a different country in what concerns corporate practices. At least that’s what some studies about the level of salaries earned by top managers say. And now, for the first time to my knowledge, a ranking shows that a PR Director in Portugal can earn slightly more than a Marketing & Commercial Director and significantly more than a pure Marketing Director. But what does this mean?
A public relators’ personal relationship network has always been considered an essential (when not the most essential) part of her/his professional assets. And this by clients/employers, colleagues/competitors and other relevant stakeholders such as business and other opinion leaders. This ‘untold truth’ has always embarrassed scholars and educators, as well as practitioners, because its most immediate implication is that the ‘people I know’ (and here I refer to the Al Pacino film many of you will...
If we take journalism -as David Demers writes in his very recent and most interesting History and Future of Mass Media (Hampton Press)- ‘journalists should keep their personal opinions and the opinions of their newspapers out of their news stories; All sides to a story should be covered and reported; All sides to a story should be given an equal amount of coverage’ But, if we consider public relations, we could say that: ‘a public...
Relationships between journalists and public relators in Italy, are not as bad as one might expect, according to a thorough research effort by Chiara Valentini and myself, due to be published soon. But the big surprise
Is it fair to state that unethical PR practice results primarily from a marketing focus on publicity? Aren’t spam press releases, pseudo-events, poorly conducted surveys and spin all about gaining attention regardless of the truth? Can we blame PR’s poor reputation on an increased focus on promotional communications for competitive differentiation (the reductionist view of PR as solely a subset of marketing)?
Kirk Hallahan, professor at Colorado State University, is the 2007 recipient of the Institute for Public Relations Pathfinder Award for outstanding scholarly contributions. Hallahan has focused his recent research on the application of online technologies to PR practice. In a column available on the Institute website, he summarizes much of what he has learned in four observations.
As we have done once before, because we very much value the opinions of one of France’s most senior and thoughtful professionals, we offer you, from his agency’s newletter (I&E), his most recent opinion…