Feminisation of Public Relations

The debate on women in Public Relations presented by my colleagues is a subject close to heart. The obvious fact being that I am a women and the second one is the stereotypes that exist in society about women and their position in public relations.
An interesting question that arose during the debate was – where do women position themselves in public relations. Do they automatically acquaintance themselves with the technician level rather than the management level?
Have women conformed to this technician level as opposed to setting greater standards for themselves in this profession?

Grunig defines the communication technicians as providing technical services such as writing, editing, photography, media contacts, or production of publications. Technicians are found in all organizations with public relations departments.

It begs the question why is it that men are in management function and women lagging behind in a predominantly pink color (if I may use that term) profession?
It may be argued that women define their role as technician and men as managerial and this may directly affect the reputation of public relations. If women are going to downplay themselves as a whole it might have a negative impact on the public relations industry.

Diversity in Public Relations - how Representative is PR

Zena's presentation on diveristy was eye opening. I had never associated diversity with public relations. We tend to be so cocooned in our own space and neglect the fact that in the work place people are diverse and there are issues that need to be taken into account. It is quite clear that organizations, socially and politically diversity has to be embrased.
As a student - one is so bombarded with PR issues of csr, crisis management, new media, spin/propaganda. Its obvious that public relations goes far beyond these issues. Public relations is about tapping into all societal needs. Its about acknowledging that people are different and being proactive in building solidarity amongst people.
In an effort of building solidarity in society - a PR practitioner can do this by sending out messages that could be understood by everybody. In a diverse society like the UK - this could be achieved by utilizing translation of messages.

Unity in Diversity through Public Relations
Zena advices that the practitioners need to come up with external and internal communication programmes that target specialist groups such as ethnic minorities (predominantly Black), gays and lesbians, the aged, disabled, faith groups and women.
I could support the statement she made when she said that to date, much has been focused on internal communications. It is more recently that organizations are recognizing that they need to reach out to their external diverse audiences as well.

Stakeholders, Publics & Audiences

HELLOOOOW CAN ANYONE HEAR ME!!!!!!
'Ever tried to say something and no one was listening to you?'

This question draws to my next discussion: audiences, stakeholders, publics whom I believe are very fundamental to the core existence of public relations.
The manner in which a PR practitioner plans all communication and conducts public relations heavily depends in having a clear knowledge of stakeholders, publics and audiences. Therefore, communication messages should be structured in a manner that the message is received and understood by the intended recipient.

CAMPAIGNS:
Tench and Yeomans argue that theories, concepts and models of audiences, stakeholders or publics, public relations communication are important because they help practitioners understand and explain the public relations campaigns and the situations these campaigns address.
It may seem fairly obvious then that a practitioner may not deliver a succesful campaign without having a good relationship and understanding with the audiences. It is also important to note that there are overlapping relationships - for example, employees can be customers/shareholders.

When planning fofr a campaign there are various ways of analysing or segmenting stakeholders. It could either be the most usual Broom and Dozier (1990) method of:
demographic
psychographic
geographic
organisational membership
covert power
role in decision makig
influencers
opinion formers
decision makers

Grunig and Hunt's situational theory can be a bit challenging to use when planning a campaign and it involves analysing publics in this format:
Non public - these are people who have no knowledge about an issue and basically don't care
Latent public - vaguely understand an issue but not sure if they want to do something about it
Aware public - know about a situation but not sure if they want to do something about it
Active public - are aware of an issue and want to do something about it

I think its easier to influence the latent and aware publics because a practitioner may stand a chance of influencing and changing behaviour and perception as opposed to trying to engage the active public. The active public might be resistant and not accept change.

Grunig (126) describes stakeholder more symmetrical as ‘groups of individuals whose interests coincide in one or more ways with the organization with which the public relations practitioner is dealing. ‘A typical stakeholder map for a corporation contains owners, consumer advocates, customers, competitors, the media, employees, special interest groups, environmentalists, suppliers, governments, and local community organizations.
Grunig and Repper (1992) sees communication at the stakeholder stage as helping to develop the stable, long-term relationships that an organization needs to build support and to manage conflict when issues and problems arise.
Grunig (p128) says that publics seem to have moved from being latent to active and organizations have little choice other than to communicate with them. Members of active publics affect organizations because they engage in individual behaviors to do something about the consequence of organizational actions.

Can PR ever be ethical

The PR industry has always been brought under the spotlight when it comes to the question of ethics in this profession.

The lecture by Michael O’Brian on PR and Ethics unpacked some of the key issues that practitioners sometimes find themselves faced with. She also looked at ethical theories to best illustrate her point.
The cognitive theory - used by philosophers to define the view that there are actual and objective moral truths and absolutes (i.e we can make firm statements one way or another about whether something is good or bad, right or wrong).

Non - cognitive theory - states that morality is purely subjective or is bound up with the specific cultural context of individuals. Non-cognitivists say that there are no moral absolutes, only beliefs, attitudes and opinions.
(For further reading: Exploring Public Relations, Tench & Yeomans, 2006)

Picking up from her discussion it seems as though a PR practitioner's duty is about upholding and protecting public interest.
When it comes to ethics in PR there are various elements that a practitioner has to take into account:
Trust
Ethical guardian
Community building and conflict resolution
Duty to self, profession and society

Given the above accounts a number of questions therefore arise how does a practitioner hold a decision when there's conflict of interest - since public relations is about building and maintaining relationships.
The UK CIPR Code of Conduct states that conflicts of interest (or circumstances that may give rise to them) must be declared in writing to clients, potential clients and employers as soon as they arise.
The Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) states that ‘a member shall not represent conflicting or competitive interests without the express of the parties concerned’.
Another issue is how does a practitioner balance telling confidential information to the public and safeguarding the employers interests? Given the fact that it is the PR job is to protect the reputation of the employer and is bounded by the codes of ethics.
Ever imagined working for a company and discover serious misconduct. I strongly believe that if an incident has serious repercussions a PR practitioner has a responsibility to act upon that because it is in the public interest. As a practitioner, you would have chosen the right action maybe not the right outcome in terms of loosing your job but at least you would have done the right thing.
It may seem easy to answer these questions; however, these are decisions which practitioners are faced with on a daily basis of which at times can come with detrimental consequences.

Tench and Yeomans (2006, 290) state that ‘it is important for an organization to be represented by someone with who is ethical and professional. It says something about the values of the organization itself. Stakeholders are more likely to trust the organization and believe what it says if the person representing it is regarded as trustworthy’.

On page 144, Kevin Moloney, states that most PR people do not talk of ethics when doing their work: they talk of successful outcomes, keeping principals content, and more profit or salary. I would like to differ with Moloney's view point. I believe that a practitioner operates within the frameworks or principles of an organization they serve. Decisions made by the practitioner would be shaped by what the CEO dictates. Without detracting from the fact that a practitioners job is to advise the CEO or Managing Director of an organization, it is not to take company/organizational decisions but to provide communication advice. However, as I have stated above a practitioner would act ethically in pressing situations rather than being driven by profits.