Reading Number 1: Theoretical Contexts
" You do not know what you've got until you enter the workforce and are forced to apply your theoretical learning in a practical workplace setting... Professional ability starts with education. It certainly doesn't start when you get a job." - Richard Amos (Sison, 2009)
I wanted to start with this quote because it really caught my attention right at the start of the reading. I'm not really a fan of textbook readings and theories, but this particular quote got me thinking that what he said is true. This is because once we enter the workforce, we have to put out theories that we learn into practice-whether we do it knowingly or unknowingly. But ultimately, we start molding our professional abilities when we are in school. Thus, never underestimate the power of theories we learn in school because that is when we are shaping our future.
Moving on to the content of the reading, I must admit that the reading was a little dry, but then again, it is theories and they aren't exactly my cup of tea. Although, it did help that I caught sight of a lot of familiar terms which was friendly to they eyes. Furthermore, the study of PR overlaps with communication as well. Thank God I'm doing both PR and communication-journalism! :)
Understanding theories are important as it will challenge you to think more deeply about what and where your assumptions of public relations come from. It helps you to develop a better grasp of the role of public relations and it will make you develop a better understanding of how to apply your skills and what you are trying to achieve (Sison, 2009). I agree with this (reluctantly, because I'm not a fan or theories) because essentially we have to know the basic concept of theories in order to achieve more and dig deeper. We have to understand theories for no matter which job we are entering. Imagine a doctor not knowing his theories and he is going to operate on you, now that is one event you do not one happening to you. Thus, we have to understand theories.
There are numerous public relations theories such as systems theories, communication theories, co-orientation theory, excellence theory, cultural theories and credibility theories.
Systems theory helps people to be adaptable in the world. We have to be adaptable to change and manage it through networking. Under systems theory, there is cybernetics, requisite variety and boundary spanning. Systems theory is important as it enables practitioners to work to their optimum as they will understand that PR works with other elements inside and outside the organisation (Sison, 2009). Thus, i think it is trying to say that PR people must be able to manage change and be versatile so as to manage their problems and tasks.
Communication theories such as Shanon and Weaver transmission model (a familiar theory) helps a PR practitioners to encode and decode messages to their targeted audience. Thus, understanding how this theory works enables them to reach out to mass audiences.
Co-orientation theory is about how an individual must recognize and be aware of how the other person or people in the relationship might think about or perceive an issue (Sison, 2009). This means that information send can be polysemic and different people might decode a message differently. I agree with this as not everyone will be thinking of similar things and each person's mind is unique. Thus, ensuring that each person receives the same message is essential.
Excellence Theory is a unique management function that helps organisation interact with social and political components of its environment (Grunig, Grunig and Dozier, 2006). It has come out with 4 models for how to categorise public relations practice. This shows that different audience are categorised into different models and sometimes mixed models can help the organisation achieve a win-win situation as they can pursue the interest of the organisation and the public.
Cultural theories range from how different organisation from different countries have different ethics and culture. Take for example how in the United States, organisations are more towards individualism with organisations from Japan where they are more towards collectivism. Thus, PR practitioners have to know the culture of different regions to act accordingly so that their tactics and strategies can work.
Finally, Credibility is always a question when it comes to PR. This is because, we have to ask ourselves whether we trust the spokesperson who is publicising a product for us. This is especially questionable when it comes to celebrity spokesperson. For example, would you trust an advertisement of Victoria Beckam modeling for a fashion spread VS Lady Gaga modeling for it. It is likely that you will trust Victoria's sense of fashion because she is a high fashion model and Lady Gaga is well known for her eccentric costumes. Thus, the credibility is always important for PR as then only will your product sell.
VS 
These are the things i learned from this reading. Coming up, is my second reading's post. Please do not be afraid of the length of the post. :)
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Reading Number 2: Understanding 21st Century Public Relations
Public Relations have definitely changed over the years. Comparing with the past, when public relations was considered propaganda, the 21st century public relations is definitely different. This is because, currently PR practices are associated with making a difference to society with the work they do. I agree with this, because as we move towards a modernised society, we have to keep changing our methods to adapt to our environment. This is applicable for all fields of work as well.
United States PR profession moved through 5 stages. They are: Press agentry and publicity, communicating and initiating, reacting and responding, planning and prevention and status of professionalism development (Newsom, Turk Kruckeberg, 2007). This shows that there are different stages for PR and each of it has to be achieved before moving on to the next stage.
According to the reading, there are so many different definitions of Public Relations ranging from different country's perspective to author's definition. But, if you ask me, I will say that public relations is defined as the communication between an organisation and the public. That is what i would understand from PR.
PR also consists of values that practitioners will use as their guidelines when performing a task. Examples of those values range from emphasis to planning and representing the interest of the organisation. All theses are done in accordance to the goals of the practitioner's company. Another important value would be ethics and corporate social responsibility. These values should be followed as only then will the company gain respect and dignity from the public. Thus, I think image plays an important part for a company as well. This is because you would not want your company to have a bad reputation of not submitting media releases on time and so on. This will only lead to the loss of a company.
This chapter also talks about the importance of theories and different theories in PR which I have already mentioned in the earlier part of this super long post. Thus, I will not go into it again.
There are also different sectors in PR such as in-house practitioners and academics. Different sector does a different thing. For example, External communication manages the online communication, meet leaders, promote publicity for the organisation and promotes corporate social responsibilities (Chia, 2009). Thus, different sectors play different roles but they have to work together in order to maintain cohesion.
The case study of the 2008 cost of fuel sky rocketing was interesting. I say this because the strategies used for the campaign were smart. They promoted motorist to make use of the cheapest oil day which is on Tuesday. Until today, I did not know that there was such a thing as oil prices being the cheapest on Tuesday. Thus, i found it interesting. Furthermore, they did not spend any external cost for the whole campaign! They also achieved their target of maintaining low oil price as well. They received tons of media coverages and they did not spend much!
Now, I would really want to own my very own PR company so that I can earn loads and not even need to spend a single cent! I'm definitely going to learn all the proper methods of PR so that I can become a successful PR person as well! Who wouldn't want it? You get to earn big bucks!
Coming back to the reading, I learned all the the challenges faced by PR companies nowadays and how to cope them and also different theories of PR as well.
This is one long post!!!! Please read all of it because I'm pretty sure I will be educating you more about PR as well.
signing off,
nivitra
