Chandigarh University

Gharuan
Ms. Gagandeep Kaur
UIMS

www.cuchd.in
www.cuchd.in Campus: Gharuan, Mohali Campus: Gharuan, Mohali
Principals & Concept of Public
Relations

Ms.Gagandeep Kaur, Assistant Professor (UIMS) 2

 Course Objectives
• To enable students excess PR skills.
• To enable students to work as good PRO
• To enable students to learn strong
communication skills.

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Corporate Communication in the
Digital Context
(Intersection Consulting 2009)
http://www.intersectionconsulting.com/2009/social-media-roi/
 Media
• In the current media context, the forms of
media used by organizations to communicate
with publics is changing.
• Fundamentally, though, they are still:
– Owned Media
– Paid Media
– Earned Media
– Interestingly, social media can fall into all three
categories…
 Changing Landscape
• Media consumption has increased, but it is
fundamentally different.
– Consumption habits have evolved from “pre-defined” and “mass appeal”
– where audiences made appointments to watch their favourite shows on
TV – to include “pre-selected” and “long tail or niche content” – on-
demand options that allow media to be consumed anytime, anywhere.
• In the last decade, media consumption by 8-18 year
olds increased by almost 80 minutes to 458 per day.
Television viewing is up slightly, but teenagers are
simultaneously texting to friends, updating their
Facebook status, and tweeting.
• This continuous partial attention – more places, more sources,
more social – is a “global” (global and local) phenomenon.
• The proliferation of this new social aspect of media means
that every kind of media has a role to play. It is no longer the
story of “or” – meaning, which channel to use - but is the
story of “and” – which combination of channels to use.
• The average person is consuming six to eight sources of
information daily and needs to hear or read something three
to five times in different places from various sources before
believing it.
– Edelman 2010

Ms.Gagandeep Kaur, Assistant

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Professor (UIMS)
 Some Trends
• The crisis of attention requires that
brands create more compelling content
to engage their audiences.
• An offline collaborative culture will gain
momentum through online social media
channels with people sharing
information, goods, and services.
• Traditionally, social media relied on a reach and
frequency model. Today, action is key as engagement
and amplification of authentic ideas are at the
forefront.
• While the lure of innovations will become stronger as
new devices and apps proliferate, people will
eventually want to escape the clutter, “turn off”
devices, and revert to more human connections.
• Gillmor, Heiferman, Ostrow, Rubel and Dubner (2010)

Ms.Gagandeep Kaur, Assistant

11
Professor (UIMS)
 Why is social
media appealing?
• Reach
• Immediacy
• Control
• Surveillance/ Monitoring/ User research
• Expectation
 The Social Media
Ecosystem
• 7 functional building blocks
• Study by Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy and
Silvestre (2011)
• Identity, conversations, sharing, presence,
relationships, reputation, and groups
 7 functional building blocks
of Social Media (Kietzmann et al 2011)
 Risk and Reputation in
Social Media
• Social media audiences are outspoken, quick
to react, and most likely to highlight negatives
• E.g. tweetjacking of McDonalds’ Twitter
campaign #McDStories
 Engagement Media
• Complement paid and earned media strategies by embracing
engagement media.
• Employ a multi-media approach that starts with the creation of
compelling content that is available to people where they are –
Web, magazines, mobile, or slate; providing opportunities for
consumers to repurpose content and amplify the discussion on
other platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
• Reach out to new media with the convening credibility of expert
voices (there is a growing power of niche blogs – TechCrunch,
Politico, The Huffington Post, and others).
• Utilize social networks as essential spaces for company digital
embassies, serving as aggregators for discussion and connection
points for members.
• Understand that every company can become a media company
via an owned channel, driving people to substantive and
visually alluring material.
 Is Social Media the ideal?
• The 2-way symmetrical model casts public relations in the role of mediator
versus persuader. Under that model, PR pros listen to the concerns of both
clients and key publics and help them adapt to one another (Sledzik 2008)
• Social media is about “conversation”, “engagement”, “participation”
• Two-way symmetrical communication is the essence of social media. It
may have been created as a personal communications tool, but social
media now provides a way for companies to interact with customers and
other stakeholders on a real-time basis. Such initiatives are all about
starting and sustaining communications with customers in ways that can
increase their loyalty, satisfaction, and commitment to your product or
brand. (Marcomm Musings 2010)
 Is Social Media the ideal?
• The two-way symmetrical communications model for public relations relies on
honest and open two-way communication and mutual give-and-take. It requires
organizations be willing to make adjustments in how they operate, to
accommodate their publics. (Marcomm Musings 2010)
• “Although the attention being paid to the new digital media may be the latest fad
in public relations, these new media have the potential to make the profession
more global, strategic, two-way and interactive, symmetrical or dialogical, and
socially responsible. However, many practitioners are using the new media in the
same ways they used the old—as a means of dumping messages on the general
population rather than as a strategic means of interacting with publics and
bringing information from the environment into organizational decision-making.
For public relations to fully use digital media, practitioners and scholars must
reinstitutionalise public relations as a behavioural, strategic management
paradigm rather than as a symbolic, interpretive paradigm.” (Grunig 2010)
 Why it’s not
• Information across social media follows these stages:
– Stage 1: Organisation publishes message
– Stage 2: Message is viewed by their direct online audience (followers, likes,
etc)
– Stage 3: Message is duplicated by publics (causes some messages to adapt)
– Stage 4: Some publics communication back to the organisation based upon
their interpretations of the message (varying in accuracy)
• Based upon these stages of online communication there are three reasons
why two-way symmetrical communication isn’t true:
– Reason 1: It would be impossible for the organisation to reply to each user.
– Reason 2: The user response outweighs the organisation’s message quantity.
– Reason 3: Organisation response may purpose to adjust a user’s interpretation
of the original message (ie, regaining narrative) / Response may simply be for
the purpose of small talk.
– (White 2011)
 Course Outcomes
• Students will be able to excess PR skills.
• Students will be able to work as good PRO
• Students will be able to have strong
communication skills.

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 References
• Mehta, D.S., Handbook of Public Relations in
India.

Ms.Gagandeep Kaur, Assistant

23
Professor (UIMS)