Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Blog discussion week 3
in this week's tutorial (wed, 1st august), I've made a post on the blog of my colleague chandara lim.
Readings for Week 3
Chapter 3 - Theoretical Perspectives
Public Relations at the Crossroads
Gower, K (2006) In: Journal of PR Research. 18 (2), 177-190
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The theory chapter of the public relations book was quite interesting because it gave a brief overview over many important theories including how to use them as a practitioner. Additionally it was good that there were also shown the constraints of this theories. This helps to reflect and scrutinise the theory itself and to compare it to other theories. I guess I understood everything quite good, just the part with "rhetorical theory" I’ll have to repeat again.
Very interesting for me was the part about the "Theoretical implications of postmodernism and the internet", because these topics and questions are important roots for present and future challenges both in public relations theory and practice. Also the part about "Other theories in brief" was very appealing for me, because there were a couple of notions mentioned that I haven’t dealed with before. Especially "Opinion, Attitude and Belief", "Social learning theory" and "Social exchange theory" gave me quite adjuvant new insights, thought it would have been interesting, if this text would have been a little bit more detailed. Nevertheless, I think that these notions are rather insights then a guideline how to act as a practitioner.
----------------------------------------------------
The article in the "Journal of public relations research" was very interesting as well, especially because it dealed with some major challenges that the field of pr has to face. I think its very important for both scientists and practitioners to think more about the "who we are", hence we nee to reflect the branch itself. This might be useful to get the practice and the theory more close together and to achieve a more coherent "value system" in the future - thus, public relations could make some more steps in direction of professionalisation or making the field of pr to a coherent, definable profession.
In the area of theories I agree with the author that the "first generation" of pr theorists builded a good fundament for what we are doing today. However, it will be an important challenge for the future to apply new theories (like the author mentioned) and to do studies in new directions. In my mind, one of the gravest defiance might be to face the diversity of the globalised post-modern society, like it is proposed by postmodernism. PR scientists have to get aware of the fluid structures in the field of audiences and publics which are caused by societal changes and technical developments through new media. Publics are changing, there are arising more and more sets of multiple stakeholders and the new forms of interaction with and between these publics causes that the old models of public are reaching it’s limits.
To reduce the gap between practice and theory I would firstly try to get them together through literature. There is a need of much academic literature, but on the other hand, literature has also to be easy to use for practitioners. At present, as I experience it in the literature at home, there is a big gap between complex scientific literature and rather trivial guidebooks like "10 steps to your pr plan" or so. Scientists should aim to reduce this gap in a way of creating more literature which is useful for practical purposes, but without falling into a trivial "guidebook-level".
Ok, that might be everything for this week,
time is running out again, I’ve to go to the tutorial...
Public Relations at the Crossroads
Gower, K (2006) In: Journal of PR Research. 18 (2), 177-190
---------------------------------------------------
The theory chapter of the public relations book was quite interesting because it gave a brief overview over many important theories including how to use them as a practitioner. Additionally it was good that there were also shown the constraints of this theories. This helps to reflect and scrutinise the theory itself and to compare it to other theories. I guess I understood everything quite good, just the part with "rhetorical theory" I’ll have to repeat again.
Very interesting for me was the part about the "Theoretical implications of postmodernism and the internet", because these topics and questions are important roots for present and future challenges both in public relations theory and practice. Also the part about "Other theories in brief" was very appealing for me, because there were a couple of notions mentioned that I haven’t dealed with before. Especially "Opinion, Attitude and Belief", "Social learning theory" and "Social exchange theory" gave me quite adjuvant new insights, thought it would have been interesting, if this text would have been a little bit more detailed. Nevertheless, I think that these notions are rather insights then a guideline how to act as a practitioner.
----------------------------------------------------
The article in the "Journal of public relations research" was very interesting as well, especially because it dealed with some major challenges that the field of pr has to face. I think its very important for both scientists and practitioners to think more about the "who we are", hence we nee to reflect the branch itself. This might be useful to get the practice and the theory more close together and to achieve a more coherent "value system" in the future - thus, public relations could make some more steps in direction of professionalisation or making the field of pr to a coherent, definable profession.
In the area of theories I agree with the author that the "first generation" of pr theorists builded a good fundament for what we are doing today. However, it will be an important challenge for the future to apply new theories (like the author mentioned) and to do studies in new directions. In my mind, one of the gravest defiance might be to face the diversity of the globalised post-modern society, like it is proposed by postmodernism. PR scientists have to get aware of the fluid structures in the field of audiences and publics which are caused by societal changes and technical developments through new media. Publics are changing, there are arising more and more sets of multiple stakeholders and the new forms of interaction with and between these publics causes that the old models of public are reaching it’s limits.
To reduce the gap between practice and theory I would firstly try to get them together through literature. There is a need of much academic literature, but on the other hand, literature has also to be easy to use for practitioners. At present, as I experience it in the literature at home, there is a big gap between complex scientific literature and rather trivial guidebooks like "10 steps to your pr plan" or so. Scientists should aim to reduce this gap in a way of creating more literature which is useful for practical purposes, but without falling into a trivial "guidebook-level".
Ok, that might be everything for this week,
time is running out again, I’ve to go to the tutorial...
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Chapter 1 and 2
First Readings:
Chapter 1 - What is PR?
Chapter 2 - A History of PR in Australian
-------------------------------------------------
Reading chapter 1 I was positively surprised how easy the access to the topic was. In my studies in Austria, the concepts and theories of PR are always explained in a very broad and rather complicated way. Here, alltough English isn't my mother tongue, everything was explained in a very clear manner and a clear structure. However, the definitions were nearly the same, the core point in my mind is 'maintaining an organisation's relations with its various publics'. What I was missing a little bit were the emphasis on the terms 'communication' and 'dialogue' which are more frequently used in the literature I have read so far.
The definitions of the tasks very also very useful and easy to overview. The role of PR practitioners, divided in technicans and problem/solvers, was also very suitable. All the other stuff like activities, the borderline to marketing and advertising, publics, audiences, skills and stakeholders and academical education were really familiar to me. Only the concept of 'stakeholder' and 'stakeholder management' should be mentioned more detailed, I think, because that are good ways to understand organisations, their enviroment and the need for communication and dialogue. An interesting point was, that the trend to feminisation is also very strong in Austria and Germany...
uups, time is running out and I've only written about the first chapter :)
Chapter two was really interesting in the way, that the history of PR seems to be quite the same in Australia and Austria, which in my mind is above all due to he evolution of media, media technics and public sphere, which has been similiar in both countries. So it seems logical to me that everything has started with press agentry and that the boom of PR started from the 1950, both in a economic and an academical view.
The two greatest differences which came up to me where firstly the importance of the publicity for Hollywood movies, which was in Australia a big thing in the beginning of the 20th century. Secondly the greatest difference seems to be that PR in Australia from my point of view was never connoted in a negative way (I hope I didn't ignore anything...). In Austria and Germany it is a big part in PR history, that PR and all forms of persuasive communication was connoted in a really bad way due to the experiences with propaganda during the second world war. So the branche had a bad reputation in these years, whereas in Australia, the textbook mentioned, the 'World War II becomes the catalyst to allow public relations to develop into a fully fledged profession' (p.40).
Ok, now time is definitely over...
Chapter 1 - What is PR?
Chapter 2 - A History of PR in Australian
-------------------------------------------------
Reading chapter 1 I was positively surprised how easy the access to the topic was. In my studies in Austria, the concepts and theories of PR are always explained in a very broad and rather complicated way. Here, alltough English isn't my mother tongue, everything was explained in a very clear manner and a clear structure. However, the definitions were nearly the same, the core point in my mind is 'maintaining an organisation's relations with its various publics'. What I was missing a little bit were the emphasis on the terms 'communication' and 'dialogue' which are more frequently used in the literature I have read so far.
The definitions of the tasks very also very useful and easy to overview. The role of PR practitioners, divided in technicans and problem/solvers, was also very suitable. All the other stuff like activities, the borderline to marketing and advertising, publics, audiences, skills and stakeholders and academical education were really familiar to me. Only the concept of 'stakeholder' and 'stakeholder management' should be mentioned more detailed, I think, because that are good ways to understand organisations, their enviroment and the need for communication and dialogue. An interesting point was, that the trend to feminisation is also very strong in Austria and Germany...
uups, time is running out and I've only written about the first chapter :)
Chapter two was really interesting in the way, that the history of PR seems to be quite the same in Australia and Austria, which in my mind is above all due to he evolution of media, media technics and public sphere, which has been similiar in both countries. So it seems logical to me that everything has started with press agentry and that the boom of PR started from the 1950, both in a economic and an academical view.
The two greatest differences which came up to me where firstly the importance of the publicity for Hollywood movies, which was in Australia a big thing in the beginning of the 20th century. Secondly the greatest difference seems to be that PR in Australia from my point of view was never connoted in a negative way (I hope I didn't ignore anything...). In Austria and Germany it is a big part in PR history, that PR and all forms of persuasive communication was connoted in a really bad way due to the experiences with propaganda during the second world war. So the branche had a bad reputation in these years, whereas in Australia, the textbook mentioned, the 'World War II becomes the catalyst to allow public relations to develop into a fully fledged profession' (p.40).
Ok, now time is definitely over...
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