1- analyze the problems that the profession has encountered in the recent past and evaluate the changes in the environment in which it operates

2- Reflect & offer insight on the opportunities provided by the new media landscape

3- Assess how both companies and consumers could benefit from updated public relations

Problems Encountered by PR in the Recent Past

In my opinion PR faces four major problems, the first of which is the lack of trust in the profession. According to a study conducted in Sweden in 2007, PR practitioners where amongst the least trusted professionals in all industries confounded. This has lead the public to describe the practice with terms such as: ’spin’ & ‘manipulation’ consequently inciting them to refer to the practitioners as ’spin doctors’ and ‘flack’s’. When we consider that PR  depends on the trust of others to communicate its messages this seems to be a considerable problem. Remember that PR is “earned media” and thus is about earning sufficient awareness, trust and respect to engender positive press and word of mouth. In other words, a PR practitioner has to maintain trust with the media outlets he uses (so that they talk about him) but also with the public he is trying to reach (so that they listen to him). If the public doesn’t trust him the purpose is defeated.

Secondly, the common misunderstanding of the practice cannot be helpful. In fact, James Grunig co-author of the book ‘The Future of Excellence in Public Relations‘ found that advertising, propaganda and public relations are three distinct fields that are frequently confused. If the public doesn’t understand the true purpose of the profession and assumes that it is about ’spinning’ and ‘manipulating’ it seems normal that they will be criticizing it. So, what is PR really about? Ivy Ledbetter Lee (often considered as the father of PR) defined it as: “a two way street”. In other words, he believe that the profession was about helping companies listen to their publics so that the companies could communicate and act appealingly & effectively with them in return. Thus it can be understood that in its most literal sense, PR is about effectively managing the relationships between an organization (often a company) and its stakeholders (often consumers).

Thridly, the profession has had a hard time adapting to the new media landscape and remains trapped in archaic notions of an outdated media model. In fact, the arrival of the web created a significant shift from a media model based on control to one based on openness. This is fundamentally due to one reason: anybody can now cheaply and effortlessly create content. Hence, the sources of trust and credibility have shifted and PR professionals are finding themselves stranded an reminiscing the ‘good old days’. Not only are their audiences constantly scattering, they now have the ability to talk back. As Clay Shirky (Best-selling author and NYU Graduate Professor) would say: “we are now in a media landscape where the consumers are also the producers.” PR needs to account for this shift.

Finally, we come back to the notion of trust. Remember that it has been shown that PR professionals lack the necessary trust from their publics. Unfortunately though, the problem goes much further than just practitioners; it affects business in general. Edelman, one of the worlds largest PR firms annually analyses the amount of trust displayed towards business across the world (Edelman Trust Barometer). They have found 2009 to be: “a catastrophic year for business” because “trust is down in established economies”. They continue on to explain that we have hit “10 year low’s” in consumer trust. It appears that people don’t trust companies anymore! PR has to compensate and adapt to the fact that public faith in organizations is continuously slipping.

In my mind, these substantial problems are all more than valid reasons for PR’s necessity to reform. Simply denying the new circumstances and refusing to adapt to the changes is not a plausible option for the future. Stay put for the following post, which will analyze the opportunities provided by the new media landscape and will help us understand how PR could potentially take advantage of the new realities.