Public Relations and Blogging: How NOT to Represent Your Company

With the exponentially growing popularity of new media continuing to sweep the world off its heels, many professions have started utilizing new forms of media. And a great example of this is Public Relations (partly because it's my area of concentration and this is my blog and I write about what I want....yeah.).

PR is all about representing a company during both the good and the bad times. It can be used to connect the regular population to a company yet also act as damage control when things take a negative turn. New media forms (like blogging) have allowed PR to contact consumers directly and also see what the public is talking about. That's the beauty of blogs, everyone can have one!


But, it's not always that great. When PR professionals fall, they can fall HARD. Here's an example for you. A blog was made in 2006 promoting the shopping center we all know and maybe love - Wal-Mart. It was a blog sponsored by a group created by a Wal-Mart PR firm called "Working Families for Wal-Mart." Two people, Jim Thresher and Laura St. Claire traveled the country staying overnight in an RV outside various Wal-Marts. They would interview employees, and snap photos and stuff.


Sounds all fine and good right? No. No it's actually not like that at all.


These two individuals unknowingly broke a few rules. You see, regulations are in place for just about everything in this fantastic lil' world we live in - including PR blogging. A lack of transparency about the sponsor that funded this excursion and about the PR firm behind that very sponsor got them all into a pretty large amount of trouble.

What happened? Well, the blog was more or less a "fake" blog. It was funded by Wal-Mart to promote Wal-Mart. Don't get me wrong - there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. There is however, something wrong with failing to tell anyone that it's fake. Needless to say, people got pretty mad once they found out about it.

What made matters worse? Well, the president of the PR firm which forgot to make the information transparent took way too long to respond to this outcry from the public. When he did, it came across as damage control instead of an actual apology. At any rate, he took the fall for this mishap and it took a pretty heavy toll on his company.

The man has been criticized ever since.

PR can be a pretty sweet tool for making your company look good, but make darn sure all your bases are covered beforehand.

My Rethinking of the Rethinking of the Digital Divide...

The idea of a digital divide does make a lot of sense, but what type of amateur blogger would I be if I didn't take a nonconformist approach and critique it to death? So here we go, try to stay with me on this one.

The digital divide contains a number of valid ideas - the accessibility of the internet and cable television certainly is higher throughout the Caucasian community than it is throughout the Black or Hispanic communities. Unfortunate as that may be, it's true. I'm a bit of a business guy myself, so seeing how targeting a statistically more well-to-do demographic isn't all that difficult to bring into perspective.

However, I think a bit too much emphasis has been put on the companies producing the access and too little has been put on some of the regulating bodies where the technology is present (i.e. teachers, parents, library workers, etc.).

In the world we live in today, typically it is assumed that most everyone possesses the basic knowledge to work the internet. This is a dangerous thing to assume. I understand that for most people my age, it is hardwired into our system courtesy of our technology age upbringing - but we can't all just assume that everyone acquired such knowledge.

I'll use myself as an example, why not.... I grew up in what most would consider to be the "lower class." My computer education stemmed from computer use at school - and I didn't gain cable television access until I went to college some 3 years ago. Sure, I had the internet at home, but not until my mid teenage years. It was the computer education that I gained through school that gave me the level of computer literacy that I maintain today.

I feel this is the problem with schools today. Even in the years since I was a kid (which admittedly was not all too long ago) technology has advanced to levels few could predict. These advancements I feel has given teachers the assumption that most (if not all) of their students have the knowledge to do as much on the internet as they do. I'm gonna get crazy here and say that I don't believe that to always be the case.

Teachers and parents can't ALWAYS assume that students are as computer literate as they're supposed to be. Especially with some students living in "the lower class." I understand that in public schools the number of kids "down there" is not typically that high, but it's there - and historically their grades are on the lower end as well.

So here is what I propose. Though most kids do have the knowledge (be it through classes, accessibility, etc) let's not assume that everyone does. This digital divide can be narrowed if children learn these skills at an earlier age through school. It doesn't take much - just make sure that they are learning the computer skills necessary to function. And when they do, make sure they are using it to their academic advantage, instead of trolling Facebook and whatnot.

WWBGD??? What Would Bill Gates Do?

What would you do if 8 media conglomerates had pretty much entire control over the US market?

If you answered "do what I'm doing now because I know that the last question posed was one of those stupid - the answer is supposed to shock me but it won't because I know by what you said in the last sentence that 8 conglomerates do control everything - questions" ...then you are correct.

These media giants are scary for a couple of reasons - first, the larger companies get the smaller the market "pool" gets. As we all learned in class, this kinda stuff limits competition as well as homogenizing what we see through certain media channels.

However, without these giants we may be in trouble as well. "Too big to fail" was a term used to describe the magnitude to which these companies matter in our current world. In 2006 the largest conglomerate was General Electric (Which owns NBC). Now GE is talking about selling NBC to Comcast? This would probably take GE out of the conglomerate position - but it would also thrust Comcast up into one of the top spots.

Whether we like it or not, these conglomerates have a HUGE amount of control. Without them, what little economic output the US produces would drop considerably. Imagine if Microsoft just suddenly decided to stop making Windows. Though Apple is gaining a small amount of market share, PC's running Windows still make up over 90% of the market... and these PC's are worldwide.

The moral of this particular blog story is that.... well..... Conglomerates matter. We can talk all day long about the importance of keeping media from getting too large (and that is important, don't get me wrong.) but we HAVE GOT TO consider the implications for suddenly breaking down such massive companies. Besides, as the CEO of GE has proven... (mainly by being a nice guy) the have feelings too.

I'll leave you all with this --- What Would Bill Gates Do? In Bill we Trust? You get the idea.

The Future of Magazines, or rather... STUFF WE ALREADY KNEW.

This is an article that supposedly "predicts" the outcome of magazines over the course of the next ten years, and honestly I'm a bit less than impressed.

Here are a few background facts that are brought up:

1. The nation is going to keep getting poorer, with a potentially shrinking middle class. (Gutsy move on the editor's part, considering that this article was written in spring of 2009... His astounding intuition bedazzles my feeble college mind!!)

2. The US will experience less economic advantages compared to China and India. (Sort of a repeat of what I last stated. Also, China and India are about 5 times the size of the US population wise...)

3. Science and Technology are going to advance?!?! (Excuse me for a moment, I need some air - this groundbreaking discovery has me winded.)

4. America will continue to transform, information will be really important. (This is new to me, it's not like the US has changed at all during the last 400 or so years of inhabitance. Yes, there were people here in 1609 - I took US history freshman year.)

BUT how are these "new" findings going to possibly advance or change magazines David???

That really is the question... now isn't it?

I suppose. According to the article's more relevant points, things are due to change. The internet seems to encroach on the world of magazines, and anyone can just as easily subscribe to the magazine's website. But at any rate, it is not believed to replace print entirely over the course of the next decade. The online product is supposed to be seen as an entirely seperate business, catering to us "young'n's or however that crazy word is spelled out."

The internet will become a tool of the specialized business press. In other words, they plan to use the internet to enhance magazine usage. Probably in one of those "to find out more, visit us at..." style fashions.

Magazines are gonna become more narrow-casted - or rather the indivudal niches that we all fall into are going to stay the same or become even more specialized. So rest easy lovers of Mustache Officianado...

The way we receive our magazines is going to change, or at least according to the author of this article it is... The more narrow-casting will allow magazines to cater more specifically to smaller groups, or so they say...

We live in an increasingly stressful world. This is probably going to increase the amount of "ludenic" reading people may wish to do. Ludenic reading is reading for pleasure, and magazines are all about that sweet, sweet release from our daily lives (assuming we don't just watch TV instead).

Magazines will probably move towards less frequent circulations. Those weekly mags you might all love may become bi-weekly, or even monthly. *This seems like a decline to me, but the magazine companies can throw whatever tag they want on it..*

So there it is, a rundown of the magazine world for the next ten years. Maybe when I'm 31 I'll come back and take a gander at the changes - but probably not.

Oh, here's the article citation:

Abrahamson, D. (2009). The future of magazines, 2010-2020. Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 10, 1-3. Retrieved from Communication and Mass Media Complete database on Nov. 20, 2009.

So what's up with this "new radio" anyways?

As traditional radio currently stands, most people think it's hardly listened to anymore (outside of your car anyways). The transition to iPods and other mass storage devices/mp3 players as well as internet and satellite radio has most thinking that old time radio is on the way out the door.

Is it?

A survey conducted in 2006 claims that 51% of people have not changed their listening habits in the past 5 years or so when it comes to that ol' AM/FM we all know and used to love. In fact, 21% actually said that they listen to the radio more than they used to. But is that trend gonna continue? This survey is 3 years old afterall... right?

Yeah... yeah it is. 11% claim that they will listen to the radio less in the years to come. but 74% still claim that they "plan" to listen as much as they did back in 2006 when we all still used our MySpace accounts. AND, 13% of those surveyed claim that they are going to listen to the radio more. Maybe this means they just love radio, or maybe it means they fall into that "laggard" category we talked about in class that one day - it's anyone's guess.

Finally, maybe this technology shift isn't as much as a radio killer as we all thought. 42% of men and 41% of women (respectively) consider themselves likely to listen to the radio over the internet via live stream.

Keep them fingers crossed ClearChannel and ABC Radio (owned by Disney?!?!), I know I'll be doing the same...

*Data gathered from http://radio.about.com/od/miscellaneous/a/aa091706a.htm.