Post #12: Reading Response on Chapter Eleven (Chia and Synott, 2009).

Chapter Eleven: Engaging with the media

Chapter Eleven deals primarily with media relations. In this chapter, the various types of traditional media that we can use are mentioned, followed by a short description of news values and framing, something we have already touched upon in our journalism modules. Theoretical and ethical practice of media relations come next, together with a tutorial on writing media releases and assembling media kits. This chapter also provides advice on news conferences and media interviews, as well as how to evaluate traditional media campaigns.

With that, I would like to dive in straight into some of the tips this chapter provides on how to succeed in building relationsips with journalists (in the words of the textbook, "under-promising and over-delivering"). I think building PERSONAL relationships is a given, what with face-to-face contacts, networking, following their careers, and providing them quality material (Chia & Synnott, 2009). This is probably the basic tip that we all PR practitioners should keep in mind.

Considering the above, I posed this question to the CEO of PSB Academy (Dr. Steve Lai) during a lunch session with him. I wondered about the state of the Academy's media relations, because apart from paid advertisements/advertorials about PSB that I see in the papers, I don't see any other coverage of the school in any of the major print and broadcast media. For example, when asked to comment on, say, unscrupulous private education institutions, the media tends to go to the chief executive of  SIM, or other institutes, for comment.

It is thus in my contention that their appearance, however small, in this regard does help to build a subconscious effect of their presence in the public mind. An example of what I see as credibility-building can be found in this article (requires subscription) (The Straits Times, 2011). In this regard I believe PSB Academy is lacking, because when giving expert commentary on issues faced by others, that which is verified by the journalist, the credibility of the institution increases.

Dr Lai responded that they do have good contacts with Sandra Davie, who's the Education Correspondent over at The Straits Times. But he firmly believes in appearing in the news only when the coverage is worth it. I overlooked that to a certain extent, and now, reviewing this chapter, I see that this is exactly the point raised in Chia & Synnott (2009)'s text about "Knowing what is news and what is not". A media release with newsworthy comment (according to the news values we have learnt) is better for visibility, he said. For example, a media release informing the journalist of the availability of scholarships for students who are financially needy, yet determined to succeed, would be an impactful news article that would likely find its way to the papers, and boost the Academy's visibility.

I think in this regard, the communication flow works both ways. While we can possibly generate good news releases for the media attention, I believe that if we are on good terms with the media (who often tend to write stories contradictory to the intended angle - this was what a UoN alumni, now a journalist, told me) (Kok, personal communication, 2011), they are then more likely to see us as good source of information from which quotes can be attributed to. As long as it puts us in a good light, our visibility is increased and ultimately, there would be a gain for PR.

With that, I end my reflection for this week.

Post #11: Reading Response on Chapter Ten (Chia and Synott, 2009).

Chapter Ten: An issues-crisis perspective

The tenth chapter of our textbook revolves around issues and crises (plural form of 'crisis', if you didn't already know). A summary of the main points of this chapter follows:



- how PR practitioners respond to, and manage issues.

- the differences between an issue and a crisis; proactive issues management can therefore help to avert a crisis.

- the roles of PR practitioners during crisis situations as they break out

- the various types of crises, and the crisis life cycle

- how new media has impacted issues management and crisis PR.

We are therefore thrust into what is perhaps my favourite part of public relations, for this chapter finally allows me to understand issues and crises in greater detail. According to Chia & Synnott (2009), an issue occurs when there is a difference between the publics' expectations and an organisation's actions. If this issue is not managed well and is allowed to fester (much like a wound left untreated) then it will escalate into a crisis, which can then affect the organisation's viability, credibility and reputation. Sometimes, however, things are not so clear-cut and crisis occurrences can be unpredictable. 

With that, I would like to delve into a crisis that has happened in recent days: The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant incidents and the resulting events that have since become a PR crisis for both the Japanese government as well as the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). This has happened as a result of the 2011 Tohoku region earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in damage to several of the nuclear reactors at the nuclear power plant, which has since caused localised environmental contamination. While it seems that this is one of those "unpredictable events" that turned into a crisis, I will further elaborate on how it might have been the result of several issues that have since escalated.

Firstly, using Pauchant and Mitroff (1992)'s classification of crises, we can identify the clusters in which the above crisis lies in. It is plainly obvious that the reactor explosions have led to radiation contamination of the environment, thus the crisis falls under the "Megadamage" cluster. In addition, reports have surfaced on cover-ups and negligence in plant operations (The Straits Times, 2011) (refer to relevant reports over the past few days in The Straits Times), and there will certainly be occupational health problems for the brave souls who have volunteered to help repair the reactor and to ascertain and contain the damage. For TEPCO, and also the government, this is therefore a severe crisis with additional areas that need to be addressed.

With an idea of what category this incident falls under, we can now look at the stages of the crisis life cycle and analyse what has happened (Howard & Miller, 2006, as cited in Chia & Synnott, 2009). The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear accidents escalated quickly from the prodromal phase. By this time, the reactors already suffered varying degrees of physical damage due to the combined effects of the earthquake and the tsunami. The preparation phase was basically passed over. However, if reports on TEPCO's earlier mismanagement (e.g. the falsification of safety records, inspection failures as well as government-sanctioned extensions [The Straits Times, 2011]) were to be believed, then it would be that the entire incident was just waiting to happen. Had TEPCO come clean about these issues and actively managed and resolved them when it could, the situation might not have been this bad today. Then again, no one would have expected a disaster of this magnitude. A learning point from this would be that even the smallest of issues can result in potentially damaging consequences in the future.

The crisis is actually in Phase Three, or the acute phase, now. Media coverage of the crippled reactors (e.g. pictures and images of smoke rising from the various containment buildings, reports of the 180 workers who stayed behind to assist in containment efforts, the inconveniences brought about by the accidents, etc.) has been especially intense, and both TEPCO and the government PR practitioners must have been working overtime to manage the flow of information. Much of the information appears to come from the government-designated spokesperson, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio, and TEPCO, although its president has been criticised heavily for their poor management of the situation and limited information flow initially (see here). Our role, of course, is to make sure that honesty is adhered to in times like this and any worthwhile information should be made known immediately. Senior company executives might disagree, but in this ethics versus economics struggle, I do believe (however ideal it may be) that coming clean is better for everyone.

As the crisis slowly comes under control, we will then see Phases Four and Five emerge. We already know how the reactors came to explode and almost melt down, this phase will see heads roll. The reactor will definitely not be used again, and the surrounding area likely to be quarantined, but TEPCO must, at this stage, be prepared to suffer legal consequences and make restitutions to the community at large. For PR practitioners, now would be the time to clarify all the facts as presented and stave off any malicious rumours that may be brought up.  In Phase Five, TEPCO (and by extension, the Japanese government), must close the chapter on this crisis properly and learn from the lessons of this disaster. I believe the very least that would come from this is the tightening of regulations on nuclear reactors across the country and shoring defences against yet another natural disaster of this scale. It is in our interest as PR practitioners not to let the shadow of nuclear catastrophe loom over once again, and any other mistakes MUST be corrected right now before it is too late.

With that, I end this week's reflection.

Post #10: Reading Response on Chapter Nine (Chia and Synott, 2009).

Chapter Nine: Strategies to Proactively Manage Activity

One inspiring quote from this chapter's "Practitioner Profile" before we begin:

"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job... Great professionals... get there because they know their values, strengths and ethics, they stick to them and build on them with gritty determination."

- Heidi Alexandra Pollard (as cited in Chia & Synnott, 2009).

Anyway, this chapter describes how strategy is a very important part of PR practice, and introduces concepts of meaning construction in a contested space, intentional representation, and intended meaning. We also learn about planning models, about how to conduct a  campaign from research to evaluation, developing the startegies needed to reach specified objectives. Lastly, certain major PR tactics and their usefulness are discussed at the end of this chapter.

For this post, I would like to look at the concept of the contested space, intentional representation, and the intended meaning. Firstly, 'contested space' is an idea that has only come about with newer models of communcation; for example, Shannon and Weaver's transmission model fails to account for a space in which the meaning of a message is constructed, and where varying messages compete for attention (Chia & Synnott, 2009). As such, this concept tells us that there is no one absolute meaning to everything, but a set of interpretations that different communities possess and deem useful to them. The 'contest' element comes from the fact that society today is actually saturated with many similar messages from organisations of all sorts, for example, the newspaper which has limited editorial space - to be featured in the newspaper the PR practitioner would have to take steps to ensure that what he is proposing to the journalist is more interesting than what other organisations are doing, such as through product samples, media kits, media releases, personal ties and even using the journalism skills such as framing and angling certain pitches to target specific journalists (Chia & Synnott, 2009). Only then can we help our organisations stake a claim in this contested space.

Intentional representation and intended meaning are similar - in simple terms, intended representation is the action that is carried out by the organisation in order to shape perception and intended meaning refers to the end-result where the public interprets the representation as intended. A recent case study follows: Mediacorp, the local state-controlled media company (the other being Singapore Press Holdings) intends to represent itself to the general public as Asia's top media company, with their mission being to deliver 'valued content to the world'. This much can be gathered from their mission statement as seen on their webpage.

However, this intended representation failed to generate its intended meaning in light of a recent email, made public from Mediacorp's Marketing Communications department, which sought to canvass for advertisements on Channel NewsAsia during their coverage of the 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami. Many netizens condemned Mediacorp when news of this broke, forcing Mediacorp to issue a statement on the 12th of March (see here) in apology. In my opinion this is only a routine measure, what remains to be seen is if Mediacorp can repair the damage caused by this email leak, perhaps by directly assisting in relief efforts as a sign of goodwill. It does not matter if they have won many awards at the broadcaster level, small things like these can actually cause an organisation harm if not handled properly. In reflection, I once again realise that a good reputation and intended representation requires a lot of effort to build and to shape the audience into receiving the intended meaning, but all it takes is a series of minor incidents to undo the work done. This is a challenging field indeed and with that, I end my post for this week.

Post #9: Reading Response on Chapter Eight (Chia and Synott, 2009).

Chapter Eight: Reputation Management: A Driving Force for Action

Chapter 8 looks at how important the management of reputation is to the organisation and how corporate PR practitioners fit in in modern organisations. The stakeholder concept is introduced, something I mentioned in my debate a while back, and corporate reputation, image, brand and identity are placed side-by-side and compared (Chia & Synnott, 2009). This much summarises the scope of the chapter.

With that, in this short reflection I would like to zoom in on the differences between reputation and image as mentioned in our text. Initially, I thought that image was similar to reputation, but the text does mention a bit of difference between the two. For one, reputation is someone's estimation of another person, organisation, or issue. In Mandarin, the term 名誉 (ming yu) would come the closest to this; and shows that its dependent on one's name (名) and honour (誉) and is related to what the person or organisation does.

The textbook lists the problems of measuring it, and cites Enron as a very good example of how reputation measures can fail. Enron was supposedly tops in innovation and second for quality management in 2011 but collapsed under the weight of its internal management malpractices less than a year later (Chia & Synnott, 2009). Those who rated Enron highly for reputation earlier on could not possibly have known what was going on inside the company, they only saw its good results on the outside and hence assumed that the company had a good reputation. Thus, without any significant personal interaction and direct ties to the organisation, person, or issue, reputation (hence referred to as 'entity') is actually superficial. In this case, relationships are actually more relevant, because the entity is now judge by the quality of its interaction with its publics.

Image, on the other hand, translates to 形象(xing xiang) in Mandarin. This shows that it is related to form (形) and symbology (象), more of visual elements of which the construction of meaning is handled by human cognition. Solely working on a positive image does not make the organisation appear any better, because whatever its efforts may be, it will certainly be regarded with suspicion by some (the publics are not stupid, to say the least). Grunig (1993, as cited in Chia & Synnott, 2009) declares that such symbolism should go hand in hand with boosting relationships that actually have substance so as to actually contribute meaningfully to the company. Thus, maintaining a positive image the right way actually contributes to the company's reputation!

On a side note, I found the bit on corporate identity structures interesting, which the text says is partially a function of the structure of the organisation itself and can be used to analyse what the organisation's strategy (in building reputation and also marketing). We are introduced to three approaches: the monolithic approach, the endorsed approach, and the branded approach.

The monolithic approach is based on using a single corporate identity in whatever activity the organisation is involved in. The example mentioned in the book, about Virgin Group, which espouses its brand values of fun, innovation and value for money in all of its industries. I believe Sir Richard Branson himself is also part of the monolith, as can be seen from reports on his actions from time to time - the most recent being his loss of a bet to AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes and having to dress up as a air stewardess to serve on board an AirAsia flight. That's fun, isn't it? (View the article here).

Endorsement, on the other hand, is to feature the parent company's logo on each brand it produces but to put the spotlight on the individual brand itself. Nestlé is the example cited here, with its brand products Milo, KitKat, Carnation milk and so on. Since each of these products (packaged food) are well known and of quality, it also implies Nestlé's status as a premier producer of said items and its commitment to continue doing so. This seems like the strategy for divisionalised organisations to follow.

The last approach is the branded approach, which focuses solely on the individual brands itself with few or no links to the parent company. Procter & Gamble and its various brands in various industries (hair care, shavers, food, etc.) is cited, and I believe this approach is usually followed by conglomerates which own businesses in many sectors; it would make it difficult to fit a particular identity of the parent company to the different industries which are not related to one another.

Thus ends the ninth post.

Post #8: Reading Response on Chapter Seven (Chia and Synott, 2009).

Chapter Seven: Public Relations Management in Organisations

Again, following up from Chapter Six, this chapter now looks at how PR is managed in organisations. The theoretical aspect for this study is that of systems theory, of which an open system is the way to go in this day and age, because organisations do need to interact with their internal and external environments so as to identify and remove and problems (Morgan, 1998, as cited in Chia & Synnott, 2009), as well as to selectively adapt to changes in the environment (Chia & Synnott, 2009).

We then take a look at the different parts that a PR team can play and their areas of focus, before going into the differences between internal and external publics (inclusive of audiences, in my opinion, because the 'audience' aspect does seem to imply one-way communication). Lastly, the chapter identifies external forces that can affect PR practice such as activism and CSR. This sums up the main points of this chapter.

This time around I'd like to look at the characteristics of excellent public relations programs as listed in the table on page 202 (Grunig, 1992, as cited in Synnott, 2009). I believe this table does need a little updating, because in a University of Southern California study of 500 (American) PR departments, 13 other best practices for the departments were listed. Three main points of this study that I found lacking in Grunig's 1992 table were:

1. Establish an effective social responsibility strategy for your organization.
2. Establish an effective digital-media strategy for your organization.
3. Establish an effective issues-management strategy for your organization

In this day and age, when the general public are becoming more and more educated and aware of the various social and environmental issues, (corporate) social responsibility has become a very important area for the organisation to look at. It is given a brief mention towards the end of this chapter, where it is mentioned that CSR was integrated into organisations through acts of philantrophy and care for the environment (Chia & Synnott, 2009). Thus, PR at the department level does need to take into account this and come up with suitable CSR programmes to enhance the reputation of the organisation, such as when PSB Academy adopted Singapore Children's Society as its charity partner early last year and held a charity bazaar which raised a total of (the memory is vague here) approximately two to three thousand dollars.

Digital media is also fast becoming the way in which every sector of the demographic (most commonly among the youth/working class, who have greater spending power) gets their information. As such, online newspapers, forums or blogs can easily sway the perceptions of said public and without jumping on the bandwagon an organisation is certainly to lose out. PR departments therefore need to come up with proper digital media strategies to implement in programs as a form of outreach to widespread publics. I thought that the WhyOhGee digital platform (this has unfortunately been  deactivated: http://www.singapore2010.sg/whyohgee) for the Youth Olympic Games was quite a good PR tactic to draw in young people to create a positive image about the Games, it included information and several up-close-and-personals with athletes from Team Singapore.

Lastly, issues-management. Yes, I know I like to harp a lot on this, but in my opinion this is a very important part of what consitutes an excellent PR program at the departmental level. Definitely along the way some issues or crises will come up, be it internal or external. The PR department needs to be wary for all these and be able to respond as soon as possible. There is a section on managing internal and external relations in this chapter, that which I shall not dwell upon too much, but the fact remains that this is should be a primary concern of the PR department. Internal issues might arise from matters like organisational change or sweeping pay cuts, which the PR (also corporate communications) department must address, or external ones like those I have highlighted in the previous posts that seriously damage reputations.

This ends my post for the week.