Post #14: Reading Response on Chapter Thirteen (Chia and Synott, 2009).

Chapter Thirteen: Focus on Asian Public Relations Management

Public Relations from the perspectives of Asian countries (defined as the ASEAN countries plus South Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan) is discussed in this chapter. Since we live in an Asian country, this chapter is no doubt of great importance to framing our understanding of PR in a local context.

The main points of this chapter are as follows:

- to identify the various cultural issues relevant to PR practice in Asia

- the various aspects of PR as applied to the different Asian countries

- importance of identifying variables in PR => this is a particularly important point because no two Asian countries are identical; even neighbouring Asian countries can have different mindsets. Thus, the PR variables are situational in this regard.

I have mentioned in Post #2 about guanxi, or the term describing business or interpersonal relations that form part of the Chinese psyche. guanxi returns in this chapter, and Chia & Synnott (2009) describe various other similar terms that shape thinking in other Asian countries, such as cheong and no-cheong in Korea. The text draws a parallel between these and Bourdieu's social capital, which I found interesting and agreeable because the value of one's personal networks and relationships can come in handy at times. The simplest examples would be to get a newsworthy media release (that puts the organisation in a good light) published in print media because the PR practitioner is on good terms with the journalist covering the related beat.

The bulk of my reflection, however, will stem from PR practice in Singapore, with a case study similar to that presented in the book: Singapore's bid for the 1st Youth Olympic Games. The journey began in October 2007 when Singapore made its official bid to host a sporting event for 14 to 18 year olds around the world, the first such event of its magnitude.

Its objectives, like that of Incheon in South Korea for the Asian Games (Chia & Synnott, 2009), were to raise its profile as the best possible host city, and also to drum up support and awareness within the country for this bid, a demonstration of "collective will".

Publics and audiences included the voters at the IOC (International Olympic Committee) evaluation committee, the sporting and general media as well as the general public in  Singapore. Details of the bid can be found here. Singapore touted its high-technology, education and connectivity with the world, as well as its youthful vibrance and racial harmony as reasons for the right to host the inaugural Games.

With that, I believe the strategy of Singapore's bid team was to convince the IOC that Singapore was ready to host the games, in terms of budget, infrastructure, environment, standards of living, community support, and the key point: a culture of fostering inter-ethnic knowledge and a sporting atmosphere. The tactics of the Singapore Government's PR campaign are not immediately observable, but with regular news coverage in the sports section (from media releases, definitely - in this case I suppose government control of media is advantageous in this aspect), full government support, and outreach efforts conducted in schools at all levels nationwide, it is in my contention that the PR effects should be quite considerable. In addition, it is possible that Ng Ser Miang, who was on board the Bid Committee, used some of his personal relationships to influence his peers at the IOC to vote in favour of Singapore - this is PR working at the unit level: human to human.

With the buzz generated within the country about the bid, and all other considerations in place, Singapore finally defeated Moscow 53-44 to secure the rights to host the 1st Youth Olympic Games. We have therefore seen in this case study how a small country like Singapore can raise its profile when dealing with a supranational institution such as the IOC, demonstrating the potential of public relations and the will of the collective. 

Our journey through an introduction of public relations thus comes to an end, but this is only the beginning. For now though, I shall end this week's reflection, and my final post for this blog.