Can politics become more transparent by using social media?

If there is one particular sector that requires effective public relations then I believe it is politics. Politicians are supposedly the people that represent the views of their constituents and the country, therefore maintaining and establishing good relations with their publics should be of paramount importance. However, after briefly analysing each of the three main political parties’ on-line and social media usages in a recent workshop exercise, I was shocked to find the fundamental principles of dialogue and transparency appeared to have been disregarded. Instead, what appeared to be shown was a one-sided, one-way message which, to a neutral observer, seemed to try and brainwash, cover up, and avoid any negativity aimed at the host party. Most definitions of public relations include the notion of reputation management, however by lacking an interest in engaging in dialogue with the party’s publics through these communication channels, could the transparency of the party’s intentions be called into question?

Despite The Conservative Party utilising more social media channels than the other parties, I struggled to find a section which encouraged me to add my opinion, or ask a question which will be answered by a source of authority, such as a spokesperson for the party. Also, there was one particular area in which I consider to be devious. The Conservative Wall allows the user to see ‘brand advocates’ and see their faces, and why they are a Conservative. However, it appears too coincidental that the majority of the individuals’ images are taken with the same background, which looks like it could have been taken by the Conservative party itself at a conference, and then posted by the party. The particular aspect of this that I find deviant is that it masquerades itself as a user-generated area; however there is no upload function for the user.

The Labour Party had an area of their website dedicated to networking and user-generated content; however, it was not accessible to every website visitor, but only to members. Also, like The Conservatives, there was no function allowing the user to submit feedback, or engage in dialogue with a party spokesperson regarding specific issues. However, the most unbelievable revelation of this exercise was that The Labour Party has no official group or fan page on Facebook. Facebook is a networking site which builds upon the need to engage in conversation, so why has this been disregarded?

I am pleased to see that political parties are entering into on-line and social media platforms as this is becoming an increasingly valuable media form within the public sphere. However, as any organisation needs to understand, public relations in the modern day is no longer a one-way message, it needs to encourage dialogue with its publics. By disregarding this principle in social media applications, such as Facebook, it looks as though the organisation does not value the opinion of its publics, and this could appear to be non-transparent.

Exciting stories have news values

The modern day journalist is no longer the glamorous undercover detective which investigates and digs out information for its audience to read. Today, journalists are required to write a higher quantity of stories to fill the paper rather than take time to uncover detailed events. In the recent study completed by Cardiff University it found that almost a fifth of a newspaper originates from ‘PR material’. Therefore, with journalists in need of ‘pre-packaged’ stories to facilitate their jobs, and with the British national press still having the ability to dictate the news agenda across multiple platforms (as mentioned in my previous blog – Out with the old, in with the new … well, not quite) the PR practitioner needs to understand the concept of ‘news values’ to be successful in a media relations role.

So what are news values? Essentially they are characteristics which make stories newsworthy. These characteristics are not definitive, but are generally split into five main areas:

• Timing – is it new? Old stories are generally boring.
• Significance (magnitude) – the number of people affected/effected.
• Proximity – how close are the intended audience to the story? For example, the winners of the London amateur football leagues would not interest people living in Thailand.
• Prominence – how important is the person or subject of the story? For example, The Prime Minister is the leader of the country and celebrity, so stories concerning him would be of higher prominence to us.
• Human Interest – is it unusual? Does it evoke emotion?

Kraft Foods’ recent campaign which advertised their product Stove Top relied upon the application of these news values to gain editorial coverage of their brand and product. They created new heated bus shelters, which will warm a significant number of the general public, and it was a funny and unusual piece of news. This particular campaign received ‘37.2 million media impressions’ including The New York Times and Fox Business Network. Watch the following video to see the effectiveness of this campaign.

The PR practitioner needs to understand the way in which the media selects its news agenda; they need to know how to create a newsworthy story out of any given situation and grab the attention of the journalists or influential people. As Bailey points out, traditional news releases tend to be discarded by journalists, so grab their attention. On top of the five “Ws” (who, what, where, why and when) that should be included in all news releases ensure that the story adheres to the principles of news values to add interest. Watch this quick video which provides a quick overview of the application of news values to get your campaign newsworthy, however I recommend you urge some caution as the video conflicts with the CIPR’s code of conduct regarding issues of transparency.

Out with the old, in with the new …well, not quite!

On-line social media platforms such as blogs, social networks, and other applications that support user-generated content seem to be affecting the role and operation of public relations within the modern day society. However, even though it offers organisations many possibilities, it also conjures up problems. Mike Hogan points out that there seems to be a ‘rise of social media’, with many organisations now advertising using techniques created within these platforms, for example, Britvic’s ‘Drench’ television advertisement, and Cadbury’s ‘Dairy Milk’ television advertisement. These two examples have received several million hits on YouTube, they have received fan group pages on Facebook, and Britvic’s public relations department analysed the interaction with social media in its campaign evaluation. However, there are definitely problems that can occur when monitoring or targeting social media.

Firstly, as Mike Hogan highlights again, ‘the content of social media is created by users’. At this point it is interesting to pose a question; where do these individuals/users gain their information? Imagine a situation where a public relations practitioner has to increase the support of a political party policy, and monitor the public’s perception on social media platforms. Would targeting the social media platforms directly be the most effective method to influence perceptions? As Alistair Campbell states on his recent appearance on This Week, the national press still have a seemingly huge influence upon what determines the news agenda for not only their papers, but also the tone of blogs, social media and television news. As can be seen in many of the daily papers currently, the agenda seems to be anti-Gordon Brown, and this seems to be replicated in the blogosphere.

Although the ‘new’ public relations model seems to focus upon dialogue, relationships, targeting niche/specific groups, and fluency in all forms of media, it must not be forgotten that the individuals that use social media are also consumers of other media forms. This would suggest that their opinions would be formed and influenced by what they consume within the public sphere. Therefore, even though a specific audience may not read a specific newspaper, newspapers must not be disregarded, and their powerful ability to influence the news agenda across multiple media platforms must be acknowledged and considered. This methodology is not suitable to all PR campaigns; however I am suggesting that ‘old’ PR methods can still influence the ‘new’ method’s procedures and success. Thus, by combining a suitable proportion of both of these methods, the overall campaign could become more successful and effective.

(Dia)-logical PR

Trying to define the role of Public Relations and its practitioners seems to be a near impossible task. Kitchen has argued that it is a ‘management function’, whereas Wilcox argues that it is a ‘performance of an organisation’, and the 1978 World Assembly of Public Relations Associations stated that it was the ‘social science of analysing trends, predicting their consequences … and implementing planned programmes of action …’. However, what seems to be similar across the range of definitions is the idea that Public Relations is ‘dialogic’ or regarded as being ‘two-way or interactive’. This conversational element between the practitioner and their public’s can be achieved more effectively in the digital era through the use of social media applications such as Facebook.

Facebook offers the opportunity for Public Relations practitioners or organisation to manage their reputation through a group or fan page for free. However, it should not just be used to send direct messages to the audience, it should facilitate the interaction. These pages allow the group creator to control what forms of content can be uploaded onto the page and by who, allow for discussion forums to be enabled or disabled, allows the users to upload comments, video’s, images and links, and allows the organisation to collate an easily accessible audience. It allows the organisation to target messages at a specific audience, however social media allows for the audience of this message to voice their opinion almost instantaneously and provide feedback quickly and inexpensively. However, the credibility of this feedback could be scrutinised.

By utilising this platform effectively it can allow for a quick and easy discussion forum with the organisation’s public’s, which would therefore facilitate the interaction between the practitioner and the public. By allowing the Public Relations practitioner to monitor the feedback from the public in this manner, it would allow the practitioner to engage in conversation with individuals rather than faceless numbers, allowing the practitioner to manage the reputation of the organisation at an individual level.

What can be seen is that social media allows for the analysis of trends, the management of reputation and the ‘performance of an organisation’ through the easily accessible mode of ‘dialogic’ interaction with the public. However, what should be remembered is that this is not the only communication channel, and not all of the organisation’s public’s will be members of such applications, therefore it should be used in conjunction with other channels of communication.

The Institute of Public Relations state that ‘Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you’. Therefore, social media applications should be an essential tool for all Public Relation practitioners of the digital era.

Crowd-sourcing problems?

As Jeff Howe states, ‘crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.’

However, would you trust the opinions of anyone? Taking the opinions and ideas from others has been argued as creating richer content for other users, such as Wiki’s; however there seem to be potential problems that can arise from this method. Threatened Voices utilises crowd-sourcing to generate a project which aims to identify individuals that have been threatened for what they publish online. It then produces statistics based upon the information provided by the users. But how trustworthy can this really be? Firstly, it relies upon other individuals providing factually correct information and secondly, it relies upon the information actually being submitted.

Threatened Voices is a good example of the positive effects of crowd-sourcing as it documents information about other threatened individuals without a financial motive. However, should commercial businesses adopt this method? As Lee Edwards points out in Exploring Public Relations, Public Relations is more than just providing a one way message directed at the audience, it harnesses the power provided through dialogue, engaging in a conversation with the consumers and taking on board the feedback from the consumers themselves. However, where does this line end? When does this feedback or information become valuable in a capital sense? Should businesses be paying for this sort of information?

Businesses could be seen to be exploiting the creativity and intelligence that the general public own. As Boutin mentions in his article, businesses will create almost a sense of competition, so the consumer has a sense of pride through winning or having their idea selected, and will win a small prize for this. However, this prize will be minimal in comparison to the overall capital potential of such a brilliant idea. The business will also assume ownership of this idea as well. Is this not almost a form of exploited plagiarism? The ethicality of this subject will most probably be questioned for a long time to come.

However, to end on a lighter note, businesses should urge caution when using this idea as it can also end in catastrophic failure. Kraft Foods Australia asked their consumers to name their latest product in a publicity campaign at the launch of the product, resulting in the iSnack 2.0 being used as the name. However, the product was ridiculed and as a result failed. As Nick Saint elaborates, ‘crowdsourcing is great for generating ideas… but when it’s your money on the line, true democracy is a bad idea.’

Twitter! Inviting or contriving?

Twitter, tweeting, tweeple? This on-line phenomenon seems to be the talk of the world at the moment, and is grabbing the attention of most celebrities, journalists and PR companies. Twitter is being used in a clever way by celebrities.  It has almost become a source to reach out to their fans, as to allow the fans to become a part of the celebrity’s social sphere. For students studying Public Relations this could provoke a debate surrounding the ethics of the hidden messages encapsulated in each of the celebrity’s ‘tweets’. For example, @RealJudgeJules’ (the Twitter name of the Radio 1 dance DJ) most recent ‘tweet’ states ‘It’s a strangely calm moment when you’re on the last flight out of an airport. All the hustle and bustle gone. I’ve found my airport karma.’

This looks innocent and rather philosophical; however it can also be interpreted as posing a question about where he is travelling to. If the message is read in this way then is it not just simple publicity? Is it an ethical practice to promote something or someone in this hidden way? Maybe I am reading too far into the ‘tweets’, however, in terms of transparency, are we really being allowed to see the truth behind the messages? There are no definite answers on this issue, only opinions and perspectives, but this is what should make it a fascinating issue for Public Relations students and Public Relations practitioners worldwide.