Comments on: 10 ways in which social media is impacting on PR: ditz talks

By: Free report: PR at war, explosions @ social media summit | Public relations and managing reputation

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:57:48 +0000

[...] time to keep up? Can we pay someone to filter this information for us? Social media is forcing the PR professional pay a heavy price for staying on the [...]

By: Sean Williams

Sean Williams — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:47:13 +0000

Craig – the learned Drs. Grunig indeed have cases that support the symmetrical ideal. I just go back to the voluminous number of companies which do very well with a more asymmetrical model — I find Excellence interesting more from the managerial perspective it explains in the original study than from the idea that publics and organization should negotiate for shared pain in the midst of their shared benefit. There just aren’t that many companies who will change as a consequence of dialogue with publics. Instead, they’ll persuade publics to adopt their perspective — asymmetry…

Excellence needs to be revisited formally — repeat the study, but also look for independent evidence that what the senior practitioners are saying matches the reality.

This is especially important for applying excellence to social media research, which wasn’t even conceived of at the time of the original research.

Matthew — excellent comment in re: Facebook. We senior folks ignore social media at existential peril.

By: Matthew Gain

Matthew Gain — Mon, 24 May 2010 05:34:07 +0000

Really interesting post Craig.

The most interesting point you make is on more senior PR staff deferring to junior staff. This is something I have seen a lot of and it is where a lot of digital PR activity falls down.

Senior staff, however, cannot continue to outsource this work to them without risking becoming extinct themselves.

Facebook in Australia has an audience of 9 million people. If a new magazine or newspaper came along with that kind of audience every PR practitioner, junior or senior, would get their head around it quickly. The same must apply for social media. It will not always be easy for experienced PR staff, but not doing it will be a hell of a lot harder and damaging in the long run.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:25:00 +0000

Thanks Pamela and Sean for the comments.

Sean, as you know, Jim Grunig will go to the trenches defending the utility of his theory armed, he says, with plenty of evidence to support his views. See his Praxis article from last year that is online for evidence of that.

So I’d love to see the two of you in a debate on the topic. It would make for interesting interaction!

By: Sean Williams

Sean Williams — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:09:05 +0000

Craig, the evidence is still wanting on whether 2-way symmetrical is in practice between organizations and publics, aside from a very few cases.

My research partner, Dr. Julie O’Neil from Texas Christian University, and I are working on a 3-paper project attempting to discern exactly to what extent 2-way symmetry is happening in social media. I presented the first paper as a work in progress at the International PR Research Conference in Miami in March, and the two of us will speak about it at the PRSA International Conference in Washington, D.C., in October.

There is two-way discussion, but most of it is individual to individual.

By: Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:00:12 +0000

Really useful and thank you. The traditional PR skills and disciplines practised by us older PR people clearly needed, in combination with the hi-tech skills of the young ones.