Public Relations Trends: Understanding the Profession and Practice

Hello and welcome again. Here's my new work for coursera.org MOOC. I want to share it with you

1. Please look up media references to Public Relations in the country where you are currently residing. What is the term used to refer to Public Relations in the media? (5 points)

As I live and study in Russia, there are a lot of media trying to depict the profession of PR practitioner. But in our country term PR is used to refer to bad-quality promotion and mostly has a negative perception. As opposed to it, mass media depict PR as vital for big companies and even for government (as a part of social politics). But at the same russian media says that traditional PR has become outdated. For example, http://www.kommersant.ru/ says the PR has become a spam-machine because of the amount of press releases reaching for the editor’s email. And some of this PR practitioners are annoying at their follow-up after sending a press-release. Also kommersant.ru claims that PR has changed dramatically since it was established: instead of making text press releases you should monitor the agenda and integrate press-releases (filled-up with images and videos) in accordance with the daily agenda.

2. How do the media describe the profession of Public Relations? (15 points)

2 years ago the famous russian internet media “the Village” (http://www.the-village.ru/) has published a material in order to describe daily life of PR Practitioner. “the Village”  claims that the profession of Public Relations “consist” of infinite flow of information PR practitioner trying to cope with. PR practitioner should be communicative, confident about press-releases he suggesting for publishing and persistent with media neglecting almost 90% of suggested press-releases (as refer to statistics). In addition, “the Village” reports that because of dependency of PR practitioners on journalists of mass-media there’re some situations when these journalists force PR practitioners to make them gifts in order to visit the event or publish a particular release.

3. How do the media describe Public Relations jobs? (10 points)

We can see that PR practitioners have an average salary. USnews.com says writes that median pay per year is slightly less than $55 000.

Gerard Corbett, a chair of the Public Relations Society of America added that PR is booming now:

“Social media outreach has become an integral part of a PR specialist’s job in recent years. With the onset of social infrastructure such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest, combined with the versatility of Web tools, the jobs of public relations specialists are growing at a fast clip”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects public relations specialists employment will grow 12 percent between 2012 and 2022. During that time period, an additional 27,400 jobs will need to be filled.

At the same time Business2community asks if PR is doomed by a shortage of journalists: there are roughly 5.7 PR professionals for every one journalist. But the answer is “No”: PR will only be doomed by our failure to adapt to the ever-changing media landscape, now and in the months and years to come»

4. How do the media depictions of Public Relations resonate with and/or depart from the definition of Public Relations we covered in the lecture videos? Please explain briefly with at least three similarities and/or differences. (30 points)

In MOOC Mohan Dutta said that PR is deliberate and data-driven. But statistics says that there’s almost 90% of press releases sent by companies are not published by mass-media. So, only 1 in 10 of press releases are relevant to media and agenda. This shows that PR is just under preparation to become data-driven.

Also, Mohan Dutta claims that PR practitioner is a mediator between publics and organization. Nevertheless, most of media is controlled by a third party. Therefore, the real mediator is journalist or editor-in-chief.

In addition, Mohan Dutta declared that successful PR practitioner should be conversant with data. I fully agree with him. There was a research that PR activities are successful only when relevant. To be relevant you need to work with data.

5. Based on your assessment of the media portrayals of Public Relations jobs and the Public Relations profession, what are the challenges facing the profession of Public Relations in the context of the country you are referring to?

            The main challenges in US are:

1)    Because of the disproportion (5.7 PR practitioner for only one journalist), PR practitioner should be flexible and quickly adapt to fast-changing PR industry. Those who won’t adapt will lose their job.

2)    Junior PR practitioner is not well-paid job. You need to be prepared to earn a few during the first year.

3)    The expectation of growth of PR jobs in not so good (only 6%). There many jobs booming now

4)    As a PR practitioner, you need to work even 24/7 to be on agenda. Not everyone ready for this. Actually many people will switch to another profession in order to manage better work conditions.

6. What steps would you suggest for overcoming these challenges to the profession?

             I think that PR industry is self-regulated. It means that those practitioners who cannot adapt will lose their job. Those companies struggled to adapt will lose their publics and will leave the market. However, newcomers that will be more flexible and innovative will replace such companies. This rule works for PR practitioners as well. PR in evolving, its effectiveness is growing. The only thing that PR practitioners need is to stay on agenda and learn more about future trends to be qualified enough.

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Live for my own

It has been a great time concerning my study at university. Here must be some words about lecturers and beautiful farewell to my fellas. But not today.
I'd got some time to think over what I should do next before I realised what I really want to do. And then I merely want to share some thoughts.
One of my great friends share some observations about how it's done in Europe when you're graduate. She said in EU they take some time (maybe 1 or 2 or more years) for exploring the world. That will help "future seekers" to find out how they see their own future. But when you're obligated to work and learn something the real internal conversation may not happen. That why former students eliminate all the obligations they have exept only one: exploring the world and nature of everything surrounding you. This is how it looks:
Say goodbye to all the routine and quit a job. just travel to some place for a month. Read some books the reading of which you'd postponed previously. Try to study a new skill (play the violine or something really unfamiliar to you). Meet new people. Accomodate. Enjoy. The last thing is the most important.
 Internal dialogue is a constant thing, something that we got used to since we had been children. But because of the pace of living a life we don't have a time or chance or ability to ask ourselves "what do you want? who do you expect yourself to be? Is what I'm doing right? What if I change something?"
I'm confident at my aspiration to have such time to determing my future. Maybe it'll take just a couple of weeks or a year, I really don't know. But I know that this time will be crucial for myself.
As usual,an inspiring pic for you :)

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September

     You know, i've never been so feared about these autumn. Actually I used to say "oh now there is a great period of falling leaves down and all that autumn bullshit".
But year after year this fear of ending smth good and facing the cold wind is becoming bigger and bigger. The crucial moment is that at one day it will take you over and you'll not be able to do smth with this. And this day came...
     For me the only solution of decreasing the impact of season depression is to set up a whole new great goal of your life and challenge yourself to reach it. Why autumn? Maybe it's the most productive period.
    Just want to say that I've determined with my new goal. It's about to become a great at smth that I'm learning now and by the way to leave this fucking job for another. Firstly it's vital to feel the passion of what you're doing now. But these time I don't feel so. Maybe, the new job will change my life dramatically or won't impact on any part of it. But something predicts me that this fall might change everything.
Wish you the same.
Sincerely yours,
V.


P.S. Inspiring pic for you :)

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Short review of my trip to Krasnodar. Beautiful city (exactly) which is full of beautiful people

Hey! Here I'm again.
You know I got back to Stavropol 2 days ago but start to compose this post just now.  This is because I wanted my thoughts to be formed and to eliminate all emotional factors after vocation. So, there is gonna be my view of Krasnodar. Get ready for a big mount of photos and words. Let's start!

First of all, the Central Bus station and Central Railways Station is placed right in front of each other in common area. I should also say that both of them were build over the course of USSR's period but nowadays they had reconstructed and also got a modern equipment.

I have no good photo of stations, but I've seen a lol about Crimea near the exit out of the Railway Station.

This photo was taken on the second day of my staying in Krasnodar. Since I had already arrived in the city at the end of the night, all other photos will be black scary and in a bad quality (all of them were taken on Lumia 520).
The main street in the city is Krasnaya (it is situated in the heart of the Krasnodad) and it is very large and along which almost all government buildings, monuments, shops, bars, parks and Galereya mall are concentrated. Here's a part of map.

So, there are many places of interest here. We have started our walk through the Krasnay st. (further in the text K.st.) at 2 a.m.. It was night and 'cause it was business day (Monday-Tuesday night) there were no people in the streets at all (thanks God).

It's very important to say that all kuban people (Kuban is unofficial name of Krasnodar region) are very fond of place where they live. To prove my words here is one of hundreds banners posted through the city:

So, as we walked, we met a variety of sights:
1.The Krasnodar Court of Justice (very gorgeous)

The Krasnodar Court of Justice

2. The Pushkin monument (very interesting that the light of the lantern shows the shadow of the monument on the building behind) (awww toooo many "the" but no one can stop me now!)

The Pushkin monument

3. Ekaterina the second monument.

Ekaterina the second monument. 

Here I should say that the founder of the city was she. And before the city was renamed to Krasnodar in 1920 year its name was Ekaterinodar (in honour of Ekaterina II). Now, after USSR, you can see many signs of letter "E" everywhere in the city.

And not long ago the head of the city suggested to rename the city to Ekaterinodar again.

4. The Church of Someone i don't remember

The Church

5. Galereya Krasnodar Mall.

Galereya Krasnodar Mall.

It's so big that one day I've spent 3 hours and visited just 5-6 shops in this mall (they are in different parts of the mall so it takes some time to get from one shop to another). The 3rd floor is named food court, place where a big variety of restaurants are placed (including Mc Donalds, Burger King, KFC) and more than
1000 places to sit. Very big. If you gonna visit all shops that are situated here you should have nearlly 12 hours.

Go further!

6. The Ferris Wheel (52 meters tall!). It was opened just 1 month ago, on 9th of May. 250 rur for one ride which last nearly for 15 minutes.

The Ferris Wheel (52 meters tall

On the top of it you can see beautiful panorama of the city.  Like this (but not so beautiful 'cause photos as you remember were taken on Lumia 520)

Panorama of Krasnodar

I haven't mentioned that this wheel is placed in the Gorky Park. It's not so big, but very cosy. There some other attractions but i think they are not so interesting. For ex. below you can see the normal Ferris Wheel (20 meters tall) from the top of the 52 meters:

7. The Solnechny Island (park which is surrounded by water)

The entrance to the zoo

It is the beautiful place for a rest. But I don't like convicted unhappy animals so I haven't desire for visiting zoo.

The park is very clean. Grass is green and had just been cut. Beautiful smell all over the territory

Attraction

On the banks you can spend a great time enjoying the nature and feeding ducks

Is it beautiful? I think so.












8. Kuban and the riverbank
Night:

Here, right on the bridge a night club is situated (it's lighted). Also numerous benches for seating are placed along the riverbank.

9. And concluding, back to the Krasnaya street. During the weekend (from friday evening till sunday evening) from 20:00 to 24.00 it's free of cars and opened for a walk.

There you can find street musicians (really cooool):

10. Also, there is a great Irish Pub which I strongly recommend to visit if you'll be in Krasnodar:

Irish Pub in the center of Krasnodar

And here is perfomance of group "Krasen glaz" in it:

To sum up, someone can ask me, how i've spent my time in Krasnodar. I want to answer with a photo:

P.S.Many thanks goes to Evgeny Rybalchenko, who made up our trip with friends impossible cool.
P.P.S. Sorry for mistakes. I'm just studing English
See ya, bye)

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Welcome post

It takes some time and a lot of effort to start it. Although I've learnt language in school but it was not enough. Here I will practice my English and share with you some info that seems interesting for me.
Sincerely yours,
V.

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