What Is PR? Let's Help Define It

Congratulations to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for leading a collaborative, global effort to redefine public relations. On November 21, the PRSA announced on its blog, ComPRehension:

"Starting today, PRSA is embarking on an international effort, in collaboration with multiple industry partners, to modernize the definition of public relations. In a small way, we seek to rebrand the profession." (Click here for the full blog post.)

This initiative is long overdue. It's impossible to create a profession out of a field that cannot be defined. Our field has struggled for decades with this identity crisis. We teach our public relations students that they are preparing for employment in a field that has over 500 definitions (see the latest edition of the classic Effective Public Relations text by Cutlip, Center, and Broom). The PRSA also admitted its official definition of public relations, “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other,” was last updated in 1982.

My preferred definition of public relations comes from Jim Grunig and Todd Hunt's 1984 text Managing Public Relations, "The management of communication between an organization and its publics" (p. 6). Granted, this is but one of 500 +/- definitions of public relaitons, but it seems to resonate the most closely with what I have practiced and taught for decades. I must admit, however, I think this definition should include management of relationships as well as communication, since the outcome of excellent public relations should be to establish and maintain long-term, mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and key publics (see the excellence theory in public relations).

So, I have updated my personal definition of public relations and posted it on the PRSA's "Public Relations Defined" web site. I encourage others to do the same. This is a unique opportunity to join public relations scholars and practitioners around the world in an effort to define our profession.

Help us answer the question, "What is PR?"

Examining U.S. Military Public Affairs and Strategic Communication: Information or Influence?

Joint Publication 3-0
Joint Operations

Through my work this week at the U.S. Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership, I engaged in an interesting exchange of ideas about U.S. military public affairs and strategic communication roles – or how to integrate public affairs, information operations, public diplomacy, and even psychological operations (recently renamed military information support operations) in strategic communication. This dialogue is not unlike the discussion among communication professionals in the private sector who are trying to figure out the best ways to harmonize public relations, marketing, advertising and other organizational functions in the form of integrated or strategic communication processes

I recently published a post on the Center for Leadership’s official DIME blog (see “Social Media in the U.S. Military: A New Information Center of Gravity?, Sept. 21, 2011). The DIME blog provides a forum for discussion related to elements of U.S. national power: diplomacy (D), information (I), military (M), and economics (E). My post contended that communication channels like Twitter, when used effectively by military communicators, can exert such influence that social media becomes a “new information center of gravity.”

This week, a student at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College commented on my post and disagreed with my characterization of social media as a center of gravity. The student, a military officer applying knowledge gained from his studies at the College, claimed that U.S. public support of the national and military strategy and policy was the real center of gravity. This comment prompted a response from Professor Dennis Murphy, professor of information operations and information in warfare at the U.S. Army War College. Click here to follow this commentary on the DIME Blog.

Prof. Murphy made an excellent point about the U.S. military’s responsibilities to inform rather than persuade U.S. publics. According to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Principles of Information the U.S. military public affairs function (PA) is responsible for making “available timely and accurate information so that the public[s], Congress and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy.” The DoD is also responsible for making available a free flow of information, “without censorship and propaganda, to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their dependents.” The principles explain, “The sole purpose of such [information] activity is to expedite the flow of information to the public: propaganda has no place in Department of Defense public affairs programs.”

This policy, which guides the flow of public information intended for U.S. domestic audiences (including Congress and the news media), should not be confused with the doctrine and principles that guide U.S. strategic communication (SC) efforts intended for audiences abroad. Joint Publication 3-0 Joint Operations (11 August 2011) defines strategic communication as focused “processes and efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable to advance USG interests, policies, and objectives” (p. I-7). Also, the strategic communication process “occurs through the use of coordinated information, themes, plans, programs, and actions synchronized with other elements of power” (p. I-7).

Furthermore, according to Joint Publication 3-0, “The term strategic communication, an aspect of strategic guidance, applies to USG-level department and agency activities. CCDRs [combatant commanders] are the primary interface for implementing SC in the context of their theater strategies during specific joint operations. The US military plays an instrumental role in SC, primarily through IO [information operations], PA [public affairs], and DPSD [defense support to public diplomacy]” (III-15). Of note, unlike DoD public information activities that simply educate and inform, joint strategic communication efforts are designed to affect joint military operations by “gaining or maintaining the support of the relevant population” (III-15). The public affairs responsibilities in the context of joint operations extend beyond domestic public information and command information activities to include “community engagement activities directed toward both the external and internal publics with interest in DoD” (p. III-17). The PA function is also assigned responsibility for “countering adversary misinformation and disinformation” (p. III-17).

I’ll end with a final word of caution and a few questions about the evolving nature of global public affairs and strategic communication, which I hope will stimulate further discussion. First, the caution: The boundaries that have historically delineated PA, IO, SC and other military communication functions are gradually eroding. In his landmark book, Socialnomics, Eric Qualman described the fragmentation of Internet Age publics. Qualman pointed out, for instance, that the pervasive nature of social media and the proliferation of communication outlets (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) means that “we no longer search for news; rather, the news finds us” (p. 9).

Now, the questions:

If news “finds us,” how can U.S. military strategic communication specialists using social media channels (e.g., Twitter) to transmit messages intended only for Afghan citizens (or even insurgents) in Kabul manage the risk that those same messages will reach unintended audiences in the United States (e.g., via re-tweets)?

Joint Publication 3-0 identifies national will as an essential instrument that supports application of national power (p. I-4). The publication also assigns responsibilities to the joint public affairs function in strategic communication for promoting and maintaining the support of U.S. national and military policies among key publics (p. III-17). Considering the combined importance of national will and international support of U.S. national and military policies, should the U.S. Department of Defense continue to limit its public affairs principles to simply informing and educating U.S. domestic audiences? Or should U.S. government officials consider integrating DoD principles of information, joint public affairs efforts, and strategic communications in ways that simultaneously foster U.S. national will, promote support of audiences abroad, and deter adversaries?

Please offer your comments.

Still Looking for a PR Job? Consider Latest Employment Stats

Andrew Worob

Two recent discussions on our Marist College Public Relations Alumni & Student Group caught my attention. The first was posted by Andrew Worob, manager at Ruder-Finn in New York City and publisher of the popular PR at Sunrise blog. Andrew’s post from PR at Sunrise, “Want a Job in PR? It All Starts with the Cover Letter,” was authored by contributor Lisa Hutchins (on Twitter @lisahutchins).  



Lisa Hutchins

In this discussion, Lisa offered advice on landing a job in the public relations field, beginning with the cover letter. Before offering some very useful advice, she described a cover letter for a job application as “the first step in branding your package and who you are as a public relations practitioner.”

Shortly after reading Andrew and Lisa’s post about finding a job, a saw group member Andrew Clinkman’s post, “Unprepared for PR in a Social World?,” which appeared on his blog, The Blog: Someday This Will Be Famous.

Before elaborating on factors that might make a difference between success and failure in public relations, Andrew began with the following narrative:

College rocked, don’t get me wrong. I studied hard, did well in school, and developed lasting relationships. I traveled abroad to Morocco, studied difficult material, and learned of concepts that challenged the mind. As I walked from graduation, I had a sense that I was the most marketable person ever! I had a Communication degree with concentrations in Public Relations and Communication Studies from Marist College. I was ready to sit back and watch companies come crawling to my doorstep. Six months later, that hasn’t happened.

Both of these posts made me thankful for the good fortune many of our Marist College graduates have experienced in the job market. A quick review of our LinkedIn group members list reveals a bank of employers that reads like a Who’s Who in public relations. However, I am mindful that many of our talented graduates, like Andrew Clinkman, are still looking for a job. As I reflected on what makes the difference between those landing a job and those still looking, I ran some numbers.

First, I checked the annual Survey of Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates conducted by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia. Results of the most recent survey were just reported in the November 2011 edition of AEJMC News, the newsletter of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

According to the survey, "The job market for graduates of journalism and mass communication programs around the country showed signs of improvement in 2010 and the first half of 2011, though the improvements are tentative and the market has not yet returned even to the level of two years ago."

The report also noted:

The 2010 graduates were more likely than graduates of 2009 to report having at least one job offer on graduation, more likely to report being employed at the benchmark date of the end of October of last year, and more likely to hold a fulltime job six to eight months after completing university studies. The jobs the graduates held were more likely to be in the field of communication in 2010 than they were in 2009.

Click for enlarged view. Courtesy of AEJMC News.

The survey found that median annual salaries for entry-level jobs, which hover around $30,000, haven’t changed since 2006. This statistic, factoring in inflation, means “graduates in 2010 reported salaries with significantly less purchasing power than did graduates in 2006.”

Click for enlarged view. Courtesy of AEJMC News.

On a brighter note, the survey report’s authors indicated, “Graduates in 2010 who found jobs were a bit more likely to report those jobs matched their goals and to be satisfied with the jobs overall than were graduates a year earlier.” Also, “A clear majority of the graduates reported they had been prepared for today’s job market by their courses, but large percentages did not report obtaining skills that now seem important for those seeking jobs in the changing communication occupations.” This latter finding seems to track with Andrew Clinkman’s post about the changing nature of the public relations field and the need to develop skills that often go beyond what we teach in the classroom.

I then reviewed the latest U.S. Department of Labor employment statistics, which predict significant growth in demand for public relations professionals through 2018. According to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (see the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook online):

Employment of public relations specialists is expected to grow 24 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations. The need for good public relations in an increasingly competitive and global business environment should spur demand for these workers, especially those with specialized knowledge or international experience. Employees who possess additional language capabilities also are in great demand.

The recent emergence of social media in the public relations is expected to increase job growth as well. Many public relations firms are expanding their use of these tools, and specialists with skills in them will be needed. 

After digesting all of these figures, I concluded that graduates can improve their chances of finding a job if they follow Lisa Hutchins’ advice to brand yourself and your application in a way that sets you apart from other applicants for a job.

Also, following up on Andrew Clinkman’s advice, which is supported by recent statistics, find your niche in the changing world of public relations. That niche seems to be associated more and more with social media skills and expertise. I’m impressed with Andrew’s efforts to promote his social media brand through his blog, posts on Twitter and LinkedIn, etc.

So, for those still looking for a job, take heart. The job outlook in public relations is looking brighter. Find your niche, polish your skills (even if it means publishing your own blog and remaining active on the social media scene), and promote your brand.

Now, how about other practitioners who have succeeded in finding jobs and advancing in their careers? What can you share with us in terms of the public relations employment outlook in your sector? And what advice can you offer to those still seeking employment? Please comment.

NOTE: For members of the Marist College Public Relations Alumni and Student Group on LinkedIn, you are invited to comment on this in our discussions forum at http://linkd.in/tI0CiI.

Social Media: A Question of PR Leadership or Ownership?

The Council of Public Relations Firms “Firm Voice” blog post, “Owning Social Media” (October 12, 2011), raised some excellent points about taking responsibility for managing the social media function in the marketing and public relations sector. The post’s author, Widmeyer Communications Senior Vice President Barry Reicherter, issued a cogent call for public relations professionals, who need to assess the elements of their social media inventory in order to increase the effectiveness of their communication programs. However, I urge readers to think beyond Reicherter’s call for sole “ownership” of social media and consider the more important issue of strategic leadership in public relations.

Barry Reicherter

I am a public relations advocate but I’m reluctant to support Reicherter’s claim, “If public relations practitioners can acknowledge the primary elements that comprise social media, we can successfully claim ownership.” I agree that public relations practitioners (and students) need to develop expertise in social media tactics. Digital communication has become a core requirement in our profession. However, as they become more senior, public relations professionals should look beyond the tactical elements of social media and develop the expertise required to lead and manage the ways that social media activities are integrated in global marketing and communication programs at the strategic level.

Sabrina Horn

In another “Firm Voice” blog post on March 9, 2011, (“The Future of Talent: Building Best-In-Class Account Teams in the Social Media Age”) author Matt Shaw wrote, “The rise of social media and the erosion of boundaries between public relations and other marketing disciplines is rapidly creating the need for a new kind of public relations professional." According to Horn Group President and CEO Sabrina Horn, quoted in the blog post, that new kind of professional has to possess more than digital skills. “We’re already looking for people with a more well-rounded communications background—generalists who are capable of doing many things and floating between specialties, with digital skills as a central core area of competency,” Horn observed. “But the talent we hire just has to understand marketing strategy, because our clients are demanding that level of thinking as to how to build audiences.”

So, today’s public relations professionals (and certainly current students who will become our future professionals) must broaden their portfolios beyond expertise in individual functional areas. They must also be able to work with and manage other functional areas (marketing, business, research and analysis, etc.). Hence, social media might have many “owners” in a large corporation organized by departments or divisions (public relations, marketing, employee relations, executive communication, analyst relations, etc.). While public relations should “own” social media within its own functional area, I believe it’s more important that public relations “own” responsibility for integrating, coordinating, and leading strategic communication efforts (including social media) that span organizational boundary lines. This requires expertise in leadership and management as well as social media planning, tactics, and measurement.

ADM Mike Mullen

Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, an active user of social media, once warned about focusing too much on individual communication tools or concepts and not enough on the overall communication context and process. In 2009, then serving as the U.S. military’s senior uniformed executive, Admiral Mullen wrote, “As someone who ‘tweets’ almost daily, I appreciate the need to embrace the latest technologies. But more important than any particular tool, we must know the context within which our actions will be received and understood.”

In conclusion, I suggest that Reicherter add to his call for expertise in social media by encouraging public relations practitioners to develop expertise in managing individual tools, integrating social media activities, and leading communication programs that accurately communicate context and promote understanding of an organization’s actions.



Marshall McLuhan

As a postscript, I also wanted to comment on Reicherter’s A Clockwork Orange analogy that “social media is both organic and digital — humans connecting with technology as a conduit.” I’m a big fan of A Clockwork Orange, but, with all due respect to Anthony Burgess, I prefer Marshall McLuhan’s 1960s prediction of what’s happening today with social media. I believe that social media have become more than a connection between humans and technology. In fact, I think social media have become extensions of our human personalities, senses, and experiences. For as McLuhan described in The Medium is the Massage (1967), years before the launch of the Internet, “[Social media] are extensions of some human faculty – psychic or physical.”

Mexican Drug Wars and Social Media: Deadly Lessons

Read my latest post on the U.S. Army War College's DIME Blog at http://bit.ly/ppf5Xw. The DIME Blog is a product of the Army's Center for Strategic Leadership, where I am currently serving as the 2011-2012 Visiting Professor of Strategic Communication.

Here's a preview of my blog post, "Mexican Drug Wars and Social Media: Deadly Lessons in Information Power":

Recent CNN and New York Times news reports raise thought-provoking albeit disturbing notions about social media as a means to enable the information element of power. The reports about Mexico’s rampant drug war offer a case study of how law-enforcement, para-military, and military agencies need to adapt to the increasingly influential role of news and social media in power struggles.  



Late editor Maria Macias



The CNN report (“Mexican Editor's Death Linked to Work with Social Media,” Sept. 27) and three New York Times reports ("Mexico Paper, a Drug War Victim, Calls for a Voice," Sept. 20, by Randal C. Archibold; "In Mexico, Social Media Become a Battleground in the Drug War," Sept. 15, by J. David Goodman; and "Mexico Turns to Social Media for Information and Survival", Sept. 24, by Damien Cave") all described grisly murders of journalists like Maria Macias (right) and other social media users, allegedly by members of drug gangs, as a means to discourage Internet reports about gang activities.

A synthesis of these stories reveals how social media has become such an influential means of information power that adversaries are now battling for control of this space. In particular, a careful reading of the Times reports provides a sense of how strategic communication activities are becoming the center of gravity that Prof. Dennis Murphy wrote about in this blog on Sept. 14 (“Resources: How Important is Information as Power?”). Just as Murphy wrote, “Destroy the center of gravity directly then, and you defeat your enemy,” the Mexican drug cartels are attempting to destroy Mexico’s system of free speech and defeat the will of people to oppose their illicit activities.

First, social media must be managed strategically. According to Cave, social media can “create and destroy communities.” Veracruz’s State Assembly recently passed legislation outlawing use of social media to undermine public order. Also, the recent murders of online journalists exemplify the personal risks of reporting via social media in Mexico. Still, social media can promote public safety by warning people to stay away from areas where drug cartel violence erupts. According to one Twitter user quoted in Cave’s article, “People’s lives are saved with Twitter.”

Second, social media is pervasive. Many Mexicans see social media as essential for survival, and social media can unify citizens dispersed over large areas. Cave reported that there are more than four million Twitter subscribers in Mexico and, of more than 30 million Internet users, 95 percent have Facebook accounts.

Third, social media fills a psychological need. Many Mexicans see the traditional pillars of state and press as contaminated by organized crime. Social media authors on the other hand are viewed as independent and trustworthy. According to a doctoral student at the University of Texas quoted by Cave, social media in Mexico “fulfill the need for information in an immediate and accessible way and, on a deeper, psychological level, provide some knowledge or certainty in the face of uncertainty.”

Finally, social media can be a source of reliable information. News reports can be “bundled” on social media channels like Twitter, which contains streams of content organized by “hashtags” that connect tweets of similar content or subject matter. This bundling allows readers to aggregate information instead of relying on isolated, unconnected reports. Social media is also self-regulated. According to one researcher interviewed by Goodman, “Most of the information [on social media] is reliable and the information that is not often goes ignored.” Furthermore, a large percentage of tweets are actually retweets, which are “curated” by others and scrubbed for reliability.

For a deeper analysis of this issue and its relationship with U.S. policy on using information as an element of power read my complete post on the DIME Blog.

Marist PR Students Selected for Innovative Crowd Sourcing Program

Gaining an edge in today's global marketplace is critical. Marist College public relations students are learning this lesson first-hand by participating in an innovative program from Ketchum that allows them to tackle real client challenges as part of a worldwide digital community.

Seventeen students in Professional Lecturer Jennie Donohue's Public Relations Case Studies class are among those from top communication schools around the globe selected to participate in Ketchum's Mindfire program, an open innovation crowd sourcing site for students. Ketchum, one of the world's leading communication firms, gives students the opportunity to work together to provide fresh creative ideas for clients in return for unique incentives and prizes.

Currently more than 300 graduate and undergraduate students representing more than 30 leading colleges and universities in North America, Europe, Asia and South America are collaborating on domestic and overseas business challenges facing Ketchum and its clients. More than 60 of the agency's clients including Hertz, Wendy's and Frito-Lay North America have used Mindfire for creative inspiration.

"We're excited that our students have been invited to work with Ketchum and its clients in such a unique way," said Steven Ralston, dean of the Marist College School of Communication and the Arts. "The Mindfire program allows our students to obtain hands-on, real-world experience that taps their creative, strategic thinking and digital skills in a student-centered, global learning environment – a hallmark of the Marist experience."

In addition to gaining valuable experience to add to their resumes, students participating on Mindfire may be eligible to receive career coaching, training and job alerts from Ketchum along with prizes provided by the clients that issue each challenge.

Courtesy of Marist College School of Communication and the Arts "In the News" (http://www.marist.edu/commarts/news.html)

Social Media: A New Information Center of Gravity

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2011 Social Media Summit (Wednesday, Sept. 14) at Harrisburg University. I accompanied my colleague from the U.S. Army War College, Dennis Murphy, professor of information operations. Professor Murphy, a member of the summit's Social Media and the Military panel, delivered a presentation entitled “Fighting Back: New Media and Military Operations.”

The summit featured a variety of other panels and presentations on social media and education, job searches, organizational policy, legal issues, political change, life sciences, intellectual property, and even disconnecting from social media. Click here for a complete listing and links to videos of the summit’s panels.

The summit provided an excellent opportunity to listen to experts, speak with colleagues, and consider the impacts of social media on our military profession and our personal lives. The day was brief but packed full of information – not unlike a 140-character message on Twitter. After deciphering all of this information, I identified a few themes that emerged during the summit.

• Social media is here to stay. Summit organizers provided a list of amazing facts that indicate social media is not merely part of a passing fad. Social media is, increasingly, fueling business practices. For instance, 80% of companies use social media to recruit and hire new employees; and 95% of those companies use LinkedIn. Even more impressive, in July 2011, 38 million people reported that social media influenced their purchasing decisions, an increase of 14% from only six months earlier.

• Social media is ubiquitous. Social media touches the lives of billions of people daily. Facebook attracted 500,000,000 users in 2011, or one in every 13 peopleon the planet. Also, 46% of the world’s humans access social media platforms – every day; and 57% of these people spend more time talking to each other online than they do offline. For example, in an average 20-minute period in 2010, Facebook recorded 1,587,000 Wall posts; 2,716,000 photo uploads; and 10,208,000 published comments.

• Social media is no longer the domain of youngsters. Adults in the 35- to 54-year-old age group represent the largest group of followers on Facebook. And our mobile society uses a variety of devices to follow each other more and more closely. Twitter members exchanged 50 million tweets daily in 2010, which pales in comparison to the average of 100 million tweets a day that have gone back and forth so far in 2011. And speaking of mobility, Twitter use on mobile devices rose 347% over the last year.

Upon returning from the summit, I published a post on the DIME Blog of the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College. The DIME Blog addresses issues related to the information component (I) of national military power, with the other elements of national power being diplomacy (D), military (M), and economics (E).

In the DIME Blog post, I elaborated on the influence of social media on military strategic communication activities, coining one of Professor's Murphy's descriptions of social media as a "center of gravity" in U.S. military operations. Click here to read and comment on the entire post.

*Follow tweets from the summit on Twitter, hash tag #HUSocialSummit