Public Relations and the New Technology

Public Relations is an industry that has had to always change itself to keep up with the new changing times, especially now we can see it more since the world is going through a digital age. This digital age has helped change the way people communicate to each other whether its in an organisation, etc. We are basically now living in a Global village where nothing is restricted and it does not bound use just to the place where we live in or to our nationalities or even our cultures, now its so easy for one to find out about each others cultures, traditions, country, etc in just a touch of a few buttons. To be successful in this fast changing world you would have to have good information and good tools for communication. As we know that Public Relations is primarily concerned with establishing effective communication between organizations and individuals or companies and their audience (Straubhaar and LaRose, 2005).

According to Anthony Davis (2002), he refers Public Relations to the management of any communication between an organization and its public. As the world enters the digital age where anything to do with computers or the internet plays an important role in the lives of the people, Public Relations industries are all changing and trying to adapt itself to new means of communication that are not only fast but also efficient. PR industries need to reinvent themselves in away that any changes happen in this fast changing world it can easily adapt itself to these changes,

One of the latest New Media that many PR Industries and PR practitioner use is "Blogs", blogs are part of the internet invention and they are very similar to websites but they are easier to develop and they take much less time to setup. Blogs: double every six month. New blogs are created every second of the day. Blogs are one of the fastest growing New Media, according to David Sifry (2006). .

PR Trying Now to Embrace the New Media

PR has been changing itself to try to embrace this new media. Now communication professionals recognise that the way people get their information is also changing because of this new media. Others try to resist this fact, dismissing change as a fad. But those that get it can’t seem to create enough opportunities (Murphy, 2005). Organisations who are willing to take the risk and embrace this new media, benefit from it a lot, especially it helps them boost their sales, create awareness of their company or organisation or even brand and it also helps them spread their products and services to a wider audience all across the world not just locally now but globally too.

According to Dan Harries (2002), he said that it always takes some doing to get clients to understand and accept new thinking like this, but the rewards are worth it. In his opinion, being strategic does not always require being traditional in the way you involve your audience in what the agency or company is trying to do, actually using the new media such as the internet for blogging, allows the agency or company to acquire more information based on costumer or consumer feedback then when you use the traditional ways and they have more chance of having an open and honest conversation with their clients or with any interested party. That also helps the organisation or company learn more how they can improve their products and services for their audience.

This new media enables organisations or companies to have access to the new audience. It also enables new ways of publishing and inspires new ways to transmit information in a convenient way.

Looking at the Internet's use and media trends they will illustrate to you why PR has had to being embracing the New Media.

Public Relations and the New Media

In my opinion, the use of communication technology is pervasive in contemporary public relations practice, and often there’s no choice but to adopt the newest communication technology.

For example, even the smallest and most traditional businesses require the Web sites that their customers expect, and the submission of a simple news release to a mass medium’s electronic newsroom must satisfy the technological requirements of that medium. Organisations recognise that harmful rumors can spread worldwide in minutes, while blogs can help monitor that problem (Alterman, 2003). The contemporary practice of public relations requires practitioners to immediately respond to emerging issues and crisis situations via Web sites, blogs and other new media. Today, the choice of communication channels is dictated by technology: a practitioner must seriously consider which message forms and channels would be best for specific publics. Often, new technological forms and channels, such as electronic pitching, podcasting and blogging, prevail over traditional news releases and media kits.

Thus, I believe that all students must know how to use today’s communication technology and must monitor and most likely adopt rapidly and unpredictably to changing technology. Equally important, public relations students must be taught to appreciate and to continually explore the societal ramifications of continually emerging communication technology. As technology remains simply a tool that PR practitioners must manage and adopt to its changes.

Public relations practitioners are among the heaviest users of today’s communication technology. However, technology remains simply a tool–albeit an important tool–those practitioners must manage. This means public relations professionals must not be unduly constrained by technology in developing their communication strategies, nor must practitioners’ strategies and tactics be restricted by the technicians who develop and maintain organisations’ communication technology infrastructures (Straubhaar and LaRose, 2005). Rather, public relations practitioners must be the managers of how their organisations strategically use communication technology to affect public relationships. Within their organisations, public relations practitioners best understand that communication technology that conquers time and space by permitting instantaneous communication worldwide not only can create understanding and cultivate harmony and empathy between an organisation and its publics, but has great potential to generate misunderstanding and to exacerbate disharmony and conflict (Straubhaar and LaRose, 2005).

The New Media

As we can all see the bubble may have already burst on the Dot-Com boom of the late 1990s, but technology still remains a foundation of our economic landscape. New technological innovations continue to emerge, while the traditional players in telecommunications and the Web continue to refine their offerings and break new ground (Jenkins, 2006).

This New Technological innovation in the Communications field is the New Media. In my opinion the New Media has helped shift the way that the world digests information because with the Internet we can get all sorts of information in a quicker time then we did with traditional media, today we could all say we are living in a Global village.

It is also vital that PR professionals embrace the messaging potential of this new media and manage risk effectively to keep track of customer feed back, also have conversations with clients or potential clients, for example, answer their complaints or queries (Haig, 2000).

With so many communication technologies being offered to us in these days, its hard to choose which tool will be the ideal one to use for communication. From attracting the attention of blogs and e-zines to even podcasts, all these new technologies team up to create and develop a strategic PR, but the only difference its all online compared with the traditional media, and another very important difference that we must all have noticed is that with the invention of the Internet, information could now be distributed in a much faster way and this information can be transmited to a much wider audience, not only locally now but globally too.