Thanks to the recent explosive growth of New Media and Social Media, the practice of public relations has been changed forever. But this does not mean that public relations as a tool is dead. In fact it may be more important than ever. The goals of public relations remain the same, but the strategies and mechanisms for carrying out PR have changed drastically in the last few years.
Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web.
With the dawning of the new media, something happened within media. This was the beginning of technological socialisation. Everything began with the desire for information; information about everything. This slowly blossomed into social media, which let's face it is really information about people. Now, the internet as a whole and the whole new media revolution as a whole is being seen taking one step further. It is going beyond merely socialising or information seeking and is becoming something more, much more. Users are driving content in ways never before seen.
The Web is an increasingly important component of public relations. This digital revolution has provided public relations practitioners with a new communication challenge: social networking sites.
A new 'MEDIA' challenge for PR
The terrain of public relations practice is also shifting with new media. The new media is giving public relations practitioners a unique opportunity to collect information, monitor public opinion on issues, and engage in direct dialogue with their publics about a variety of issues.
Some of the ways New/Social Media is changing PR can be pointed below:
- 'Conversation' vs 'A Speech' - In the old model, the practice of PR was primarily a one-way street. PR pros can no longer get away with blasting information out at an audience Two-way communication directly with the consumer is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to gain real-time feedback.
- Information gathering - the speed of information sharing is faster than ever before and PR professionals have access to a wealth of content that can be shared with consumers seeking solutions to a problem.It has changed long-standing dynamics of the PR / Journalist relationship. Journalists seek information and sources online and PROs have benefited from the addedd access available, courtesy social media.
- Personal Service - The growth of social media has led to vast expectations from consumers that they will not be subjected to mass, non-targeted information and that any concers will be addressed quickly and personally.
But........There is a 'Cost' to 'Free'
Having said loads about the new media revolution, we must realize that whether we are creating any form of content online (text, audio, images or video) or are simply consuming it, there is a huge cost to all of this free goodness. The main question that arises out of all this is
"Who is going to pay for all of this content that we are all now consuming online?"
The answer to this ever ignored question by us consumers can be found in the BBC documentary Virtual Revolution: The Cost of Free that reveals behind the scenes of the new media business. The documentary mains that online activities like searching on Google, uploading pictures on Flickr, or even using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Myspace, YouTube seem to be free, but come at a price: the disclosure of private information to companies that sell these data to advertising clients in order to make money profit.
The documentary also shows that officials of internet companies such as Amazon, Google or Netflix tend to argue that targeted advertising and targeted recommendation systems that are based on online data surveillance enrich the users' experience and provide them with information that they cound find interesting. The maker of the documentary, Aleks Krotoski, maintains that our "thoughts and desires that we express online are being traced, tracked and traded in pursuit of profit". She speaks of the 'brave new web' and remarks: "In return for our free web, our privacy has become a commodity".
She concludes her investigation of how the World Wide Web is transforming almost every aspect of our lives. Aleks, in her documentary, examines the popularity of social networks such as Facebook and is joined by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Chad Hurley, Al Gore, Susan greenfield who tell us how social netowrking sites are changing our relationships.
The BBC documentary can be viewed below :
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
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