October 28, 2003

How Blogs are Altering the PR Game

Richard Bailey says weblogs are a mistake. Writing at PR Studies, a blog produced by the faculty of the Centre for Public Relations Studies at Leeds Business School at Leeds Metropolitan University in, believe it or not, Leeds, England, Bailey says blogs "have come about because one important aspect of Tim Berners-Lee's vision of a shared information space was missing when it came to be realised. He had envisaged it being as easy to edit as to read on the web. Instead, from Mosaic onwards, browsers have been just that. Browsers. Individuals participanting in the web space have most typically been passive consumers of content, not its active creators."

But blogs are changing that - and that is changing the media and the public relations profession, says Bailey.

In the realm of public relations, we're starting to ask similar questions about the effects of online debate on the role of PR. Here's my take. If the world were an entirely predictable and controllable place, we'd all be marketing managers or directed by marketing teams.

Yet the coming of the internet has served to remind us that people are not always persuaded by top-down, hierarchical communications. They will seek to find the truth from other sources, and check facts for themselves. They may even band together to disrupt the goals of an organisation.

In this anti-authoritarian culture, third party endorsement has more value and importance than ever before. Hence the efforts of PR practitioners to persuade journalists and opinion formers - yes, even some bloggers - of their messages.

In an uncertain and fast-changing world, the PR adviser does not hold all the trump cards. But he or she is accustomed to unpredictability through experience of handling the press, and so should have the adaptability needed to cope with the challenge of new voices.

If nothing else, in a new world where members of the public are gaining a voice, the phrase public relations begins to make more sense. PR begins to mean more than press relations.

It is not weblogging that is the radical departure. Weblogs are an extension of the bulletin boards and newsgroups that have pioneered individual and community participation online. Yet it is through weblogs, through the breaking down of barriers between readers, writers, editors and publishers, that we are beginning to see fulfilment of Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the world wide web.

I don't have much to add, 'cept to say Bailey is on target. Before blogs and the Internet, you had little choice but to be a news consumer. Now you are - if you chose to be - a participant in the news process. You can be a news fact-checker. You can be a news commentator or news analyst. You can even be a news reporter. Blogs and the Internet put the power of the press in the hands of the masses. It's a liberating thing.