Ongoing posts about the "old" corporate model of public relations, which is described as "expensive and slow," being replaced by the "new" public relations. The "new" public relations essentially eliminates the middle-man, leaving the people who "do the work" (employees) to blog about the organization. The "middle-man," in many cases, is the PR/marketing professional. The writer is careful to point out that PR people would still be needed, but would exist only as event planners because "PR pros have the right sort of social-convener skills to deliver
value from such things."
Although the PR world has been abuzz with talk of blogs and podcasting, I’m still having a hard time believing that blogs will replace all traditional PR efforts of every organization. Companies like IBM or Microsoft may benefit greatly from employee blogs, as they employ tech-savvy, highly-educated people. These people are a natural fit for blogging. However, companies who employ a blue-collar work force may be more hard-pressed to find employees who can effectively blog about an organization’s direction. Not only might employees in these positions not be enthusiastic about writing a blog, but the company would have to set up workstations, provide training, and deal with other logistics issues regarding getting their employees up-and-blogging. If I’m missing the point or overlooking some critical aspect of "new" PR, I’d appreciate some feedback.
I still feel that blogs, podcasts, and other elements of what is described as "new" public relations will make a tremendous impact on the PR industry. I’m still sticking to my guns in my belief that these tools will not replace public relations as a whole, and I look forward to seeing what creative PR pros accomplish with these tools.
I honestly don’t know if the mass media will be replaced by blogs. I don’t think that will happen any time soon. But I do think the blogs are changing the ways in which journalists gather information, and how readers react to articles. Consumers of the news have almost as much access to the same data that a large news organization has in today’s world. That means as news consumers we will be much more critical of the news, hopefully because we will be better informed. Blogs play a role in disseminating information, some useful, some not so useful. But as news consumers learn how to get the news they seek in the new media landscape they will change the way news is gathered and reported on. Even the very process of discussion and receiving un-helpful news will give each news consumer new skills in critical media analysis. The world of blogs is a new cultural community. It reminds me of a medieval village community, where everyone knows what’s going on in their community, those villages had town criers, but in individual influence of a single villager was greater than today was greater than an individual today. With blogs, forums and the web, each consumer has the opportunity to influence their community even though they live in a society of millions. See the experiments with wiki’s at the LA Times or Dan Gillmor’s Bayosphere project.