If you’re a student, the chances are you can scarcely imagine a world without Google. You’ll have to ask your parents about fax machines, about when news was received in print and a time when phones were used only for voice conversations.

John Naughton’s new book is an attempt to relate ‘what you really need to know about the internet.’ So it should be useful for students who may lack perspective (‘the strange thing about living through a revolution is that it’s very difficult to see what’s going on’) – and for parents and employers who are bemused and wonder if it’s really such a big deal.

The author is a good guide to the subject: he’s a Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology and an Observer newspaper columnist. The book is written in a popular and non-academic style (though it’s brim-full of ideas and it cites many other thinkers).

Naughton the university lecturer makes good use of metaphors to explain key points. Using a railway analogy, he describes the internet as ‘the tracks and signalling technology of the system’ and web pages as just one of many kinds of traffic that can run on this infrastructure (some others being email, file downloads, instant messages and voice conversations).

Naughton the scientist challenges Naughton the journalist over the meaning of ‘media’. In biology, media are used to cultivate living organisms. So there’s something more essential to life here than just a means to transmit messages. This introduces us to one of the author’s favourite concepts, the media ecosystem.

This approach, borrowed from McLuhan, shows why bloggers can coexist alongside journalists – and why one does not mean the end of the other. ‘One of the laws of communications technology is that new media are generally additive rather than substitutive, which is a fancy way of saying that new technologies generally don’t wipe out older ones… New media don’t wipe out old media. But their arrival does change the ecosystem.’

Living with complexity

‘My hunch’ writes Naughton ‘is that over the next decade, the Internet will move to become the dominant ‘species’ in our ecosystem.’

It’s an increasingly complex ecosystem, in which the whole is more than the sum of the parts (a process described as ‘emergence’). ‘Anyone who seeks to understand the Net has to realize that disruption is a feature of the system, not a bug, so we need to accept that complexity is something we have to live with. It’s not a temporary aberration, but the new reality. And it’s likely to increase.’

The author then suggests what this means for public relations practitioners and business managers:

‘Organizations which seek stable equilibrium relationships with an environment which is inherently unpredictable are heading for failure’. Success will require ‘openness to change, accidence, coincidence, serendipity.’

In another important section, Naughton deals with the tension between of copyright law and creativity. ‘[Common sense] should revolt at the idea that doctrines about copyright that were shaped in a pre-Internet age should apply to a post-Internet one’.

In general, it’s an enlightening and positive read. ‘We need to rise above the optimist-pessimist, Utopian-dystopian dichotomies that characterize our current discussions about the Internet,’ he argues. ‘Like electricity, the networked information environment is here to stay.’

I’m struggling to find fault with this brilliant and readable book, but noticed that US academic Yochai Benckler was variously introduced as a ‘legal scholar’ and a ‘network scholar’. I also question the capitalising of internet and web in such an accessible book. Surely the use of lower case better proves the point that they are now established fixtures in our lives and our vocabulary?

Introducing Public Relations: Theory and Practice has been primarily written for first year PR undergraduates and those who may be considering PR as a future career.

This book reads very “current” with its tone and the way of writing.  Butterick links his points to current affairs and employs many examples to ensure the readers have a better understanding of the topics from which they can easily relate to.

The author has managed to capture readers’ attentions by using simple and straightforward language in the book and has successfully explained the theories without using industry jargon.

The book splits into two parts; Part One consists of theories and histories and Part Two gives readers insights into PR practices.  In Part One, Butterick covers the theories and various PR models to give a good general understanding and knowledge to the readers.  He questions the role of publicity and whether PR is about reputation management.

However, as a book published in 2011, Butterick does not cover the social media side of things in any depth although he did touch on the subject on a few occasions by acknowledging the importance of social media and how the industry is shifting rapidly towards it.

Like many other books, it consists of PR practitioners’ interviews to give readers a view of the life working in the PR industry rather than the glamorised image that has been portrayed in films and television.

Part Two of the book will most likely answer any of the concerns students may have and most will find something of interest.  Butterick gives real life insights into PR as a profession and as a job.  The book includes diaries of various PR practitioners to give readers an overview of what practitioners do every day when they are in the office.  Butterick explores the differences between the roles of in-house, consultancy and third sector PR.  The book has also managed to highlight the importance of each role, questioning the common perception that working for consultancies is more challenging than working in-house or for charities.

Butterick acknowledges the controversies surrounding the PR industry; the public do not trust PR, PR never tells the truth, PR is all about image and many other off-putting comments.  He openly discusses the negativity by exploring and explaining why people see PR as it is.  By doing this he has allowed the readers, especially those new to PR, to understand these debates.

Butterick does not give the usual “spin” on the industry or the profession as something that can and will earn you lots of money. He tells it as it is – long working hours, high pressure, people leaving the industry after a short few years.

The book ends nicely with a chapter, “Where PR (and you) can go next”, giving useful advice and tips to students on what to do in the industry and what should they be aiming to do during the rest of their time at university.

To summarise, Introducing Public Relations: Theory and Practice is a good introductory book.  However, further reading is required to gain a wider perspective on PR from different authors.

Chloe Berry is a PR student at Leeds Metropolitan University who is on work experience with Brass. You can catch up with her tweets.

If you’re interesting in writing a book or film review for Behind the Spin, get it touch with the section editor Clare Callery via email: cs.callery @ gmail.com (no spaces)

Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other

Clinical psychologist and professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sherry Turkle, (MIT) is an influential thinker. Her role at MIT isn’t to question what technology is doing for us but to instead question what technology is doing to us. Alone Together is the result of Turkle’s 15 year exploration into how the digital landscape is shaping us and is her most recent book to date, having been published this year.

The book has been written in two parts; the area of robotics and how we are being shaped by technology. Alone Together is extremely well written. The turning of each page clearly follows the train of the author’s thoughts and due to this, reading through all 297 pages was a pleasure. Throughout the book at least one profound thought exists on each page which makes for an intense amount of questions to arise. Fortunately, many of the answers I had created in my mind were quickly made clearer or shown to be incorrect through Sherry Turkle’s explanation of concepts, situations and behaviours.

Sherry Turkle begins the book by discussing how children interact with various robotic toys, going particularly in depth with regards to the Furby (a toy I proudly owned as a child). It was fascinating to read her experiences of sociological case studies concerning how she has witnessed children interacting with this robotic toy. Asking fundamental questions to children inquiring could their Furby be alive and witnessing the emotional attachment many children had with their toy. A characteristic she likens to the way humans become attached to their pets.

Certainly largely a book of opinion, one can’t help but feel an absolute truth joined by an certain irony when Alone Together by Sherry Turkle is read on the train to London. To take a snippet of thought from Turkle’s writing, when people are alone they feel most connected. An obvious example of this is through the use of smartphones, perfectly demonstrated when commuting to London each day. It is as if the world has taken your parents’ advice ‘Remember darling, don’t speak to strangers’, a little bit too seriously. When alone you have time to connect with your smartphone, time to review the host of social options (this includes texts and phone calls) your device features.

Turkle explores two questions; are we really connecting and what affect does this have on our social behaviour?

The basic premise of behaviour that encompasses the entirety of part two is the unquestioning need to be connected and the element of being interrupted, which accompanies this social trait. Case studies include teenagers revealing how they check Facebook notifications whilst driving, the strain of a young boy who feels burdened by the amount of mobile text messages he receives and underlying all of this the suggestion that leading a digitally connected life is usually coupled by an emotionally disconnected social life.

Within Alone Together, an emotional social disconnection is exampled through text messaging and Instant Messaging software (IM). At the heart of this concept is the word ‘attention’, an information overload to a single user will mean various social updates will be placed into a competitive situation. Quite unlike the beauty of a phone call which demands attention to one individual and emotion to be shared.

Beyond the need of having a sort of detached social life is the other peculiar trait which Turkle explores, the fact that some people feel the need to lead a completely separate virtual life. A life in which they can shape their ideal character and career profile. The two games which are explored is Second Life and The Sims Online (ended in 2008), both social simulation games which allows the player to lead the life they want. As with online simulations they demand the player to project their profile into the virtual character, occasionally with linked consequences in the real world. Such behaviour is often found in social networking as well, building online social networking profiles which you can shape to appear the person you want to be perceived as.

Alone Together is a book perfectly crafted to reflect my feeling on the matter of the digital age many ‘generation Y’ students have found ourselves born into. For the last 16 year of my life (now 21, I first used a computer when 5-years-old) I have been plugged into the internet. No greater need to connect socially has come than in the form of Facebook. A network which demands our attention, a company which owns our social life and a network I could no longer find myself comfortable to be on. In my spare time I was always alone together, now I occasionally just want to be alone – so I left Facebook after having been on the network since April 2007. That was 2 months ago and I have no regrets. Have you ever imagined what life was like before the interruptions of social media? Well, I’m beginning to find out.

If you are tired of the constant appraisal of social media and other online technologies, wish to find an intelligent view, then read Sherry Turkle’s book. It is loaded with information to help find that alternative view for an essay or dissertation, more importantly it may help you reflect on your own online behaviour. I will most certainly catch up with Sherry Turkle’s past books after my experience of Alone Together.

Alone together was reviewed by Michael White, a PR student at the University of Gloucestershire who is on placement at Microsoft. He regularly blogs and tweets.

If you’re interesting in writing a book or film review for Behind the Spin, get it touch with the section editor Clare Callery via email: cs.callery @ gmail.com (no spaces)

The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World
By Evgeny Morozov
432 page, PublicAffairs, 2011

How not to liberate the world…

Since the Twitter Revolution of Iran in 2009 and the more recent social media fuelled overhaul of the Egyptian government, it would be easy to assume that the world is hurtling towards a democratised Utopia, in which peace, equality and justice are omnipresent. In The Net Delusion, Morozov produces a surgically argued and wonderfully eloquent account of why this may not be the case, insisting that such blissful naiveties could have pernicious ramifications.

Morozov coins the term ‘cyber-utopian’ to describe the West’s inflated sense of self-righteousness towards the power of the internet. The idea that this phenomenon will break the shackles of populations oppressed by totalitarian regimes, helping forge a new-age world that is rife with democracy is immediately dismissed by Morozov. Instead he cites the 2009 ‘Twitter Revolution’ in Iran. “Let the people tweet and they will tweet their way to freedom.” Morozov thinks not, rather, conversely, he focuses on the empowerment the Iranian government experienced courtesy of the internet. In essence, the very tool that people were using to try and liberate themselves was now being used by the government to achieve the opposite. The deployment by the Iranian government of a twelve-man cybercrime team tasked with ridding Iran of those spreading “insults and lies” on websites was initiated. Those spreading this information were quickly hunted down and arrested. The team would trawl through social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube, seeking the faces of those involved in protests, and there was no shortage thanks to the ubiquity of social media. Iranian news service Raja News published photos of the accused and demanded public cooperation in the detaining of them. The Iran Defence Ministry sent out a charming text message to all Iranians with a phone:

“Dear citizen, according to received information, you have been influenced by the destabilizing propaganda which the media affiliated with foreign countries have been disseminating. In case of any illegal action and contact with the foreign media, you will be charged as a criminal consistent with the Islamic Punishment Act and dealt with by the Judiciary.”

So the premise is that the internet can just as easily be used to control publics as publics can use it to find freedom. And if the internet is such a powerful Trojan horse for freedom it is oppressive regimes such as that of Iran or China should fear such a force. Quite the contrary, it would appear.

The Net Delusion paints an ominous picture for the future of global democracy, one that’s perpetuated by gross naivety displayed by elite Western figures who should know better. Morozov cites Gordon Brown, at the time Prime Minister of the UK, and the “ridiculous conclusions” he drew from the events in Iran:

“You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to a point where action would need to be taken”

“On that logic”, Morozov sarcastically retorts, “the millions who poured into the streets of London, New York, Rome and other cities… to protest the impending onset of the Iraq war made one silly mistake; they didn’t blog enough about it. That would have definitely prevented the bloodbath.” Ouch!

Morozov’s polemical prose must be commended for its originality. In a sea of social media and internet literature that promises the enlightened age of democracy, it would have been easy to jump on the bandwagon. Morozov is a rare breed in this field, one of the few that believes the hype surrounding the internet and the perceived positive impact it imparts on a global scale is unwarranted, misguided and, simply put, a delusion. Whether or not one agrees, The Net Delusion takes a refreshing stance on a surprisingly ambiguous and underestimated issue, one that we’ll ignore at our peril.

The Net Delusion is a brilliant read, full of insight, controversy (he thinks us students are ‘depoliticised’) and thought-provoking ideas. Whatever your opinion, Morozov produces reams of evidence to support his conjectures (his bibliography runs to 70 pages alone) and has written a book that will see him marked as one of the most influential authorities on the subject.

The Net Delusion was reviewed by Toby Margetts, a final year PR student at the University of Gloucestershire who regularly tweets.

If you’re interesting in writing a book or film review for Behind the Spin, get it touch with the section editor Clare Callery via email: cs.callery @ gmail.com (no spaces)

Claire Antsey and her book Sort Out Your Crap Life

Students from Leeds Metropolitan University and Bournemouth University have been offered the chance to work on a real life PR campaign for Claire Anstey’s new book Sort out Your Crap Life. Claire Anstey is a prominent TV star that has had experience working with Nickelodeon and GMTV and is currently the voice of MTV.

Students include Leah Eser and Victoria Grimes, both Level 2 Public Relations with Marketing Student at Leeds Metropolitan University, Chloe Mcgee, a first year Public Relations student at Leeds Met and Nathan Paice, a student from Bournemouth University studying Public Relations.

The students have been working hard on the campaign, securing coverage with national publications and recently securing an interview on Talk Sport for Claire.  The book was produced after Claire battled drugs and drinks and mourned her partner’s suicide. After waking up to reality, she wants to help others and has embarked on a remarkable journey that has changed her life.  Helping those that are in a time of crisis is close to the author’s heart and Claire is donating 10% of print sales and 20% of eBook sales to the charity C.A.L.M, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, a charity which strives to help young men aged 18-35 in similar troubles and whom Claire is an ambassador for.

Leah Eser,  a Leeds Met student working on the campaign, said, “We have been offered a fantastic opportunity from Claire – not only does this allow us to gain fantastic work experience and experience a real life campaign but it has opened our eyes to a fantastic book that others should read. This book is fantastic for students. It really inspires you to take hold of your life and make the best of it. It provides motivation, inspiration and the courage to do what you want!”

The book provides powerful and emotional content as edgy and to the point as its title. The book includes diary entry insights into her once collapsing world and truly inspirational quotes from those who inspired her. With over 30 engaging techniques and an enlightening 21-day plan to reach your goals, this book is a lifeline.

An author and TV presenter is seeking PR student support to help promote her new self-help book.

‘Sort Out Your Crap Life’  is in a new genre of self help books aimed at 15 -45 year olds, based on author Claire Anstey’s experience of how she sorted out her life when tragedy struck. A flavour of the book can be found at www.sortoutyourcraplife.com

A percentage of each book sale will  go to CALM, The Campaign Against Living Miserably a charity for young men that Claire is Ambassador for. More information on this can be found via Claire’s personal website www.theanstey.com

Claire is looking for people with a passion for the book to help with an edgy promotional campaign. Claire is currently a voice for MTV and with her experience of suicide and depression inspiring the book there are plenty of hooks and opportunities for good stories and campaign ideas.

The author has set up her own publishing company to publish this book. She feels that the publishing industry has changed – just like the music industry – and aims to build a campaign that will prove success is in the hands of the individual.

To help with the promotional campaign, please apply via email to claireanstey@mac.com. Claire would like candidates to write a little about themselves, what they think of the book via what they see on the website and how they think that they can promote it.

Volunteers can work their own hours and from home. Although this is a voluntary position at the moment future paid opportunities may arise.

Please apply by 15^th October 2010.

This book is a career guide aimed, primarily, at people leaving school, college or university.

It would also be relevant for anybody who is thinking about a career change or generally wanting to explore how they may be happier in their work-life. The book concentrates on finding out what you’re passionate about to help find a job to suit that.

According to the author there are three key areas to focus on during the job search process and career management, these are:

• Who am I?
• Where am I going?
• How am I going to get there?

The book is broken down into these three sections with the largest proportion spent focusing on the first area, who am I?

Within this section you are encouraged to take a deeper look at yourself and discover the reasons behind what you do, what you like and what you don’t like, to try to discover common themes. For example:

“I don’t like cooking without a recipe because leaving it to chance, for me, is unsafe. In terms of things I’d like to do, piano is safe (I am in control) and the same might apply to, for example, learning a new language (it’s all up to me). The horse riding shows I can control something apart from myself, but I still know that, with practice, I can be in control.”

There are exercises running throughout the first section to help you discover more about yourself, you are also encouraged to include friends, family and colleagues in these exercises to find out more about how they see you as well.

So overall the first section, through various exercises and models, aims to help you discover your talents, your values and your optimum working environment so that you can then use this to work out what career will best suit you.

The second section, focused on ‘Where am I going?’, takes you through using the knowledge that you have built up about yourself in the first section, or the ‘blueprint’ as it is referred to, and translating that into something which you can show to contacts and prospective employers.

In this section it tells you to avoid writing and sending a CV to anyone at all costs, the advice given is:

“If people ask for a CV, you need to say that at this time you are not looking for a job…you are exploring the opportunities that may lead to a job.”

Now in my – limited – experience of the job market this is not something which prospective employers would respond well to. Almost every job advertised will ask for a CV before you will be considered for an interview or anything else. I’m not really sure that this piece of advice would necessarily help people in finding a job in the real world.

The author instead advises people to create a statement of the ‘Unique You’, which basically is a strap-line explaining who you are. This seems, to me, a lot like the first section of your CV. However it does provide good advice for what to use for this.

You are then encouraged to write a ‘Present and Future Statement’ (PFS) which is basically like a covering letter.

“You need a document that talks about what you can do in the future, drawing on what you have learned from the past.”

This is good advice for how to compose a covering letter.

The second section also talks about the importance of networking and building a wealth of contacts and encourages the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

The third and final section is basically about preparation for applying for a job you want so it now talks about creating a short CV and useful advice preparing for an interview. This is the shortest section of the book.

My top 5 tips from the book

1. Get used to saying ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ especially for interviews.
2. Don’t think in terms of job titles but think in terms of what people do in their jobs; what talents and values are expressed.
3. Networking and building contacts is key – it helps to unlock the ‘hidden jobs market’
4. Always make sure you research the market and company before contacting them and especially before interviews.
5. Make sure you understand all of your talents and have stories and experiences to back them up in interviews.

Develop Your PR Skills is written for those interested in maximising their PR skills, whether they work for a small company, multinational, charity or sole trader, and even those who are interested in entering the field.

It has basically been designed to give those interested in the subject a general idea of what PR is, why they need it and whether they should try practising in-house or seek the guidance of an agency. The book also attempts to clarify newer areas of PR that small business owners may want to delve into, such as social media and online PR as well as developing an ethical and sustainable business.

The book covers many of the concepts and theories a first year PR student might expect to see on their course, but with a small business owner as the target reader. Whether it achieves this does seem to vary from chapter to chapter, with some succeeding in projecting their ideas in a simple manner and others at times becoming a little confusing to those new to the subject.

The authors of this book are both lecturers at Leeds Business School, as is often made clear throughout the book both in the chapters and the case studies helpfully provided. Neil Richardson is a senior lecturer and Marketing Dynamics course leader at the Leeds Metropolitan Business School. He has over 20 years of experience in marketing and sales management in the B2B sector and now focuses his research in the area of sustainable marketing. Lucy Laville is also a senior lecturer and leads the Public Relations and PR and Marketing courses at the Business School. With 17 years of PR experience, her areas of expertise include crisis and issues management, internal communications and Social media.

The book begins like most PR text books going through the definitions of PR and its history, touching on the sensitive topics like propaganda and also including the much needed paragraph on what PR is not (advertising, marketing, sales, sponsorship). However, the flow of the book feels interrupted by the inclusion of ‘Hiring a PR Agency’ (which talks through the pros and cons of large full-service agencies versus small ones) so soon in the book. Indeed the next few chapters discuss ideas and methods for planning PR, such as SWOT and PEST analysis, so it seems to make sense to talk more in-depth about choosing an agency after the reader has established what PR they require.

As well as SWOT and PEST, the book explains many of the basic concepts that would be vital for a small company analysing their business from a PR point of view for the first time, such as how to set SMART objectives and establish PR strategies. However, some of the diagrams used would confuse those studying PR without a thorough explanation from a lecturer, such as the TOW analysis.

Many of the chapters in the book demonstrate the authors’ excellent knowledge on topic areas like media relations, internal communications and crisis management. The Media Relations chapter would give any PR beginner a comprehensive guide to how to construct a press release, contact journalists and target different press. Perhaps the only thing the chapter really misses is an example of a press release or a feature article, something anyone new to the subject would greatly appreciate; there is only so much that simply explaining can do.

Internal Communications is a topic that never hugely interested me when studying it at university, however I made myself complete the chapter for the purpose of this review and I’m glad I did. The chapter is refreshingly simple compared to some of the other online guides and text books I’ve read through. It is written in a way that will appeal to many business leaders; what internal communications is, what it involves, and perhaps most importantly, why it will help improve your company and even your profits in the long term. The guide contains many case studies and ideas for how to help improve team morale and productivity as well as a sample staff audit.

The final chapter in the book, Ethics and Sustainability, is also an engaging read with the book championing those companies prepared to go the extra mile for their employees and their environment. The argument is well thought out, with good use of theory and a light hearted approach to help compel companies into encompassing ‘People, Planet and Profit’ into their marketing strategy.

Online conversations

The only chapter I really took any issue with was the ‘PR and Developments in Online Conversation’, which working in social media, I was bound to be extra critical of. The authors do not delve enough into how to make the most of the tools available, which seems a shame when one considers the low cost and high potential impact of online PR.

There aren’t any real guidelines on how to use social media responsibly and in a way that ensures reputation is protected as much as possible; an essential when you think of how many companies have been burnt on sites like Twitter and Facebook. There are also niggling little errors, such as the Twitter character limit stated as 120 instead of 140, and no real guidance is given for a company that wants to start its own blog or reach out to other bloggers.

However, many main issues are still discussed, such as managing online reputation, the power of bloggers, SEO and RSS. The chapter is still more that many PR text books seem to have and certainly more than most PR courses teach, and is good enough for an introduction to online PR to encourage those interested to truly research further into harnessing the potential of social media.

To summarise, the book has its highs and lows and chapters that read well and those that don’t. The light-hearted narrative works well for most of the book; though in some places, such as when discussing PR budgets (already a delicate topic), the writing style seemed to stumble slightly. The book does achieve what it sets out to do and any budding PR enthusiast or small business owner that wants to try a cheaper and effective alternative to advertising would not only get a good idea of what PR is and how to use it, but would also have the means to start attempting news releases and contacting journalists.

Complete with summaries, questions and activities at the end of each chapter, I would recommend this book to small business owners and even to anyone thinking of studying PR, though not as a complete and comprehensive guide – further reading is advised.

“What happens when someone puts your name into Google or Facebook? If you don’t know, you should maybe find out.” This is how Antony Mayfield, author of the best-selling book Me and My Web Shadow, invites the reader to consider the importance of being in charge of our online lives.

Mayfield is Senior Vice President of Social Media at the Digital Marketing Agency iCrossing. His experience in public relations and communications includes working for Bell Pottinger, and clients have included Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Marks & Spencer, Toyota, Channel 4, Sony Playstation and Dell.

Certainly, Mayfield has transferred his online copywriting skills to Me and My Web Shadow and has created an easy to read and use book. After the Introduction, there is a small section called If you read nothing else…, in which the author describes briefly some of the main concepts of the book under the title: “The top then rules for managing your web shadow”. Some of the rules Mayfield describes are: finding out what Google says about you and considering that since the web is embedded in our daily lives, there is no such a thing as “off the record” online.

After the introductory sections, Mayfield divides the book in three parts:

1. Welcome to the Web Age
2. Managing your Web Shadow
3. Practical advice for digital lives

Welcome to the Web Age gives a brief history of the web and outlines what its future may hold. But most importantly, it highlights the relevance of becoming responsible “citizens of the networks”, as Mayfield points: “We need to develop our literacy and understanding of the networks, and take part in the evolution of the web. If we are taking part positively, with awareness of how it works, we are helping to build the future for the web.”

In the second part, Managing your Web Shadow, Mayfield suggests a work plan to manage your online reputation. This considers how to make an analysis of your online situation, how to define your objectives, where to establish your presence, how to make it grow and enhance your professional reputation and how to review your progress. It also includes specific tips to manage your reputation if you are looking for a job or if you are self-employed.

The last part, Practical advice for digital lives, explains how to create and maintain your web shadow content, as well as tools to connect with others, such as: Delicious, SlideShare and Flickr. Here, Mayfield includes useful charts to describe what each tool is, where to get it, its benefits and alternatives. Besides, he proposes a wide variety of tools to explore, maintain and manage your online reputation such as: Pipl, Spokeo, Extendr, Domainr, Posterous, Tumblr among others. This part also details information about how to get started and the features of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs.

A special mention must be made to the book’s attention on privacy settings. On these topics, Mayfield gives the reader advice on security and privacy issues, provides examples of how to deal with inconveniences online and suggests other sources to get further information.

Overall, Me and My Web Shadow is a good way to understand how to manage your online reputation and with this, increase your chances of being in the right place at the right time, as Mayfield mentions: “The web is a synchronicity engine, in that it greatly increases the incidence of (mostly) pleasant coincidences.”

Furthermore, the value of this book also lies in its ability to make the reader more sensitive about how to make the web or “serendipity engine”, a better and safer place for all to use.

Experience is vital: Katy Marshall (centre, about to get wet)

Let’s start with the formalities. Congratulations!

You’ve gained good A levels and achieved a university place in a difficult year with more students with higher grades chasing fewer university places.

This is a good time to be at university while the world recovers shakily from recession and before the fees rise much higher.

Hopefully, you’ll be graduating during the upturn when there will be many opportunities for talented graduates.

Now we’ve got that over with, read on.

You’ve not achieved anything yet; there are glittering prizes out there, but you’re going to have to grow up fast if you’re to grab them.

Why PR?

Let me ask you why you’ve chosen to study PR.

Good drama, no lessons about PR

If your answer is something to do with Samantha Jones and her glamorous party lifestyle, award yourself a fail. Sex and the City is a brilliant example of TV scriptwriting, but it doesn’t tell you anything about public relations.

If your answer includes something about psychology, communications and writing, you’ve gained a good pass.

If you’re thinking about a degree course that can be applied to real world problems and which gives you an above-average opportunity to achieve career success, then I think you’re already at the top of the class.

Advice for freshers

Your first week at university is all about your new surroundings: where you’re living, who you’re making friends with, what you’re going to be doing now you’ve achieved your first taste of independence. This is not the time to be taking in advice about your course or the far-distant future.

So rather than bombard you when you’re not listening, Behind the Spin asked some current PR students and recent graduates for the advice they’d offer to those starting this year. This is advice from students to students, remember. Here’s what they said:

First, learn how to promote yourself

You’re learning about public relations, so start by applying some lessons to yourself.

“Build a professional platform for yourself where you document what you have learnt, interview professionals (especially those you might one day want to work for), ask questions and participate in discussions. And specialise in something.”

Richard Millington, University of Gloucestershire Marketing graduate

“Start a blog about something you want know more about. Be hungry for relevant information and be sure to share it with others. Build a professional network both online and offline – it’s very important! Be socially active, and never say no to a challenge”

Helena Makhotlova, Leeds Met MA PR graduate

Gain work experience outside the classroom

Lectures and tutorials are important, but they’re not the only way to learn. Students and graduates emphasised the importance of learning for yourself through volunteering and work experience placements – even from parties and social events.

“Get personally involved in activities outside the classroom- eg writing for the student paper, website, PR, Journalism, marketing internships etc. Besides being able to network and meet like-minded people in the industry, these activities build confidence and a real-world platform for you to then practice and implement what you have learned in class – to see what works and what you are good at.”

Adam P. Coulter, MA Communications graduate, Suffolk University, Boston, USA

Tessa Biddulph, a University of Gloucestershire placement student agrees: ”Work experience is key to prepare for real life!”

“WORK EXPERIENCE!! It’s the most important thing you can possibly do with a PR course. Anywhere and everywhere! Sad as it sounds follow the right people on Twitter and engage in chat with them. Everyone from journalists, ad guys, PR agencies, marketing experts, you can learn a lot from them!”

Caroline Gibson, Leeds Met PR graduate

“Get involved in everything , attend social events, write about everything you do! Publish and become a star!” emphasises Gemma Bailey, a Leeds Met PR graduate.

“Get as much work experience as you can and put the theory into practice along the way – consultancy and in-house – and make yourself employable by the time you graduate!”

Liz Davies, Leeds Met PR graduate

Build your network

If you’re serious about public relations, you should become a student member of the CIPR. That gives you access to a database of almost 10,000 members and invitations to talks and events.

Katy Marshall, another Leeds Met PR graduate, emphasises this one point: “Network, network, network!”

“My second piece of advice would be to find a mentor in the university, for example a professor or administrator, or someone outside the university setting. Especially in the PR industry, it is all about connections and acquaintances and these older pros can guide the students.” Adam P. Coulter

Learn how to learn for yourself

You will learn a lot from your experienced lecturers (“get to every lecture and debate the points!” says Tessa Biddulph), but our panel stressed the importance of learning how to learn for yourself. This involves reading.

“Read everything possible!” says Katie Matthews, a Leeds Met PR graduate.

“Understand how society works – be hungry for news, politics and public affairs issues. Number one fundamental skill for all PR people is the ability to write good copy – and adapt your style for the audience. You need to have better grammar than your CEO. News sense – knowing what really is a news story – and understanding how journalists think and how the media operates. Get these things right and the rest you can learn…..”

Caroline Latta Charlton, CIPR Diploma graduate

“I totally agree with the point about work experience. Also consider extra research: find an intellectual passion and submerge yourself in it (social media for example!) You will become an expert and the industry will want you over other students who only have a vague understanding.”

David Clare, University of Lincoln Marketing and PR graduate

Books still matter in our iPhone and iPad age. MA graduate Michelle Allison even loves libraries.

More help and advice

The university experience is about more than books and lectures, so Tessa Biddulph‘s further piece of advice is vital. “Manage your money.”

Here are some more things to do and people to follow:

• PROpenMic is a free global social network for PR students, lecturers and practitioners. Join it – and join in!
• Read Heather Yaxley‘s advice for those Preparing to study public relations. If this sounds familiar, then it could be that it’s important advice.
• Louise Baker via Michael White: Top Five Things New University Students Need to Know
• Bethany Ansell, writing here: How to get a First in PR
• Harriet @ uniplanet: Ten Things You DON’T Have to Do in Freshers’ Week
• Follow Vox-PopPRCareers for advice and openings (blog, Twitter).
• Richard Bailey: So you wannabe a PR star?

In the early stages of this evolution, because of its speed, reach and consequence, affecting all business practices and values, it sparked a need for redefinition of the stale practice of public relations.

Although a large number of PR practitioners, marketers and analysts use social media for various objectives, there are a few savvy thinkers who are attempting to discern and foster its best practices. Yet, it may not be clear what in particsular about the creation or practice of social media itself has made it a must have for public relations.

This article seeks answers to the question of why social media has required public relations to evolve and what the end result of this evolution will mean for the profession.

Direct access to new influencers

First and most significant we must mention that people, with opinions, expertise, passions and power now want to be able to control how, when and where they consume, create and spread information or news. New and social media allow them to do just that. People collectively spend something like 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

This fact coupled with the opportunity that social media now opens up to provide the customers that define your brand with the information and news that they want to engage with, when they want to engage with it and the platform from which to discuss it with them, has contributed to PR’s evolution.

For example, a fan of a certain brand or organisation can now choose to follow that brand’s Twitter stream and re-tweet news to their own personal communities that they find especially valuable or interesting. Or they can so choose to ignore it.

The dynamics of influence have therefore changed dramatically and PR pros now can and should access that magic middle of people who directly reach and influence their peers through social media. But how should PR pros and marketers accomplish this?

Connecting to customers in direct and meaningful ways

It may seem hard to imagine now, but before the evolution of democratised content, businesses had no choice but to go through gatekeepers, such as news editors, to get their one-way, one-size-fits-all messages across. This is no longer the case.

Because of social media, PR pros now have the ability to cultivate the channels in which to shape and direct conversations with their publics. And yet, attempting to push and control all aspects of organisational news or brand messaging can be ineffective and even damaging to the organisation.

This has meant that after discovering and segmenting our markets and listening, we can hopefully provide individualised and useful content, to be distributed in ways that the those publics and influencers favour.

Social media has allowed enlightened PR pros to take the lead role in branding and has provided them with the rewarding opportunity to interact purposively and directly with their key publics – by answering customer questions, while responding efficiently and genuinely to complaints.

On the flip-side, those not practising social media ethically or effectively with two-way communication and those that continue to ‘mass blast’ their messages toward faceless ‘audiences’ will soon discover that these approaches no longer work. In effect, social media has, as Brian Solis and Deidre Breakenridge presciently wrote, made it essential to put the public back in public relations.

Goals have changed

Just as we can now bypass the gatekeepers and access our key publics directly with targeted content, so organisational goals have also changed.

Because of social media, campaign objectives have shifted from the number of media mentions to Twitter re-tweets, from page views to authentic participation and overall, from selling to engagement.

Since dialogue has taken centre stage, the best PR strategy (as long as you have concrete goals, baselines and a clear idea of what you want to measure) is planting and managing seeds of conversation. Having the patience and know-how to generate relationships from these seeds is key.

In the end

PR in the age of social media should still practise all the traditional methods in creating awareness (such as the press release) and managing relationships, but now we must also help to build and cultivate communities of people who will then evangelise for us and the brands we represent.

This is not easy and takes hard work, but it is worthwhile. We must discover and listen to our relevant publics first, and then create valuable content around their needs and wants, which will hopefully lead to mutually beneficial conversations.

This is different from the old-school method of hiding behind the brands we represent, not interacting with the people that matter and consequently being immune to changing for the better.

Do you think we were better off then or now as a profession? I know my answer.

Adam Coulter is a graduate student at Suffolk University in Boston, USA.  He blogs at Conduit for Young Communicators and you can follow him on Twitter @AdamSuffolkU.

The Tipping Point is an international bestseller by acclaimed journalist and social psychologist Malcolm Gladwell. It examines the triggers that bring about rapid social and behavioural change and proposes a convincing and well-evidenced theory for the factors contributing to often seemingly coincidental ‘social epidemics’ in which ‘ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do’.

The Tipping Point has enjoyed such widespread success because of its accessibility and broad appeal. As Time Magazine said in 2005, Gladwell “manages to make his work as relevant to CEOs as it is to soldiers”. However, his 21st Century slant on social psychology will be of particular interest to those studying or working in any communications or people-focused field.

The book examines in depth what works and, as importantly, doesn’t work to bring about social change, challenging many common assumptions about the way people think and are influenced. However, Gladwell concedes that there are some aspects of social epidemics that can’t be ‘deliberately’ influenced and are just a result of serendipity.

This is a theme running through Gladwell’s work in later books like ‘What the Dog Saw’ (2009), which will also be of interest to those studying or working in public relations and social marketing.

If you are tasked with devising a campaign to encourage people to stop smoking, for example, Gladwell might not have the magic ingredient for widespread change but he will help you to understand the sorts of things that need to be considered by fully exploring what motivates people to begin smoking, become regular smokers, and continue doing it despite the risks.

Author photo from gladwell.com

Malcolm Gladwell is an international best-selling author of four influential, thought-provoking books on social phenomena. As an award-winning journalist he covered business, science and medicine for the Washington Post before becoming a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine in 1996. In 2005, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people for his ability to demonstrate the “practical applications of cutting-edge academic scholarship”, making him “the US’ leading pop sociologist”.

The Tipping Point is about ‘social epidemics’ such as the sudden resurrection of the suede shoe brand Hush Puppies in the mid 1990s or influence of Paul Revere’s message that “The British are coming!” on the outcome of the American Revolution. It argues that only certain circumstances, involving certain people, messages and contexts bring about social change that has a real impact.

The three rules of epidemics, according to Gladwell are:

1. The Law of the Few – there needs to be a certain mixture of a special type of person (Connectors – people who know and can influence a lot of different people from different social circles, Mavens – people who hold important information and intelligence on certain subjects and Salesmen – people who have a gift for telling stories and ‘selling’ messages) for a social epidemic to occur
2. The Stickiness Factor – the type of message is also important. If it doesn’t ‘stick’ with the people it needs to influence, it won’t have any long term impact.
3. The Power of Context – the first two factors alone can’t achieve a ‘social epidemic’ in the wrong environment. The context of the situation, such as whether a neighbourhood is run down and vandalised, is key. A major aspect of the sudden drop in crime rate in New York in the early 1990s was the efficient and extensive clean up of the run down transport system.

Gladwell’s anecdotal examples and questioning tone make for compelling reading, even for those with little interest in the academic understanding he is striving for. The book’s chapters each delve into an element of his ‘Tipping Point’ theory but are inter-connected with real life examples and stories that run throughout.

At the beginning and end of every section, the reader is reminded of what they have just read, what they are about to read and how it all fits together. For example, he says: “We’ve looked at the people who spread ideas and we’ve looked at the characteristics of successful ideas. But the subject of this chapter [the Power of Context] is no less important than the first two.”

There is no doubt that the ‘Tipping Point’ deserves the critical acclaim it has received. I was inspired by it both on a personal and professional level. It makes the reader think in a new way about how they and those around them are influenced to act in a certain way or buy a certain product or listen to a certain person’s warnings, demonstrating why sometimes the most obvious messages just don’t get through. He concludes on a positive note, reassuring the reader that: “If there is difficulty and volatility in the world of the Tipping Point, there is a large measure of hopefulness as well … Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push – in just the right place – it can be tipped.”

Suggested word count: 600 words

Purpose of a review:

A book review is not about your opinion on a book or its author. It’s written with the reader in mind. You are trying to help the reader decide whether a book is worth reading and worth buying. You should be encouraging readers to form a judgement rather than imposing your judgement on them.

Choosing books to review:

We usually publish reviews of recent books in the public relations field, though we might publish round-up reviews of several established texts.

Who can review books:

Anyone wanting to submit a review should first contact the editor. Anonymous reviews will not be published, and reviewers should state any connections they have to the author (through family or work).

How to read a book you are reviewing:

Ideally, you should read a book for review twice. The first reading should be at speed to gain a broad overview of the themes of the book. The second reading should allow a much more detailed analysis of the argument.

In reality, there is rarely time to do this. So you should read the book judiciously, skimming certain sections to allow a more detailed reading of key passages. Have a notebook to hand to record the page numbers of key passages you may want to cite or quote.

Academics will often read a book ‘back-to-front’, judging it by the quality – and the quantity – of the sources consulted. Does the book have an index, and does it appear comprehensive?

Suggested structure of a review:

1. State the details of the book. Its title, author, page count, publisher and publication year.
2. Outline the general topic. Does it support or challenge existing scholarship in the field?
3. Indicate who the book is written for.
4. Comment on the author’s credentials to write this book (authority).
5. Summarise the key themes and identify some of the main arguments.
6. Illustrate with choice quotations from the text.
7. For academic books, you might comment on the research conducted and the sources consulted.
8. Identify any errors or omissions.
9. Comment on the style and structure of the book.
10. Provide a summary of the book’s qualities (or deficiencies).

Malcolm Gladwell called for specialisation of the press recently. His claim was that only those reporters focusing on a specialist niche work can hope to survive, because they will do a better job of providing relevant information to the public. I dare to make the same claim for public relations.

Why bother?

There are good arguments for specialisation. First of all, being knowledgeable and deeply involved in a certain subject makes the expert difficult to replace. The organisation needs them more than they need the organisation and that stabilises their profession and creates better job security.

Take Gladwell’s example of John Weil, a journalist who broke the Enron story because he knew his way around financial statements and a balance sheet. “Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. Most accountants don’t write articles, and most journalists don’t know anything about accounting.”

When a practitioner specialises, immersion in the field of her choice follows. For example, getting deeply involved in finance means that she will be well aware of a difference between a sale and lease back product and operative leasing. Furthermore, she can support her reasoning with valid arguments citing financial mechanics and legislation. She knows that all pension funds are legally obliged not to make a loss and why it is that way. All this knowledge leads to getting under the client’s skin and being able to provide him with better advice.

“We are in the business of building brands and helping them to excel. How can you help a brand to get better when you don’t know its core business? That is like trying to get hired as a doctor without passing the medical school,” said Ladislav Baca, CEO of Ogilvy Group Czech Republic.

His message is simple: specialise or perish. The clients stopped requiring space in the media as the results of the PRO’s work. They are demanding a different type of service nowadays. They need advice that will help them to build their brand and legitimise their efforts and actions. This vision applies mainly to the British market but it is assumed that the Czech Republic will follow in a couple of years.

Benefits? Relationships, credibility, money

Knowing the market and the client’s business is directly correlated to your success and your salary. According to a small-scale research by Heyman Associates, there are ten dimensions of success. One of them is very relevant to being a specialist – the ability to forge more prosperous relationships with the client as well as the media. Some journalists (most notably staff writers for technology or finance publications) tend to view PROs as flacks who have no idea what they are talking about when pitching clients’ information.

Your high involvement within a given field can safely eliminate this perceptual flaw. Due to the knowledge you have obtained, you will cease being a pest for the reporter and become his partner instead.

The same applies to relations with the client. When the marketing director of a large banking institution doesn’t have to explain to you for the fourth time the difference between putting your money on a term deposit account and investing into mutual funds, your relationship will get better. It works the other way around too. When you catch a glimpse of a topic discussed in the news relating to the nitty-gritty areas of your client’s business, you can be the proactive force and kick-start the client to begin communicating.

When it comes to individual salary, I think you know the logic I’m following. The more involved you are with the subject of your choice, the better advice you give to the client. The better your advice is, the higher the fees you agency can invoice. The higher the fees, the higher your salary and social status will be. It looks simple because it is that simple.

Taking the first steps

“This specialisation talk is all well and good but where do I start?” I hear you saying. The trick is building up your expertise in a subject you enjoy. Start with an idea of what turns you on professionally. Those of you interested in automotive should get busy with reading industry reports and educating yourselves in the technical aspect of the field. Watching Top Gear reruns will simply not suffice.

College students have it easier because they can still shift the focus of their studies and take additional courses related to their field of desired specialisation. Those who decide to go for their Bachelor’s and Master’s in one run should diversify their efforts. Doing a Bachelor’s in business administration or finance or interior design can be helpful to gain the foundational insights into the area of your future expertise. Going for a Master’s degree in PR will then formalise your experience.

While you are still in college, it is an imperative to take up internships and work placements to discover the practical side of the profession. In case you don’t like the field of focus you can still switch while maintaining a relatively low opportunity cost.

The key to your successful profiling in PR is determining what you want to do and building up your expertise in that field. You will soon find out that it’s not as easy as you thought it would be but that’s fine. You will discover that aside from the soft skills you will need to develop some hard ones as well.

Maths skills are good to have for finance-related fields, understanding aesthetics will get you ahead in design-related business and knowing the foundations of chemistry can help you in the FMCG food sector. However, all these helpful skills are overshadowed by one characteristic – a willingness to work hard.

I will leave this space for the closing words on specialisation to Malcolm Gladwell yet again. “I think that’s the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing.”

When the internet began, it was for government use and the public was unaware of its existence.

Over the years the internet became publicly available and became increasingly popular from the early 90s when the World Wide Web enabled the inclusion of multimedia images, videos, sound, and animations. Now the web contains just about anything you want it to, from information encyclopaedias, to the latest movies by illegal download.

The main feature now, though, is the social side of the internet – how users can adapt and change the content of a website and make it their own, how users are interacting with one another, and how the power has been taken away from site developers to the person on their laptop or mobile device creating content.

Introducing Web 2.0

Web 2.0 represents a social rather than a physical evolution. Although better systems, software and servers are in place, Web 2.0 describes the power the user has upon internet content. Websites now feature a variety of tools allowing the user to adapt and change the site. These social media sites are the innovators of Web 2.0, and more traditional sites are having to play catch up.

Rob Brown (2009: 1-2) explains Web 2.0:

“It can simply be described as the version of the web that is open to ordinary users and where they can add their content… In practice is signifies the transfer of control of the internet, and ultimately the central platform for communication, from the few to the many. It is the democratisation of the internet”.

This definition is a great indication of what Web 2.0 is. It suggests that no one person owns the internet, which has always been true, but now it also suggests that no one person has total control over a website, a blog or a post. It is the people visiting that website who make it happen and work. For example, Wikipedia and Facebook need people to add content, so these sites are a form of democracy.

What is PR 2.0?

Does Web 2.0 now require a corresponding ‘PR 2.0’? Traditional public relations was not designed for the new media world, and so a new way of thinking is needed.

Yet PR 2.0 actually began with Web 1.0. Author Brian Solis coined the phrase back in the 90s. However, it was not until more recently that anyone started taking notice.

The early internet had elements of social networking and limited consumer power. Basic forums were introduced where people could communicate on subjects, however these were not as established or easy to use as the forums of today. The consumer was now able to view company websites and in some instances contact them through e-mail, but this was still nothing like today; PR 1.0 could still work in that world.

Now the internet has radically changed. Web 2.0 has ‘democratised’ the internet, and PR 2.0 is essential.

When people interact on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Bebo they gain power by their sheer mass. Twitter has trending topics, which can define the news and set the story arcs for journalists to follow.

Bebo can provide insight into the minds of the younger generation, with consensus on what is ‘cool’ and what is not, highly valuable to certain companies.

Facebook is a dominant player with 400 million users. With Facebook groups, huge campaigns have sprung up, from the harmless to those influencing consumer behaviour. The 2009 Christmas No. 1 was not won by the X-Factor winner, usually considered immovable from the top spot at this time of year, thanks in large part to a Facebook campaign.

The PR industry must take notice of the huge power this kind of media has upon organisations.  Organisations are under pressure to participate, not just at a spectator level, or in a superficial attempt to fit with what publics expect. Using the format to not only communicate with the stakeholders at a business level, but also personally.

Solis, B. & Breakenridge D. (2009: xix-xx) explain:

“PR 2.0 starts with a different mindset and approach, neither of which is rooted in broadcast marketing or generic messaging. It’s all about humanising and personalizing stories specifically for the people we want to reach”

This definition makes sense and can offer an indication on what we as PR practitioners should change to be able to compete in this new media space.

I would suggest that public relations has evolved to its second generation. This version of PR takes into account the new social media, and the roles these play in the stakeholder communications. PR 2.0 differs from traditional PR as it does not ignore the power people have.

Sticking to PR 1.0 is not enough, in fact some may say PR 3.0 is what we should be looking towards. Either way, PR 2.0 is needed here and now.

In 1999, just a year after the invention of Google, The Cluetrain Manifesto predicted ‘the end of business as usual’.

The book’s four authors argued that markets were becoming smarter and that because of the internet ‘a powerful global conversation had begun’. The Cluetrain Manifesto said that businesses needed to start having conversations inside and outside the organisation, quickly, or they wouldn’t survive the changes the book anticipated.

Thesis 74 in The Cluetrain Manifesto said that ‘we are immune to advertising just forget it’. Advertising is an element of marcoms and was historically described as ‘any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.’

Advertising grew with industrialisation and the rise of mass media: television, radio and press. However, over the last ten years and largely due to the internet and the development of social media, there has been considerable fragmentation of media outlets creating more opportunities to advertise, many free of charge such as YouTube.

The idea of ‘free’ advertising is very different from the definition of advertising as a ‘below the line’ practice, and blurs the boundaries between advertising and public relations.

There is more advertising now than ever before, across a huge range of outlets, but with greater competition for attention, advertising messages are becoming diluted in consumers’ minds due to too much exposure to them. In an offline world advertisers are turning to alternative advertising strategies such as sponsorship, product placement and celebrity endorsements.

In The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, Al and Laura Ries subsequently argued that advertising should be used to maintain brand awareness rather than build a brand because of its lack of credibility.

The Cluetrain Manifesto authors described advertising messages as an ‘interruption’ in consumers’ minds, an attempt to stop them doing something and pay attention to the message. Permission marketing is both the idea and title of a 1999 book by Seth Godin. The idea of permission marketing is to ‘encourage consumers to participate in a long term, interactive marketing campaign, in which they are rewarded some way for paying attention to increasingly relevant messages’.

The most talked about concept in The Cluetrain Manifesto and its first thesis is ‘markets are conversations.’ The development of the internet has made conversations amongst the markets themselves – and between organisations and markets – more transparent. The development of the web has caused a shift from mass communication to micro communications such as word of mouth conversations.

This can be seen to fit closely into Grunig and Hunt’s ideal two-way symmetrical model of public relations. In 2007, Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg argued that messages broadcast to the masses no longer work and that marketers (and PR professionals) should be part of the conversation.

Social media can be described as a ‘shift in how people discover, read, and share news and information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology’, Brian Solis has argued, ‘transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many.)’

Social media channels include blogging, microblogging, video sharing, podcasts, RSS and wikis to name just some. These channels are described as ‘consumer generated content’ by Phillips and Young. Anyone in the world with access to a computer can make themselves heard to a global audience, an idea that The Cluetrain Manifesto pre-empted: ‘we like this new marketplace much better. In fact we are creating it’, Thesis 72.

Just as the role of advertising has changed since The Cluetrain Manifesto was written, so the role of public relations has also needed to adapt. Phillips and Young have argued that the internet is an ‘agent of change’. Traditionally it was the job of marketing and PR professionals to communicate an organisation’s controlled messages to key opinion leaders. However, because of the developments of the internet and the need for transparency, it is now the whole organisation’s responsibility to be ‘guardians of reputation’.

Technology and the developments in social media have caused a power shift from the organisation to the consumer. This presents new challenges for public relations in terms of how interactive the organisation is in building relationships, being authentic, and also monitoring online conversations.

In terms of ‘new’ online PR practice it can be argued that, ‘shouting doesn’t work, conversations do’ according to Groundswell authors Li & Bernoff.

Since The Cluetrain Manifesto was written in 1999 the world has entered the worst recession since World War Two. Recession undoubtedly brings mistrust and uncertainty for consumers and well as brands, which means that the role of public relations is even more important.

Relationships are crucial for brands during a period of recession in order for them to look genuine and build trust through personal relationships. The Cluetrain Manifesto’s thesis three talks about how conversations among human beings need to sound human which is crucial for brands in a recession.

Social media plays a huge part in these human conversations because of its authenticity, low cost and global reach.

The internet hasn’t been a solely positive development for businesses and their reputations. The internet has increased and widened participation of activist groups because of its global reach. ‘…whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.’ Cluetrain Thesis 12.

As well as blogs, Facebook and Twitter are popular for online activists. Online activist groups have a damaging effect on the reputation of a company as it provides a ‘global platform and an opportunity to link up with other people who attempt to harm your company or organisation, worldwide, 24/7’ according to Colin Byrne, CEO of Weber Shandwick, who has described these people as ‘badvocates’.

In July 2009 PR was introduced into the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, a practical example of how PR and marcoms have merged. Meerman-Scott described how ‘great content in all forms’ drives action which is the main purpose of both disciplines, meaning the best ideas will win no matter who created them.

The best job in the world campaign created for Tourism Queensland by Australian ad agency CumminsNitro, was advertising using public relations to raise global awareness through viral techniques. The campaign won the Cannes Lions PR Grand Prix award in 2009, with Lord Bell describing the campaign as ‘very simple, capturing the imagination of the world’s media…online and offline…highly contemporary.’. In this campaign the online communications was supporting the campaign’s communications offline.

Although the internet is seen as a positive change for a lot of people, both individuals and businesses, it is not universal and doesn’t change everything for everyone: ‘our social tools are not an improvement to society; they are a challenge to it’ according to Clay Shirky.

Shirky illustrates that technology might change but people do not. In the future, the number of people accessing the internet might be closer to 80% or 90% but there will still be a digital divide of some sort, as the population will always be made up of different demographics and the ‘global conversation’ and ‘end of business as usual’ that The Cluetrain Manifesto talks about still won’t be true for everyone.

The boundary between the personal and professional is blurring (just take a look at your Facebook ‘friends’ or your Twitter followers and see if I’m wrong) as is the distinction between public and private.

The latter distinction has huge implications for safety, security and even employability that most students have barely begun to consider. The former is much more encouraging. It suggests that if you can do public relations for yourself, then it’s highly likely you’ll be competent to do it for others.

So PR starts at home with Personal Reputation.

Our guides to this new PR are two digital marketing experts, Louis Halpern and Roy Murphy.

The stakes are high. They recount how a radio station DJ was dismissed from his job once his name had appeared on a leaked membership list of a controversial right wing political party.

‘In the internet age, your personal ‘brand‘ or identity is never off duty and your reputation is always ‘switched on’.

Personal reputation has always mattered: reputation and relationships are preconditions of commercial success in traditional markets. But the rise of the media (printing press, broadcast, internet) extends the reach of the reputation concept. People are under more scrutiny than ever before: everyone’s famous now.

Hence the need for online reputation management. The approach proposed here applies brand marketing principles:

It might sound like marketing gobbledygook but thinking about yourself as a brand helps separate out the professional ‘you’ from the personal ‘you’.

At its heart, this book discusses how to use websites and social media to promote and protect brand you and how to apply the principles of search engine optimisation (SEO).

SEO tips revolve around consistency (of reputation story), content (relevant and punchy), indexing (on search engines) and linking (to quality people and networks).

I enjoyed reading this short, stylish book. Most paragraphs are brief enough to be squeezed into a 140-character tweet and it’s a quick book to browse.

As ever, the key question is why write a book about online topics. The answer is that while the early adopters are online, the majority have yet to take the plunge and basic advice on promoting blogs by writing comments on other’s is useful. If it was only available online, the authors would merely be preaching to the converted.

Any quibbles? It’s an upbeat book, but I would have thought a discussion of the risks (spam, scams, link farms, phishing – they’re all here) merited a chapter to itself in a book written for newbies.

‘Public relations is about reputation’ proclaims the CIPR’s definition. I become a bit prickly when digital marketers seek to colonise our territory, but will acknowledge that they’ve done it well – and there’s a gap that we’ve left open to them. Have they taught me anything new about reputation: probably not. Did I learn anything about SEO: probably yes.

Public Relations: Concepts, Practice and Critique
by Jacquie L’Etang
290 pages, Sage Publications, 2008

Exploring Public Relations
by Ralph Tench and Liz Yeomans
666 pages, FT Prentice Hall, 2nd ed 2009

Two public relations textbooks plug a gap in the literature by reviewing the relationship between public relations and celebrity culture.

In Jacquie L’Etang’s well-received textbook, chapter 10 is devoted to Public Relations in ‘Promotional Culture’ and ‘in Everyday Life’.

‘Much of the PR role in celebrity circles is focused on promotion, publicity and media relations, and public relations has received some of its bad press from this association’ she writes. Yet ‘according to public relations scholarly conventions, publicity is a small part of public relations’.

That explains the problem of celebrity endorsement as a dissertation topic: it has not been viewed as a respectable academic subject by lecturers.

‘Some PR academics seem uncomfortable with students’ interests in celebrity and its connection to public relations… Why is this? Perhaps because celebrity is seen as hype from which academic public relations tries to distance itself.’

L’Etang, perhaps the most prominent of UK public relations academics, is best placed to attempt a rehabilitation. She even names a list of celebrities within the PR world: Max Clifford, Matthew Freud, Lynne Franks, Julia Hobsbawm and Anne Gregory. (Note how, in Hobsbawm and Gregory, she includes the UK’s two public relations professors, so perhaps she’s also attempting a rehabilitation of the public relations academic).  Mark Borkowski is absent from her list, though he’s done most to provide a media face for the role of public relations in celebrity, especially following the publication of The Fame Formula, his book on Hollywood PR and the celebrity industry.

L’Etang also guides students to key texts in this area including Graeme Turner’s Understanding Celebrity, published in 2004.

Exploring public relations – and celebrity

The second edition of Exploring Public Relations includes a new chapter on Celebrity and public relations written by Elliot Pill.

There’s space in this chapter to link the rise of the celebrity to the emergence of mass media in the middle of the nineteenth century; to cite Bernays’s use of socialites to promote cigarettes; and to discuss Boorstin’s criticism of the fabrication of celebrities in place of true heroes.

Pill rightly argues that ‘celebrity culture is not new; it has just been taken to new heights with changing media consumption.’

Following L’Etang, he also challenges the perception that celebrity PR is the ‘Cinderella specialist area of the PR service portfolio’. Indeed, he cites the work of Rein et al to show that public relations is the dominant communication discipline contributing to celebrity. (It’s no coincidence that the rise of celebrity coincides with the rise of PR.)

He ascribes the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement to ‘credibility’, and goes on to discuss ‘attention’. Celebrities attract attention and this is the most vital ingredient of success in a world saturated with media and commercial messages.

These chapters on celebrity and public relations in two mainstream textbooks will provide a good starting point for students wanting to study the phenomenon in more detail – and should answer any lingering suspicion of the subject from their tutors.

Online Public Relations: A practical guide to developing an online strategy in the world of social media
by David Phillips and Philip Young
274 pages, Kogan Page (PR in Practice Series), 2009 

‘I believe that the distinction between digital and offline will gradually disappear’

Rob Brown‘s book contains one pleasant surprise, and one disappointment. The surprise is that it’s written in narrative form and provides a very readable introduction to public relations in the internet age. He claims in the preface that ‘this is a book about how radically public relations is changing’.

In defence of this claim, the author provides a useful overview of media and technology, and challenges the notion that the internet is just another medium, like TV (‘it is far richer and more complex than any of the traditional media channels’).

Having reviewed the loss of control that worries the old brand guardians, he asks about the role of public relations: ‘who should public relations people be talking to? The answer, ultimately, is quite simple and the clue is in the description ‘public relations’. PR people need to be talking to the public just like they have always done’. So where is the radical change?

The revolution versus evolution discussion takes place throughout these pages. But is the decline in the effectiveness of the news release and the emergence of its social media replacement revolution or a sign of evolution?

Let’s agree that the world is changing and so is public relations. ‘The future of marketing communications rests with the art of conversation. Engaging in conversations is what public relations people have always done. PR has always operated through intermediaries and persuasion and reasoned argument have always been important elements of what we do.’

‘Now the content comes from lots of different places, the skills that are important to the marketing function are not hard technical skills, nor are they predominantly aesthetic but are the softer management skils of diplomacy and influence. In short, these are the skills that PR people have always used in their interactions with traditional media.’

I agree, but both these statements contradict the claim that there’s something radically new.

Brown has written a good introduction to the media (including, of course, social media), and he has a useful perspective on the role of PR within marketing. He’s also good on search engine optimisation and covers ethics (including an astonishing first-hand example of Max Clifford in action, though it had nothing to do with social media).

He extends the usual contrast between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) to include a new category: consumer-to-consumer (C2C). This is a very helpful concept when understanding the conversational web and when trying to decide whether an organisation should blog (‘the answer to this is a qualified yes they should, but they need to be careful and need to do it properly’).

The problem with the book comes from the narrative structure that works so well at the beginning. By the end, what was needed was a gazeteer of social media tools because I must have read the same entries about Twitter, Facebook and social bookmarking tool delicious three times over. The focus on tools also means that this book will date very quickly.

It’s a good overview suitable for undergraduate students and confused clients, but I can recommend an even better read covering the same ground: David Brain and Martin Thomas’s Crowd Surfing published last year.

‘The internet is about the exchange of information – and so is public relations’

It’s almost a decade since the first edition of Online Public Relations was written. For the second edition, David Phillips has teamed up with Philip Young.

While tools and technologies have changed rapidly, what do the authors claim for PR?  ’For public relations practice the unavoidable conclusion is that nothing will ever be the same again; the advent of an online world means almost every aspect of the discipline needs to be rethought.’

Fasten your seatbelts; we’re in for a much more ambitious ride. It’s not just the practice that is changing, it seems, but its role and purpose. After a short section on the basic toolkit, this book deals in concepts: transparency, porosity, agency, richness and reach.

We assume transparency to be a good thing, and porosity (leaks) bad. But they are the flipside of the same concept. ‘As with transparency, there are benefits. The authentic voice of the organization that flows through the corporate shell has tremendous impact outside and may be part of the managed process of making organizations more competitive.’ Yet as the authors ask (in the context of ghostwritten blogs), ‘where does the ‘authentic voice porosity’ stop and managed transparency begin?’

There are big challenges: ‘the practitioner with ‘messages’ to present to a public is now confronted with this changed communications environment.’ As the authors describe, it’s a mixture of one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many and many-to-one communications channels.

But here’s the problem. While Rob Brown’s book presents a simple (though not simplistic) view of public relations in the age of social media, Online Public Relations presents a very complex picture. That’s because the authors view public relations operating in the realm of relationship optimization. This implies a practice that will be unrecognisable to many since ‘untruths, half-truths, hype and extravagant claims become reputation time bombs.’ This is no doubt true, but it presents a counter-factual view of the practice in a similar way to the famous ‘two-way symmetrical’ model, which still feels idealistic 25 after its publication.

So ‘the internet brings public relations closer to the heart of corporate re-engineering, corporate governance, corporate and brand relationships, reputation promotion and issues management.’ It’s a very different picture from that depicted by Rob Brown. If Rob Brown’s book could be renamed Marketing Public Relations and the Social Web, Phillips and Young’s could become Corporate Public Relations Online. I described the first as suitable for undergraduates and confused clients; the second is for advanced students and practitioners.

Let’s summarise some of the changes identified by Phillips and Young. ‘The traditional website has become a place of record and commercial exchange. The new social media web is a place for interactions.’ And ‘the extremes between a press release and a telephone conversation require flexible policies in terms of approval of corporate statements. Social media need the same kind of flexibility.’

‘In the past, a PR person might have been judged by the volume of coverage generated for a client. The key today is not volume but influence: that is, how deeply into the networks did the story reach and for how long did it actively set the agenda in the online ‘conversations’?’

At its heart (chapters 15 to 21), the book provides help with developing a corporate internet strategy (‘there is an overwhelming case for improving capabilty to strategically manage online presence, interactions and stakeholder relations by organizations.’)

The challenge is to bring the linear, rational process of planning up to date to cope with rapid change and uncertainty (even about the very nature of the organisation). ‘Put simply, we need to be able to plan for surprises in this fast-changing world… The idea that one can run a ‘PR campaign’ is now flawed. A ‘campaign’ once had time limits and could thus be dropped after the event, but this does not apply today.’

The book cannot provide a template for your corporate internet strategy, but it does discuss approaches and adapts existing tools and models, and has particularly strong sections on risk assessment and legal and ethical issues.

Best of all, the book challenges us to rethink the role of public relations. ‘The previously unseen hand is moving into fairly sharp focus’ the authors state, in discussing the shift from communicating through journalists to engaging in social media conversations (moving from mediated to unmediated discourse). And ‘the fundamental vector of communication that shapes reputation and an organization’s relationship with its stakeholders has flipped through 90 degrees. Now, the truly significant discourse is that which surrounds an organization, product or service.’

Yet the authors also state, ‘Online PR is not an alternative to other forms of relationship building, communication and interaction; it is an extension of what has gone before.’ I call that evolution. The radical, revolutionary thinking is less about the relationship of public relations to the internet and more about the role of public relations within organisations. ‘New PR is also about new thinking’.

We can know the history of public relations from documents and narrative accounts. In truth, we tend to get a US perspective featuring familiar names like PT Barnum, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. We also get an optimistic view in which past malpractices tend to be replaced by a more ethical and sophisticated present-day practice.

A decade into the twenty-first century, it’s increasingly fashionable to challenge this US-centric view. But what picture is emerging of the future of public relations?

Alan Freitag is a sympathetic guide, a US academic who in the preface to this book recalls challenging the assumption that global public relations necessarily involves exporting the American way of doing PR. What if PR practitioners from other countries started competing on American soil, in the same way as Japanese or German cars and office technology? His question at a conference in the mid 1990s was greeted with laughter, so ridiculous did it seem at the time.

That was the era of the End of History, the time after the end of the Cold War when the US was the unchallenged global superpower. Now, the rise of China and shocks to capital markets suggest this was a short-lived period.

This book is structured in three parts. First, a review of the common ground (what is public relations and what it’s not; the development of the practice and some major theories and methods). This is followed in part two by a look at cultural dimensions and media systems. Part three is a region by region review of the factors shaping the development of the industry.

This includes a good outsider’s account of Britain (or, as the country is correctly named here, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), though I raised my eyebrows at the assertion that ‘the British respect authority and rank’. I had thought there was much evidence to suggest that the age of deference is very much over. Perhaps this is a minor example of the danger of generalising that the book warns us about.

But there’s a startling omission here. Why no chapter on the United States? If the authors are consistent with the view stated in the preface, then they should have recognised the likelihood that readers from other countries might benefit from a dispassionate academic explanation of the factors shaping the practice of PR in the United States.

Here are two questions I would like to have seen addressed. Why, in a land that prizes free expression and has such a proud tradition of a free press, has it been so long since the press achieved anything like the Washington Post’s Watergate investigation? Have all institutions been beyond criticism and above investigation in the decades since Watergate?

My other question surrounds America’s brand of free market capitalism. The market is so prized, the private over the public sphere, that it seems to me that public relations has played second fiddle to sales and marketing in this promotional culture more than anywhere else in the world. Contrast this with a European country with its larger public sector and stronger emphasis on corporate social responsibility. Could this US promotional culture have hampered the independent development of public relations at the same time that US academics like James Grunig were giving it, in theory, such a distinctive role?

Others will note that not all countries gain much space here, but the authors are academics who are more interested in the principles than the details of the practice.

Theirs is an important review of the literature on global PR at a time when the future is looking uncertain. But it’s likely that the international dimension will be more, not less, important through this century and a sound understanding of history is a good way to confront the paradoxes of the present day.