Feminisation of PR

I am very interested in why there are more female PR practitioners than men. I had read a 2007 PRWeek survey that revealed that 63% of PR practitioners* are women. This had me wondering, why aren’t there more men in PR? I even did a blog examining why PR is dominated by women. In reading Kevin Moloney’s book Rethinking Public Relations: The Spin and the Substance, he offers several suggestions to why women dominate PR. One of his theories was that women are better at communicating. This was brought up in class today when we were discussing “feminisation” traits. Several people in class associated women with being better communicators. It is debatable rather women are actually better at communicating due to biological or social traits. I would agree like most of my classmates that women are better at communicating and that is why they are enter into PR because ideally it's about creating a two-way communication between an organisation and the public.

Although women dominate the PR industry, they are still underpaid compared to males. In America there are gender discrimination laws that are aimed at preventing unequal pay and discrimination in the work force. However, in class it was stated that in a 2001 study, women in the U.S earn 46% less than men. As I read Moloney’s book he also discussed that women in PR are underpaid as well in the U.S and in the UK. If it is know that women are unpaid, why is nothing being done to fix this problem? It seems to me that since nothing is being done to correct this problem, it has become the norm that women will just be unpaid although they dominate the PR industry. When will equality in pay in PR exist? This seems to be a question that no one has a solution for or is trying to fix.

Reference:
*http://offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/misc/WRP/ReportsandSurveys/SalarySurvey2007-RESULTS.pdf

Stakeholders

In reading The Public Relations Handbook by Alison Theaker, she defines company’s stakeholders as employees, suppliers, members of community and customers. She elaborates the importance of stakeholders when she states: “these stakeholders should be recognized by those who actions may impinge upon them” (pg.61). I realize how important and powerful stakeholders can be to a company. For example, in my city San Diego in 2006, Wal-Mart was trying to build a superstore. However, due to public pressure Wal-Mart was denied a building permit by San Diego's Government due to the community’s protest. Wal-Mart’s superstores include a grocery store inside their normal Wal-Mart which small businesses and local San Diego grocery stores were against. In an article I was reading about this incident it stated that “the California Supreme Court backed the San Diego community…saying that cities and counties can place restrictions on what sort of stores can open in their communities.” (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0619/p02s01-ussc.html)

Although Wal-Mart is well known in America for having the lowest prices, they have a bad reputation for denying work unions, having poor health benefits and paying low wages to their employees. San Diego denied Wal-Mart’s superstores after growing community petitions to our local government. This goes to show that stakeholders are very important for a company. Just because of Wal-Mart’s bad reputation and poor employment standards they were blocked from building their superstore in San Diego.

In viewing Theaker’s book she states that it's always important to “map stakeholders and understand their relationships to the specific project”. In order for Wal-Mart to have been successful in opening a superstore in San Diego, they should have ensured that they would have the support of the community and government. If Wal-Mart had a better reputation and treatment towards their employees they probably would have had the support of the San Diego community. Therefore, it is important that companies ensure that they have the support of their main stakeholders because it can greatly affect their company.

PR ethics

In class we were given a scenario that we worked for a computer company and we gave out temporary computers to journalist to test out and write about but they had to return it afterwards. However, one journalist has asked to keep her computer before she has released her review. The question was what we would do, let the journalist keep the computer or ask for it back. I wouldn’t agree to let the journalist keep the computer because for me it’s a bribe and if the other journalists found out it would ruin the company’s reputation. Although it would help build up a good relationship with this journalist for my computer company, it wouldn’t be fair since the other journalists had to return their computers. Plain and simple the journalist is hinting that she would write a good review, in return we would have to let her keep the computer.

I would base my decision on the fact that it would be morally wrong but also I would be afraid of the exposure from the media, that my computer company hands out bribes for good reviews.

In reading Public Relations-Critical Debates and Contemporary Practice by Jacquie L’Etang & Magda Pieczka they state companies use public relations as a technique or tool for enhancing reputation. It's hoped that PR practitioners do as Bentham states, “the greatest good for the greatest number”. So returning back to the computer scenario, I would be doing the greatest good for the company by not subjecting to bribes for just one journalist. Although practitioners should adhere to PR codes of ethnic I feel that in reality most practitioners do what’s in the best interest for a company’s reputation. Since PR practitioners are hired by companies to look after their reputation, I can see why practitioners sometimes don't follow the rule "the greatest good for the greatest number", but instead the greatest good for their company they are representing. For me, I believe PR is helping to build a company’s reputation and not necessarily that PR practitioners are trying to follow the best codes of ethics.

The power of PR

For my Corporate Communication course I had to put together a crisis management presentation. I focused on Ford and Firestone’s recall in the United States in August 2000. Due to defected tires, Ford’s SUVs were crashing and rolling over which led to 134 deaths. However, both Ford and Firestone reacted differently to this crisis which I found interesting. After the recall Ford sent out press releases stating that their company had shut down three of their truck assembly plants to free up new tires and that Ford was dedicated to replacing these defected tires. However, Firestone continued to insist that there wasn’t a problem but stated it was due to hot climate and under-inflated tires that lead to these tire blowouts. Only a year later Firestone spoke to their customers through a website about the recall.

My first reaction was that Ford had done the right protocol by reassuring their customers that they cared about fixing their defected tires. Looking back at both of these companies reactions, people trust Ford again because Ford made it a point to speak to the media and through commercials stating that they were sorry and were making Ford safe again. This helped re-build Ford’s reputation whereas it seemed like Firestone only cared about the safety of their customers when backed into a corner and not because it’s a part of their corporate philosophy. Most Americans even today do not trust Firestone's tires although the recall was 8yrs ago.

Risk Issues and Crisis Management by Michael Regester and Corporate Communication by Paul Argenti give helpful tips and suggestions about how to prepare and react to a crisis. It looks like Firestone did a horrible job in dealing with this crisis since they ignored all the PR rules. I think if Firestone had followed these textbook suggestions of having an open communication and talking directly to their affected customers they would have rebuild their reputation. However, in my corporate class an interesting point was made, Firestone was probably in denial that after all their years of making tires that there will be a problem with their product. Also, I can read all these PR crisis management textbooks but it comes down to the fact if companies would actually listen to me. Someone working for Firestone might have suggested all of these textbook guidelines to help rebuild up their reputation, but it doesn’t mean that Firestone’s corporate executives will listen. This helped remind me that a PR team can be prepared for a crisis but we are not that powerful. It is up to the executives of a company to listen to the PR’s recommendation when a crisis occurs.