Having digressed into an article within ‘Books Quarterly’ magazine into the Orwellian opinion of CCTV cameras I have just noticed that it was placed there by Public Relations means with a cheeky veiled liberty-human-rights.org.uk. The subject of CCTV, perhaps better named SS (Surveillance Systems) is seen as a sly activity, even underhand, with the way our movements are recorded without recollection. So how is this different to the way Public Relations operates?

I know Public Relations doesn’t store our DNA into a database, keep a record of our finger prints, watch our every move on a monitor or demand us to walk around with an ID card. You would even be hard pushed to call Public Relations parasitical with the way it operates, but it is viral. Make no mistake; a parasitical entity doesn’t come coupled with viral methods.

The main downfall with Public Relation is how to actually explain the industry without your sentence becoming superfluous or tedious. Even more frustrating when I am asked by people, “So… which degree have you chosen to study?” Gah! There is no way for it. I only can explain the industry through examples. There is no point quoting the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) or IPRA (International Public Relations Association) as their definitions change every few years. To be quite honest, without wanting to be so vulgar to force the sick from your mouth, Public Relations is about relationships.

I am afraid these relationships don’t love. Hardly agape in nature, I have yet to find a communication model where a company or organisation confers with publics on an unconditional level. Let’s face it, I probably won’t ever find a model. May sound cynical to say so but a company needs your money and so does a charity. Relationships between PR and the public is like marrying a girl for her cooking skills.

The only way I can illustrate my point is by reverting back to ePR. If we consider that Public Relations, in the real world, has only been around prominently since the late 20^th Century you may conceive how new the industry is. This may help put a perspective with how new ePR is. Personally I can’t see how ePR could have existed effectively before the birth of Web 2.0. The development of ePR strongly depends on the social networking foundations it stands upon. Each year these foundations radically change in one sense or another, which makes ePR fragile in two senses.

1. It is very easy to destroy a company’s reputation by doing something wrong online (just look at Habitat UK)
2. Online communication changes all the time. This in turn changes how ePR plans will be constructed.

ePR is essentially viral, a message is communicated over the internet and spreads. If anything ePR is the worst offender of viral messaging. You may believe I have forgotten all about advertising but advertising is parasitical. A message just keeps popping up for the user. Those of us who used computers in the 1990s (although I was very young!) will remember the same old pop-up windows greeting us on certain sites. Advertising is far too noisy to be credited with being sly. The only way advertising could be called sly is through subconscious messages but this seems to me accidental rather than planned. In a world where dozens of brands for a single product exist, of course advertising will become subconscious, there is too much to focus on directly.

I don’t mean to discredit advertising, there is a place for it in the world and without it a full marketing plan wouldn’t be possible. Just that Public Relations seems to lack in the relations department. It has the ability to be cold like advertising when we cast our eyes away from customer satisfaction. I might be completely wrong, I am ready to admit defeat but there is no doubt about it, Public Relations is sly and charming. Although does anybody really want a relationship with somebody who is sly and charming?

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