Category: Public relations

Introduction

Democracy implies that the governance of society is performed by individuals, groups, and institutions that represent the interests of citizens and have their agendas shaped by the public. From this perspective, public opinion appears to be a crucial concept that greatly influences many political, social, economic, and cultural processes. However, researchers have repeatedly stressed the difficulty of defining public opinion. Although public opinion remains a strong factor that many refer to in the course of making decisions and explaining particular phenomena, the term resists being clearly defined in a single statement (Glynn et al. 2015). Moreover, even if the complexity of the notion of public opinion is comprehensively examined and taken into consideration, it is still challenging to define the connection between understanding public opinion and practising public relations.

Public relations entails a wide range of activities performed by individuals, groups, and organisations aimed at achieving mutual understanding between them and the public and building a favourable image that facilitates successful operations (Coombs & Holladay 2013). Since there are various categories of public entities, public relations have different levels, branches, and types. The modern world is characterised by the constant exchange of large amounts of information. People share opinions, participate in discussions, and cooperate via new media on a scale that has never before been seen. Under these circumstances, public relations are crucial for companies, governments, and public figures because virtually any endeavour is doomed to fail unless it gains support from the public by means of communicating the endeavour’s purposes effectively (Grunig 2013). Public relations practitioners inevitably need to consider public opinion because their activities often seek to change it. Scholars have argued that a better understanding of public opinion by practitioners improves public relations practice (Simons & Jones 2011). In order to understand how this happens, it is necessary to define a public opinion, examine its connections to public relations, describe what improvements in public relations mean, and explain the ways in which understanding public opinion can bring positive change to the practice of public relations.

Defining Public Opinion

The common understanding of public opinion is that it is what the public thinks about a particular event, phenomena, person, or process. It is a sort of shared attitude, understanding, or view observed within communities or across entire nations. However, if one looks closer at the concept, it becomes obvious that it is not completely clear who the public is and how it shapes and exchanges its opinions. Glynn et al. (2015) argue that there are five categories of approaches to defining public opinion. Each one is important to consider because it helps outline the concept more broadly and more comprehensively.

The first category is summarised by stating that “public opinion is an aggregation of individual opinions” (Glynn et al. 2015, p. 13). This definition is the simplest and most widespread, implying that people in a given community share views and attitudes due to a common background. The similar characteristics constitute what can be called public opinion. This understanding justifies the measurement of public opinion by means of surveys and polls (Bardes & Oldendick, 2012). Indeed, surveying is widely used as a tool for exploring public opinion. For example, if it is found that 55 percent of people in a certain country approve of the government’s recent policies, it can be concluded that the majority of citizens support its government; in other words, public opinion is favourable toward the current government. However, it should be noted that all citizens are not surveyed but rather a representative sample (Berinsky 2011). This sampling strategy adds to the confusion around public opinion because it raises the issue of how accurately surveys can reflect an actual aggregation of everyone’s opinions.

The second category is based on the idea that “public opinion is a reflection of majority beliefs” (Glynn et al. 2015, p. 14). It should be noted that “majority” here does not mean simply more than 50 percent; instead, it means a dominant group. Under this definition, public opinion is regarded as a set of mainstream views. Noelle-Neumann (1974), an influential theorist in this area, proposed the idea that public opinion is the one that can be expressed publically without risk of the speaker being ostracised or isolated. Therefore, an important aspect of public opinion is its restrictive and prescriptive nature. Similar to social norms, public opinion is about acceptability: there are things one cannot say publically in certain societies (like racist statements in democratic societies), meaning that they are not part of public opinion.

The approaches in the third category are based on the understanding that “public opinion is found in the clash of group interests” (Glynn et al. 2015, p. 15). This is a different perspective that focuses less on how individuals accumulate their opinions than on how opinions are imposed on them. Interest groups include political forces, influential corporations, and activists, all of whom constantly struggle for public support. They have enough resources and power to shape the public agenda. Therefore, public opinion appears to be the result of debates among interest groups.

The concept of producing public opinion is continued in the fourth category, where it is argued that “public opinion reflects media and elite influence” (Glynn et al. 2015, p. 16). This definition means that public opinion is a reflection of the opinions of societal elites, including political leaders, powerful businessmen, and other trendsetters. What is important here is to assess how the notion of “public opinion” is actually generated by groups who have access to or control over mass media and are thus capable of shaping the minds of the public. Questions may arise in a regular citizen in response to this explanation: How can my mind be shaped? Do I not have my own opinion? Herman and Chomsky (2010) Reply to these questions by claiming that a regular citizen—someone who may not be familiar with how mass communications work—would be very surprised to discover how facts can be manipulated, how agendas can be shaped, and how opinions are ultimately manufactured. Here, public opinion is seen as a set of views that is intentionally imposed upon the public, often with malicious purposes such as justifying the actions of governments. Working within this perspective, Lippmann (1922) coined the term “stereotype”, a simplified idea that may or may not be false. Stereotypes are part of public opinion, as they are partially shaped by media representation and affect public attitudes. Approaches in this category acknowledge that public opinion can be measured more accurately by surveying media and leaders rather than members of the public.

Finally, Glynn et al. (2015, p. 19) also point out that some scholars think that “public opinion is a fiction”. As discussed in the introduction, public opinion is an important concept in democracy, where political decision-making is supposed to be based on the will of the citizens as reflected in public opinion. However, decision-makers sometimes refer to a public opinion without sufficient evidence to prove that what they call “public opinion” is, in fact, what the public thinks and how it feels. Nonetheless, it is not suggested that members of communities do not have shared or common opinions that are influential; it is only suggested that the concept of public opinion is often used falsely in the political context.

Although there are more ways to approach defining public opinion, the five categories described above present a wide range of possible explanations of what scholars and practitioners call “public opinion”. After examining each of them, it is possible to describe the connection between public opinion and public relations practice.

How Public Relations Is Connected to Public Opinion

There are many spheres of public relations, which complicates speculating on public relations in general. However, it can be assumed that all of those spheres are linked in one way or another to the concept of public opinion, which allows for an attempt to define the connection on a fundamental level. Such a fundamental connection is claimed by Harold Burson, co-founder of Burson-Marsteller, an influential international public relations and communications company. Burson stated that “public relations is a process that impacts public opinion” (Public relations defined 2011, para. 4). Therefore, public relation is a combination of ongoing activities that are planned and implemented with the aim of modifying public opinion. However, Burson goes on to claim that the “objective [of public relations] is to motivate individuals or groups to take a specific action. Like buying a certain brand of toothpaste or automobile; voting for a specific candidate; supporting one side or the other of a political issue; signing up with one cable provider over another” (Public relations defined 2011, para. 4). A misleading element can be found in Burson’s statements: although influencing public opinion, public relations attempts to motivate individuals, not the public. This idea works within the framework where public relations is an aggregation of the opinions of all people in a given group. However, with different understandings of public opinion (see Defining Public Opinion), this view seems to be wrong.

For the purpose of establishing a link to public relations, public opinion can be regarded as an existing set of strong, dominant beliefs and attitudes that affect how the public perceives new information. Therefore, the goal of public relations practice is, indeed, interacting with public opinion and modifying it toward some desired result. The key element of this process is persuasion. Persuasion has been a widespread theme in public relations literature for decades. Perloff (2010) stresses that persuasion is not necessarily done through massive direct channels of information. Indeed, people rarely change their minds after seeing a single commercial, although much money must have been spent to produce it and show it in primetime. Even if a particular force controls the mass media, it will not necessarily succeed in persuading. It was established in the twentieth century that mass communication messages do not work like hypodermic needles; they do not affect audience members directly by immediately replacing their opinions with the content of a message (McQuail & Windahl 2015). The process is more complicated and subtle, involving many factors like cultural and personal backgrounds.

One subtle persuasion mechanism is social proof, which implies that “one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct” (Ciadini 2014, p. 88). This view equally applies to behaviours, as people tend to regard those behaviours as appropriate that they observe in others around them. This explains the similarity between public opinion and social norms, which was previously described in terms of dominant and marginal views (Noelle-Neumann 1974). If public relations practice manages to place audience members into an environment where certain things are presented as normal and socially approved, they tend to adopt these things. This is an example of how public relations practice impacts public opinion. Overall, it can be concluded that public opinion is precisely the environment in which public relations practitioners work, as well as their material and challenge.

What Good Public Relations Is

In order to argue that a good understanding of public opinion can improve public relations practice, it is necessary to understand what is meant by improved practice. Similar to public opinion, public relations can be defined in multiple ways (Grunig 2013). A definition used above (see Introduction) suggests that public relations seek to achieve mutual understanding between the public and the public relations source, such as an organisation, as well as to build a favourable image. After reviewing the connection between public relations and public opinion, it can be added that public relations also encompasses the notions of persuasion and gaining the public’s recognition, consent, and approval.

These definitions effectively set goals for public relations practitioners. For example, if a new product is launched, the practitioner’s primary goal is to communicate to the public that the product serves the particular needs of the target audience (i.e., to explain why targets need to buy the product) (Coombs & Holladay 2013). In order to increase sales, public relations communications may demonstrate that the company is not only trying to sell its product but also to contribute to the well-being of its customers. Such an image helps gain loyalty and attract new audiences. If recognisability, loyalty, and sales are increased, public relations activities can be considered successful. Another example is political public relations. Improving public relations practice for an unpopular political figure results in increased support for the figure. Early in the history of public relations, it was established that public relations sets goals and employs various tools of communication, persuasion, and trust-building (Bernays 1923). Achieving goals through comprehensive communication activities is good public relations.

How an Understanding of Public Opinion Improves Public Relations Practice

It has been established that for public relations practice, public opinion is both the environment and the material (see How Public Relations Is Connected to Public Opinion). It can be argued that changing public opinion is what public relations essentially pursues. Persuasion is a major theme for practitioners because persuading is what it takes to gain trust, increase public support, or otherwise affect public opinion. From a theoretical perspective, multiple approaches were proposed to develop effective persuasion strategies.

Besides the technique of applying social proof for persuasion (Ciadini 2014), there are dozens of persuasion techniques and theories described in the literature. For example, the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) stresses the importance of two sides of persuasion: external and internal. This technique explains that the success of persuading depends not on only on the activities of the persuader but also on the psychological processes of those who are being persuaded (Simons & Jones 2011). The response to persuasion is linked to the public’s internal dynamics, which is why it is important to analyse public opinion along with the persuasion process.

Another theory is the theory of reasoned action (TRA), which suggests that modifying someone’s behaviour requires modifying their intentions. Intentions are shaped by attitudes towards behaviours and subjective norms (Simons & Jones 2011), reflecting the two-sided nature of persuasion described in the ELM and corresponding to the social proof theory. Another theoretical framework establishes the correlation between beliefs, values, and attitudes (BVA) and states that one’s favourable attitude toward an object is a result of believing that the object possesses characteristics that one values. According to Simons and Jones (2011, p. 51), the BVA theory “may achieve its generality by being too simple”. In this way, when promoting a certain product, public relations practitioners should not only communicate its characteristics but also link them to the public’s beliefs, which requires analysing the beliefs beforehand.

Based on these theories, there is a growing recognition among scholars that persuasion may be ineffective, even with great resource expenditure, if it is performed in a straightforward way that ignores the different aspects and levels of being persuaded. In their highly acclaimed book, Thaler and Sunstein (2008, p. 5) propose the concept of “nudge”, an idea in the libertarian paternalism framework that suggests that “choices [should not be] blocked, fenced off, or significantly burdened”. It implies soft persuasion in which the public is encouraged to move in the desired direction in a non-intrusive manner. Another important concept is cognitive dissonance: people live a constant flow of information where their beliefs may be challenged by multiple contradictions (Simons & Jones 2011). Contradictions hinder behaviours, which is why it is important for people to resolve conflicts of beliefs. Public relations practice may be successful if it proposes such resolution by reconciling beliefs.

From various perspectives described above, it is evident that public relations practitioners inevitably have to analyse public opinion in order to develop effective strategies for practice. What is meant by analysing is defining what is referred to as public opinion and studying the public’s beliefs and values. Subsequent implementation will include communicating in such a way that will effectively modify public opinion toward the desired result. A good understanding of public opinion ensures successful public relations practice.

Conclusion

Although both public opinion and public relations can be defined in various ways, it is evident that the two are highly interconnected. Public relations seeks to build mutual understanding, gain support and approval, and change the audience’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. To do so successfully, public relations practitioners need to understand public opinion, including its genesis and dynamics, and constantly work with it. Individual practitioners largely benefit from an accurate and comprehensive understanding of public opinion. Industries benefit, too, as the correct understanding of public opinion ensures more stable development.

In a modern world of globalisation and cultural differences, public opinion has become more complicated and intertwined, making it harder for public relations practitioners to work with public opinion. However, this fact does not take away from the importance of understanding public opinion as something that positively affects public relations practice.

Reference List

Bardes, BA & Oldendick, RW 2012, Public opinion: measuring the American mind, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham.

Berinsky, AJ 2011, ‘Representative sampling and survey’, in RY Shapiro & LR Jacobs (eds), The Oxford handbook of American public opinion and the media, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 332-348.

Bernays, EL 1923, Crystallizing public opinion, Liveright, New York.

Ciadini, RB 2014, Influence: science and practice, Harlow, Essex.

Coombs, WT & Holladay, SJ 2013, It’s not just PR: public relations in society, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken.

Glynn, CJ, Herbst, S, Lindeman, M & O’Keefe, GJ 2015, Public opinion, Westview Press, Boulder.

Grunig, JE 2013, Excellence in public relations and communication management, Routledge, New York.

Herman, ES & Chomsky, N 2010, Manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media, Random House, New York.

Lippmann, W 1922, Public opinion, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York.

McQuail, D & Windahl, S 2015, Communication models for the study of mass communications, Routledge, New York.

Noelle-Neumann, E 1974, ‘The spiral of silence: a theory of public opinion’, Journal of Communication, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 43-51.

Perloff, RM 2010, The dynamics of persuasion, Routledge, New York.

Public relations defined 2011, Web.

Simons, HW & Jones, JG 2011, Persuasion in society, Routledge, New York.

Thaler, RH & Sunstein, CR 2008, Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness, Penguin, London.

Introduction

The evaluation of Public Relations campaign efforts and results is generally made according to several factors. All the factors require thorough and detailed research of the target audience and the means of advertising. For the current project the most suitable evaluation strategy will be the on-line survey, and on-road observations. The former may include questionnaires, and e-mailing to those, who was interested with the Rideshare week. But this may be held only by the administration of Ohio Rideshare, as the e-mails, and other confidential information is concealed.

Objectives

The objectives of the evaluation actions are to define the participators increase proportion. Taking into account the objectives of the rideshare week, it is necessary to emphasize, that the increase of participants may be defined either using the registration data of Ohio Rideshare, or arranging surveys and questionnaires in on-road cafes and motels.

Methods

The main measure of PR campaigns is “ad equivalency,” which estimates the cost of advertising in an offered publication against the cost acquired in issuing an article.

While there are highly complicated tools for evaluating PR, they are mainly the sphere of huge businesses that can afford their five-to-six-figure price tags. It should be stated that as part of a huge campaign, this is a tiny price to pay for precise measurement. But for businesses on a lesser budget, there are less-exclusive tools that can offer enough reaction for campaign decision manufacturers to make suitable adjustments to strategies.

For instance, it is easy to trail whether or not your key messages were entailed in a given story, and if so, were they imaged the way that it was anticipated. If the reply is no, there are comparatively simple alterations that can be created to the delivery and follow-up to guarantee better conduct for further activity.

Beyond messaging, it is also probable to track the response tempo simply by remaining tabs on the quantity of incoming sales guides, Web site hits and other mass media both before and after an article is issued. In so doing, it is essential that the tendency lines be tracked all through the shelf life of that commentary.

The mass of its PR attempts should be mainly spent on services quality reviews, though this is one gauge, but more prominently, by what effect the evaluations have on its present and potential customers.

Measurement

Public relations measurement and assessment is any and all research crated to define the relative efficiency or value of what is done in public relations sphere. In the quick-fix, PR measurement and assessment entails assessing the achievement or failure of precise PR programs, tactics, and activities by measuring the productions, outtakes and/or outcomes of those plans against a predetermined adjustment of objectives.

In order to properly measure the effectiveness, it is necessary to agree the measurement standards with Ohio Rideshare chief management, and basing on the set objectives and agreed measures define the efficiency of the Public Relations campaign.

Conclusion

Finally, any properly arranged campaign has essential results, and the consequences may be observed without surveys and researches. But to arrange such a campaign, the PR manager should be genius.

References

Wilcox, D., Glen, T. Cameron. Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics. Allyn & Bacon publishing, 2008.

Burke’s pentad presents a simple tool for analyzing dramatic situations that can be used to examine texts and other narratives. This framework describes such elements as act, agent, scene, agency, and purpose, as well as their relations. Burke’s pentad can be used to identify an actor’s motivation in a given dramatic scene. On the example of one of Jeff Wall’s photographs, it is illustrated how the motivation of an actor in this paradigm can be described in different ways in terms of the viewer’s focus.

Kenneth Burke’s life stance is based on several leading points, and their analysis contributes to an awareness of the meaning of human behavior. He drew the most significant attention to language as the basis that leads to conscious action rather than involuntary movement. Rhetor holds that acts are related to the neurological aspect of human existence, defined as the body’s ability to master the sign system (Bonanno, 2018).

Since the rhetorician models his description on the principle of drama, it consists of five elements: act, agent, scene, agency, and purpose (Hawhee & Poole, 2019). These are the basic parameters of rhetorical analysis and the foundation of the pentad, which examines human action from five interacting motivational perspectives. In this fivefold approach, the individual is an actor who acts purposefully through specific means, and he serves as the backdrop of a historical place of motion. Jensen (2018) explains that Burke was guided by the fact that every individual can influence his life by his actions, but possibilities always depend on five means. The pentad determines how an individual acts in a certain case and what his motivation is.

In addition, it is essential to prioritize the connections that the rhetorician makes in speech between these five dramatic elements. These connections are called relations, and depending on which structural elements are emphasized, the rhetor’s strategy and identification are determined (Jensen, 2018). In the communication process, there is an exchange of characters and a constant desire to identify the sender’s views and the recipient of speech (Lynch, 2017). Thus, these aspects link the actor and other elements of the dramatic situation.

Analysis using Burke’s pentad also depends on what the viewer is focusing on. For example, this framework can be used to analyze paintings and photographs. In this paper, we will take for this photo taken by Jeff Wall in 1986, which is titled The thinker. Identified elements:

• Agent: an old man;
• Act: sitting and looking into the distance;
• Agency: empty space;
• Scene: early morning in an elevated city;
• Purpose: meditation.

In this situation, when analyzing, the viewer builds a description of the dramatic scene based on the available information. In particular, without paying attention to the title of the photograph, it is impossible to clearly determine the motivation of the actor since it may depend on the perception of the viewer. However, if you have more information and know that Woll reconstructed the famous sculpture of the same name in this photograph, the motivation of the actor and his relations with other elements immediately change. Additionally, the photographer himself can act as the author or rhetor, in which case Burke’s pentad will describe his motivation and connections with other elements of the scene.

Thus Burke’s pentad can be used to identify an actor’s motivation in a particular dramatic situation. However, the interaction of elements has a key influence on what conclusions can be drawn from the application of this framework. Thus Burke’s pentad helps the viewer identify the various components of the scene that ultimately force the action. As illustrated by the analysis of Wall’s photograph, an actor’s motivation can change depending on its constituent elements.

References

Bonanno, J. N. (2018). Capital as the lens that Bourdieu Pierres through: Public relations, social theory, and rhetoric. Public Relations Review, 44(3), 385-392. Web.

Hawhee, D., & Poole, M. (2019). Kenneth Burke at the MoMA: A viewer’s theory. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 105(4), 418-440. Web.

Jensen, K. (2018). Rhetorical counteraction in Kenneth Burke’s a rhetoric of motives and the war of words. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 104(4), 384-399. Web.

Lynch, P. (2017). Rescuing Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke, René Girard, and Forms of Conversion. Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, 24(1), 139-158. Web.

Wall, J. (1986). The thinker. E-Flux. Web.

Introduction

Media people need to work closely with lawyers to assist to map probable legal risks associated with their employment. Defamation cases in Australia are said to be too expensive in terms of time, reputation and money. In undefended defamation suits, publishers may be asked to pay a hefty amount as compensation. A court may order an injunction to stop its publications. It is wise to remember that defamation trials put the standings of both defendants and plaintiffs on trial. The media should see that the personal information it has gathered is safeguarded from loss, misuse, or unofficial access.

This research essay studies in detail the Australian privacy laws and how media or professional communicators should be careful to avoid any legal risk for infringing other’s privacy in detail.

Details About The Nature, Type, And Perceived Level Of Risk

Public relations law in Australia can be regulated either by judges, which are popularly known as common laws, or statute law enacted by parliament at the federal level or at any territory or state level. Government administration is empowered to enact Broadcasting laws or council by-laws, which will rank at par with judge-pronounced or statute laws, and however, they can be easily overruled. In other words, media people are governed by laws at federal, local, and state levels. (Zawawi, 2009, p80).

The intricacy of the Australian legal system connotes media people need to work closely with lawyers to assist to map probable legal risks associated with their employment. The intricacy of Australian laws is one of the chief reasons for the enactment of “Uniform Defamation Acts (UDAs) in 2006. (Zawawi, 2009, p81).

Despite the introduction of the Uniform Defamation Act, it is still complex, and it is being interpreted by the Australian courts not uniformly. Defamation cases in Australia are said to be too expensive in terms of time, reputation and money. In undefended defamation suits, publishers may be asked to pay a hefty amount as compensation. A court may order an injunction to stop its publications. It is wise to remember that defamation trials put the standings of both defendants and plaintiffs on trial.

Australian privacy laws are complex in nature, and they can be categorized into three key provinces.

With transforming media practices and media technologies, privacy protection has been impacted under Australian general laws. The greatest development in this province is the promising tort of privacy, where an ordinary citizen can be able to sue for infringement of privacy in certain scenarios.

The National Privacy Principles and the Information Privacy Principles (Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988) and state-oriented privacy schemes offer legislative relief measures impacting privacy aimed at protection and digital communications networks. (Doyle & Mirko 2005)

Transnational agreements purported at harmonized standards between states, nations usually linked to international trade and cooperation. (Kenyon and Richardson, 2006, p4).

Public relations practitioners assume a significant role in encouraging the practice of legal compliance within the organization. This connotes assisting to establish and observe a system for administering complaints, segregating, interpreting, and investigating complaints, and employing and imparting training to employees to manage complaints. (Clark & Sweeney, 2006, p6).

Australia has multiple ranges of laws that offer privacy safeguarding including trespass, laws of a nuisance that safeguard confidentialities in contract and tort, the intellectual property regimes, contempt laws, and defamation laws.

Privacy Act 1988 stipulates how personal information is gathered, employed, unveiled, stored, and destructed and at the same time prescribing individual’s privileges to access and correct information. (Pearson 2007)

Under the Australian Unified Defamation Act, corporations other than not-for-profit which employs more than ten employees cannot initiate any defamation actions, and they must seek to redress their grievances either under the law of passing off or under trade practice law.

The Telecommunication (Interception) Act 1979 protects privacy interests by banning the interception of communications over telecommunications systems. (Doyle & Bagaric, p.99).

Ranking The Risks For Professional Communicators

Risks arising out of infringement of privacy for professional communicators can be ranked as follows:

An individual if he recklessly or intentionally intrudes upon a person’s seclusion or privacy.

That action is extremely disgusting to a logical person of ordinary sensibilities.

That action creates harm in the form of emotional, psychological, mental distress or harm. (Breit, 2007, 107).

If a publication contains malicious intention, it cannot use any defense for defamation. Even if a publication is made on an honest opinion if a plaintiff can succeed if he substantiates that the publication was with malice.

If material is published with bias.

If material is published with feelings of ill will.

Language and manner and extent of publication.

It can be adduced from the behavior of a litigant.

If it contains falsity of material.

Prior actions or conduct

Nominate The Two Greatest Legal Risks Associated For Media Industry In Australia

Defamation Law

This law aims to safeguard a person’s reputation which is a basic human right and it safeguards from unwarranted damage through publication. The following three tests will be applied by the courts to decide whether any publication is defamatory or not. If a publication has the following any one of the tendencies, then it will be deemed that defamation has been done. (Pearson 2007).

Rendering the plaintiff to contempt, hatred, or ridicule as decided in Parmiter v Coupland.

Where the plaintiff status has been lowered in the eyes of right-thinking members of the public as decided in Sim v Stretch.

Cause Plaintiff to be avoided or shunned, without moral blame as decided in Youssouoff v Metro Goldwyn Mayor Pictures. (Zawawi, 2009, p85).

Thus, under the Australian Uniform Defamation Act ( UDA), any pictures, words, graphics, cartoons, signs, effigies, even human gestures can be tantamount to an action in defamation either indirectly or directly through innuendo or inferences, emanating from some special information held by people perceiving the publication.

To get a favorable judgment, a plaintiff has to demonstrate the following in a defamation suit.

The material was published and seen, read, and heard by a third party.

They were recognized in the publication. In other words, if an average intelligent person can identify the plaintiff as the individual cited in the publication.

In Dow Jones & Co v Gutnick, it was held that in deciding the jurisdiction for defamation, the place where the material is uploaded may be taken into consideration in assessing the liability. (Zawawi, 2009, p86).

It is to be remembered that just because a communication is annoying, insulting, damaging, or false to somebody’s business, it does not connote that it is eventually defamatory.

Further, the new uniform defamation act specifies timing and mechanism requirements for making an offer to make amendments. An offer will not be tantamount to a fault or admission of liability but may be taken into consideration in lessening the damages if the plaintiff is successful in court. (Pearson 2007).

The Trade Practices Act and Standing

When making arrangements for campaigns and lobbying for a specific campaign, care should be taken not to indulge in deceptive or misleading. Professional communicators should be more cautious if they indulge in comparative advertising, puffery, and character merchandising.

Under Trade Practices Act 1974, section 52 obliges onerous duties on corporations and their employees who communicate the corporation’s message as this section forbids deceptive and misleading conduct. Deceiving or misleading connotes to “lead a person into error.” (Goldwasser 2006, p207).

In Nixon v Slatter and London, Slatter and London was a law firm that promoted a booklet that had a commercial or trading character. The booklet was both deceptive and misleading and in contravention of section 52 of TPA since it symbolized that Slater and Gordon were engaged in medical misconduct against two doctors whose digitally blurred image was printed on the first cover of the booklet. For this deceptive offense, the doctors were entitled to claim damages under section 82 of the TPA since it had caused damages to their standing. The court agreed on the contentions of the plaintiffs and ordered damages. (Zawawi, 2009, p90).

Thus, a professional communicator should be aware of all the implications arising from the defamation act and trade practices act else he may encounter legal risks.

What Are The Overall Strategies For Minimizing Legal Risks?

In certain cases, it is advisable to negotiate a settlement or trying to find some alternative ways of solving a conflict which might give a better result for media persons than exposing their conduct to pubic scrutiny. (Zawawi, 2009, p80).

Those who are in media, journalists, producers of current affairs and news should respect an individual’s privacy rights, and hence they should be well aware of codes of professional conduct and codes of ethics. For instance, the APC Privacy standard codifies that personal information can be collected only in the case of public interest. The media should see that the personal information it has gathered is safeguarded from loss, misuse, or unofficial access.

Majorities of Australian media like MEAA, FreeTV, and the Australian Press Council all respect for sensibilities and privacy of individuals. (Doyle & Mirko 2005)

Formulate a set of guidelines that would clearly describe the key legal principles and procedures to be followed when the communicators encounter legal risks.

A media company in a broadcast exposed a rape victim which is in contravention of particular statutory duties thereby causing extreme psychological and emotional harm as held in Jane Doe v. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (Breit, 2007, p106). A communicator should be cautious in incidents like this to thwart any risks.

In John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd v Gacic, it was held that business defamation can happen, even if a publication might not have lowered the estimation of a defamed person especially in the eyes of apt thinking individuals of the society at large. Thus, the publication has to just impact the business standing of the plaintiff. Hence, professional communicators should be very cautious when they publish any news articles about a business. (Zawawi, 2009, p86).

In Rindos v Hardwick, it was held that authors are liable for defamation, even if they publish the material on the internet. Likewise, if anyone republishes the defamed material, he will also be liable to be punished under Australian laws as held in Morosi v broadcasting Station. (Zawawi, 2009, p86).

Those who relaying broadcasts who have not previewed the program can be liable for the republication of a defamatory program since they should have procedures in place to check the content of the material as held in Thompson v ACTY. The proprietors of material who have published the defamed materials will also hold liable as held in Levien v Fox. (Zawawi, 2009, p86).

In Morosi v Broadcasting Station, a broadcaster was held to have indulged in defamation of a woman who repeated defamatory statements from earlier broadcast since the harm of the defamatory words cannot offset the impact of his praise. (Zawawi, 2009, p87).

In Brander v Ryan, the plaintiff was a racist, and it is arduous to establish that somebody is a racist since it is an expression of opinion. Hence, the imputation is vociferously defended as an honest opinion. The defendant relied on facts such as publicly known facts as Mr. Brander’s political motivations and position.

Some defenses are available against defamation, and they are as follows;

• If the material published is significantly true despite its public interest. An honest opinion is expressed by the defendant.
• If an honest opinion is expressed by a defendant’s agent or employee.
• If honest opinions are expressed by a commentator which would include an acknowledgment by testimonies. (Doyle & Mirko 2005).

Absolute privilege is available for tribunal hearings and council meetings. Professional communicators writing press releases on the proceedings of the tribunal would be covered under absolute privilege. If politicians, judges, and witnesses in a court make statements, which may be highly defamatory and such speeches or statements cannot be considered as defamatory. If politicians expose some scandals in the Parliament then such exposure will be eligible for immunity.

There are qualified privileges, which is a conditional defense that demands a defamatory publication to meet some stipulations to be defensible. Legal reports and parliament proceedings will fall under this category provided if they are accurate and fair. (Doyle & Mirko 2005)

Conclusion

Australian privacy laws are complex in nature. Public relations practitioners assume a significant role in encouraging the practice of legal compliance within the organization. The intricacy of the Australian legal system connotes media people need to work closely with lawyers to assist to map probable legal risks associated with their employment.

I feel that prevention is better than cure. Hence, I suggest that professional communicators in Australia should prevent such risk by having an inbuilt mechanism by disseminating knowledge on privacy infringement to avoid any future legal risk.

References

Breit, Rhonda (2007) Law and Ethics for Professional Communicators. Sydney, Australia: LexisNexis Butterworth.

Doyle Carolyn & Bagaric Mirko. (2005). Privacy Law in Australia. Sydney: Federation Press.

Pearson, M (2007) The Journalists Guide to Media Law: Dealing with Legal and Ethical Issues. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Zawawi Clara. (2009) Public Relations: Theory and Practice. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Introduction

The field of public relations is relatively new. However, over the course of its history, the concepts and ideas of public relations, as well as its strategies and methods have made their ways to a multitude of various industries and sphered. As one of the most significant and important industries in any country in the world, healthcare welcomed public relations. In fact, the healthcare industry is one of the fields suffering from poor reputations. As a result, the means, concepts, and ideas practiced and employed in public relations for the purpose of achieving and maintaining more effective communication are highly useful in this area. The major focus of the present paper is the development and performance of PR in healthcare. Such topics as history, specificity, and unique activities and features of public relations in healthcare will be explored in the sections below.

PR in Healthcare

Unfortunately, healthcare is one of the industries where practitioners, organizations, and services persistently tend to face problems related to the lack of a good reputation. Medical workers are known to be perceived quite negatively by their clients and by the other members of the general public who potentially could become the users of healthcare services. In particular, many individuals and groups share negative ideas about medical practitioners. Usually, such ideas position doctors and nurses as people unable to communicate properly with their clients, lacking compassion and understanding of emotions of their patients, and, generally, cold and unresponsive (Tomic, Lasic, & Tomic, 2010).

Consequently, PR in healthcare started to develop very soon after the sphere appeared. Its development was similar to that in many other industries. However, healthcare is unique because the reputation management and communication maintenance of PR is linked to what is usually at stake in this sphere – people’s lives, health, and well-being (Tomic et al., 2010). Moreover, the industry suffers from the negative reputation of both external and internal audiences – care receivers and care providers. Practically, healthcare PR has many objectives, the most vital of which are the improvement of the quality of care, the establishment of a good reputation, and the reduction of cost of care.

The specificity of Healthcare PR

As was mentioned in the previous section, the sphere of healthcare PR is unique due to several factors such as the extremely high stakes and the existing negative reputation of organizations and practitioners (Tomic et al., 2010). The latter is the opposite of what medical professionals’ actual functions represent. As a result, in the contemporary medical organizations, PR practitioners serve as some of the most critical professionals as they are responsible for the maintenance of productive communication between the facilities and their clients. Knowing how high the importance of such communication is, the spokespeople might find themselves under a lot of pressure.

Due to the specificity of this sphere and its current focus on the patient-centered, holistic approach, the role of communicators with the general public became rather complex. This is the case because PR specialists in healthcare are to ensure two-sided communication not only between the organizations and care receivers but also between facilities and their staff members. The latter is critical because the healthcare industry is severely understaffed in some specialties and suffers from a skills shortage (Tomic et al., 2010).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Working in This Career Field

One of the major advantages of working in healthcare PR is the significance of this job and the impact a spokesperson for a medical organization is able to produce. It can be rather rewarding, to take over communication and reputation improvement that is designed to make health care available to more groups of the population and enable it to address public health needs that used to be gaps. At the same time, this type of public relations is linked to a great deal of stress.

This is the case because conflicts in healthcare organizations that usually impact their reputation and prevent productive communication with clients are associated with the harm done to one or more people due to the low quality of care, insufficient communication, or slow management (Tomic et al., 2010). For these reasons, the spokespersons working in healthcare public relations are usually the ones to provide opinions and conclusions about sensitive subjects in public. Practically, even a minor loss of focus of a PR professional working in healthcare can jeopardize the performance of the entire organization and, in turn, endanger more clients.

Activities Involved

Healthcare PR is a broad sphere that involves a wide range of activities. In fact, such activities may vary from the promotion of medications and pharmaceutical treatments to healthcare personnel to the provision of support to organizations and their services (Morris & Goldsworthy, 2015). Discussing the nature of work in healthcare PR, Chew (2013) noticed that PR specialists are doctors as well, in some ways, as they are responsible for curing connections. Moreover, in the environments as hasty and stressful as those of healthcare facilities, it is vital for a group of PR professionals to establish clear communication with the clients when confusing situations occur.

The activities of PR professionals mainly involve the promotion of goods and services offered by healthcare organizations for which they work. Additionally, PR professionals are also responsible for the maintenance of organizational reputations and images among the members of the general public, as well as the potential and existing staff members. In other words, an organization’s credibility and name recognition are the responsibilities of their PR professionals (Dodge, 2018).

Salaries and Specialized Skills

Brand building is one of the major skills required in this PR sphere. The specificity of brand building in healthcare is the increased legal responsibility due to the high stakes that are always in place when it comes to medicine (Dodge, 2018). It goes without saying that, just like in any other PR sphere, leadership, teamwork, and collaboration, as well as communication skills, represent a set of the most critical requirements for a successful professional. When it comes to salaries, healthcare PR professionals can earn between $50000 and $100000 (“Browse average salary,” 2018). At the same time, Strong (2018) reports the median healthcare and pharma PR salary to be as high as $132000. The salary depends on the exact position, duties, organization, and qualifications of a professional.

Prospects for the Future

As most of the contemporary industries become more active as communicators and attempt to include their clients in quality improvement processes, PR becomes a detrimental profession. Public relations is a relatively young and dynamically developing area that welcomes new professionals and introduces new methods and strategies on a regular basis. In order to stay relevant in this career field, a PR practitioner has to embrace life-long learning and keep on track with all the recent changes in their industry. PR is particularly important in modern societies with their increased connectivity and the need for ongoing communication between industries, businesses, organizations, and their clients. In the future, the field of healthcare PR is likely to expand attracting more professionals.

Case Studies

In the article by Tomic et al. (2010), the authors mention two PR cases that occurred in Croatia where healthcare organizations were unable to communicate the reasons for their failed performance. As a result, a conclusion was made by the patients that the negative outcomes of the treatments they had received were caused by low-quality care and medical errors. Later, investigations were carried out that proved that the medical professionals involved in both cases were not at fault. However, precious time was lost, and due to the lack of communication, the involved healthcare organizations and professionals were affected negatively in terms of their reputations. Such situations contribute to the overall perception of healthcare organizations, services, and service providers by the community.

Critical Thoughts

Based on the research carried out for this paper, I can notice that the field of healthcare PR is definitely not as well-known and commonly discussed as media, political, sports, or entertainment PR. At the same time, the poor image and negative perceptions of healthcare professionals and organizations are a recognized problem that has affected most people. From personal experience, I can remember many situations in which I felt a bias towards certain medical facilities and personnel due to stereotypes or judgments. In reality, the purpose of medicine has the provision of help and care as its core goals and values. This means that fixing this serious gap is a necessity for most modern societies. For this reason, I am interested in this area of PR and could see it like a sphere that I would like to research deeper to gain more understanding of its unique features and aspects.

References

Browse average salary ranges for public relations jobs in the healthcare industry.(2018). Web.

Chew, R. Z. (2013). The fundamentals of public relations: A practical overview of the art and business of public relations. Los Angeles, CA: BookBaby.

Dodge, B. (2018). The role of healthcare PR agencies. Web.

Morris, T., & Goldsworthy, S. (2015). PR today: The authoritative guide to public relations. New York, NY: Macmillan International Higher Education.

Strong, F. (2018). What PR salaries look like in 2016. Web.

Tomic, Z., Lasic, D., Tomic, T. (2010). Public relations in health care. Materia Socio Medica, 22(1), 25-27.

Executive Summary

Australian Volunteers International (AVI) is an Australian-based NGO whose major agenda is to deploy the services of qualified individuals to fight poverty while at the same time promoting human rights. Besides, the program acquires volunteer recruits from around the world with the intention of working with them on projects that relate to wildlife and environmental conservation. However, its major focus is on areas where pollution levels are high to ensure that countries that have low pollution levels maintain the trend. AVI is open to all people who are willing to lend their support to its initiatives.

As a PR consultant for this organization, I have been given the opportunity to design a communication plan whose main objective is to promote the organization to China. The intention of this proposal is to endorse a conservation volunteer campaign that is aimed at reducing the pollution levels in China, which is among the countries that have high levels of environmental degradation in the world.

Analysis

China’s adoption of the Australian Volunteers International (AVI) volunteer program is bound to improve the current situation that threatens to disrupt its ecosystem. China is one of the countries in the world that are experiencing rapid environmental degradation. The dreadful conditions have so far affected basic resources such as air, water, and soil. They have also affected plants, animals, wildlife, and microorganisms.

Several factors that have contributed to this mess include economic growth, urbanization, increase in energy consumption, population growth intensified agricultural activities, and increased transportation among others. Exhaustion of resources and the release of harmful chemicals into the environment have greatly compromised the country’s environmental situation. The result of the effects of some of these environmentally harmful activities has contributed to breathing difficulties, illnesses, and death in children and adults (Guo et al. 2013). Crop production has also fallen significantly.

AVI is an organization that is involved in attracting and coordinating volunteers to participate in environmental restoration projects (Ivanova 2012). AVI was established in 1963 as an extension of the Australian Volunteers Abroad (AVA) to handle environmental concerns. Currently, AVI’s volunteer program boasts of worldwide recognition based on the way it has attracted applications from all over the world.

China has a large number of students who have just completed college-level education. The majority of others who are still in college can find time to take part in environmental volunteer activities that can contribute to the protection of the environment against harmful activities. Students also stand to benefit from skills that they will gain through their participation in this initiative by learning how to work in teams and/or accomplish tasks. Students who are taking environmental-related courses will benefit the most by building their experience in their fields to improve their resumes and/or find favor when looking for employment in the future.

Failing to implement this initiative will have far-reaching consequences on the future of China’s hard-to-contemplate ecosystem. The current photochemical smoke will increase. The situation will lead to more respiratory problems, poor visibility, and low photosynthetic capacity in plants. This situation will affect China’s labor force in its expansionary prospects and discourage foreign investment due to the extensive environmental population.

Objectives

This campaign hopes to get the attention of the Chinese government to institute policies that will help in reducing the level of pollution in the country and consequently the effects that toxic wastes have on the environment. Another objective is to help Chinese students who are taking courses in the field of environmental conservation to complement the knowledge attained in class with practical skills in the field to make them better professionals and employable in the near future.

Getting volunteers to work on initiatives that are aimed at safeguarding the environment is bound to help students appreciate early enough the role that they can play in reversing the current state of pollution in China’s major cities. Their early involvement in such initiatives will lead to the achievement of great milestones since they will have the energy that is required to push for reforms that will help in repairing the damaged environment.

Publics

The stakeholders in this campaign include environmental practitioners, students, especially those who are taking environment-related courses, the government, organizations that are charged with the task of protecting natural resources, production entities, and the general Chinese population since their input is highly valuable in achieving the campaign’s objective of reducing pollution levels in the country (Hillary 2014). The government has the responsibility of ensuring that proper policies are put in place to protect the environment against activities that lead to environmental degradation. In the case of the general population, its support is crucial in the achievement of the campaign’s agenda. Their goodwill goes a long way in giving impetus to the various initiatives that this campaign promotes.

Further, bodies that are charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the environment against activities that lead to its degradation have a good understanding of the nature of the problem that this campaign aims to address. They have a good comprehension of some of the challenges that hamper efforts of resolving the issue of environmental degradation in China (Okuda 2011). The conservation volunteer initiative will gain insight into the program’s activities in a way that will enable it to avoid conflict with the already existing initiatives. Conflicts may have the effect of reversing the gains that have been made so far in conserving the environment.

This situation needs to be avoided completely. The implementation of this project is bound to boost the current environmental conservation efforts. It will help to fast track the reversal of the already-caused damage that continues to taint the country’s image internationally. In fact, many countries around the world question China’s commitment to protect the environment and/or contribute to the global initiative of reducing carbon emission as prescribed in the Kyoto Protocol.

Strategy

Implementing this plan will require all stakeholders to lend their support to it and work harmoniously to ensure that it is successful. This suggestion follows the heavy financial requirement of this kind of project upon considering the fact that it is not an income-generating activity. The strategy will involve several steps. The first step will be to seek funds from entities that are willing to support this noble course and see to it that it achieves its intended objectives.

Such entities may include companies, the government, individuals, and foreign donors among others. Companies that aim to boost their image, especially through corporate social responsibility initiatives, may see this plan as an appropriate platform that can serve the purpose of creating a good image to the society (Filatotchev & Nakajima 2014). This accomplishment will help such companies to find favor in the market among their clients and the society at large (Wilcox & Ault 2003).

Another strategy will be to start up some income-generating projects that can help in funding the project and/or help in ensuring that the project has a stable and reliable source of income to guarantee sustainability once it is up and running. Funds for such projects can be obtained through loans from financial institutions that can be repaid using income that will result from the projects. Working with AVI will also help in accessing funds due to the kind of access that it has to financial resources because of the good reputation it has been able to build with time both locally and internationally.

The next step will be to approach the relevant authorities to present them with the proposal and/or seek the required certifications and licenses that allow the project to kick off and run smoothly. Once all these activities are completed, advertisements will be carried out to inform prospective volunteers of the available opportunities. Once potential volunteers submit their applications, recruitment will be done. Recruits will be divided into different teams, which will have various duties assigned to them to perform and/or help in achieving a pollution-free environment.

Tactics

Certain specific strategies will be adopted to ensure that the plan is fully implemented. One of them is massive advertising of the initiative through social media, broadcast media, print media, and roadshows among others (Laran & Tsiros 2013). Another way of getting more people to learn about the initiative is to develop a method of applying to participate in it. Educational tours to schools and colleges will also help students to learn more about it, its role, and its significance to them in the development of their careers. Enlightening the public on this initiative will allow the program to get a good number of volunteers who are ready and willing to take part.

Further, a survey will be done to determine the activities that contribute most to the huge pollution levels in China. These activities will then be prioritized to focus on feasible solutions in view of the volunteer conservation initiative’s capacity. This tactic will ensure that progress is made instead of wasting many resources on causes that are challenging to handle and solve. Teams that will be formed to handle various aspects of the problem of environmental pollution can then be directed to their roles and/or guided throughout their duration as volunteers to ensure that they perform their duties successfully.

Calendar

Proper scheduling of the various activities will be important in ensuring that various tasks and components of the initiative are conducted on time to ensure that the project is completed within the stipulated time. The first task will be fulfilling different requirements to ensure that the initiative is recognized by the law to avoid cases of interruption of activities by authorities. This task will be done during the first two weeks of December 2014.

It is also during this time that funding will be sought. After the initiative has been approved, the second task will involve the promotion of the volunteer conservation initiative to the prospective participants who will mainly be composed of college students together with those who have completed college, although they have not yet been employed. The activity will take about two weeks where the days will be spread between the 1^st and 30^th of January 2015. However, the promotion of the initiative will be a continuous process to ensure that the program gets new volunteers all the time to keep it running to avoid dormancy at some point.

The third process will be the recruitment of participating in environmental conservation volunteers. This activity will run from 16^th to the 30^th of January 2015. During this time, the selected volunteers will be given a three-day training that will be done from the second day following the selection of the volunteers. A one-week period will be set for the qualified volunteers to arrange their accommodation and adjustment of the program to enable them to participate in the volunteer initiative successfully. This task will be done during the 1^st week of February 2015. From 15^th February to15^th July, the first batch of volunteers will take part in the program, after which another batch will be selected to volunteer for another six months, thus making the whole process a continuous one.

Evaluation

The effectiveness of the initiative is central. For this reason, there have to be ways of determining it. One of the measures that will help in determining the effectiveness of the campaign will be the level of photochemical smoke in Chinese towns. A decrease in the levels of this smoke in the air will be a sign of the effectiveness of the program. A second way of measuring the effectiveness of this campaign will be to measure the quality of soils.

An improvement in the quality of soil will be enough proof of the effectiveness of the conservation initiative. Another way of measuring the effectiveness of this campaign will be by determining the amount of discharge of harmful untreated industrial effluent into rivers or other inappropriate places. In addition, the rate of new infections and deaths resulting from pollution activities will be determined to find out if there has been a significant improvement. Conducting a public survey to find out the satisfaction rate among the people will also be an efficient way of determining the success of the program.

References

Filatotchev, I & Nakajima, C 2014, ‘Corporate Governance, Responsible Managerial Behaviour, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Organisational Efficiency versus Organisational Legitimacy?’, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 28 no. 3, pp. 289-306.

Guo, Y, Li, S, Tian, Z, Pan, X, Zhang, J & Williams, G 2013, ‘The Burden of Air Pollution on Years of Life Lost in Beijing, China, 2004-08: Retrospective Regression Analysis of Daily Deaths’, BMJ, vol. 349 no. 1, pp. F7139-F7139.

Hillary, S 2014, ‘Decentralisation and Environmental Quality: An International Analysis of Water Pollution Levels and Variation’, Land Economics, vol. 90 no. 1, pp. 114-130.

Ivanova, M 2012, ‘Institutional design and UNEP reform: Historical insights on form, function and financing’, International Affairs, vol. 88 no. 3, pp. 565-584.

Laran, J & Tsiros, M 2013, ‘An Investigation of the Effectiveness of Uncertainty in Marketing Promotions Involving Free Gifts’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 77 no. 2, pp. 112-123.

Okuda, S 2011, ‘Environmental pollution problems in the world. Present status of environmental pollution and pollution control in China’, Journal of Environmental Conservation Engineering, vol. 12 no. 5, pp. 756-759.

Wilcox, D & Ault, P 2003, Public relations: Strategies and tactics, Harper & Row, New York, NY.

Executive Summary

This proposal identifies NEF public relations needs and recommend that a four-month communication campaign strategy will enhance awareness opportunities for NEF. NEF enjoys poor public recognition and awareness and without proper public relations corrective measures, NEF funding and donations activities may remain poor and inadequate.

Therefore, this communication campaign strategy aims at enabling NEF increase its profile awareness among the Newlandia publics: population, industry and business sector, and private business sector. Situation analysis identifies issues NEF face, strengths and opportunities NEF possess. Recommendations are made that are perceived to be measurable, specific, and achievable for NEF.

The proposed communication strategy identifies different publics that include Newlandia population, industry and business sector, and private business sector. The publics are further categorized based on aspects of; geography, socio-economic, cultural and language. This is done to ensure each designing and implementation of campaign messages fits well in each public.

Communication strategy and tactics to be employed in this campaign are varied according to the publics identified, where also communication theories are extensively used in designing communication messages, choosing the communication strategy, and recommending the particular communication tactic.

Evaluation of the entire campaign strategy incorporates both qualitative and quantitative techniques through field surveys undertaken in the third month. Therefore, it can be noted that NEF campaign strategy is premised on persuasive strategies, which are seen to be appropriate to NEF at the moment.

Public relations campaign strategy: Newlandia Education Foundation

Situation Analysis

Educational and literacy priorities are two key elements that have been identified for socio-economic advancement of Newlandia people. One NGO in Newlandia remain pivotal to this goal and its name is Newlandia Education Foundation (NEF). NEF was established in early 1900s originally by the Newlandia Trust Hope.

Missionaries were pioneer of this organization and throughout its activities; NEF does not discriminate against race, sex, religion, and economic positions of the citizens.

As its activities become pronounced in Newlandia, NEF has had to address the persistent issues of lack of enough schools in regions of Rajan, Calina and Shalel, together with compounding issues of under-resources such as inadequate books, less furniture, inadequate teaching and stationary materials.

NEF resources greatly emanate from World Help agency, partly government funding through community grants and donations from well-wishers. Realizing NEF goals of education and literacy for Newlandia population is not easy as numerous obstacles stand in the way.

However, one source of strength for the organization is exhibited in having strong vision and mission, which function to give the organization clear direction of conducting its activities. Despite numerous hurdles, NEF today prides itself in having successfully seen one of its student beneficiary join university. It can be said that NEF’s future success of its operations rests on setting clear and achievable goals.

By carrying out evaluation of its current activities and the overall operation environment, it can be said that NEF’s future success lies in having enough resources, possessing powerful image and brand, and successfully integrating key stakeholders into its activities.

NEF activities can also be explained in the wider social, political, and economical aspects of Newlandia. Newlandia remain one of socially divided regions manifested in the quality of life and living standards of its people. For example, the northern part of Newlandia boosts vast industries that act as economic heartbeat of the region (Newlandia Government n.d).

Western region is largely occupied by wealth people who live affluent lives, while the southern region is inhabited by majority of poor people. Population of Newlandia also varies with some areas experiencing overpopulation while others remaining under-populated. The north region has estimated population of 250, 000 people, boost numerous industries and the capital city is Velen.

The western area has 250,000 people, majority are wealthy and influential families, while main city is the Lopeto. On its part, Batak and its environs have an estimated population of 1.5 million, shipping industry is thriving, employment is high, and English is the widely spoken language.

The southern area boost a population of about 750,000 people, fishing is the main activity, majority are unemployed, uneducated, speak different dialects and have passion for education. Newlandia economy can be described to be young and emerging and it is largely boosted by international funding in terms of aids (Newlandia Government n.d).

The region has tourism as the main economic activity, which also boosts GDP of Newlandia. Economic activities in Newlandia are based on free market economic preference where government plans for infrastructure have been neglected and prefer private sector to carry out these activities.

Carrying out environmental scanning in which NEF operates certain elements are identified: NEF overall public awareness rate is low and many people do not know about activities of the organization (only 10% know about NEF and 1% know NEF’s vision and mission). This scenario has led the organization to receive little donations and support which in turn limit the overall operations of the organization.

At the same time, government support for the organization is not enough, and further, NEF face stiff competition from NCF, which enjoys wide public awareness, support, and attention. Nevertheless, research carried out in Newlandia indicates that many Newlandians perceive education to be important and they prefer their children to have education.

On overall, Newlandia boost in having numerous primary schools but secondary education remain inadequate, as resources to support secondary education are limited and inadequate. Lastly, government extensively uses English language as the official language but it is rarely spoken outside major cities.

In the larger Newlandia area, fifteen languages are used and it is this aspect that campaign messages should be delivered in appropriate languages to the targeted publics. Combine all these and link them to NEF, as an organization that depends on goodwill and the final picture is NEF need to improve its profile awareness among the different publics in order to enhance its donation and contribution opportunities.

SWOT Analysis for NEF

Goals and objectives of the program

Goals

Looking at the wider reasons why organizations seek public relations programs, Reddi (2009) observes that organization need to build its reputation, increase awareness among people, and create influence opportunities among different publics (p.157).

Further, public relations programs are premised on the goal to create a powerful image for the organization as the best among the rest (Haywood and Chartered Institute of Marketing 2005, p.13). With this understanding, goals of this public relations program will be to increase and enhance NEF public awareness among key and different publics.

Second, to ensure NEF activities are publicly and widely known among many people and organizations for increased funding and general support. Third, ensure education needs of people of Newlandia are highlighted on wide-scale for appropriate action and support.

Objectives

The public relations campaign program will achieve the following objectives under the specified time.

• To create public awareness about NEF activities in different regions of Newlandia. The target is to reach about 1,600,000 people in Newlandia in three months. Public awareness regarding NEF will include its activities of supporting disadvantaged children achieve education, and how Newlandians can support and donate to NEF activities. After three months, results will be measured through quantitative techniques of field survey.
• To inform in three month- period, approximately 175,000 people in Northern region of Newlandia and another 175,000 people in the Western Newlandia about: hardship faced by Southern Newlandians and their inability to access education appropriately and also NEF activities in helping needy children in the region realize their education needs and how they can support NEF activities. After three months, impact of this objective will be measured using quantitative techniques in field surveys.
• To inform 1,000,000 people in Batak region and its environs about activities of NEF, hardships faced by Southerners, and how their can support NEF provide help to educational needs of Southerners. This is to be achieved in three months and results to be measured through quantitative techniques in field visits.
• To reach out to about 60% of Newlandians’ industry and business sector through message about activities of NEF in providing education opportunities to needy children and how they can help. This objective is to be achieved in three months and outcomes to be measured through surveys using telephones and field visits.
• To reach out to about 60% of private industry and business people, informing them about NEF activities and its role in helping needy children attain their educational dreams and how they can support the organization’s activities. This is to be achieved in three months and outcomes measured through quantitative techniques and telephone surveys.

Research

Research undertaken and available findings

In order to create a purpose-based public relations campaign strategy, there was prior research among key stakeholders in Newlandia. Prior research was conducted on selected representative samples among business people, politicians, opinion leaders, media people and the general population of Newlandia. Findings from the research show that:

• 10% of the population posses some information and knowledge about NEF.
• 1% has knowledge about NEF’s mission, vision and what it does in the society.
• 85% indicated they had at one point donated to charity work in the recent times.
• 95% indicated willingness and support for child-education charity organizations.
• 95% of those sampled indicated that education is important for children in Newlandia, specifically for future benefits.

Recommendations for future research

Research pertaining to success of public relations campaign strategies remains wide and incomplete. This fact therefore suggests that additional and relevant future research work will have to be undertaken. Key recommended areas for future research include:

• Carry out research on what particular public relations campaign strategies successful organizations and companies adopted within Newlandia environment and how well NEF can restructure its future campaign strategies and plans.
• There is need to conduct research on the specific media channels temporary visitors to Newlandia such as tourists and other business people utilize in order to enable NEF re-package and restructure its campaign strategies.

Target Publics

Budget and time constraints have been identified by NEF director Meryn Doogood to be the drawbacks of NEF. As a result, choosing the right publics to communicate to using the available limited budget will be important. Two categories of publics are identified: the general population of Newlandia, public and private corporate sector, and its players.

Further, the general population of Newlandia is sub-divided geographically putting in consideration factors such as language, socio-economic and culture.

The aim will be to create effective and sustainable campaign communication strategy that exhibit right content campaign messages to the identified groups of people in different parts of Newlandia. Three different publics are identified in this communication campaign that will be targeted. They include Newlandia population; industry and business sector; and private and business sector.

Newlandia population to be targeted includes people in Northern, Western, and Batak and its environment and subsequent Southern regions of Newlandia. The aim of communication campaign among people in these regions will be to enhance public awareness of NEF activities, increase public participation in activities of NEF, outline the various ways donations and support for NEF can be realized.

Moreover, in areas like Northern, Western and Batak, the aim of targeting these populations is to ignite philanthropic spirit in the regions, increase future funding opportunities and increate their awareness of Southern plight.

Key media channels in these regions include; Newlandia TV, Newlandia newspaper, Newlandia Radio International, Newlandia Times, Newlandia Broadcasting Corporation, Radio South, and Mouth of South Newspaper.

The second public to be targeted is the industry and business community in Newlandia. The target is to create increased and sustained awareness in this group to ignite their desire to participate in community work, contribute to charities, and develop philanthropic spirit. This group possesses potential for future financial security of NEF, hence needs to create their awareness of plight of needy students in South is important.

The increased knowledge and technological savvy among this group makes it possible for campaigns messages to be received fast and positively. Major information sources accessed by this group include Newlandia Times and Newlandia Broadcasting Corporation.

The third public is the private business and corporate sector who represent future hope and potential source of financial support, sponsorship, and philanthropic activities in Newlandia and specifically for NEF.

Information exchange among this group is high, they are technology savvy individuals, and their influence in terms of corporate sponsorship is necessary for NEF. Information sources for this group include Newlandia Times and Newlandia Broadcasting Corporation.

Communication Campaign Strategy

Plessis (2000) observes that public relations campaign communication differs according to the various publics concerned, the money available for the campaign and the applicability of the media to the different publics (pp. 27-31).

As noted earlier, NEF profile in the population is poor, funding in terms of donations is not adequate due to lack of awareness about the organization, and the overall educational disadvantages in Newlandia perform poorly as public agenda.

As a result, communication campaign strategy is needed to enhance the profile of the organization to target publics, increase public awareness about the activities of NEF to increasing funding opportunities and clearly articulate educational challenges in Newlandia.

Therefore, the communication strategy to be adopted will be persuasive in nature with aim to persuade different publics into getting in NEF activities and providing necessary support.

Design of persuasive messages will largely be carried out through application of communication theories such as social learning theory, agenda setting theory, semiotics theory, four model communication theory, and hierarchy of needs theory. These theories will be critical and widely used in developing specific messages that are addressed to particular publics.

Moreover, the campaign will adopt a strategy of using identified key community opinion leaders who will deliver persuasive messages about plight of Newlandia children education needs, the activities carried out by NEF and how support can be facilitated.

At the same time, success story of Rangi will be adopted and the student will be incorporated to talk to various publics about the problems of needy children in South, the role NEF plays in helping South people realize education for their children, and why NEF should be supported in its activities.

Key Messages to be delivered to publics

Messages will be designed in a way that its acceptance among different publics is possible and easy. Messages to be designed will be persuasive in nature addressing different categories of publics.

Language to be used in developing messages will resonate with popular and widely spoken language in each region and messages will be simple and clear. Use of symbols and slogans will also be incorporated. Therefore, key messages to be delivered to different publics include:

• Majority of children in South region of Newlandia come from poor families with inability to access secondary education.
• Support is required to help South Newlandia children access education for their future.
• NEF is an organization enhancing education opportunities for children in South with passion to see brighter future for these children.
• NEF depend on donations and support of well-wishers hence it need support of many people in Newlandia.
• Donations can be in any form as long as they are directed to helping Southerners achieve educational goals.

Tactics

Different communication techniques and strategies will be used to reach the identified publics. At the same time, media agenda involving NEF will have to be managed professionally and this will take place in a positive information environment. Tactics to be employed will be premised on use of visual, printed, and oral tactics to reach to different publics.

Adverts related to NEF will be put in leading media sources in Newlandia such as Newlandia Times and Mouth of South. Selected TV releases and adverts will also be sent to popular channels highlighting South situation and activities and plight of NEF.

Newlandia Broadcasting Corporation and Newlandia TV will be utilized. Radio coverage will also be utilized to create awareness among people about situation of South, NEF activities, and why and how donations and support are required.

Channel to be used include Newlandia Radio International and Radio South. Other communication tactics to be employed include use of billboards in target locations in Newlandia, distribution and sticking of posters on appropriate selected sites, conduct awareness open days and forums will NEF officials presenting themselves.

Timeline

Public relation campaign strategy operates on a timeframe which generally general constitute a system for keeping track of tasks that need to be done and those that have been completed (Heath, 2005, p.361). A Gantt chart will be adopted in this strategic proposal and as a result, it will be able to identify and apportion tasks, time and their sequence in a graphical manner (Bowen, Rowlins and Martin, 2010, pp.98-99). Timeline can be viewed in the Appendix section.

Budget

Budgets constraints have been identified to impede activities of NEF hence budget will be minimized to realistic levels in this communication campaign (Smith, 2005, pp. 222-223). NEF budget is sustained by funding from World Help and government funding.

Further, well-wishers especially in the media will be approached for further support. Budgeting for the communication campaign strategy will involve every aspect that will contribute to success of the program. This will be in term of both direct and indirect costs and expenses. Budget summaries found in Appendix section.

Evaluation

Bowen, Rowlins, and Martin (2010), note that four concerns have to be addressed when evaluating the effectiveness of public relations campaign. The four concerns are definition of benchmark, selection of measurement tool, analysis of data, drawing of actionable conclusions and recommending, and making changes and further measuring (Bowen, Rowlins, and Martin, 2010, p.99).

Evaluation of the entire campaign program will largely base on the outcomes of the set objectives. In this way, surveys will be incorporated to find out whether the public profile of NEF has increased and to achieve this, feedback reports will be analyzed (Plooy 2004, p.312).

Quantitative and qualitative measurement techniques will be adopted to estimate and measure percentage increase in awareness of NEF activities, percentage increase in awareness of plight and problems faced by Southern people, percentage in awareness of need for charity and philanthropy, percentage increase in the number of people information is relayed to, and lastly, percentage increase in the level of donations and support received after the campaign.

This will take place after three months of the campaign.

Reference List

Bowen, S., Rowlins, B. and Martin, T., 2010. An overview to the public relations function. NY: Business Expert Press. Web.

Haywood, R. and Chartered Institute of Marketing. 2005. Corporate reputation, the brand & the bottom line: powerful proven communication strategies for maximizing value. VA: Kogan Page Publishers. Web.

Heath, R. L., 2005. Encyclopedia of public relations. NY: SAGE. Web.

Newlandia Government. N.d. Newlandia. Web.

Plessis, D., 2000. Introduction to Public Relations and Advertising. Johannesburg: Juta and Company Ltd. Web.

Plooy, G. M., 2004. Communication Research: Techniques, Methods and Applications. Johannesburg: Juta and Company Ltd. Web.

Reddi, C. V., 2009. Effective public relations and media strategy. New Delhi: PHI Learning Private Limited. Web.

Smith, R. D., 2005. Strategic planning for public relations. MA: Taylor and Francis. Web.

Introduction

Over the last three decades, a lot of scholarly research has been accomplished in the field of public relations. The framework under which the early researches were based on has, however, in the modern day, faced a lot of criticism with the majority of the critics claiming that the PR model of communication presents a two way communication, which stands out as utterly symmetrical (Karla 177).

Early scholars set subtle grounds for the subsequent researches. In their natures, these foundations have taken rigid dominance in the theorization of the public relations’ scholarly researches. This dominance has served to give rise to pros and cons of the initial and hence the traditional theories of public relations.

One specified pro of the theories stems from the fact that, over the years such theories have undergone numerous tests, with most of the scholars confirming their claims. Consequently, the theories have remained in force and viable within a wider public spectra. In line with this argument, Karla claims that, “dominant research theories are furthered and new theories emerge” (178).

If, an organization has to excel in its public relations endeavours, a prerequisite is placed on it to change its behaviours and approaches to the discipline so as to become part and parcel of the organization’s “dominant coalition or decision making body” (Karla 179). In this context, therefore, a magnificent endeavour of the early, PR theorist was to enhance professionalization of the PR (Grunig 29).

Conflicting roles of the PR professional have also been registered with some scholars claiming that, PR managers have, at times, concentrated in execution of duties, which could have otherwise been delegated to the technical PR staff. As a repercussion, the PR concerns may be argued as a represented differently in theory and actual practice.

More recently a lot of enthusiasm has emerged especially in attempts to scrutinize the position of PR in an organization as part of the management function.

According to Curtin and Gaither, there exists four main criticisms of the paradigm of the public relations: “the definition of public relations as a management function; the reliance on functional, transmission models of communication; the emphasis on organizational-level theory; and the failure to recognize the primacy of power in relationships” (110).

The emerging perspectives about the new media have given rise to lots of enthusiasm in some quarters. This paper seeks to scrutinize whether the existing enthusiasm to the new media is justifiable, explore the various implications, on the one hand, public relations practice relating to traditional media and on the other for, long term future of those media.

However, to explore this topic, endeavours are made to unveil whether, if anything is distinctive about new media technologies from a PR practitioner’s perspective and what benefits to PR practice they bring. The critics of the PR are also essential to be given a glance especially those which attribute it to profit making endeavours.

New media technologies from a PR practitioner’s perspective and the benefits they bring to PR practice

From a wider perspective, there exist no broad distinctions between traditional media and the new media (social media) in terms of relations. In case of traditional media, “practitioners identify reporters and editors and build relationships with them in order to get client news disseminated” (Horton 5).

On the other hand, in the social media, the main objective of the practitioner is to identify likely influential participants and the rest of the approach is just like in the traditional media: build relationships for the purposes enhancing communication.

Opposed to the old media technologies such as the newspaper, radio or television, the emerging technologies such as face book or twitter are more essentially social based. Horton posits that, “newspapers are withering; net work television has watched audiences decline, radio is splintered and magazines are shrinking” (1). On the other hand, more human traffic in social networks is on the rise.

Consequently, with this form of trends in communication, PR practitioners have no choice other than shifting to new media means of communication, particularly with the number of the reporters of the traditional medial escaping from their traditional occupations. Despite incredible call for change with time, the new media pose lots of challenges especially in terms of effectiveness and efficacy in communication.

One evident challenge is that, the initial attempts to departmentalize communication have altogether been eroded. In fact, “ the public and the universal nature of social media means that all the audiences can read communication intended for any one communication” (Horton 1). As a way of compounding this problem, practitioners are always unsure that the communication reaches all the intended audiences.

This is perhaps due to existences of communication fragmentations in case the practitioner opts for the new media to deliver messages. As Horton observes, “social media are so fragmented that an individual may not see the information in a blog or a face book page or tweet” (1). In actual sense the new media, serves to disperse information just like some traditional media for instance newspapers and magazines would do.

The fact that some information was posted in a newspaper does not guarantee that the target audience would read it. This is what new media serves to propagate on a large scale globally. However, through perhaps deployment of mathematical concepts of probability, it standouts more likely to read some article in a newspaper than it would to read it in a social media carrying millions of blogs.

Consequently, it may be argued that, the new media worsen the problem of information dispersion. Furthermore, new media ensures information accessibility, but does not provide a warrant that the information will be viewed. In actual sense, an immense effort by a practitioner to reach a wide range of audiences turns out as of little results due to the evident communication fragmentation in the new media.

Despite the existence of technologies that permit an individual to determine the influence of a certain blog posted on a social media site, such techniques are been argued as not straight forward. Such technologies enable one to determine the nature of friends who are subscribed to a new media site such as face book or twitter.

Unfortunately, none of such technologies provide a warrant that one would reach the audience that he or she is targeting. Worse still, there exists no bureau that can carry out auditing of the information under circulation through the social networks. Additionally, social media present a challenge in terms of information distribution time.

According to Horton, “ to use social media effectively requires learning ones way into each medium and building trust with participants, do campaigns and clients allow one to spend that form of time” (2). Social media demands the practitioner to have established a relationship with the audience.

Unless the practitioner had had communicated with such audience for some time before, to orient the audience so as to embrace his or her attention, it would clearly call for commitment of a lot of time: something that may not be so desirable from the practitioner’s perspective point of view.

As Horton comments, “agency practitioners especially face the challenge of communication timing because they often work on multiple accounts in different industries” (4). However, such challenges need not make a practitioner rule out the possibilities of using social media in communication since rewards exists in employment of the new media in communication.

As Spicer notes, “Facebook users build audiences of like minds and interests and thus one can reach these self-identified audiences with a laser-like focus to communicate client messages effectively and efficiently” (115).

New media circulates information without an individual’s knowledge, something that serves as an additional advantage especially bearing in mind that the message sent will not require the practitioner to pay for such circulations.

Critique of public relations

Over the years, several critiques have been advanced in relation to public relations. Many of these critiques see public relations as a profit making administrative endeavour opposed to the perceived intents of improvement of the service delivery. Miller and Dinan see public relations as, “a means of taking risks out of democracy” (11). To them the perceived risks entail seeking a mechanism of taking full control of a pool of workers.

The modern public relations consequently, seems to stem from the need to extend such functions of the public relations in an attempt to constitute “ a cutting edge of campaigns to ensure liberal democratic societies do not respond to the will of people and the vested interests prevail” (Miller and Dinan 12). In this context, PR is depicted as propaganda oriented form of democracy.

New media technologies may not thus escape criticism especially when PR concerns are incorporated into it. Somewhat some of the criticism that is crucial to consider includes the ones raised by Carl Byoirs. Carl Byoirs was particularly interested in adoption of third parties techniques deemed subtle for the manipulation of the public debates.

“Front groups could be created by influencing the leaders of the co-placement group and by forming new fronts” (Grunig & White 57). In this context, media is viewed as a tool of manipulation and subversion of the reality.

Unfortunately, Byoirs’ practices were nothing to be acceptable before the eyes of the law, and when the whistle was blown on his activities between n 1930 and 1940s, his firm was convicted and charged $5,000. Since the times of Byoirs, according to Miller and Dinan, “manipulation and deceit have been the defining characteristics of the public relation s industry” (12).

Conventionally, many critics of the PR are inclined to the opinion that PR is executed for some vested interests mainly by large corporations of which media may not be segregated from them. Scrutinizing the clientele of any successful PR firm reveals that the majority of its clients are the large corporations.

This has consequences of creation of imbalances between the citizens and the tools of the propulsion of the economies through production: corporations. Its practice “is not open and transparent about its means or even about its clients and interests it is working for” (Miller and Dinan 13).

However, it needs not be taken that all PR practitioners consciously lie despite the fact that PR calls for some means of the management of cognitive dissonance (Miller and Dinan 13). More importantly, in as much as the association of PR with desires to lie, it is evident that public interests and the private interests hardly get directly congruent.

As Maloney observes, “ corporate spin doctors and agencies consequently have no choices rather than lying unconsciously since their job entangles at the most basic level, an attempt to align the sectional interests of their principles (employers or clients) with general interests” (30). The idea here is not to arrive at the conclusion that PR endeavours are geared toward conspiracy.

The argument is all about the ideas of the PR firms to equate the private and public interests, which result to negative repercussions to the public interests aspects, since by the fact that this two interests are not similar, more often than not, public interests get undermined.

PR also is considered by its critiques as aimed at subversion of the clients interests opposed to its disguised intents of promotion of democratic debates. On the other hand, Bernays feels that, PR faces a given draw back since, “corporate social responsibility and other ethical activities are all subordinates to the corporate strategy, and that it has played a crucial role at the cutting edge of corporate power in the neoliberal revolution” (67).

In this context, it may be argued that in as much as corporations may be doing marvellous from one front, in some other front, it may stand out evident that they are attempting to safeguard their vested interests which do not necessarily conform to the interests of the public.

As a way of example, during the case of involvement of the shell corporation in the international chamber of commerce, “mantra heard from devotees about building the business case for CSR is about more than making money out of ethical and green activities as a tool to ensure binding regulation is resisted and indeed rolled back” (Miller & Dinan 10).

Corporations, on the other hand, have proactively involved themselves in campaigning for the media and political partisans giving rise to neoliberal concerns.

New media, despite its illustrious championed efforts to make sure that it provides a better representation of the public concerns through refraining from political partisans and campaigning for political elites, suffers from the need to protect and quest for some of its own vested interests.

Such vested interests with political attachments ensure the continued presence of a firm in the communications market, since political institutions contribute, by far, in promotions of those firms that are inclined to their affiliations. It is particularly intriguing for media to take opposing stands to the political regimes which by far will affect their future performance.

This reason may perhaps prompt the PR approached in the management of the new media to borrow widely from the traditional media practices and carry on the attempts to maintain public in some form of disguised lies: all with the intent to protect the firm’s own vested interests.

New media concerns are more driven by the spirit of change. Given that PR plays pivotal roles in the management of the human resource, the inclusion of PR “ as a communicative consequence of business, interests and case group activity “ (Miller & Dinan 25) may not be isolated from such endeavours.

However, communication acts a vital tool available to the PR to enhance inculcation of spirit of fame in an attempt to get things done. Look, for instance, the main responsibilities of PR in any organization. It is charged with conflicts resolution, motivation and handling of disputes emanating from the firm and the worker’s unions of the organization in question.

Through its well organized structures of communication, the PR has to ensure that its strategies gets a competitive advantage amongst the parties involved in conflict if at all it has to provide foundations, which are vital to ensure the problem being handled will not repeat itself in future.

This approach is widely criticized as geared towards prejudicing the spirit of democracy among the workers since, it seeks to convince perhaps without adequate grounds on why such solutions are necessary. According to Miller and Dinan, “…..International communication is another activity that fits only partially within the definition of PR as a measure to ensure competitive communication advantage” (25).

Some of the inclusions comprise internal communications, workers motivations, and reward systems among others. Majority of these tasks are constructed by two main interests: employer and the employees. The question remains; what side is more favoured.

Is firm in question; created to make profits for the benefit of the employer or to make a profit for the purposes of provision of employment opportunities to the employees?

According to Bernays “ public opinion, narrowly defined is the thought of a society at any given time toward a given object; broadly conceived, it is the power of a group to sway the larger public in its altitude” (p.1). Given the ability of the PR to accomplish swaying action to the general workforce, it is evident that claims that the PR is responsible for manipulation bear substance.

Aims and objectives of PR and media industries in the wider media landscape

Just like any other professional discipline, public relation has a specified scope of tasks. In a broader sense, public relations practitioners fall into two categories. The first category is dominated by those practitioners who see themselves as communication managers, and the other sphere being constructed by PR practitioners who see themselves as technicians of the communication.

As Berkowitz and Ilias lament, “ within these two groups, the managers role has been broken down into two subgroups related to how a communication manager fits into organizational process” (102). Some studies such the one conducted in 1989 by Belz et al reveal that journalistic roles are evident in both the public relations practitioners and the journalists.

However, the other hand both the journalists and the public relations practitioners held a different opinion on matters concerning roles, aims, and responsibilities of public relations (130). From a wider perspective, the differences are traceable from existing socialization and the education between the two practices.

“Some studies have found that media organizations and the journalistic practices taking place are linked to journalists perceived roles” (Berkowitz & Ilias 104). Furthermore, Berkowitz and Ilias are to the opinion that, “the actual differences among journalists are likely much smaller than the differences among public relations practitioners subscribing to mangers or technician roles” (104).

As priory mentioned, public relations practitioners essentially assume the roles of communication managers and communication technicians. However, Leichty and Springston perceive this as a traditional dichotomy of PR roles and alternatively proposes four roles accorded to the PR practitioners: “ generalists, the internals, the outliers and traditional managers” (467).

However, by careful scrutiny of these four roles, it is evident that the traditional managers’ roles assume remarkably little technical roles and hence it can remain as a significant sub division of the roles of the PR by its own. On the other hand, the other three roles are more of technical oriented.

Consequently, their classification into one group: technical roles are perhaps still valid. As a result, the classification of roles of the PR following the Leichty and Springston criteria is barely a further division of the original traditional PR dichotomy into some further categories.

Managerial roles are more of affiliated to making of decisions and policies within an organization that houses the practitioners. According to Berkowitz & Ilias, “ practitioners enacting the managers roles predominantly make policy decisions and are held accountable for the program success or failure” (111).

Such practitioners are charged with the responsibilities of arriving at decisions that have long term repercussions to a firm as opposed to short term solution of problems, which are predominantly technical in nature.

In addition, such roles entangle analysis, anticipations coupled with clarification and attachment of meanings to the public opinions, issues and altitudes which are subtle tools for cute departmental and overall performance of an organization.

Managers are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that objectives and the goals of an organization are set appropriately in direct congruence with the organizations long term philosophies.

Within, the peripheral departments of a firm, encounters are made of PR practitioners charged with the enactment of technical PR roles. According to Dozier, “ technicians do not participate in management decision making but only make program decisions necessary to internal functioning of their departments” (76).

In fact, the widest spectra of responsibilities entail conduction of low level organizational operational matters aimed at ensuring cute implementation of policies and decisions stemming from the management team.

More often than not, technical practitioners are engaged in activities such as provision of services like media contracting, writing, publications productions and photocopying among other roles that do not involve long term decision making tasks.

Perhaps a different aspect of the PR practitioner’s roles vital to consider, are those roles stemming from the practitioners’ education and organizational environment (Dozier 1992; Ehling 1992).

On his part, Dozier strongly believes that PR practitioners may be in a large part lack and fail, to fulfil their professional roles as anticipated with consequences of some of the practitioners likely to be characterized by semi professionalism (45).

Such professionals are more likely to be worse affected by bureaucratic norms. In most of the situation they evidently lack professional autonomy in the execution of their duties partly due to dwindled endowment with supervisory powers.

To this end, Ryan and Martinson think that lack of clarity in terms of roles anticipations is fuelled by the practitioners lack of common agreement of what the PR profession is all about and perhaps what it needs to embrace (91).

Conclusion

Over the years, especially in the last three decades, a lot research has been done in the subject of the public relations. The paper characteristically identifies these researches as essential foundations of the public relation concerns, which, in fact, have formed the basis of the existing modern criticisms of the profession.

The criticisms in turn, have given rise to an immense enthusiasm to scrutinize the roles of the public relations especially when the other spectrum of the inputs of the new media is incorporated. In as much as the new media is beneficial in terms of promotion of ease of information accessibility, the paper claims that information accessibility does not necessarily translate to practical information viewing.

The demerits of the new media have consequently been addressed by asserting that the new media has a specified challenge in terms of ensuring effective and efficient communication, has time limitations and departmentalization or rather information flow regulation.

Amid these limitations, new media has been discussed as a vital tool for practitioners communication particularly where relationships with the target audience is priory established. The paper also has also made some attempts to introspect the various criticisms of the public relations.

Finally, the roles and objectives of public relations have been given a through treat by dividing the entire sphere of public relation roles into two broad groups: managerial and technical roles.

Through observation of differences in the scholar’s perceptions of the roles and practices of the public relations, which stem right from the traditional approaches to the modern hefty criticisms, evidently, subtle information is available to justify the existing enthusiasm for new media evident in some quarters.

Works Cited

Belz, Arthur et al. “Using role theory to study cross perceptions of journalists and public relations practitioners.” Public relations research annual 1.1 (1989): 125-139.

Berkowitz, Dan & Ilias, Hristodoulakis. “Practitioner Roles, Public Relations Education, and Professional Socialization: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Public Relations Research 11:1 (1999): 91-103.

Bernays, Edward. Manipulating public opinion: the way and the how. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000.

Curtin, Arthur, & Gaither, Kenneth. Privileging identity, difference, and power: The circuit of culture as a basis for public relations theory. Journal of Public Relations Research 17.3 (2005): 91–115.

Dozier, Douglas. The organizational roles of communications and public relations practitioners. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 1992.

Ehling, Walter. “Public relations education and professionalism.” In James. Grunig (Ed.), Excellence in public relations and communication management (pp. 439-464). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992.

Grunig, James. “Two-way symmetrical public relations: Past, present and future.” In Lawrence Heath (Ed.), Handbook of Public Relations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001.

Grunig, James & White Jon. The Effect of World Views on Public Relations Theory and

Practice: Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1992.

Horton, James. “Public Relations and Social Communication.” Journal of Public Relations 31.7 (2009) 1-6.

Karla, Gower. “Public Relations Research at the Crossroads.” Journal of Public Relations Research 18.2 (2006): 177-190.

Leichty, Gabriel, & Springston, Johnson. “Elaborating public relations roles.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 73.5(1996): 467-477.

Maloney, Kelvin. Rethinking Public Relations: PR, Propaganda and Democracy. London: Routledge, 2006.

Miller, David, & Dinan, William. Thinker, faker, spinner, spy: corporate PR and the assault on democracy. London: Pluto press, 2007.

Ryan, Martins, & Martinson, Leonard. (1988). “Journalists and public relations practitioners: Why the antagonism?” Journalism Quarterly 64.13 (1988): 1-140.

Spicer, Charles. “Public relations in a democratic society: Value and values.” Journal of Public Relations Research 12.4 (2000):115–130.

Introduction

Over the recent times, there has been an increased use of public relations campaigns to help better various industries and sectors, not just in the USA alone, but in the world, at large. As an example, Gordon (2011) says that a survey conducted by Wanted Technologies shows that “the PR industry is hiring 10% more than it was at this time last year.”

This hiring has, however, not just been limited to industries like colleges, universities, family services or social organizations but it has spread even to delicate industries like the medical world. According to Gordon (2011), “It is no surprise that healthcare-related organizations are hiring as that is certainly an industry that is shielded a bit from cyclical ups and downs of the economy.”

Going by the increased hiring, it is therefore safe to assume that more people and organizations are finding public relations quite useful in passing some information to the public or communicating certain ideas to the targeted audiences, which, really, is a commendable thing.

As a matter of fact, amongst the numerous crucial aspects of life, health stands among the most elemental ones since it hugely determines the quality of life we live. The healthier a person is, the higher the chances are for that person to live a long life.

Of course, there are some factors like becoming a victim of an accident which also duly influence how we live. However, things like accidents are beyond our control so its best to avoid them for now.

Even more significantly, it is worth stating that the current world which is highly commercialized essentially means that the quality of life we get, including health, is immensely dependent on how financially empowered we are.

It is based on this reason that the management of financial aspects of health is extremely important, not just the people who direly require good healthcare, but also for lawmakers and policymakers who are in charge of making laws that govern the type of healthcare that we get (Finkler, 2007, pp.173-175).

Recent studies conducted by the various scholars across the world indicate that although immense progress has been made regarding the provision of good healthcare systems, there are still many strategies, policies, laws and rules that need to be put in place so as to improve the nature of the current healthcare systems.

In the USA, for example, there have been complaints regarding increased healthcare costs (in spite of the government’s promises to reduce the same), a lack of stringent rules to guide people, especially the young, on proper usage of prescribed drugs, inability to take care of the health needs of the low income families in the society or even the failure of the mass media is spreading relevant information to the public which can positively influence the current healthcare systems which are unfortunately spiraling downwards and the failure of concerned parties to own up to their mistakes and seek for improvements (Levco, 2011; & Government Printing Office, 1998, pp.15773-15778).

It is based on the above problems, or rather challenges, in America’s healthcare systems that this paper focuses on giving a circumspect documentation of a prospected public relations campaign aimed at facilitating change regarding legislations around free prescriptions for persons under the age of 16. The prospected timeline of this plan is 6 months from now. Consequently, everything planned should be put in place by then.

In furthering this public relations campaign, the paper will be orderly arranged as follows. Essentially, this paper will be arranged in two parts. The first part will be presented as follows. To begin with, an executive summary documenting the key aspects of this campaign as well as what it aims to achieve, will be give.

From there, a succinct problem statement will be given so as clearly show the problem that this proposal purposes to solve. Once that is done, a significance of the study closely followed by the aims and objectives of the proposal will be briefly detailed. A summative literature review establishing past and present details on the study will then follow.

Once the literature review is exhaustively done, the actual public relations campaign will follow detailing the planning, implementation and monitoring as well as the evaluation of the entire plan. A summary of the entire public relations campaign will then be given to recapitulate the plan.

In the part two of the paper, major emphasis will be on giving a rationale for the entire public relations plan. A justification for the intricacies of all the major areas of the first part of the paper will be done.

A conclusion, which summarizes the entire paper, will then be given thereafter. Notably, relevant concepts, ideas, facts and authoritative scholarly opinions on instituting improved healthcare, using public relations campaigns, sourced from relevant books and articles will be used to further the arguments presented herein.

Executive Summary

Entitlement to free prescriptions by children under the age of 16 has, reportedly, been documented to present a myriad of challenges to adequate provision of healthcare. This is majorly based on the fact that a majority of these children to do not have sufficient information on how these prescribed drugs should be used.

As a result, most of them end up misusing the drugs, which presents a vista of endless hazardous possibilities to the children, their parents and the medical personnel who issue these drugs. This, therefore, presents the need for intervention by parents in the determination of whether or not these children should have access to these prescribed drugs.

Levying certain charges on prescribed drugs is, arguably, a logical move by governments based on the costly raw materials used to make these drugs or even the needs to pay the medical personnel who are have the key responsibility of keeping us healthy through their expertise and experience.

However, there is a group of vulnerable and financially challenged families who are not able to afford good healthcare systems. For such, there is a dire need for provisions to be made by the government so that public funds for medicine can be directed towards them.

By solving these two main issues, the parity in viable access to healthcare systems, whereby products and services are available for all, will be duly restored and thus help better our healthcare systems.

In addition, using parents in determining whether or not children should have access to prescribed drugs will greatly help in curbing the many negative hazards of these children getting these drugs without any form of control by their parents, or guardians, in the case of orphans.

Remarkably, the changes proposed here are only focused on the USA citizens alone since there are other provisions that are normally tailored specially for non-American citizens. Plus, in any given research, it is advisable that a pilot study is conducted, and then once it becomes successful, other areas can then be introduced progressively.

Therefore, for purposes of this proposal, we will begin by focusing on the USA citizens only and then, once success is witnessed, other people can be relevantly introduced gradually into the proposed program depending on the availability of resources.

Problem Statement

As glimpsed in the executive summary, there are two major problems. These are as follows:

1. Currently, there is an unregulated access to prescribed drugs by children below the age of 16 years which presents a myriad of problems, as will be explicatively detailed in the literature review.
2. Financially challenged and poor families are finding it difficult to cope with the high costs of some prescribed drugs.

Delving deep into the intricacies of these two problems, we find other related problems like the failed role of the media in agenda-setting and routing for change, the lack of sufficient cooperation by stakeholders such as the government and the medical experts in offering viable solutions to these problems, and the failed role of the general public as well as concerned private entities like NGOs in fighting for the direly needed change in our healthcare systems.

It is with these problems, among many other that will be duly detailed later, that this public relations campaign proposal is written.

Significance of Study

As detailed in the above sections, the USA, indeed, has its fair share of challenges and limitations in the effort to fight some inefficacies in the regulation of medical systems. On top of that, there are many other fundamental dynamics of healthcare systems in the USA with regards to the aforementioned problems that have not yet been covered by existing literature and documentations.

Consequently, the prospected research to be conducted will not only provide additional ways of solving the USA’s earlier stated medical challenges but it will also spotlight other crucial scholarly areas that might have been ignored by previous scholars.

In other words, this study will offer more insight into ways in which healthcare systems in the USA can be bettered. Other significances of this study are embodied in the aims and objectives which are concisely stated below.

Aims and Objectives

The major aim and objective of the proposed public relations campaign is to critically analyze the nature of problems being faced with regards to access to prescribed drugs by children below 16 years and the availability of drugs to low-income earning families.

Once the nature of these problems have been assessed, the relevant solutions, via adequate public relations campaigns, will be duly proposed. In doing so, the following sub-aims and objectives will be dealt with:

• Doing circumspect analysis of the nature of the aforementioned healthcare problems from the past, venturing into the present and prospecting into the future.
• Determining the causes and effects of the healthcare malpractices in the USA
• Proposing ways in which these healthcare challenges and problems can be solved.
• Channeling the right public relations campaign strategies, techniques and tools to help improve healthcare systems in the USA, and the world at large.
• Detailing the roles that should be played by various stakeholders (the government, health insurance firms, medical experts, private organizations and the general public) in solving the eminent healthcare problems.

Literature Review

With regards to the healthcare problems facing the USA, in terms of unregulated access to healthcare by under-aged children (children below 16 years), as well as the lack of fitting policies, funds and resources to take care of the low income earners, several causes, effects and proposed solutions have been presented by previous scholars. These are briefly summarized categorically in the literature review that is done below:

Causes

According to Stone (2010), the major problem that has led to the lack of proper regulations to govern healthcare systems in the USA, is the government failure to stamp its authority. To expound on this, Stone says that ever since the US president Barrack Obama got into power and promised changes in healthcare systems, very little has been done so far.

According to Eggen (2011), majority of the USA public feel that President Obama’s government has not done much in bettering today’s healthcare thus today’s eminence of problems that were faced a decade ago.

In addition, Eggen asserts that most stakeholders in the health sector tend to concentrate so much on getting profits from sale of prescribed drugs rather than focusing on helping those in real need (like the poor in the society) or even putting stringent legal regulations that can help curbing any form of drug misuse by under-aged children

Levco (2011), however, points his fingers to the never-ending blame game by the involved parties whereby “attorneys, doctors, hospitals, consumers, and pharmaceutical companies” shift blames on one another rather than focusing on joining hands and finding ways of moving forward.

In close relations to the above point, Johnson et al. (2006) says that the major problem being faced, with regards to the regulation of policies in a way that young people do not access prescribed drugs without proper precautions being taken, is that the various stakeholders are not vigilant enough.

To exemplify the above point, Johnson et al. (2006) use the abortion debate as an example and document of the way young boys and girls (below the age of 16 years) easily engage in unhealthy practices like safe sex based on the assurance that they can easily get prescribed abortion pills straight from medical centers without any problem.

With such practices in place, stakeholders like the government and medical are undoubtedly to blame.

Other common causes of problems related to children’s unregulated access to prescribed drugs or the lack of sufficient provisions for families with low income include: access to technologies like the internet where even under-aged children can masquerade themselves as adults and access these drugs easily, a lack of mobilization of relevant parties in the institutionalization of policies that can help poor families to get merited access to these drugs, and the prominence of power-play in the medical world whereby issues such as politics dictate the manner in which people get access to drugs, for example, the more connected you are to powerful politicians, the easier it is for you to access funds or drugs even if you do not really qualify to get them (ScienceDaily, 2011, Eggen, 2011, Marmor, 2000, pp.180-186; Stone, 2010, Johnson et al., 2006).

Effects

Several health complications ranging from headaches to death have resulted from healthcare malpractices regarding children’s unregulated access of prescribed drugs of the unavailability of drugs for the poor people.

According to Johnson et al. (2006), easy access to drugs is the major reason behind cases of unhealthy practices like unsafe sex by teenagers, abortions and early teenage preconceptions. This is based on the fact that most of these children either do not know how to use the prescribed drugs properly or they misuse the freedom that they can easily access the prescribed drugs.

Additionally, cases of drug poisoning and other health complications—some of which have led to permanent medical ailments of even death—have also been reported based on the unregulated use of drugs by teenagers (Johnson et al., 2006).

Other than the common effects like worsening of health complications or even death due to no access of medical care by people poor families; such victims face other psychologically related problems like trauma, neglect and no sense of belonging—which can lead to many other adverse effects (Stapleton et al., 2011). It is therefore vital that such effects are mitigated by uprooting the earlier mentioned root-causes.

Solutions and Recommendations

Preliminarily, it is worth mentioning that some regions in the USA, organizations and individuals have been able to come out strongly in supporting the agenda of instituting better healthcare systems. Some of the positive efforts that have been put in place, so far, are exemplified below.

According to Lewis (2011), organizations like the Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg, a non-profit organization providing martial arts therapy and other related health services, has been able to do a lot in helping needy families.

Levco (2011) also exemplifies how the public relations efforts of the Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina organization has been able to encourage health stakeholders to own up to their mistakes rather than blaming one another unnecessarily.

Finally, FoxNews.com (2011) and Stone (2011) also report of the increased public relations campaigns, especially via electronic media, which have been increasingly used by the USA government to lobby for better healthcare practices to be put in place.

Moreover, several public relations initiatives have been recommended to help better the current healthcare systems. A good example here is the recommendation of reduction of costs and restructuring of health policies by the White House (in collaboration with other related agencies) such that they are tailored in a better way that can equitably serve the needs of everyone in the society (Stone, 2011).

Other recommendations that have been issued include: the development of more stringent policies to regulate access to drugs by under-aged children, more policies being put in place to help the poor people in shouldering their heavy medical needs; increased collaboration by the involved parties, among many others.

However, going by the statistics regarding the continued prevalence of healthcare problems in the USA, as discussed earlier, it is extremely necessary that more is done by the involved parties. Principally, it is with this in mind that the public relations campaign below is proposed.

The Public Relations Campaign Plan

In essence, there are several dynamics of the campaign plan that should be duly documented herein. However, not all of them can be exhaustively represented in this proposal. Therefore, in the section below, only the major areas will be discussed, with other areas only being partially detailed and explicated—using the subtopics below.

Planning

According to Campbell et al. (2000, pp.1-4), planning is the most fundamental part of any given research; without a proper plan, then all the other facets are as good as not attempted. It is for this reason that a SMART (specific measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) plan is purposed for this public relations campaign. Below is a summary of this plan.

Essentially, this proposed public relations campaign will follow the standard procedure of most researches where we will begin by problem definition, research into the problem and finding viable ways of instituting the relevant changes (using relevant public relations tools) and then the actual implementation of the solutions from the program.

This will then be followed by a clear evaluation of the implementations. A clear brake-down of the exact procedure and timeline that will be followed here will be given later in form of a table

Audience

As earlier mentioned, the implementations of the public relations campaign will only be centralized on the USA citizens. Once notable progress is made, other audiences will be gradually introduced into the program depending on the availability of funds and resources.

Primarily, the targeted audience here is divided into two categories: persons below the age of 16 years and their parents (for purposes of changing trends on unregulated access to prescribed drugs) and poor families that cannot access good health services and products based on their poor finances.

Secondarily, messages will be tailored for stakeholders like the government, hospitals, relevant private and public people and organizations, over-the-counter prescribed drug stores, and law-making institutions (especially those dealing directly with health laws), among others.

Location

Since implementing the whole of the program in the whole of the USA is virtually impossible, the public relations campaigns will be piloted in Illinois, Chicago. This region was specifically selected based on my vast knowledge of the area and the eminence of poor health regulations in the area. Other justifications will be given in part two.

Public relations Campaign Tools

In today’s world, the use of technologies in conducting public relations campaigns is greatly pronounced and preferred by most audiences. It is for this reason that online public relations tools will be used. More specifically, social media campaigns (through social forums like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) will be conducted with messages specifically tailored to meet our aims and objectives.

Other than the use of social forums, public relations messages will also be placed in selective newspapers and magazines in form of banners and short captivating messages. Such messages are essentially targeting people who rely more on print media for their media messages.

In addition, messages will also be spread through popular radio and televisions networks in the selected region. Finally, the use of road shows and word of mouth public relations campaigns, especially towards the final months of the planned campaign, will be relevantly used. By combining all these tools, a good blend of information spread is bound to happen to the targeted audiences.

Costs

Much of what is entailed in the budget to be used in achieving the objectives of this proposal are yet to be representatively disclosed by the finance experts to the relevant parties. Nonetheless, a cumulative rough estimate of $20 million is humbly required from donors so as to support the funds that have so far been, reportedly, accumulated from various quarters.

The highly confidential nature of the budget is, essentially, the reason why it will only be sent to the relevant leadership in the company, as well as to those people who have affirmed their interest in participating in soliciting funds for this project.

A highly detailed and informative budget will be sent or hand-delivered by our financial personnel to such people. However, a clearly accountable documentation of all the collected and used funds will be given publicly once the pilot project is in motion.

Timeline

As mentioned earlier, this project is to take place in six months. All the plans detailed above as well as the rest that will be detailed below will be strictly and adherently done within this duration.

Implementation

If all goes as planned, as we strongly hope, then the implementation of the program will be done immediately the essentialities of the campaign are in place, six months from now. As a key note, all the relevantly involved parties should ensure that they play accordingly for the smooth success of this campaign.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Making a follow-up on a project, through proper monitoring, and evaluation is an irreplaceably important part of a project. It is only by doing so that we can be able to assess whether or not a project met its desired objectives.

For purposes of this project, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis will be combined with a PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) to monitor and evaluate the success or failure of the project.

The committee that planned this public relations campaign, chaired by me and overseen by the supervisor of this proposal, will be in-charge of doing all the monitoring and evaluation. Then, depending on the success or failure of the project, relevant measures will be taken.

Summary of the P.R Campaign Plan

The table given in the below summarizes the entire project detailing the key areas and the timeline of each event.

Rationale for the P. R. Campaign

In rationalizing the need and necessity for the public relations campaign as well as the strategies chosen, the justifications will be given using the main subtopics that were used in section one, as detailed below.

Rationale for Significance of the Study

In conducting any given research, it is extremely important that a particular scholarly purpose is achieved. In other words, there should be some important significance of doing any research.

The significance of this study is therefore highly justified based on the fact that the purposed research to be conducted will not only provide additional methods of solving the USA’s earlier stated medical challenges but it will also spotlight other crucial scholarly areas that might have been ignored by previous scholars. In effect, this offers scholarly continuity by linking the past, the present and the future.

On top of that, a scholarly platform, having relevant information, will be laid thus making it easy for future studies to be conducted on the same or related issues addressed herein.

Rationale for Aims and Objectives

Aims and objectives simply delineate the scope that any given research is to cover. In general terms, scope refers to the breadth of the project, what it entails and crucially, what is expected of it in terms of achieving its purposed objectives.

Baars (2006) states that the vastness in the scope of a project creates the threat of leading to divided attention on various project issues. In effect, this fundamentally corrodes the value of objectivity in the program. For this reason, Baars recommends that the aims and objectives of project should be definitely focused towards particular areas of study.

It is based on the above advice that this project centrally focuses on analyzing the intrinsic nature of problems being faced with regards to access to prescribed drugs by children below 16 years and the availability of drugs to low-income earning families.

In doing so, the sub-aims and objectives of simply establishing causes, effects and solutions as well as recommendations to the problem, in hand, are given. The aims and objectives are therefore duly justified.

Rationale for Literature Review

In essence, several studies have been conducted by various scholars on the general nature of healthcare in the USA. However, very few studies have been reportedly conducted on the plight of poor families getting access to the medical care they need as well as the unregulated nature of children’s access to prescribed drugs. In most instances, complains can be heard on the streets, and at best, through unverifiable surveys on the society.

As a result, the cries and murmurs of such people end up not reaching the targeted parties who are mandated with the responsibility of facilitating change and positive progress in the healthcare sector.

Admittedly, this lack of adequate literature on the proposed study and planned campaigns in this paper made it extremely difficult to establish a pinpointed connection between the previous studies and the current study.

In fact, it is based on this reason that most examples tended to be from a generalized perspective rather than the needed specific approach. Nevertheless, substantial arguments and reports were availed in the best way possible to establish the needed connection between the literatures.

Rationale for Planning of the Campaign

The planning of the public relations campaign was a very key area and that is the reason why several issues and factors were keyed in. A justification of these plans is detailed below, following the respective order that they were given in part one.

In justifying the audience, it is elemental to state that poor choice of an audience makes it difficult for research to be done effectively. It is on this basis that the chosen the primary and secondary audience was done in a careful and precariously selective manner. In addition, clearly identifying the audience makes it very easy for messages to be tailored rightfully.

For example, having selected children below 16 years as being part of the primary audience, it was relatively easy to chose social networks as one of the main tools of tailoring messages to them.

This is based on the popularity of social networks in spreading messages to the youth (Donovan & Henley, 2010, pp.10-20). The secondarily chosen were, on the other hand, justifiably necessary based on the multifaceted nature of the problems in this proposal

With regards to the aspect of location, it is undoubtedly difficult to conduct a research of this nature in a huge area. This is based on the fact that choosing a wide location will make it difficult to do the research and implement the prospected campaigns based on the limitation in terms of manpower, funds and resources.

On top of that, sampling information on a wide area will take a lot time, yet we only have six months to plan, implement and evaluate the entire project. Plus, if the proposed campaigns in Illinois are successful, successful; chances of adoption of the idea will be high based on the popularity of Illinois, Chicago. Selection of Illinois, Chicago as our pilot area, was therefore duly deserved and appropriate, to say the least.

In the determination of costs, confidentiality, accountability and precision are key elements that should be duly balanced. It was, therefore, extremely necessary that a professional balance is ensued in our campaign plans. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one chooses to look at it, a detailed brake-down of the required finances was not given for purposes of confidentiality.

In most cases, detailing such financial plans may seem as a good idea. However, the probability of corruption or theft cases emerge once such details are given to the public is normally high since malicious people thrive on such knowledge. It is for this reason that the safe option of not disclosing the exact details of the financials, until actual implementation, was chosen.

On the aspect of time, the only justification worth being stated here is that the time given for the entire campaigns is six months. It thus follows that everything has been planned to adherently fit in this timeline.

As a matter of fact, contingencies such as delays in some aspects of the project were factored appropriately. Consequently, we expect that everything will go on as planned even if some anticipated delays occur.

Finally, the following are the justifications for the public relations campaign tools chosen for the prospected plan. Essentially, various consumers have varied preferences of mass media (Rodriguez, 2009, pp.2-4).

It is on the basis of the above fact that the proposed campaign inculcates the use of various public relations (mass media) tools. Plus, by using these various tools, we get an assurance that the targeted audiences will have access to our messages. Finally, various mass media tools have their unique strengths and weaknesses so by blending them, the tools intermittently augment the efficacy of the others by reinforcing one another.

Rationale for Implementation of the Campaign

By far and large, the implementation stage is normally important just like the planning stage. Without proper structures of implementation being in place, chances of the project become inherently high.

It is for this reason that an empathic call was made to all the relevantly involved parties to ardently play their part in ensuring the success of purposed campaign. It is only through genuine cooperation by all the involved parties that the plan can bear positive fruition.

Rationale for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Campaign

Monitoring and evaluation are two project stages that are interdependent on one another and that is the reason they are normally done concurrently. In monitoring and evaluation of a project, an assessment of relevance, understanding, performance, efficiency, coverage, sustainability and impact of the project is done. By doing all these, we are able to discover deficiencies in a project and fix them or alternatively better a good project.

The choice of the SWOT and PESTEL tools was done in order to analyze various aspects of the project. Notably, the table given in the summary shows that there is an evaluation done in the middle of the project before the final one done at the end of the project.

The reason for doing a monitor and evaluation in the middle of the project is to help fix any small problems that might be limiting full efficacy of the project. In addition, this evaluation helps in preventing adverse losses, especially in high-profile projects, while making it easy to logically predict the final outcome.

On the other hand, doing a final monitoring and evaluation of the project helps us to know whether or not to implement the campaign in actual market, changes that should be made or even forecast on what the future of the project holds for us.

Conclusion

Just like any project, our proposed campaign may result in success or failure. In fact, we anticipate some challenges and limitations (like the unavailability of enough books and articles with regards to what should be done on the proposed campaign). However, there are apt precautions currently in place to help avert them.

For example, during the definition of the problem and market analysis; in-depth primary research will be conducted using interviews and questionnaires so as to gather more information on our target audiences.

Such information will not only supplement the secondary data from books and internet sources but it will also offer us more insights into better ways of tailoring our messages and implementing our strategies. This, therefore, acts as an assurance that the prospected will run smoothly and be completed within the above-mentioned schedule.

Remarkably, a few minor adjustments may be made on aspects like time depending on the assessment and approval of this proposed campaign by the relevant authorities. Nonetheless, most of the points and projections stipulated here will remain constant.

As stated earlier, this public relations campaign requires everyone involved to ardently play his/her part. Only by doing this that, we can have some assurance that our plans will be foolproof of the usual project hiccups and the never ending unforeseen logistical challenges. So far, a surmountable amount of funds and resources towards the campaign have already been pledged or given by some people.

If more help can be harnessed, the success of this crucial campaign, which helps at bettering our healthcare systems, will be greatly improved. It is for this reason that we humbly ask for support in any possible ways, whether through money, moral support or even man-power.

In finality, it is inherent to state that professional guidance in a high-profile campaign of this nature is extremely important. In this proposal, for example, I would have not been able to do much had it not been for the priceless guidance from my supervisor.

It is therefore vital that periodic guidance for professionals is sought at each stage of the project. This will immensely help in avoiding unnecessary mistakes which limit objectivity, accuracy and precision.

List of References

Baars, W., 2006. Project Management Handbook (Version 1.1 – July 2006). Web.

Campbell, P., Rys, A., Stepien, W., 2000. Public relations in health sector reform: the experience from Cracow, Poland. Web.

Donovan, R., & Henley, N., 2010. Principles and practice of social marketing: an international perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Eggen, D., 2011. Debt-limit deal triggers lobbying campaign from health-care and defense industries. Web.

Finkler, S. A., 2007. Budgeting concepts for nursing managers and executives. Edinburgh: Elsevier Saunders.

Fox News.,Documents detail PR Campaign to promote health care overhaul. Web.

Gordon, R., 2011. Survey finds hiring boom in public places. Web.

Government Printing Office., 1998. Congressional record: proceedings and debates of the 105^th Congress second session. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.

Johnson, K., Posner, S. F., Biermann, J., & Cordero, J. F., 2006. Recommendations to improve preconception health and healthcare—United States. Web.

Levco, J., 2011. PR campaigns pushes back on anger over health care costs. Web.

Lewis, T., 2011. App kick-starts support for kids fighting cancer. Web.

Marmor, T., 2000. The politics of medicare. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Rodriguez, S., 2009. Economic climate shifts consumers online. Web.

ScienceDaily., 2011. Access to healthcare insurance top indicator for better outcomes among undocumented children. Web.

Stapleton, S., Evans, J., Gold, J., Marcy, J., Villegas, A., & Weaver, C., 2011. Daily health report. Web.

Stone, A., 2010. White house mounts PR Blitz for healthcare reform. Web.

Introduction

Newlandia education foundation

Newlandia education foundation (NEF) was established in the 1900 as a charitable organization, with support from Newlandia government. Since then, this organization still relies on donation from the public to ensure its survival. It is located in the south region of Newlandia Island where schools are faced with inadequate resources such as lack of enough books, stationery, teaching materials among other needs.

NEF’s mission stands for “education access for all newlandians regardless of race, religion, sex or economic standing” (Pacific PR, 2010, p.5). However, NEF is faced by the challenge of over-reliance on public support in form of money, reading material, and voluntary services; however, the adult population of Newlandian is very ignorant of the organization’s vision and mission.

The Newlandian unemployment rate is at 12-25% due to lack of education. In addition, south newlandians children live far from school, hence making it impossible for them to attend school, (Pacific PR, 2010, p.8).

This campaign aims at convincing the business sector on Newlandian on the importance of supporting childhood education in the future to benefit the children into becoming important people in the society, thus curbing illiteracy and unemployment in the future. In order to ensure effective delivery of information, situational theory, social learning theory, and hierarchy of need theory will be used appropriately.

When proper resources are in place, NEF can make an impact on the lives of many children through providing effective education, thus curbing poverty through providence of employment opportunities. Literacy minimizes poverty while boosting employment and social inclusion.

Television, newspapers, and radios can be used as campaign tools for spreading the plight of Newlandian. The Newlandian situation requires additional schools, stationery, teaching accessories, and desks in order to ensure learning needs are met. Indeed, raising awareness of the child education situation is the first step in this campaign.

Steps towards Public Relation Campaigns

According to Musgrave (2001, p.42), when public relations campaigns are planned carefully and executed effectively, they create a difference between success and failure of a program.

Therefore, the following steps are involved; first, collection of data, which in this case we have all the information needed concerning the Newlandian’s education foundation. The second step involves setting of objectives, the main aim of which is to raise awareness of the Newlandian’s plight and to raise donations that will aim at increasing education for children in this area.

Determining the strategy aims at how the objective will be achieved, therefore publicizing our objectives will attract public’s attention. In addition, setting of communication techniques aims at deciding the number of communication tools to use.

In this case, variety of tools will be used, for instance, television, and newspapers among others. Composing the message is a step that involves constructing an appropriate message that will be forwarded to the media with an aim of creating awareness and supporting NEF.

Selecting the media involves choosing the appropriate channels of conveying the message. In this case, television, newspapers, radio, and the internet will play a vital role in publicizing. This is in addition to preparation of supporting materials, which include brochures and setting a schedule, indicating when the project will begin.

The budget should be used effectively while follow up on the responses regarding the campaign should be made. Finally, programs objectives should be evaluated, for instance, the rate of media exposure on the conveyed message (Musgrave 2001, p.46).

Creating awareness can be done through advertising, and publications. These tools assist in conveying a message to the public, and in return, the public begin to act according to the influence of the communication. Campaign media tactics include advertising in newspapers, television, and internet among others.

Mediated publicity includes personal appearance in talk shows, while directed publicity involves emails, reports, and brochures among others. In this campaign, it is important to note that important messages will be easily understood if they are seen or heard.

The appropriate media is the use of television, radio, and newspapers. For instance, in the newspapers, the advertisement on the education plight of Newlandia can be placed in the Newlandia time magazine in the most effective areas like sports section and the job market section, where most people access. In case of the television, a commercial should be sent that conveys story coverage on the plight of NEF.

In addition, according to Bouman & Brown (2010, P.35), lifestyle campaigns are increasing in relation to the growth of media. Such campaigns induce interpersonal communication while seeking support.

They use the media to draw attention on specific behaviors such as health, HIV & AIDS, and sexual practices among others. Nevertheless, communication in campaigns is essential as it connects an organization with its publics through the exchange of information (Vasquez, 1994, p.268).

Public relations planning models

The ROPE model of public relations signifies four phases – research, objectives, programming, and evaluation – whereby, research involves the institution or client that is faced with a problem that needs to be solved.

The second phase involves setting of objectives to solve the problems, whereby, a strategy should be formed that involves identifying goals and objectives, identifying target publics, and creating a theme for the campaign. Moreover, the third phase consists of the planning and the execution of a program that will accomplish the objectives.

The final phase deals with monitoring and the adjusting of the programs by determining ways that measure whether the campaign has achieved its objectives or not (Swan 2010, p.5).

ROPES programming model consists of four elements, which include reciprocity, responsibility, reporting, and relationship nurturing. Reciprocity entails that an organization should show gratitude for the donations made by donors, since positive relationships are driven by the give and take situation.

Responsibility on the other hand entails acting in a responsible manner towards the donors. In this case, NEF should use the donations responsibly, and the results should be evident in order for the donor to be motivated in giving more. However, if the trust of donors and supporters is betrayed, the organization suffers.

Therefore, the foundation should keep its supporters updated on the progress made on developments, and it should avoid communicating with its supporters only when it seeks help.

Theories Relevant To the Campaign Proposal

The stewardship theory

According to Wehmeier (2009, p.267), public relations has been criticized for lack of theory building. However, some theories are still of great significance. The main aim of this campaign is to raise awareness on the plight of Newlandian foundation, in order for the foundation to raise more funds that will cater for the wanting issues. Therefore, the campaign targets both business and industry sectors.

Fund raising theory implies that, the more an individual or an organization donates to a foundation in terms of time or money they are more likely to continue giving. Therefore, with the creation of the NEF plight awareness, many groups will be driven to give regularly.

It is however important that stewardship is maintained when it comes to public relations. When donations are made to the non-profit organizations, the donors should be treated with respect, as how they are treated determines future donations.

Therefore, stewardship theory focuses on relationship building between the organization and its supporters, in term of respect and communication. Moreover, stewardship drives donors in giving for a second time.

Measurement by Objective (MBO) Theory

Measurement by objective (MBO) theory is suitable when it comes to the assessing of communication and efforts. All objectives are crucial and should be achieved as an aid to establishing of smart objectives. Member involved in the campaign contribute towards the setting of objectives. Measuring of achievements is determined by time and completion.

Sponsorship theory involves a situation whereby a sponsor provides assistant financially or conducts a fundraiser with an aim of assisting the needy foundation.

A sponsor can also create awareness to the public on the plight of the foundation, thus driving donors to provide aid. A sponsor comes with the advantages of reinforcing, shaping the public’s opinion on the firm, and improving the image of the organization among others.

Agenda Setting Theory

Agenda setting theory is associated with the media in relation to how they convey the message to the public. In this case, issues should be dealt with at first hand before they result to problems, which the media use to portray a firm’s image.

Nevertheless, the agenda setting theory is important in shaping NEF situation by making their plight a public interest. Moreover, the correct message should be sent to the right public via the right media at the right time in order to achieve success.

In addition, the theory states that the public is attracted by those issues that receive media attention regularly compared to the rest. The heightened coverage of an issue increases the public’s perception on the importance of that issue (Dunaway, et al, p.361). Therefore, this theory will work perfectly for the NEF’s situation when the media is used to cover on the plight of schools in Newlandian.

Situational Theory

Situational theory on the other hand assists in classifying publics, based on their involvement, into four groups; active publics on issues of public concern, apathetic publics on all issues, active publics on issues involving everyone, and personalized publics. In addition, this theory tends to categorize people on three factors, the first being constraint recognition, in term of whether they can do anything to adder a problem.

The second is level of involvement, which involves the extent to which they are personally affected by the problem. The third is problem recognition, which implies how the public perceives a certain problem (Hazleton, 2006 p509). Therefore, the situational theory will be important while identifying the issue involvement of the public.

Social Learning Theory

According to Newman & Newman (2008, p.64), social learning theory implies that people try to fit in a particular group by modifying their behaviors and attitudes. For instance, when an individual sees a particular behavior as desirable, he will automatically adopt it.

Therefore, television is viewed as a means of advertising that can act as a persuasive communication method. To make sure that this campaign is successful, we will seek Newlandian successful identities and associate them with NEF situation.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory states that one can only move upward once the basic needs have been fulfilled, therefore, the mode of communication should be aimed at appealing to the public to provide the basic need first.

This campaign will aim at appealing to the rich in the north to assist the poor Newlandians in the south. Self-interest in this case can apply to the rich starting up projects with an aim of making profits, but at the same time provide employment for the poor (Clegg, et al, 2005, p.250).

Communication Theory

Another important theory applicable in the Newlandian’s population is the communication theory that involves a sender and a receiver; therefore, the message should be encoded carefully to provide the receiver with the correct understanding of the intended message.

Moreover, the message conveyed to the media should be accurate so that when it is publicized, it still has the intended meaning (Liu and Horsley, 2007). In conclusion, public relations should be in apposition to direct and support corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a country. In addition, the chief executives officer should play a vital role in enhancing CSR in the society (Pendleton, et al, 2010, p.405).

Conclusion

The Newlandians campaign is aimed at creating awareness to the public on the plight of the area. Education is a top priority for any growing child, which should not be neglected at any cost. Therefore, campaign will foster donations from well-wishers and the privileged.

Using the media as the main source of the campaign, the aim is attracting the target public attention on the NEF plight, which will be given unlimited attention by the media. Corporate social responsibility can also be related to public relations, if organizations focus on improving the situation of the less privileged.

Reference List

Brown, W., 2010. Ethical Approaches to Lifestyle Campaigns. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 25:34–52. Taylor & Francis Group publishers.

Clegg, S. et al. 2005. Managing and organizations: an introduction to theory and practice. London: SAGE Publishers.

Dunaway, J. et al. 2010. Agenda Setting, Public Opinion, and the Issue of Immigration Reform. Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 91, Issue 2. Blackwell Publishing Limited.

Hazleton, V., 2006. Public relations theory II. NY: Routledge Publisher.

Liu, B. and Horsley, J. S., 2007. The Government Communication Decision Wheel: Toward a Public Relations Model for the Public Sector. Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 19, Issue 4, pp. 377-393.

Musgrave, P., 2001. Eleven steps for planning and evaluating your public relations campaign. (Attached material).

Newman, B. and Newman. P., 2008. Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach. Edition10. OH: Cengage Learning Publisher.

Pacific P. R. 2010. Strategic Public Relations Plan: Newlandia Education Foundation Intensive three-month awareness raising campaign. Web.

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