PR is switching to a two-way conversation

• Source: Global Times
• [21:29 October 14 2009]
• Comments

Illustration: Liu Rui

By Tim Gingrich

In the September 8 issue of the Global Times, managing editor Zhang Yong analyzed public relations (PR) in China's public sector in an article entitled "Poor public relations in grand press rooms."

The article made a strong argument for the establishment of a better PR system for China, and I would like to add that many of the communication challenges facing various organizations in China are not unique to these entities or even to this country. They are the result of the changing world in which we live.

In fact, all organizations – whether governments, private companies or multinational corporations – now have to learn to adapt in a new, chaotic and complicated communication landscape.

PR traces its roots to the post World War I US, when certain entrepreneurial individuals realized that propaganda could be used in peacetime just as well as it had been used during war.

These primitive PR practitioners relied on mass media – newspapers, radio and television – to sell products and shape public perception of companies. This strategy could be compared to a one-way conversation in which one side does all the talking.