The profession that dare not speak its name

I read an article “Australian Public Relations: Status at the Turn of the 21st Century”. Raveena Singh and Rosaleen Smyth wrote it. You can find this article also from the given Australian –pr material in Kaja’s blog.

I found the article interesting and informative. It for example said that current issues, that were influencing Australian PR field in turn of the 21st century, were the preparation of Olympics 2000 and the concomitant international positioning of Australia. At the micro level issues concerned about Aboriginal reconciliation, government communication and intercultural communication.

In that article was also mentioned that nonprofit sector is going to develop fast and that public relations as a profession will encounter more challenges and demands because Australia’s population is becoming even more diverse and multicultural.

However these informations felt a little bit aged, there have quite a few years passed by from this research..

Then I found paper, which offers updated information concerning also above-mentioned article. The article “The state of Australian public relations: Professionalisation and paradox” has been published in Public Relation Review in November 2009. You can find the full PDF-text about this Bussy’s and Wolf’s study and their findings from here.

More than half of respondents, who answered to this survey, have expressed their professional identity by becoming members of the Public Relations Institute of Australia. Yet, only about 20 % of respondents said the words ‘public relations’, ‘PR’, or ‘public affairs’ were part of their job title. That made the researchers to ask a question: Are we embarrassed of our field of practise?

Survey is made for School of Marketing in Curtin University of Technology, so it is quantitative research, quite full of numbers and percentages. From the article you can find information about salaries (1 Australian dollar = 0.62 euro) and about the main barriers to use of Web 2,0 in PR work among other things.

Nevertheless I would like to find more information about current issues in Australian PR nowadays. So my search will go one..

Written by Sanna

Some thoughts about Public Relation

Generally

We have bring out many interesting thing which touch PR work. In spite of aspect (PR-history, PR-processes, developments of PR or future of PR) one thing is sure. In the major part concerning the Public Relations is always a human being. PR is born from people and it focus to people. In every world, in every social class and in a every workplace.

So when we plan to do Public Relation work in Australia or anywhere. we naturally have to know something about people and theri cultur. In this our blog of courseAustralians and their cultur.

Public Relation is work between individuals and/or companies. We build reputation or crash it by public relation. Without knowing backgroud we can't create the future. Everything have an effect on everything. Good things and bad things. Ethics and politics. Countries and Cities. Earth and sky. We can continue this list endlessly.

This we also learn from Kaja in our last lecture.

Australians

So what kind of person is a typical Australian?

Life in Australia says as follow:

"There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about the Australian identity and whether there is such a thing as a ‘typical’ Australian, with standard characteristics or traits.
There is no shortage of popular stereotypes and, just to confuse things, sometimes these stereotypes contradict each other.
For example:
Australians are egalitarian, irreverent • ent people with a deep suspicion of authority – yet they are mostly
law–abiding and conformist.
• Australians are people of few words who live mainly in country areas or the Australian bush – yet most of
them live a cosmopolitan lifestyle in the cities.
• Whether Australians live in the city or the bush they are open and direct and they say what they mean.
• Australians believe in the principle of giving people a fair go (a definition of a fair go can be read in Australian English).
• Australians stand up for their mates (friends), the disadvantaged and the underdog. An underdog is
a competitor or rival that is thought to have little chance of winning a sporting game or contest.
• Australians love their sport, both as spectators and participants.
There are also differences of opinion about the extent to which Australians have been influenced by their British heritage or, more recently, by Australia’s strong relationship with the United States, or by the millions of migrants who have come to Australia in the post–war era.
Australians are sometimes seen as Europeans trying to come to terms with being geographically located in the Asia–Pacific region. Yet, at the same time, Australia is often seen as a gateway to Asia because of its geographic position and the large number of Australians who speak Asian languages. The truth, of course, is that Australians, like people everywhere, cannot be easily stereotyped. Many of the popular images have some truth to them and most Australians conform to at least some of these images.
However, which ones, and to what extent, depends on the individual."

Australia Day is celebrated every year on 26 January, commemorating the anniversary of the landing of Governor Arthur Phillip at Sydney Cove in 1788.

Finally - National anthem

Advance Australia Fair was composed by Peter Dodds McCormick in 1878 and became the national tune in
the late 1970s. It was proclaimed Australia’s national anthem in April 1984.

The words are:

"Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We’ll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair."

(" Australian Goverment, Life in Australia ")

-pirjo-

A bit history

History is something that we need to understand the present, isn't it?

Australia and USA are often said to be pretty similar countries, for example they are both individualist English speaking nations. I was reading the book Public Relations: Theory and Practice by Jane Johnston,Clara Zawawi and found there a clear chronology of the Public relations development in Australia. I’ll give a brief summary of it here but more detailed can be read in the book, pages 23-40. But one can see how the American public relations practices have had an impact on the way how public relations has developed in Australia.

1840s-90s There were three significant developments which had implications for the development of PR industry: Development of schools and schooling programs which enlarged the audience for news papers; Creation of technology that would allow the production of daily newspapers; Newspapers begin to develop objectivity for to avoid alienating readers and to offer advertisers the largest possible audience.

1920s US production/distribution companies entered Australia. There are many Hollywood studios. Australian publicity staff travels regularly to America for training. American-style of publicity, sales and motivational concepts and techniques introduced.

1930s The Depression lead to more restrained use of promotion. Women emerge as an important audience and a growing range of publications appear to cater to the female market.

1940s World War II becomes the catalyst to allow public relations to develop into a fully fledged profession. The methods of public relations practices were from America, from The US Office of War Information. They introduced a different view of publicity: focus was on ‘news management’ and this was different from the earlier publicity. The new approach stressed that press coverage must be managed, controlled and influenced to achieve an end that might have nothing to do with product sales but everything to do with public opinion.

1950s Public Relations Institute of Australia PRIA is founded

1960s Women begin to move into the public relations industry.

1970s Multinational consultancies begin to move into Australia. Television has an impact on the advisory nature of public relations, bringing new audiences and new approaches.

1980s and 1990s Continuing development and emphasis on public relations education.

Written by Akviliina