PR Studies

Your chance to write for Behind the Spin

Here's what we have planned for the next few months at Behind the Spin, the online magazine for PR students and young practitioners.

I'd love to hear from new contributors.

Celebrity and entertainment

We're welcoming articles on this theme until the end of January. Contact editor@behindthespin.com

Political communication and public affairs

Coalition government, Scottish independence, last year's referendum on voting reform, party politics, lobbying scandals: there's no lack of possible topics to write about.

This theme runs through March and you should contact our guest editors before then to express an interest: Sarah Roberts-Bowman (sarahrobertsbowman@btopenworld.com) and Paul Simpson (paul@dutchhq.com).

Sport PR

The last time the Olympic Games were held in London was in 1948, so this is a special year for sport. Does the Olympics encourage participation in sport or merely encourage passive viewing? Does it help put minor sports (and disabled sportspeople) in the spotlight?

This theme runs in May 2012. Contact editor@behindthespin.com

Other themes

Our perennial themes are work experience placements and graduate prospects. Articles on these themes are welcome at any time. We also welcome reports on your PR courses and book reviews.

 

Lies, damn lies and league tables

Scores matter. At university, we grade assignments as a percentage, and bracket degrees to indicate levels of attainment. In sport, matches are decided by scores and league tables are used to rank achievement. In work, salaries are a numerical indication of the value put on a person's role.

I'd been considering ways of recognising the out-of-class achievement of PR students, but did not want to create an alternative set of blogging awards. Besides, the existing awards were based on the subjective assessment of a panel of judges, and did not seem to me to reflect the wider picture.

With these two goals in mind - the value of a league table showing out-of-class progress and the need for objective measures - I have introduced the #socialstudent ranking at Behind the Spin.

The numbers are objective to the extent that they are independent and publicly available. All I'm doing is selecting UK PR students on full-time undergraduate or postgraduate courses and averaging their Klout and PeerIndex scores. The methodology is simple and transparent - and that is the only justification I'll make for it. (There's also no coaching involved: no current students knew of this league table before its launch, and my students are not required to blog and use Twitter as part of their course - though I do encourage them to.)

Klout in particular has been receiving much negative commentary based on its methods of calculating numbers and for its business model - but I don't seem much that's different from the contract we make with other players in the free world (Google, Facebook, WordPress etc). We allow them to learn much about us in return for a free service that's useful to us.

The attempt to measure influence is an important one to PR practitioners (it's the theme of Philip Sheldrake's new book). The #socialstudent ranking aims to encourage students to become aware of online reputation and influence and to showcase some outstanding talent (employers are continually asking me to recommend graduates).

It's a work in progress and we're still in the first half of the season, but the league table looks to me to be a promising concept and - let me be honest - a good way to draw attention to our online publication.

From fashion to politics: new themes at Behind the Spin

Want to break into the competitive world of fashion PR? Then you should get your name out there. Why not write for Behind the Spin?

We're looking for articles on fashion PR and entertainment PR for publication in January (deadline end of December; the earlier you submit, the sooner we'll publish). The ideas need to come from you, but we'd welcome:

• Articles about your work experience (like this, or this)
• Interviews with or profiles of experienced practitioners in the sector
• Commentary on the PR and promotional approaches of your favourite brands
• Discussion of the role of traditional and social media
• Roundup of fashion or celebrity blogs
• Reviews of books relating to the theme

Contact editor@behindthespin.com with your ideas.

Politics is suddenly interesting again. There's Occupy London, the threat of public sector strikes, the Eurozone crisis and the Arab Spring; next year there's the US presidential election and a London mayoral election.

Our guest edition in April 2012 is on the changing face of public affairs and political communications. Again, ideas and offers to write are welcome: please contact guest editors Sarah Roberts-Bowman or Paul Simpson.

In addition to these special themes, we always welcome articles of interest to students and young practitioners: reports on work experience, reviews of your courses, book reviews. Please contact the relevant section editor (see the About page for details).

Why articles don't get published

We're a friendly bunch at Behind the Spin.

We welcome ideas and articles - and even enjoy receiving some press releases.

But not every article submitted appears on the site.

Here are the top reasons why articles don't get published:

• It's not original (part 1). Please don't publish your piece on your blog first, then send it to us. Like most publications, we prefer original content. If we do publish the same article, then we open the door to detailed scrutiny of those changes we often make to make an article more readable. No editor wants this (we're not Wikipedia).
• It's not original (part 2). This is more subjective. We frequently receive articles on the same themes (finding placements, choosing PR courses etc). While we're happy to publish several, we prefer to publish those that say something original - or which simply make us smile.
• It's not original (part 3). If we ask you to research some opinions to add 'colour' to your feature, we expect real words attributable to real people. Not links to anonymous websites.
• It's good, but it's not clever. This is the most difficult one to explain to students. We receive some articles that are heartfelt and well-written. Yet we sometimes won't publish them if we judge it against that student's best interests. For exampe, a whinge against your placement employer could leave a big black mark against your Google searches visible to all future employers. Yes, it's a form of censorship, but we're trying to help.
• Is it legal? We have never had any correspondence with lawyers on this magazine - and we hope to keep it that way. We almost certainly don't have copyright permission to use that photograph of a celebrity you've sent us with your article. If in doubt, we'll leave it out. And the lack of original photography makes a celebrity-focused feature much less appealing to readers.
• It lacks a voice. It's true we teach you to write in an objective way in your academic essays, building your argument based on referenced reliable sources. But we're not an academic publication. We want to hear voices and listen to real opinions. Bland objective pieces complete with academic references belong elsewhere.

A week in the life

Increasingly it seems that education never sleeps. Particularly if there's an educational aspect to one's presence on social media.

I'm not complaining: it's a privilege to teach and I'm fortunate to be busy. Here are some things I'm looking forward to over the next seven days:

• Teaching on a CIPR Diploma course in Bulgaria (Saturday and Sunday)
• Teaching public relations to second year business, marketing and journalism students (Monday)
• Moderating a batch of Diploma scripts and some MA PR Writing assignments (Tuesday)
• Starting delivery of a new, experimental Public Relations and New Media module (Wednesday)
• Giving positive feedback to returning CIPR Diploma students and first year PR students (Thursday)
• Planning a paper for the International History of Public Relations conference
• Discussing a proposed chapter for a textbook
• Designing new social media modules for a revamped Sport Marketing course
• Giving feedback to dissertation students
• Hunting out more stories for our subject group blog
• Attending the CIPR networking event on Thursday
• Editing new stories for Behind the Spin
• Keeping up with RSS, Twitter, blogs, news, email and books (last, not least)

We all fall short of our highest expectations, and I'm sure I'll slip up and forget some things I should be doing, but I like to keep my eye on the goal. If I can put it in one word, I aim to be encouraging.

New year, new projects

I love this time of year; the optimism is infectious.

Though the mood will be different as we approach the darkest days of winter, it's always a good idea to capture the early year enthusiasm.

So here are three projects I'm involved in that welcome student input (NB only one is open to all).

Behind the Spin

Our PR student magazine is over two years old, and well established. But there's so much more we could do: all we need is time and ideas. I welcome contributors (ideally in response to our forward features listed on the About page) but also welcome those who'd like to contribute regularly by becoming a part of the editorial team. Tell me how you'd like to be involved - or tell me what we should be writing about.

PR@Leedsmet: 20 Years On

We're marking a 20th anniversary of public relations education in Leeds this autumn with a souvenir site profiling graduates and lecturers from the course. I need help reaching out to graduates and writing up profiles for the site. NB: this opportunity is only open to current Leeds Met PR or journalism students and will run to the end of November.

Euprera 2011

Next year's Euprera academic conference is in Leeds, and I'm hoping to work with some postgraduate students to develop content, connections and community around this forthcoming conference. This activity will continue until September 2011. NB: this opportunity is only open to current Leeds Met PR or marketing students.

Student challenge: make sense of your dissertation

Final year students start out with a major worry: how to write around 12,000 words on a single topic. It sounds a very high hurdle.

Most end up struggling to squeeze it all in to the word count once all the reading and the research has been conducted.

Here's a paradox, though. I often find less of interest in a 12,000 word dissertation than in a 6,000 word CIPR Diploma project. The candidates are very different, of course, but the process is similar.

Could it really be that less is more? That fewer words force you to think harder and pad out less?

If so, here's a new challenge. I'd like to receive some short, 1,000 word summaries of student dissertations for publication at Behind the Spin. Think of them as an 'executive summary' of your work rather than a chance to edit down what you already have. Here are some questions to answer:

• Why did I choose to study this subject?
• What did other people have to say on the subject (the literature)?
• What were my headline findings?
• How might this be useful to me or to the PR industry?

It could be a way to bring your hard work to a wider audience - or perhaps even the important audience of graduate employers. So before you pack your beach towels, time for a bit of editing.

Articles plus author or other relevant photos should be sent to editor@behindthespin.com by the end of June. Earlier submissions are more likely to be published.

Photo by johnwilliamsphd on Flickr (Creative Commons)

Behind the Spin: next themes

We've had our busiest ever month at Behind the Spin.

There has been a focus on political communication (with thanks to guest editor Darren Lilleker); there have been articles on PR and social media and a stream of stories from our news editor, Adam Burns.

We're not yet finished for the academic year, though. I'm seeking articles on graduate prospects for publication between now and June, and also more articles (like this one) on PR in the public sector.

See the About page for more information, or contact editor@behindthespin.com to discuss your contribution.

Politics: personality or policy?

We've published an Election Special at Behind the Spin - with thanks to Darren Lilleker of Bournemouth University who commissioned and vetted the articles.

In overview, the articles belong in one of two camps. Those written by professionals are concerned with the process of elections: campaigning tactics and issues of electoral reform. Those written by students are primarily interested in the personalities of political leaders.

It's hard for someone of my generation (my first election as a voter brought Margaret Thatcher to power) to view politics from the perspective of the post-Cold War generation. Left-right no longer has any meaning, and there are few clear ideological lines between the main parties. What's a young voter to do? Turn off politics and turn on The X Factor.

If there's no longer meaning in left-right, here are some issues that should cause young voters to be concerned or angry:

• The previous generation have borrowed and spent to such an extent that they will most probably be poorer than their parents. (This could even be the first generation in seven centuries to be poorer, less healthy and to die younger than their parents). Money matters. The coming election will be about finances more than anything else.
• Previous generations have been taking natural resources from the planet with no thought for the future. There will be a price to pay. The environment is a major issue that sits outside conventional left-right party politics.

I'm still accepting articles for publication on politics, political communication or the other issues we cover. Please keep sending them to editor@behindthespin.com

It's about ideas, not events

News used to be the currency of public relations. Event-led stories were our speciality (pseudo-events if you like). But it's a dying craft and most practitioners need to move on (and advise their clients accordingly). Here's why news is limited:

• It has a short shelf-life that's becoming ever shorter in the social media age
• Neither PR people nor journalists have a monopoly on news any more
• There are fewer publications taking PR news
• The conventional press release is treated like spam

If news is no longer our currency, what should be? How about ideas, or content? Note how Edelman has appointed a senior BBC executive as 'chief content officer'.

Content, conversations, communities are what it should be about (Jim Macnamara goes further and lists 8 Cs that count in the current media landscape).

Or to put it a different way, don't be so fixated on getting your news event mentioned that you pass up the opportunity to contribute an ideas-based feature to the same publication.

It's about ideas, not events. Adapt or die!