PR Studies

Planning process: linear or lateral?

The planning process is taught in linear fashion: A leads to B, then to C and so on. This provides reassuring templates to help people (appear to) cope with complexity.

In an intriguing passing comment, Phillips and Young challenge this rational, linear approach in the new edition of Online Public Relations:

‘Put simply, we need to be able to plan for surprises in this fast-changing world… The idea that one can run a ‘PR campaign’ is now flawed. A ‘campaign’ once had time limits and could thus be dropped after the event, but this does not apply today.’

I suspect the variables have always existed that could blow a campaign off course. Online conversations do not change this, but they do exacerbate the effect.

CIPR Diploma candidates were working on a communications campaign around swine flu vaccination in the summer: a very real and substantial challenge. Most coped very well with the linear process, but few submissions that I saw had fully assessed the range of risks to the campaign. How to manage the rationing of the vaccine? How to address the concerns about safety and efficacy of the vaccine, even amongst health workers and at-risk groups?

For those still interested in the complexities of this case, Simon Garfield has investigated the role of pharmaceutical companies and the challenges facing government in the campaign against swine flu in the Observer magazine today: Catch it! Bin it! Profit from it!

Is it safe? PR and the public understanding of science

Here's a conversation I've heard numerous times:

Journalist: 'So can you assure us that there's no risk to the public?'
Scientist: 'I can't say that. There's some risk in everything, like crossing a road...'
PR adviser: (Quietly) 'Doh!'

This summarises the problem of doing public relations for science; it's compounded by the fact that so few journalists and reporters have a science background. So today's top story on the BBC is a coup for CERN, the Swiss particle physics laboratory until now best known for being the place where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web to help scientific researchers communicate and share knowledge.

It was a brave editorial decision by the BBC, though they needed to create a bit of 'the end of the world is nigh' hype based on the 'miniscule' chance of creating a black hole under Geneva. 'The LHC is safe, and any suggestion that it might present a risk is pure fiction' it says on the CERN website in a neat phrase that distinguishes science from science fiction.

Boys prefer bangs to bodies

This isn't an example of improbable research. Sadly, it's just too probable. Researchers at the University of Leeds working for the Oslo-based Relevance of Science Education found that boys' scientific preferences were for:

1. Explosive chemicals
2. How it feels to be weightless in space
3. How the atom bomb functions

Girls preferred:

1. Why we dream
2. What we know about cancer
3. How to perform first aid

I'll add one thought to this. PR is not alone in its feminisation. The majority of medical students are female (though this is more because girls outperform boys at A level than because they're interested in dreams, diseases and health).

Reported by the BBC and The Independent.