Week 7: Uncontrolled Communication (the media)

1. PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTICE
2014
Week 7
!
DR KANE HOPKINS

2. Communication via mass media
Mass media defined:
Mass media are technological channels of
distribution of messages by organisations
with the purpose of creating and maintaining
audiences.
W. James Potter (2009)

3. Mass media in New Zealand
• Limited range of media owners
• Few newsrooms and they continue to shrink
• Mostly liberal
• Community newspapers play a large roll in
community news
• Many ethnic focused media

4. The New Zealand Media
Ownership Report 2011
• New Zealand’s public media space is shrinking as
commercial imperatives prevail
• News stories are informed by fewer sources meaning
that fewer voices are heard
• ...there are fewer mainstream content providers and
less choice for consumer-citizens
• An emerging hyperlocal news sites may encourage
alternative public spheres of communication
• For the corporate players ... a fertile ground for sales
and advertising

6. TV

7. What the hell is wrong with us?

8. Most popular online news topics
1. Weather
2. National events
3. Health/medicine
4. Business/finance
5. Science/technology
6. Developments in their own state

10. Five major media trends
1. Thirty of the largest digital-only news organisations
account for about 3,000 jobs and one area of
investment is global coverage
2. The impact of new money flowing into the industry
may be more about fostering new ways of reporting
and reaching audience than about building a new,
sustainable revenue structure
3. Social and mobile developments are doing more
than bringing consumers into the process – they are
also changing the dynamics of the process itself

11. News on social media

12. News topics on Facebook

13. Five major media trends
4. New ways of storytelling bring both promise and
challenge
5. Local television, which reaches about nine in ten
U.S. adults, experienced massive change in 2013,
change that stayed under the radar of most

14. Communicating with the media
• Media releases
• Media advisories
• Fact sheets
• Media kits
• Media conferences
• YouTube
• Interviews

16. 91%

17. Media relations
• 54.8% follow and friend corporate communications or
PR pros on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook
• 55.8% say social media is an acceptable channel of
communication with sources and their representatives
• 50% say irrelevant pitches via social media are a main
frustration
• 26.5% say mass pitches via social media are a
frustration
• 6.4% say PR pros ghost-tweeting for clients via social
media is a frustration

18. Pitching story ideas to media
• 70.6% of respondents prefer to be “pitched” by
email
• Only a surprising 1.4% of respondents prefer to
field story ideas via commercial newswires (such
as PR Newswire, Business Wire, Marketwire, etc.)
• Just 0.7% prefer to field story ideas via email
alerts sent from corporate newsrooms

19. Major reasons media releases fail
• They are not news
• They fail to meet deadlines
• They are too long
• They are full of hyperbole
• They contain errors
• There are no contact details for the follow-up
questions
• Practitioners ring journalists to pressure them to
run the story

20. PR & news values
• Timeliness
– your information must be new or current, e.g. new
report released,
– Appropriate time, e.g. autumn is the time for flu
shots
• Relevance
– How does your information affect people’s lives,
income, health, relationships and entertainment
choices
– The ‘who care’ test

21. PR & news values
• Proximity
– Using the local angle
– Can the information be localised to a particular
community?
• Prominence
– Can you relate your information to a well-know
person?
• Significance
– Does your information affect a significant number
of people?

22. PR & news values
• Trendiness
– media often responds to the latest fashion trends,
popular entertainment or food craze and it may
be possible to link your organisation’s news with
these
• Negativity
– good news doesn’t make for good news

24. Google says, yes. Yes you should.
About 1 result (0.47 seconds)