Has PR been Slow to Adapt to New Media?

If you are not there on the Internet, you do not exist.

Public relations has arguably never enjoyed a position of greater prominence than it does today, and yet it has been accused of not adapting to changing technology or incorporating new media techniques in its services.

The following slidecast or video presentation addresses this ‘accusation’.

Length of Video: 6.33 minutes

The presentation looks at the views of some communication professionals like David Henderson and David Benvie, as well as some recent research studies by Big Mouth Media and the Society for New Communications Research.

I feel that while communication is at the heart of all PR, communication tactics cannot be generalised across the different branches of PR. Therefore, it is unfair to say that the entire PR industry has been slow to adapt to new media.

The sectors which were influenced by technology had ripple effect on its communications strategy as well and those which were slow to use technology, were slow to use media techniques as well.

For example, agencies doing PR for the financial, technology, telecommunications, litigation, and consumer sectors were the first use new media techniques. On the other hand, government and political communication, lobbying, the public sector and the corporate sector were much, much slower.

New media communications has brought about a paradigm shift in the the way PR communication happens. It has transformed communication from a monologue into a dialogue with its audiences.

Today, there is no branch of PR that does not make effective use of some new media tool. Though PR may have been a late and,perhaps, cautious entrant to the new media club, it has definitely caught up with the rest of the communications industry.