For this module, we were asked to As a group, organise and run a real-life simulation of a media event (press conference). This was a Mock trial before we did the real thing.
We Had to play the role of a public relations agency for Starbucks and are tasked with launching their Race Together campaign based on your campaign proposal. We had to organise a news conference to introduce our plan to the media. This was very challenging but with the help from our tutors, we had an insight of how press conferences should be conducted due to the weekly presentations we did every week as a group with the help of our tutor. This helped me in soo many ways and helped gained my confidence in my presentation skills.
For our Mock Press conference, I’m am glad to say we got good feedbacks from our tutor which helped me and my group members see an improvement.:)
Here is our Mock Press conference for Starbucks Race Together Campaign….:)
Our PR agency name was Telescopia and I played the role of a public relation manager alongside Event assistant Manger.
–> StarbucksRaceTogetherCampaign
For our final Press conference, me and my group had to organise and run a real-life simulation of a media event (press conference).
The Ethical Fruit Company is rebranding as the Ethical Food Company and was launching a new range of ethically sourced and produced foods in the UK. The range used 100% organic ingredients grown without pesticides and fairly traded as per the Fairtrade principles. As part of this launch, the company is developing a know your food campaign aimed at children in primary and secondary schools around the United Kingdom. We had to play public relations practitioners assigned to launch this campaign and the new range. This was very exciting and I and my group already were confident due to the good feedback from our Mock.
–> EthicalFoodCompanyTeleScopia
Alongside this group press conference, we were asked to go individually and;
Pick two NGOs or two celebrity PR campaigns and perform a comparative analysis of the communication strategies they have used. Draw on the notions of power, discourse, the public sphere, ethics, and activism covered in the module as relevant.
Here is what i submitted…..
#Dressgate and #WithSyria Campaign
The Salvation Army organisation is known for their commitment to fighting human trafficking and preventing the increasing numbers of abuse and poverty amongst individuals. (Globalhand.org, 2017) They are also known for there thrift stores and dedicated charity work that operates in over 130 countries. As the organisation continued to grow and become very popular to the society, the organisation received a major amount of support from the public and celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Chris Rock, The Jonas Brothers and even celebrities who are currently politically active. (Salvationarmy.org.uk, 2017)
Public relations is the discipline which cater and looks after the reputation of an organization with the aim to support and influence opinion to the public endorsing and maintaining a mutual understanding between an organization and its public.
(Cipr.co.uk, 2017). Public relations most often underline discourse and master narratives about living in the world. Even though theorists say PR is for the public in fact PR is for the organization that makes us think it’s for the public. Discourse theory is concerned with human expressions often in the form of language. This shared argument means that the things people in our society say come from commonly recognized knowledge in a society whilst feeding back into the society at the same time to reinforce that knowledge. (Schneider, 2017)
Although PR is just like advertising PR not only helps in increasing the sales it mainly focuses on creating a positive publicity to its public, in doing so PR have to produce a mutual relationship between the organization and its customers who are more likely to listen and agree with what the organization compared to other organization’s never heard off before. (Ipr.org.uk, 2017)
(Mickey 2003:2) states that mass media campaigns always use media coverage to get their operations recognised. PR is a way in which this can be accomplished showing us the techniques and materials used.
Public relations practice is linked with neoliberal ideology. Neobiralism is a structured economic theory that promotes the pursuit of business interests through “strong reserved property rights, free trade and free market (Harvey 2005:2). PR ideas on individuality and capitalism share the same interests and neobriliasim . (Gilbert 2013; Harvey 2007).
For example by focusing ones distinctiveness he or she will have no other choice but to buy into an anticipated discourse by consuming the advertised goods they see in the media. Organisations understand celebrities have a wide span of followers and are certain they will gain supporters. Every organisation has a tactic on how to gain response and concern from the audience they create a plan were they aim at multiple audiences at the same time in order to join new members and active supporters to reach a larger span of audiences and to change their mind from indifference to sympathy.
“A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.” (Boorstin, Daniel Joseph (1961) We all understand that a person only becomes famous if the society chooses that person to be. The rise of celebrity culture and the celebration of society also come from Neobliberation. (Driessens 2012), and this is the reason why campaigns tend to use a wide range of celebrities or famous artefacts in most of their PR campaigns.
A celebrity or a well-known artefact featuring in a campaign tends to send a message of seriousness and certainty to its public.
A photo that was uploaded on twitter and went viral on the internet in 2015 which caused a viral debate for weeks on whether the picture of the dress depicted was a gold and white dress or a blue and black dress. According to experts the meme of the dress highlighted a variation in human vision, which meant that people who looked at the meme could see different colours. The photo came from a washed out colour photo of a dress posted on social media with a question “what colour it this dress”(En.wikipedia.org, 2017) as bizarre this may seem this photo created a world controversy creating over 10 million tweets mentioning the dress using hash tags such as #Thedress. The dress received recognition like a ‘proper’ celebrity would. At the end of the social debate the actual colour of the dress was confirmed to be black and blue. An advertising agency in Ireland Davenport took the interest of this situation and decided to use it cleverly to highlight the issues on domestic violence in South Africa while promoting The Salvation Army’s work with abused women. (Salvationarmy.org, 2017)
Their campaign produced a photo of a young white female covered in bruises and cuts wearing the exact dress used in the #TheDress debate in a legendary clear to see white and gold version of the dress. The advert message also reads a powerful message “why is it so hard to see black and blue? Stop abuse against women”. (Cohen, 2017)
Hiebert 2004 explained that the Internet had expanded communication possibilities and gave a massive platform for companies to reach larger audiences around the world. Even though public relations act between the organizations and their audiences, the Internet provides as well as celebrities an opportunity to emphasise there message in society and make connection with it (Coombs and Holladay 2011; L’Etang 2009). However the campaign would have not grown to be so successful if not the involvement of most talked about celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Taylor swift tweeting about this. This campaign was noted as “a clever advertising strategy`”. Before they managed to attain the their poster they outlined domestic violence amongst young women to light which shows that they extended their care and concern on this topic. This particular campaign ties in concisely with the International Women’s day on 8th March, which also falls on the same day the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme was launched.(Campbell, 2017)
The organization was able to grow and receive the publicity they needed by the audience who were responsive to this poster. We can see that the use of the meme is a very useful way of linking these cross media process. We can see that the dress helped take the campaign on another platform with publicity. Another charitable organisation called Oxfam also created a campaign against domestic violence for people affected in the Syria war called #WithSyria. As the high volume of deaths and over 2.2 million refugees in Syria, Oxfam took it upon themselves to create an awareness worldwide of the problem and lend their helping hand to Syria. This motivated thousands of people worldwide and other charities to join hands in solidarity and help Syria. This campaign become so viral that celebrities supported #WithSyria in a variety of creative ways such as Bansky a British street artist who made headlines with his beautiful wall painting called ‘Girl With A Red Balloon’ featuring the words there is always hope’. This inspired celebrities and supporters worldwide.(Oxfam GB, 2017)
Celebrification adds a lot of meanings to both campaigns making it possible to reach out to the high number of people who haven’t heard about this cause.
Driessens (2012) argues that celebrification has had a huge impact on political and social fields to a point the celebrity is irrelevant. This is now why Oxfam as an activist need and use celebrities because of the kind of power that comes with them.
PR and publicity are linked and regarded as the same to an extent. PR provide the service to organisations that need and help creating a profile for the public to make use of whether it is a product or brand the society will be able to communicate this as they are responsible for the supervisions or improvement of organizational reputation and its correlation with the public. (L’Etang 2009:609). Publicity creates an opportunity where the public can access information about the brand and what they stand for as well as upcoming events. The Salvation Army has a great PR agency/agencies to provide the scenes of limelight they need as a charity organisation. In both campaigns, #Dressgate and the #WithSyria campaign neobrilism which I also referred to the hegemonic discourse has effects which are seemed as pervasive on political-economic practices and even ways of thought. This has happened so much that it has become incorporated into the way we think, live in and understand the world around us (Harvey 2007:23). In this essay I will be able to look into what hegemonic discourses exactly is implanted within and reflect this in both campaigns. There’s always been discrimination against people this could be to do with there race, gender or even religion due to these formations we as a society have been apparent that these situations are defects in the society and culture which causes a huge impact on our everyday lives. (Harvey 2007: 22) stated that ‘neoliberalism has become a dominant discourse with ways which have been able which to effect with the way we think and even political practices to a point where it is now part of the way we live and understand the world. (Harvey 2007: 22)
In the society we live in we have people who will agree or disagree on issues concerning equality, were all gender should get fair treatment regardless of whom they are. When dealing with neoliberalism, this gives us the chance and freedom to be aware and express our ideologies of the society. We can now relate that people in our today society are taking a stand like ‘neoliberalism. The Salvation Army and Oxfam are typical examples of this where campaigners and protesters hold the dominant power for change in our society. The method of power that is used in #Dressgate’s successful protest against abuse was the meme posted with a young female badly beaten up in a white and gold dress with a powerful message. Oxfam also used a similar method in which had a lot of involvement from celebrities and the society such as the painting from Bansky which went viral and inspired other celebrities and citizens across the UK to tweet pictures of themselves with a red balloon as a mark of hope and to promote the #WithSyria Flickr page. (Oxfam GB, 2017)
Bourdieu (1986) stated that social capital is described as the collective actual resources which are linked to a possession of a durable network of more existing relationships. (Bourdieu, 1986:244). These relationships are more ratified and then maintained and reinforced. The volume of a social capital possessed by an agent merely depends on the size of the network of connections….(Bourdieu 1986:252). In both the #Dressgate’s and #WithSyria campaign we can see that they have a high number of social wealth in the terms of the network connections due to the media memes used and the high volume involvement of celebrities.
The #Dressgate’s campaign had stores who sell the exact same dress have put up #Thedress signs on them, we can only assume that the message that they are trying to send to customers or passers is the awareness of the campaign. This implies creativity and encouragement within the campaign alongside with the Oxfam campaign were celebrities and supporters took pictures with a red balloon and posting on social media sending a significance of hope to Syria. Power can change the way people think and act, it can even change ones perceptions, everyone has ideas and suggestions with sensitive topics such as gender, race or equality where culture and society have effected these meanings; now when political discourses decided to tamper with this meaning we have the power to change them. In both campaigns this opinion has been taking in and they have decided to challenge the whole world and stand for what they believe is right. For campaigns to be up-and-coming, truth as an accessory is central to the power/knowledge relationship and in order for campaigns to be successful before you even think about power your foundation should be based on truth. (Motion, Leitch 2007:266)
Both organizations believe in truth and equality. When we start to think about the public sphere around these campaign we see both organisations are activists who holds a political standpoint and try to be noticed around the media sphere and public.
In order for we as a society to really see change in the public sphere it is up to activists such as The Salvation Army and Oxfam to change these societal problems and produce a solution for the public and to understand ‘the sphere of authority’.(Habermas 1989:18)
Lewis, Willams and Franklin 2008: 10 refers PR campaigns as trying to potray a good political discourse but also suggests that some political stories in the press contain less recognizable or untruthful information. (Lewis, Willams and Franklin 2008: 10)
From this reading we are made aware of sources of there information are mostly unidentified and provide invalid material therefore making it immiscible to use. Although this limits PR’s aims some on the other hand may decide to go ahead with the idea/publicity for a limelight in the media. Doing this may raises questions oh how authentic and principled they are.
PR is all about profile building to the society as we discussed earlier. Although most of their maneuvers and tactics are known to deceive the community and people are able to see that. Many theorists have come to an understanding that PR and those who practice it are seen as enemies when it comes down to balanced communication and PR are known for their strong persuasion methods. (McNair 2004: 326)
This means that their strategies are seen as negative persuading actions to the society for what they are promoting. Both The Salvation Army and Oxfam campaigns we can clearly see some ethical implications in their campaign such as the use of the famous meme and celebrities, these all will help the organisation gain its recognition in the society but are they really for what they stand for and hold themselves responsible for the cause? Many questions risen to such campaigns is “How can you help those and understand their pain if you’ve never been in there shoes?” However it’s up for the PR agency to focus on the current practice and future not the ethical past. (McBride 1989: 7). If being unable to find such evidences this shoes PR is doing a good job keeping it concealed?
Overall, we see how both Oxfam and The Salvation Army both activist groups use the community and a high volume of celebrities to change discourse in politics the world. We now understand the ethical reasons that will interfere with the campaign as celebrities work with campaigns. Power and discourse are linked and cannot be worked around if not worked together. #Dressgate and #WithSyria shows us that they hold the possession of power and discourse to make a change in the public sphere. Both campaigns portray trust and they have been able to protest peaceful and stand for what they believe in which seems to show us that PR have accomplished in gaining the positive publicity needed.
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Media And Communicataion Studies 