The definition of public relations is watching trends, talking to organization leaders and creating planned programs that will help a situation. One planned program of action that I will discuss with you today is called framing.
What is framing? According to The Psychology of Climate Change Communication, "framing is the setting of an issue within an appropriate context to achieve a desired interpretation or perspective;" (Shome and Marx p.6). This is very important to public relations professionals because we are constantly pushing different messages to several different audiences. You must be able to convince your audience to adapt a desired perspective of the message you are attempting to relay.
Some benefits of framing a message are it organizes central ideas on an issue, helps communicate why an issue might be a problem and helps frams condense a message into useful communication "short cuts" such as slogans and images (Shome and Marx, p.6).
The first step in framing is to evaluate your audience and find out how they view a subject before you approach them with your message. Speaking to vegans about increasing their use of a meat-based product would not be smart. Next, consider your audience's subcultures. This means paying attention to the race, ethnicity, class, age, gender and specific sets of beliefs of people in groups. You should ask yourself if the majority belongs to the same group in the audience. The last step in framing is to prepare several different frames and messages ahead of time. All of your angles should tie into your big topic. You don't want to get lost in so many subheadings that the audience will lose sight of the big picture (Shone and Marx, p.7).
If you would like to read some cases of how framing affects people, log onto: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/22/3/257.abstract to see what scientists and psychologists have to say about research on framing.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Social Media: The two-headed beast
Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible publishing techniques. Social media, according to wikipedia, uses web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogues. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein, associate professors at a university, in marketing, define social media as "a group of Internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user generated content."
How do you feel about social media? How do you use social media in your life? Some people think that it is taking society to a place where face-to-face interactions will become a thing of the past. Younger generations are learning how to dominate social media tools and use them solely to keep up with friends and trending topics. Big businesses use social media to generate more consumers, get product information out to the world, and manage glitches and bad service by monitoring what customers are saying using social media about the business or product.
Social media utilization is believed to be the driving force in defining the current time period as the Attention Age. Aaron Endre has created a blog that explains his views of why the information age has been replaced by the Attention Age. You can read it at: aaronendre.com/2009/10/26step-aside-information-age-the-attention-age-is-here/.
I believe that social media are a two-headed beast. In one hand, if used correctly it can increase public knowledge; bring a new voice to marketing, sales and promotion; and increase interaction between companies and the people who support them. On the other hand, social media has brought about a certain invasion of privacy between job seekers and employers who include Facebook and Twitter along with your resume and scholarly achievements as a means of determining what your assets could be to a company. Social media has ruined life-long friendships as well as reputations.
All in all, we the people have the freedom to determine how we would like to use social media in our lives and how much time we will spend in it. Words have power, and it is important to make all your interactions over the Internet and/or in person be tactful and politically correct.
How do you feel about social media? How do you use social media in your life? Some people think that it is taking society to a place where face-to-face interactions will become a thing of the past. Younger generations are learning how to dominate social media tools and use them solely to keep up with friends and trending topics. Big businesses use social media to generate more consumers, get product information out to the world, and manage glitches and bad service by monitoring what customers are saying using social media about the business or product.
Social media utilization is believed to be the driving force in defining the current time period as the Attention Age. Aaron Endre has created a blog that explains his views of why the information age has been replaced by the Attention Age. You can read it at: aaronendre.com/2009/10/26step-aside-information-age-the-attention-age-is-here/.
I believe that social media are a two-headed beast. In one hand, if used correctly it can increase public knowledge; bring a new voice to marketing, sales and promotion; and increase interaction between companies and the people who support them. On the other hand, social media has brought about a certain invasion of privacy between job seekers and employers who include Facebook and Twitter along with your resume and scholarly achievements as a means of determining what your assets could be to a company. Social media has ruined life-long friendships as well as reputations.
All in all, we the people have the freedom to determine how we would like to use social media in our lives and how much time we will spend in it. Words have power, and it is important to make all your interactions over the Internet and/or in person be tactful and politically correct.
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