Media Fragmentation Effect on Public Relation - Essay Example

Running Header: Media Fragmentation and Communication in an Organization Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code & Name: Date of Submission: Introduction Communication in an organization was initially left for managers and other senior individuals who are trained on how to enhance public relations. Traditionally, managers have spent most of their time communicating using traditional communication methods that include reports, e-mails, letters, memo, face-to-face discussions, and meeting among others (Baker, 2002, p.1). During this time, organizations were able to control communication in an organization. They could choose what to let out to the public, to their customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers and all other organization stakeholders. However, thing are different now, media fragmentation and the advancement of communication technology have made it easy for people to keep relations and to communicate about any small matter that they find important. Organizations are not an exception in this case. This has made it hard for managers to control what is released to the public anymore. This paper examines the statement "the fact laid bare by the fragmentation of the media is that communications is what everyone does within an organization" to establish its effect on modern public relation practice. Media Fragmentation Effect on Public Relation Public relation practitioners in modern organizations are facing a number of challenges which include globalization, increase in information speed and media fragmentation. This changes the landscape and pace of public relation professionals. Communication is not what it was in a few years ago. Initially, public relation practitioners could easily manage the organization communication, especially the information getting out of the organization to the public. This was basically done to maintain the organization reputation (Duhe, 2007, p.99). Public relation practitioners were able to filter the information getting out of the organization and thus, it was easy to protect the organization image and to enhance the organization relation with its stakeholders. However, things have now changed. The emergence of modern communication that includes social media has highly made it hard for public relation practitioners in an organization to control what is released to the public. Organization's employee has a number of ways to relay any kind of information they wish to, instantly for the world to see. According to Gilpin (2010, p. 265), organizations seek to impact their reputation via a number of self-presentation activities that together express the identity of an organization and enhance a certain image. The online media setting today permits room for organizations to release traditional news but in a different way. In addition, social media that include micro blogging such as twitter and blogging contribute to building of the image (Gilpin, 2010, p. 265). However, the freedom provided by the media today can also permit organization's rivals or dissatisfied customers to criticize the blogs or any other post, or make comments. Basically, today's media eliminate the aspect of reporting without any form of questioning. It allows the audience to give their views and to make their comments based on their feelings, experience and beliefs. Thus, basically, the aspect of leaving each audience to digest the message and interpret it in his or her own way silently, is fully eliminated Duhe (2007, p.99). Today, any message written to the public, shareholders or stakeholders through available media is critically analyzed, for everyone involved to see and get even the hidden meaning of the message. This has definitely changed the public relation in an organization. Media fragmentation in this case involves increase in ways in which information can be relayed. Traditionally, information in an organization could only be relayed through wired telephones, memo, letters, meetings, face-to-face, e-mails, reports or by used of a few radio or TV stations, newspapers that were available to communicate to the public. Apart from phone calls, face-to-face and email, most of other means of communication were slow and in any case they could easily be changed in case one could notice miscommunication before they could get to the audience. On the contrary, media fragmentation has introduced a number of ways in which messages can be communicated to the public. This include by use of mobile phones calls or short message services, social media which currently include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest among others. There are also other communication applications that includes Sykpe, Digsby, as well as other mobile phone interfaces. Communication in the modern world can also be done through blogging. Moreover, there is also diversity in TV and radio communication channels, magazine publishers, and newspapers among other things. In this regard, it is quite hard for anyone to control what goes out of an organization. The presence of the most instant form of communication in an organization makes it easy for workers to pass their message to the world in an instant. Basically, most forms of modern communication especially social media give all individuals an option of opening personal account where one chooses who to be in their interaction circle. This simply implies that, it is easy for an employee to share any organization information with whoever he or she wishes without being noticed by others who are not in the communication circle. Moreover, one can manage to open different accounts using even false names. This makes it hard for anyone to control communication anymore. The fact that most organization allows mobile devices in the work place also complicates the aspect of communication control in an organization. One can easily continue with personal life and work life concurrently at home and in the workplace. This makes it hard to monitor workers communication trend completely. The modern fragmented media ensures that one can communicate with those that one wishes to communicate to anytime and anywhere. This has been enhanced by the growth of communication technology and the extensive use of internet in the workplace. The nature of the new media basically fights against communication monitoring. Unlike in the old telephone communication system where wire trapping was very easy, it is not easy to monitor mobile or cellular communication. To monitor internet based communication, one will require interfering with workers privacy which is protected by the law in many countries. One will have to be in the network of an employee to be able to see, read or respond to their posts. This inability to monitor and control the communication due to the nature of the communication media gives a justification that communication should be free and every individual should communicate without any limitation. It also shows the necessity of communication in the life of human beings. Therefore, the current media advancement brings a challenge to the public relation practitioners. This is because they basically need a new way to maintain the organization image other than limiting communication. The current communication situation in an organization clearly indicate that all the incidences that takes place in an organization whether good or bad can easily get into public knowledge. This can be done by anyone; people inside the organization or outside it, or the actual persons who were involved. The fact that fragmented media gives people opportunity to publicise information at a cheap cost or no cost, make it easy to pass any message to others who share the same interest with the messenger. In this regard, based on the provided statement it is important for the public relation practitioners to realize that they no longer have any control of the information getting out of the organization. However, they should consider protecting the organization image using other techniques, mostly by caring about what they do insider their organization and how they handle customers, and the rest of the public. This is because, fragmented media has eased the communication process and apparently, communication cannot be controlled in the modern world. Thus, anyone can leak out the information about any unethical acts or practices in an organization. The change of many technological aspects has disputed the manner in which public relation is practiced. Public relation in the modern era needs understanding of how the organization key constituents are sharing and gathering information and then impacting them at the main points. Doing this according to Wright and Hinson (2008, p.5), requires to employ techniques which embraces the digital era. The use of blogs which are personal easily published web sites act as a source of uncensored, opinion and commentary, unfiltered information source on different topics. The new aspects provided by these media for instance the dialogue between the organization and internal as well as external audience can be of great importance in building of relation. However, it can also be very destructive if the organization has not managed to maintain quality, ethical practices and good customer service. This is because, they invite the public to give their views, experience with the organization, critic the product or the organization services and appreciate the organization publically. This completely changes the role of public relation practitioners in an organization. Although they can still be involved in positing the organization blogs, they now have a duty to evaluate the information to be posted to see that it does not attract a lot of critics. However, this still may be hard since some audience can as well bring an issue that is out of topic just to pass their message, express their disappointment, bitterness or appreciation. Thu PR practitioners have lost the responsibility of ensuring that the company build its own image. This can now be only enhanced based on how it handle its customers, employees, surrounding community and all other. The modern forms of communication; advancement of communication technology and media fragmentation in today's world has denied public relation practitioners the role of sole communicators in an organization. It is clear from the current situation that the public relation practitioners cannot control communication anymore. This implies that they can no longer continue being sole communicator in the organization. The ease of posting information online, gives any employee or other organization's stakeholders the ability to post any information regarding the company. Therefore, they may lose their importance in the organization if they will not try to establish another major role that they can play to benefit the organization image. Although, public relation practitioners can take an initiative to train the workers on how to prepare organization related information they wish to post, they cannot be able to control the agitated employees, or ex-employees from deliberately posting true information about organization that would compromise its image. Therefore, the current situation puts their job at risk. The media fragmentation and the fact that information can easily be published by different individuals either through personal blogs, company blogs, social media or any other public media threatens the hierarchical nature of the company. Initially, the information flowed from top to bottom or from bottom to the top, passing through all sections in the hierarch before getting to the top level. Today things are different; people can easily communicate without involving all others in the hierarchy. For instance, a manager agitated by a certain employee can consider writing an email direct to the employee without having to send it first to others. However, they can all receive the message at the same time through CC. This means that, the employee can answer directly to the manager without having to go through his or her senior in the operation department. In addition, publicised information used to undergo scrutiny of the senior individuals in the organization. However, this information can be posted by anyone and thus, this scrutiny is not needed. Employees in any organization understand their obligation in protecting the company's interest. Therefore, in most cases, they are likely to post positive information that will promote their company's image. This means they can also respond to customers or other audience concerns with company's image in mind. Therefore, the need to wait for a particular individual to respond to the customer's concern is also eliminated. Therefore, basically the PR job keeps on losing its initial value with the current growth of media fragmentation. According to Waddington (2014), social media contains no honour for the traditional hierarchies in an organization. Thus organization is porous. Messages in fragmented media era are shared through social networks, email, and text. There is currently no distinction between external audience, typically employees, publics, or internal audiences. This is because, a message relayed to one group through the current form of communication can easily be accessed by other groups and thus, there is no longer any classification in the organization. With suitable communication strategies, engagement and content, workers contain the ability to be the most trusted, crucially, powerful organization advocates. Therefore the role of PR can actually be taken over by the employees of the company with right initiatives. Conclusion Traditional organizations experienced a more systematic way of communication especially to the public. In this case, information content was carefully prepared by the public relation practitioners and scrutinized before it was published. This was characteristically due to the form of media that was available to effect these communications and also due to the fact that each organization had PR managers that were basically meant for that role. Publishing information during this time was also a bit expensive and thus, information had to be accurate. PR managers were exclusively responsible of all forms of communication between the company and its stakeholders and thus, they control the organization communication. However, the situation is currently changing with emergency of different communication technologies, with higher speed of relying messages and fragmented communication media. The new changes have made it hard for PR practitioners to control information flow in the organizations. Information in an organization can now be relayed through a number of public media. Moreover, today, the information publishing techniques are more interactive and thus, the organization may require people from different department to address the need of their customers effectively and not just the PR. Media fragmentation has reduced the cost of information publishing. Moreover, the medium of communication are easily available to all since one only requires a communication devices and internet which are readily available in the workplace. Therefore, all employees can actually afford to make any organization related publication without much train. Therefore, it is true that the fragmentation of the media has enhanced communication by all individuals in an organization. Anyone in the organization can now manage to communicate with the public, stakeholders, customers, or even other top organization officials without strain. This has threatened the role of public relation practitioners in the organization. This is because all employees work for the best interest of the company and thus, they are the best advocates of the company to the public. In this regard, they can swiftly manage to communicate as it is required to the public and organization stakeholders without strain. Therefore, the current situation deplete the responsibilities of PR practitioners in an organization, since with media fragmentation, they can easily be replaced by allowing organization communication to be open to all workers, since the media development has already made it hard to control communication and to limit it to one individual. References Baker, K. A, 2002, ' Chapter 13: Organization communication,' [online] Available at Duhe, S. C, 2007, 'New media and public relations,' Peter Lang Gilpin, D, 2010, ' Organizational image construction in fragmented online media environment,' Journal of public Relation Research. vol. 22, no. 3, pp- 265-287. Waddington, S, 2014, ' The real PR professionals are stepping forward,' The Chartered Institute of Public Relations. [online ] Available at < http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/2014/04/11/the-real-pr-professionals-are-stepping-forward/ > [Accessed on April 28, 2014]. Wright, D. K & Hinson, M, 2008, ' Examining the increasing impact of social media on public relation practice,' [online] Available at < http://www.lateledipenelope.it/public/Wright-Hinson[1].pdf >[Accessed on April 28, 2014]. Read More