As a tribute to veteran
communicator DR. C.V. NARASIMHA REDDI, who passed away at Hyderabad today, PRapport
presents his last article written, literally from his bed, on the occasion of
the 14th Global Communication Conclave held at Bengaluru on March 6
& 7, 2020. Dr Reddi was a recipient of the Dr Anil Basu Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Relations instituted by PRCI. He was also honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award by ABCI .
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“If I were to my last dollar, I would spend it
on public relations” said Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. In fact, public
relations (PR) has emerged as a key component of any business in this day of
instant communication.
Before we
enumerate the future of public relations in the 2020, it is most appropriate to
take stock of the state of the art public relations in India. PR played a
significant role in the two remarkable achievements of independent India –
Emergence of India as the world’s largest vibrant democracy and that India has
been transformed into global economic player, poised to become world’s third
biggest economy.
With one
lakh PR professionals, over 30 lakh extension communicators including nine lakh
ASHAs on the one side and one lakh newspapers; 1000 TV channels; 500 radio
stations; 36 lakh internet connections; and about 120 crore cell phones; 1.6
lakh post offices; on the other, constitute the world’s biggest communication
network.
What is the
state-of-the-art public relations in India? It is a mixed bag, containing a few
sophisticated and competent PR professionals second to none in the world on the
positive side, while a majority of non-professionals without any professional
education reflecting the negative aspect of the profession. According to Adfactors,
PR Agency that 90% of PR personnel have not read any book on PR. The distinguishing
trait of the profession is “Quantity of PR Personnel”, rather than “Quality of
the Profession”. The need of the hour is professional excellence.
I
visualize seven trends of PR in 2020. They are as follows:
1.
Adaption
of PR 2.0 New Model
As a measure of revamping PR in the
decade ahead, the need of the hour is a paradigm shift with PR 2.0 new model as
coined by Brian Solis, it is otherwise called convergence of traditional PR
with internet and social media.
Dr. Doug Newsom, Professor Emerita,
Texas Christian University, USA observed that “convergence of traditional PR
with internet is a pragmatic approach to manage stakeholders relationship.
However, understanding, how to use and manage social media channels is of great
importance”.
2.
Artificial
Intelligence (AI)
In 2020, no organisation can escape
from AI, to maintain effective relations with the public. Transcriptions,
automated translation, speech to text services, printing of publications,
relations with customers will be some of the AI driven technologies to reach
largest section of masses. The machine driven human intelligence opens new
frontiers and opportunities for PR professionals.
3.
PR
Education and Training
In the UK PR is offered as a major
course both at UG and PG level such as BA (Hons), MA PR, MS PR. The University
of Sterling offers MSc (PR), both in regular and distance mode. Four majors are
offered in USA at UG level – Journalism, PR, Advertising and Mass
Communication.
In
contrast, Public Relations Education in the Indian universities is still a
nascent stage. Notwithstanding the fact that PR is one of the growing
professions, most of the conventional universities in India offer multi-cuisine,
all-in-one communication and journalism courses in which, out of eight courses,
public relations is one.
When Dr.
B. R. Ambedkar Open University submitted proposal to the UGC for recognition of
MA Mass Communication and Public Relations, it has rejected the proposal on the
plea that this course is not in its approved list. It clearly means that the
UGC has not recognised PR as an academic discipline.
The New
Education Policy (NEP) Draft 2019 recommended the introduction of a four year
bachelor degree especially in liberal arts. It is most appropriate and relevant
that in tune with the NEP, the UGC must launch a four year Bachelor’s Degree
with three majors as Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising. Such a
policy, undoubtedly, will produce proficient PR personnel.
Training: In fact, PR is skills oriented
profession. One can be successful in this profession when PR personnel are
equipped with professional skills – Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, etc.
A major lacuna in the practice of Indian PR is lack of any induction or
in-service PR training. As opposed to developed countries, where the percentage
of skilled workforce is between 60 to 90 per cent of the total work force,
India has an abysmal 4.69 per cent of workforce with formal vocational skills.
It is worse in the PR field. The Indian Institute of Mass Communication was
established in New Delhi for imparting training and research. Unfortunately,
this institute confined to the training of Indian Information Service officers
and conducting Diploma courses in Journalism, Advertising and PR, which are
nothing but replication of universities courses. Therefore, it is suggested
that all State Governments should establish Mass Communication and PR Academy
at the State level for the training of communication and PR professionals.
4.
PR
Research and Innovation
Lack of
research and innovation are the two major pitfalls of public relations practice
in India. If the US has reached great heights in the fields of science and
technology and emerged as the number one in the world’s economy, it is because
of its priority for research and innovation. A National Research Foundation
proposed by the draft NEP is a good step in the direction of research in India.
The Government as well as corporates spend crores of rupees both on image building advertising and public
relations campaigns, but rarely their impact on the public mind is assessed.
An
international PR firm, BBDO in its survey revealed that “PR industry may never
be fully respected, unless it can provide measurement of its value of different
programmes. Therefore, research is the rocky but sunlit pathway for PR
professionals to climb once for all out of the quacks and spin doctors’ status,
where our work is judged by instinct and intuition. Each PR department must
have a research division on par with All India Radio’s Audience Research Unit
with adequate budget.
Innovation
is yet another field of activity to project new theories, new practices that
enlighten the stakeholders. Innovation alone can take PR to greater heights.
5.
Consolidation
of PR Departments
If the
2019 decade made presence of PR as management function, 2020 envisages
consolidation of PR departments with specialised branches such as Media
Relations, Internal Communication, External Stakeholders relationship,
Advertising, Publications, Social Media, Feedback mechanism, etc.
6.
PR
Reporting
Lack of measurement of PR programmes is the greatest lacuna of
PR profession, like marketing, management demand results from PR in improving
the image of the organisation. One of the short comings of Indian PR is lack of
management recognition for PR on par with HRD or marketing.
Public relations reporting is a
process of keeping the management informed about PR activities and
accomplishments. The PR manager has to periodically report progress to the top
management. It is a report card of the PR department. PR reporting is a
challenge to PR professionals. However, if they do it systematically,
management undoubtedly recognise their hard work in projecting the corporate
affairs to both internal and external public.
If PR is regarded as strategic top
management function, the Director of PR must find a place in the Board which
formulates policies for all management disciplines. Unfortunately, the PR by
and large is at the middle level under HR or Marketing. Therefore, public
relations must be placed at the top management level with a Director or
Vice-President (PR) who should be made responsible to the CEO. And CEO, who is
accountable to all disciplines, must assume the role of Chief of PR for
designing PR strategy.
A Bright Future- Five Factors:
If
challenges are converted into opportunities and if all such opportunities are
tackled with a vision, a bright future beckons Indian PR, because of five important factors. These
factors include (i) India continues to sustain world’s largest democracy; (ii)
India is poised to become world’s third biggest economy; (iii) India will
become world’s largest English speaking nation; (iv) India will be the hub of
world’s largest media network with over one lakh newspapers; and (v) India is
likely to have 50 states instead of 29.
(The author was Editor, Public
Relations Voice & Former State Director, Information & PR Department, AP)
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Dr. CVN Reddi (extreme left) receiving
Dr.Anil Basu Memorial Life Time Achievement Award for Public Relations at the 11th
Global Communication conclave, Bengaluru, on March 03, 2017.
