Week 4

Hello! Behold, the long awaited text book is here! 

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Well, actually 1 part of the book. It's uploaded on Blackboard. But it's actually the reading for week 1. I guess it's never too late? Anyway, here's a little something I picked up from the reading, it's under the reflect & discuss section, page 20; that talks about what skills would a PR practitioner need for effective practice. 

Before taking this course, as mentioned in my very first post reading the chapter, I always thought that PR was just similar to advertising, so I guess that means you just need to know your product well and make sure your product sells; that sort of thing. 

But after reading the text, it came to me that PR practitioners don't just go around like promoting products, they go around working with people from all walks of life, and you'll need to have certain skills to really "cut it" for this job. And so, the skills that are vital for PR practitioners to be effective in their job, in my opinion, would be:

- understanding of the culture [shared understandings & belief] of both the firm that they are working in (Chia & Synnott, 2009), as well the society or the local culture [if they are working abroad]

- analytical in their work, to look at the various angles of the issues of their clients in order to cater for their broad target audience (Chia & Synnott, 2009)

- truthful and honest with their clients (Chia & Synnott, 2009)

- thorough, detailed; especially in research before launching public campaigns to ensure that all pros and cons are weighed (Chia & Synnott, 2009)

- to coordinate and manage the different types of media to maximize campaigns' effectiveness (Chia & Synnott, 2009)

Another area that I'm not exactly too sure about is ethics/morale in PR. I think I'll drop by the library to see if there's anything of PR ethics, but I know Ms. Wilson said next week's debate actually covers PR ethics. Pretty exciting! I feel that ethical practice of PR is also a vital skill for practitioners to be effective in their work. 

I guess that's so much for this week.