Public relations in South America - that’s something new and perhaps even exotic! Since I’m not familiar with the theme, the intention of this first post is to give you, dear readers, (and myself!) some sort of idea of public relations in South America. I’m going to do this with the help of the article Overview of Public Relations in South America written by Maria Aparedica Ferrari from the book The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research and Practice - Revised edition. My focus is on the conditions in which public relations is being practiced.
What is distinctive in South American societies according to the research undertaken by the United Nations Development Program is “a generalized dissatisfaction with the performance of democracy”. Bad governance, lack of democracy and socio-economic inequalities undoubtedly have an effect on the practice of public relations. According to Ferrari, for example, many public and private organizations don’t realize the value public relations could give to them and therefore they don’t invest their scarce economic resources in public relations. Ferrari considers “the generalized lack of knowledge regarding the true role of public relations” to be a threat to the profession. Another problem she has acknowledged is that many university-level public relations programs have failed to produce competent professionals for the job market.
Bearing these societal features in mind I was happy to learn from the already mentioned article that some PR professionals have used their skills and energy to promote more ethical and participative democracies. They have also developed strategies for negotiating social conflict. This kind of practice of public relations contrasts clearly with the idea that PR does nothing but defends capitalism (approach taken by Cecilia Peruzzo). However, Ferrari reminds us of the fact that each nation in South America has its own unique characteristics. I dare say we will discover at least some of those characteristics during this blogging process.
What is distinctive in South American societies according to the research undertaken by the United Nations Development Program is “a generalized dissatisfaction with the performance of democracy”. Bad governance, lack of democracy and socio-economic inequalities undoubtedly have an effect on the practice of public relations. According to Ferrari, for example, many public and private organizations don’t realize the value public relations could give to them and therefore they don’t invest their scarce economic resources in public relations. Ferrari considers “the generalized lack of knowledge regarding the true role of public relations” to be a threat to the profession. Another problem she has acknowledged is that many university-level public relations programs have failed to produce competent professionals for the job market.
Bearing these societal features in mind I was happy to learn from the already mentioned article that some PR professionals have used their skills and energy to promote more ethical and participative democracies. They have also developed strategies for negotiating social conflict. This kind of practice of public relations contrasts clearly with the idea that PR does nothing but defends capitalism (approach taken by Cecilia Peruzzo). However, Ferrari reminds us of the fact that each nation in South America has its own unique characteristics. I dare say we will discover at least some of those characteristics during this blogging process.
So, during the next few weeks our group will find out in more detail what is going on in the field of PR in South America. Stay tuned!
Writer: Anni Hassinen
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It would be great to see some example cases of those PR professionals promoting more ethical and participative democracies / developing strategies for negotiating social conflict!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree! I already thought of that when writing my post and I will try to find those example cases.
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