COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

The use of communication technology is ubiquitous in contemporary public relations practice, and often there’s no choice but to adopt the newest communication technology.


For example, even the smallest and most traditional businesses require the Web sites that their customers expect, and the submission of a simple news release to a mass medium’s electronic newsroom must satisfy the technological requirements of that medium. Organizations must continually monitor blogs, recognizing that harmful rumors can spread worldwide in minutes. The contemporary practice of public relations requires practitioners to immediately respond to emerging issues and crisis situations via Web sites, blogs and other new media. Today, the choice of communication channels is dictated by technology: a practitioner must seriously consider which message forms and channels would be best for specific publics. Often, new technological forms and channels, such as electronic pitching, podcasting and blogging, prevail over traditional news releases and media kits.


Thus, students must know how to use today’s communication technology and must monitor and most likely adopt rapidly and unpredictably changing technology. Equally important, public relations students must be taught to appreciate and to continually explore the societal ramifications of continually emerging communication technology. Students must learn strategies, not only for using this technology, but also for dealing with its effects, ranging from the ready availability of virtually all types of information to questions of personal and organizational privacy.


Public relations practitioners are among the heaviest users of today’s communication technology. However, technology remains simply a tool–albeit an important tool–that practitioners must manage. This means public relations professionals must not be unduly constrained by technology in developing their communication strategies, nor must practitioners’ strategies and tactics be restricted by the technicians who develop and maintain organizations’ communication technology infrastructures. Rather, public relations practitioners must be the managers of how their organizations strategically use communication technology to affect public relationships. Within their organizations, public relations practitioners best understand that communication technology that conquers time and space by permitting instantaneous communication worldwide not only can create understanding and cultivate harmony and empathy between an organization and its publics, but has great potential to generate misunderstanding and to exacerbate disharmony and conflict. With considerable prescience, Edward R. Murrow identified the inherent dangers and limitations of today’s communication technology over 40 years ago, in October 1964:


The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue. The most sophisticated satellite has no conscience. The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end, the communicator is confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.


Thus, public relations educators must assure that their students are prepared not only to be proficient in the use of the most recent communication technology, but also to understand and appreciate the societal ramifications of its use. Educators also must use this technology to maximize the effectiveness of their own instruction.