A major trend observed in most cultures is that pr practitioners are predominantly women. It is reported that 80% of communication students in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong are female.

However, Wilcox et al. (2007) reported that although the number of female practitioners are rising, the difference in the salaries of male and female practitioners are not decreasing. They note that women are usually assigned technical positions that attract lower salaries and men are assigned managerial positions that attract higher salaries. Women are probably put at the front line (in a technical position) as they relate and communicate better with clients.

The gap can be narrowed by understanding feminization through research. If women are open to opportunities to progress, to learn how to lead and develop skills necessary to manage people, there is more possibility for equality between genders that is relative to the ratio of practitioners.

The introduction chapter to the textbook acquaints students well with historical origins, values and different perceptions of public relations.

Learning about PR pioneers like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays opens up my mind to psychological elements of consciousness and social sciences used as persuasive techniques in PR. In early stages of PR history, mainly press agentry, propaganda and news were considered important in the workings of PR. It moved into:

- communicating and initiating

- reacting and responding

- planning and prevention

- status of professionalism development

compare it with Grunig and Hunt's 4 model:

- press agentry

- public information

- two-way asymmetrical

- two-way symmetrical

Grunig and Hunt's 4 model gives a better historical viewpoint taking into account historical events like WW2. (reference)

Chapter 1 also outlines the roles of modern Public Relations very clearly. These include internal and external communication management, crisis management, research, public affairs, financial relations and developing public relations position for the organisation. These 6 functions are meant to generalise the wide job scope of a PR person and not to limit their extend that they can reach out to. As the occupation is a highly volatile one, always changing and adapting to its environment and what is needed, PR persons must learn not to limit themselves but to effectively identify missing links in communication between any party and to fill those gaps in.

Just a look into one of the many PR campaigns that caught my eye. I remembered this from long ago and googled it. Pretty difficult to find actually.

This is a little experiment done to promote ST701, which is an e-marketplace by SPH's CATS Classified. A beauty queen was invited to live in a glass house for a week. She slept, ate, 'shat' and did not leave her glass house for that whole duration. The aim was to show the public (through 'transparency' of the glass house) that one did not need to leave the house as long as you have access to ST701. I thought it was a good concept. Cool idea, with good publicity, especially since it was in the heart of Central Business District (CBD). But the competition (The Ultimate Date) was a tad cheesy.

http://www.st701.com/colleenexposed/intro.html

http://www.sph.com.sg/article.display.php?id=643