Global PR Blog Week 2.0

By Dr. Thomas Pleil, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences
EDITORS’ CHOICE | Education for the New PR

How can PR students learn the chances and risks of social software and how can it be organised that these students make their own experiences in reading and writing weblogs? Since weblogs and social software and their implications with public relations in Germany are realized since about a year only there are no evaluated concepts for their education at universities yet. Therefore, this article is to be seen as a case study from Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.

Weblogs, wikis and other applications of social software may be used as powerful instruments for Online PR – with all the risks and advantages discussed since several months in the blogosphere and on conferences like Global PR Blog Week. This discussion is still going on, and it goes along with many case studies. But I feel, we still have a lack in research e.g. on the influence of weblogs, on the influence of online communication models to PR at all, on organizational implications, on the stakeholders’ perceptions and so on. Knowledge like this would be needful for every communicator and it would also be important for the education of public relations students. I admit I liked to answer some of the questions by empirical or theoretical work. Yet, I didn’t manage it since we’re still in a early stage of research which is typically beginning with describing new phenomena.

But another important challenge is to make experiences with weblogs and social software part of the education of public relations students. Especially the fact that the topic is developing very quickly needs special demands in didactics. To be honest, we don’t have a patent remedy for that, so I will offer a quick view into one German kitchen of education.

Unfortunately in Germany there is no sound tradition in PR education. There are less than five university programs of study dedicated exclusively to Public Relations, and there are only about a dozen German professors working on the topic. As far as I know, I’m the only one with the keyword “Online PR� in his job description. This is why I miss a German discussion on educating Public Relations and new tools of Online PR like weblogs or wikis. That’s why I am only able to describe my approach practiced at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.

At this university I am responsible for the education in Public Relations. Here, PR are a part of a program of studies called “Online-Journalism� (http://www.oj.fh-darmstadt.de/). Within this program students have the possibility to choose in their last year of studies either a deeper qualification in journalism or a special qualification in Online PR. In fact, they need a basic qualification in Public Relations at all and special knowledge in Online PR.

Therefore, we have rather narrow guidelines. At the moment, one out of two students of “Online Journalism� prefers Public Relations, so we have a group of 24 Public Relations-students. First, they have to study the basics of PR like communication theories and models, Issues Management, Crisis Communication, Media Relations, and Investor Relations and so on. There are four hours for these topics per week. Further, two hours per week are scheduled for writing exercises: It is trained to write press releases, to plan their distribution or to write speeches or brochures. The third brick in PR education is working in projects in cooperation with practitioners. In the now concluded term we planned PR for a new program of studies of our university in co-operation with Bertelsmann Foundation, last winter we worked on a PR-conception for the city of Frankfurt/Main. These projects typically are accompanied by a special course dealing with the market we work for within the project. Further courses are dealing e.g. with marketing, social research, or evaluation of media relations.

Within this schedule we had to create a special window for social software as an issue in progress. Therefore, we had two assumptions:

• In contrast to many other issues of study, social software is still developing so it is not possible to discuss it just “en blockâ€?. This makes it necessary to talk about and to work with social software and new developments continuously.
• Social software needs theoretical background (e.g. in network communications, in the empowerment of stakeholders, in crises or internal communications) but it also needs a lot of practice.

So, we decided to make social software a day-to-day issue within the course “Public Relations�. Since this course should arbitrate a theoretical knowledge in PR theories, instruments and application areas, we had to look for a remedy that gives enough space for all these important topics.

It was impossible to set up a blog for every student. That’s why we started the community weblog within the course dealing with Public Relations. Since all of the students had finished at least six month-internships in PR agencies, media or industry most of them were not familiar with blogging and the bloggosphere. So, our weblog “PR-Fundsachen� (in English: PR Findings) should give students both: a first impression on the blogosphere and first experiences in blogging.

To get this organised we decided to establish editorial services. Every week two students had to revive the blog with live. This form of organization is rather unbloggish but since not every student was enthusiastic about blogging it was a way that worked rather well. During the term several students were infected a little bit with the blog fever, and they posted much more than they had to.

One of the main questions was how to get input for a PR blog – especially since the students just started to deal with PR. To answer this we agreed they should take close looks on the feeds I subscribed via Bloglines and to keep track of my Furl Archive. Primarily we built up a Blogdigger Group but someone scratched it twice and the server seemed not to work too reliable. However, with Bloglines and Furl the students had to get along with two important tools of social software.

How did this work? Below the line very good. But I also recognised that it’s not easy for some students to blog since they learned to write journalistic articles. And: It’s not easy to teach the differences between journalistic and bloggish writing. Further fields of learning have been the need of linking, the actuality of postings and the handling with a topic discussed in several blogs. For me, these problems were rather surprising since I thought young journalists could cope with this very easily. Another problem that occurred was a dislike of PR weblogs written in English.

But in the end, most of the students had fun with this kind of work and they learned a lot. Blogging was one part of the grade of the course, further they had to write an article in our PR-Wiki (www.pr-wiki.de). In both cases the content of the articles had to deal with special aspects of Public Relations. This combination seems to be quite reliable to impart knowledge in Social Software on the one hand and in PR on the other hand.

A little survey at the end of the term showed that the students appreciated this concept. So we will continue with it in the next course. Then, we should take a bit more time in discussing our work, and we should try to write a bit more courageous intending to learn better how to deal with weblog-discussions. Hopefully with these experiences in their knowledge backpack they will be able to decide in their further job, if a weblog or a wiki would be an appropriate instrument for their communication challenges. And, of course, I hope they will be able to create good content to them.

About the author

Dr. Thomas Pleil is Professor for Public Relations at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Thomas received his Ph.D. in Public Relations from the University of Salzburg, Austria and his Diploma in Journalism from Catholic Universiy of Eichstaett. In the past, Thomas has served as Head of Public Relations of Catholic Universiy of Eichstaett and a Lecturer for Public Relations. He also founded a PR agency and has done freelance work for several newspapers and magazines and in Public Relations agencies. His primary areas of interest are Online Public Relations (esp. Social Software), Public Relations of Nonprofit Organizations, Public Relations for Science and High Tech Products.