Peer blog review

According to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (2006), Spain holds an “active and independent media with numerous newspapers, television, and radio stations at the local, regional, and national level.  Access to the internet is unrestricted” (p.1).  I found this information very interesting because of the last sentence.  It noted that access to the internet is unrestricted.  That would never be said in information regarding the United States.  Americans do not even understand the concept of not being allowed to access information.  It is always something we have at our fingertips.  This is clear by the abundant social media topics in the blogs of my peers.  It is overwhelming how many countries are undergoing changes because of the changes in media.  It affects everything, especially the public relations practices.  It is of utmost importance to the future of PR to understand the importance of these social media sites.  This is stressed in Kevin Mahoney’s blog.  All areas of public relations can be practiced with the help of social media, including crisis management.  We saw this with the Toyota car dealership crisis earlier this year. 

Another peer’s blog, showed how public relations is not only used in many ways, but all over the world.  She explains how the scientific experiment found in her article actually has a lot to do with public relations.  It is interesting to find how often public relations is used.  Often times we do not even take the action to be one of pr.

Experimental Research

For this week’s blog, I found an article discussing how international public relations firms are starting to become more professional.  In order for this to be successful, public relations professionals especially those in governmental areas, have been conducting more experiments.  In order to conduct the experiment, several researchers studied the opinions of certain countries abroad according to newspaper articles.  In this article, the researchers collected data through an interrupted time series design, which is a quasi-experiment.  This type of design discusses the changes that occur over time.  They discovered how to change the images of nations across the globe.  How countries are viewed in the media, makes all the difference.

Peer blog review

I read my classmate Katerina’s blog for this week’s assignment.  It very much interested me how she related qualitative research to social media. It had never occurred to me that the discussion section of facebook would contain so much qualitative data.  Qualitative data can be found anywhere.  This led me to wonder what I would come across on Spain if I was to search for it on facebook.  I found a few different Spanish public relations firms pages, but none of them sparked any discussion.  This shows how big of a part social media is in America, but how it has not seemed to flourish too much in Spain so far.  If I were to get an internship while studying abroad, I would try to incorporate social media into the daily life of the company.

Keeping with the social media theme, I decided to read my classmate Kevin’s blog, entitled “Social Media Breakfast: The Present and Future of Social Media” .  He discusses how it is important to know that media itself has not changed.  He stresses the importance of changing how a person gets a message or news to others.  The present and future of the media is social media.  Facebook and Twitter are social media tools that all public relations practitioners should familiarize with.  If Spain wants to connect internationally with Americans, the importance of social media must be stressed.  Products would be able to reach a further audience if they expanded their use of social media.

Qualitative research

Research is conducted all over the world, although it does not play as big of a role in Spain’s public relations practices. In class, we have discussed the importance of qualitative research.  Observational research helps a researcher gain better insight of the participant.  I found research that described a researcher’s attempt at finding out more about the migration policy and the reactions of Spaniards.  He wanted to understand the ups and downs of becoming an immigrant and discovered the best way to accomplish this would be to observe them.  He conducted his research at Oficina de Extranjeros in Madrid, Spain

The purpose of this study was to discover how to break the negative connotations associated with immigrants.  He thought it was important to discover the problems in the country’s immigration system, in order to break the disconnect between the people.  The researcher was able to figure out more by conducting a study where he could really get to know the thoughts of the immigrants.  If they were to fill out a survey, he would not be able to get such reliable information.  It is important to know what exactly a researcher is trying to figure out, before he or she conducts a study.

Peer blog review

A lot of countries struggle with public relations because of its accessibility to information and research.  Social media is an important part of public relations across the United States and is also an important factor to public relations in Spain.  Casey’s blog post entitled “Unobtrusive Research” explained how the number one job of a public relations practitioner is to keep up with changing media.  The video she used in her blog explained how social media is not only a trend in the United States, but in other countries as well.  Public relations professionals should be able to agree that technology is something that will always be very busy to the practice of public relations.  It is what is important now and will continue to be important for years to come.  It is important for public relations firms to establish a strong technological background.  Building social media in Spain should improve the perceived professionalism of the public relations practitioners, which is something that Spain is struggling with at the moment.

Practicing ethics in public relations is something that I would specifically advise to public relations practitioners in Spain.  This would help to improve the level of professionalization, that according to many studies, Spanish pr tends to be lacking right now.  Lisa Perez’s blog entitled “Research Ethics in the Media”, had a case study that dealt with mistrust of a company’s publics. It explains why people tend to mistrust public relations professionals.  The mistrust comes from professionals often trying to push the limits.  In order to gain credibility, it is important to tell the truth and let the people being researched know what they are really getting themselves into.  If practitioners are honest with their clients, there is no way that public relations will receive a bad name.

Crisis Management in Spain

A case study entitled, How should a company respond to a product harm crisis? The role of corporate reputation and consumer-based cues, deals with crisis management public relations in Belgium, France and Spain.  In this study, it reveals how high Spain and France rank when it comes to the uncertainty avoidance dimension.  According to the researchers, children in Belgium got sick from drinking Coca-Cola and Belgium, Spain, and France boycotted all products from the company.  The researcher goes on to say that perhaps people from areas with high uncertainty avoidance index react more strongly and quickly in blaming the company, than having the ability to see other possibilities from where there could have been error.  He is able to conclude this because other countries such as Denmark and Sweden did not completely ban Coca-Cola products.  This just shows further how different cultures will react to scenarios in different ways.  PR practitioners must know the country and culture they are dealing with, in order to react properly, especially during times of crisis.

Every public relations course has taught us that we need to know our target audience.  This cannot be stressed enough when practicing public relations internationally.  Public relations professionals must be aware how public relations differs greatly from country to country.

Reviews of Classmate blogs

It was very interesting to find out the similarities in the Public Relations interests of my peers.  The following blogs helped me to understand more on my research topic about the public relations practices in Spain.

Mara Yamnicky has been working on a blog dedicated towards global experiences with public relations.  She wrote about a United States article in PR week, which discussed the difficulties public relations practitioners encounter during a campaign. It explained how PR professionals are not willing to spend the time and money they need to in order to conduct legitimate research.  Spain is dealing with this very concept now. She also mentions another article from the UK that discusses how most large Public relations companies do not believe that measurement should be used for a large part of the budget.  In fact, the practitioners believed that measurement should only account for somewhere between one and ten percent of the budget.  Her blog relates to mine because it shows the outstanding differences from the way pr is practiced in the United States, compared to places around the world.

Another blog also took a spin on international public relations.  Vam88’s blog is entitled, “International Ethics: Difficult to Define” and its main focus is the ethical practices of France.  The information she uncovered from her research is very similar to what I have been learning this semester in my both my public relations research course and my international pr course.  When conducting public relations on a global scale, it is important to realize that people from different countries conduct themselves differently than we are used to in the United States.  It is important to do research on the country before launching a campaign.

HELENA study

There is a study going on in Europe entitled the HELENA study.  HELENA stands for healthy lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence.  It is a campaign that hopes to establish an environment that supports healthy lifestyles among children and teenagers in Europe.  Adolescence is a very important place to start, when it comes to leading a healthy life.  If a person starts leading a better lifestyle at this stage, it is more likely that he or she will continue it for the rest of his or her life.

In the results of this study, researchers hope to grasp new methods that would assess diet and physical activity in adolescents across the continent.  They also hope to understand what makes an adolescent choose a food, so they can create new products that are healthier but offer similar attractions.  They also want to learn more about cultural and social differences across Europe.  They want to understand how to please all Europeans.

There will be results that show improvements and impacts of the HELENA study.  It is up to the researchers to decide what they will do about the future health of Europeans.  Researchers come mainly from different universities across the continent.  This article really showed how much of a problem, obesity and related diseases are becoming on a global scale.  It is not only a problem in the United States.

Differences between cultures

After doing some research, I have concluded that research in Spain is conducted both similarly and differently to the way research is conducted in the United States.  In business ethics in Spain, Spaniards stress the importance in getting to know the person handling the business transactions before he or she can be trusted.  In addition, Spaniards appreciate face to face, personal business actions instead of by phone or email.  Public relations research is not something that is widely practiced in Spain.  Spanish public relations practitioners are really only known for producing press releases.  Another way that Spanish PR practitioners differ is that most do not have degrees in PR but rather, in journalism.

If I was to conduct research in Spain for a PR project, I would have to realize that Spaniards are not used to this type of research, which means they would need to be persuaded to trust what I’m doing.  The uncertainty avoidance index in Spain is very high, which shows that people will have a more difficult time believing that research is important in the development of public relations.  A PR practitioner would have to show that he or she can be trusted by using ethical approaches.  If a practitioner slips up, in no way, would research methods of PR be accepted.

It is important to note that different values and customs play a role in how a practitioner should conduct research.  I found an interesting article regarding a difference in values and customs across the world.  This article talks about the controversy regarding the placement of a mosque at Ground Zero.  It explains what Americans tend to forget about the Islamic religion, which is actually a religion that promotes peace.

Different PR practices in Spain

International public relations is a topic that specifically interests me. I would like to compare the public relations in Spain to the public relation practices of the United States. I plan to study abroad in Spain next semester, so I think it would be beneficial to learn more about the country’s experience with public relations. I would find the differences between the two areas in three different areas that affect pr. These three include cultural, political, and economical differences. Each of these areas change drastically from country to country, making changes even from region to region. I am interested to see how different the two countries are in these three areas.


According to Geert Hofstede’s research on cultural dimensions, Spain has a 50 percent degree of individualism compared to the 91 percent in the United States. The research also states that it is a more feminine country which means that women and men share values and are more tolerant of new ideas. Hofstede ranks the United States as a masculine country where men and women tend to have very distinct roles in society. In contrast with Spain, Americans tend to be more set in their own ways and beliefs. Hofstede has done a lot of research with politics as well within the two countries, which I hope to continue to research during the duration of the blogs. (Hofstede)

I look forward to continuing my research in order to find what works in each area of pr and what the aforementioned countries have in common. It is important to see differences in cultures, politics, and economies to be able to work well with other places in certain areas of public relations.



References:

"United States - US or American Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Explained ." Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Sept. 2010. <http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_united_states.shtml>.

"Spain - Spanish Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Explained for Espana." Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Sept. 2010. <http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_spain.shtml>.