Tampere: “A walk in the public relations field: Theoretical discussions from a social media and network society perspective”

Tampere`s article gives a good overview of the field of public relations and is a good clarification, summary and addition to the articles of Castells.  “Public relations has an impact on individual, organizational, and social behavior” (Tampere, 2011). In my opinion this is one of the best descriptions of public relations. That is what it is about; if public relations would not influence individuals, organizational, and social behavior then it would not be necessary. For me one of the main questions about public relations is how much it influences it. When is something my own choice and when was it just because of successful public relations? Nowadays I would guess that nearly nothing is our own choice. This reminds me of the question whether there is “altruistic” behavior or not. Do we every act purely without any ulterior motive? I don’t think so.

Tampere defines a network society as a “society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics- based information and communication technologies “(Tampere, 2011). For me it is difficult to talk about our social life in terms of “networks”, sometimes I think that it should be much more complicated, much more unknown. It is difficult to describe, I would appreciate it if there were more research about how these network societies affect people, how they will develop.  I cannot imagine how life would be if there were no mobile phones, no internet or other digital communication tools. Would my personality be different?

A limitation of public relations is that it can “destroy good stakeholder relations […] if the organization is not strategically correct in developing and focusing their messages to the right stakeholders” (Tampere, 2011). I agree with that, but this is not that bad as it seems to be. This is the normal risk of public relations, there is always someone who has a different opinion. For example a hotel company which publicizes their hotel as being child-friendly gets families attention but people who don’t want to be annoyed by children won`t not book this hotel.

Literature

Monika. (14. January 2011). Mein Kirchenaustritt. Abgerufen am 19. sepember 2011 von Mehr als 87.000 Katholiken sind 2010 ausgetreten: http://www.meinkirchenaustritt.at/

Tampere, K. (2011). A wlak in the public relations field: Theoretical discussions from a social media and network society perspective. Central European Journal of Communication , S. 49- 61.