This chapter goes into details about the relationship between crisis, issue, and public relations management. It gave me an understanding on how public relations practitioners respond to and manage issues, and I was able to explore how proactive issues management can avert a crisis for an organisation.
One aspect that I agree with this chapter is the increasing popularity and importance of online management. The advent of technology makes it inevitable for one to tap onto the advantage of the Internet to connect to the population. As mentioned in the textbook, several companies and organisations are using website to build relationships with the publics because through the web, they are able to provide information on the organisations' structure as well as the services it performs for the public. As such, the public would be able to understand the operations of the respective companies. A popular form of online management would be the use of social networking sites such as facebook and twitter where people are constantly using these mediums for communication and updates. The use of such information technologies is so extensive that the communication environment changes and public relations practitioners change their operations by working from such online webpages. In addition, I would also like to highlight that by communicating to the public via online websites, the company's display of information would give the public the impression that the company is open and honest because information is readily made available for all to look at. As supported by Heath (1998), this will therefore become as major tool for emerging issues because it is a communication channel used by individuals who are issues-oriented.
However, I felt that such forms of management are only effective if issues are well managed. There is a need to practice consistency in the management such that policies and company operations are constantly reviewed to ensure that the public would be pleased with the company.
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