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Interactive Public Relations

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: Living Life on the Internet

Interactive Public Relations

Interactive Public Relations -- By Wole Adamolekun, Tayo Edundayo; Taymos Communications, P.O. Box 7321, Wasu, Abuja, Nigeria; ISBN 978-2415-10-3; November 2002; 196 p, $24.95

Reviewed by: G.A. “Andy” Marken, president, Marken Communications Inc, andy@markencom.com



Those of us who have been in the field for a number of years – in the Americas and Europe – take a lot for granted, assume a lot and sometimes pontificate to raise “our” profession to more glorious heights. Some don’t know and most have forgotten our heritage and the hard-won battles of those who have gone before us.

When we first picked up this book we thought it would be simply a rehash of everything that has been done before or something best suited for communications students.

Wrong!!

We won’t say that Adamolekun’s and Edundayo’s book will stand the test of time as Bernay’s and Cutlip’s work has but this is a very good guide for practitioners and their bosses in Africa and for that matter all emerging countries.

The authors have done considerable research on the current practices in Europe and the Americas. They have also examined professional approaches in Asian, Middle Eastern and African nations particularly their home – Nigeria.

It is pretty easy for a public relations executive of a Fortune 1000 – 2000 company to read the chapters and say “well yeah! That’s pretty obvious” or “why would you have to justify your department, your existence, your work? Move on!”

We believe American practitioners take too much of the basics for granted so they use rhetoric, theory and numbers to explain their activities or their new roles. Contrary to popular American belief, the U.S. is not the center of the universe or world. We envy the senior PR executives at multinational firms like Shell, Intel, IBM, Philips and other Fortune 100 firms who establish and manage public relations departments in industrial and emerging countries.

They, like the authors, deal with the local country issues which often seem too basic to be relevant to those of us in the Americas. But the authors continually return to the basics and the foundation of their/our work struggling with how to deal with the practice of qualified and unqualified practitioners. The need to continually show quantifiable and tangible results to skeptical managers.

The forward of the book written by Dr. Pratt of Michigan State University set the tone of the for us and made us believe that perhaps, just perhaps, this might be a book worth reading.

Dr. Pratt was brutally honest in his assessment of public relations (in our opinion) when he wrote:

“Invariably, public relations departments (and practitioners) operate in deference to the dominant coalition, that is, the core management that sets the course of an organisation. Such deference has prevented practitioners from posing tough questions and from taking issue with the status quo, even as they know full well that implementing a policy or an idea “as is” may be not in the long-range interest of both an organisation and its public.”

We found Adamolekun’s and Edundayo’s writing to be just as honest and realistic. It is an ego-adjustment for a practitioner in the U.S. It is a guideline for practitioners in the Pacific Basin and industrial Europe where the field is similar to what is practiced in this country but often carried out in a more refined or rougher manner (depending upon the country).

But for practitioners and firms establishing departments in Eastern Bloc, Soviet, middle eastern and African countries; Interactive Public Relations is an educational and informational book for both management and practitioners. The work in these countries – in our opinion – probably has to be more professional and more tempered. Adamolekun and Edundayo give us excellent insight into how efforts and activities we take for granted in the U.S. become the very foundation for the measurement of their success or failure or their department’s growth or demise.

Adamolekun’s and Edundayo’s book is not only a valuable tool in emerging countries such as Nigeria but it is a roadmap firms can use in establishing public relations activities and programs in other countries. They show that imposing the idea that “it works back home so it will work here” will be doomed to failure. It illustrates and tempers the approach professionals in industrial countries will have to take when dealing abroad.

It is a good book for corporate executives and public relations professionals to read because we all work in an instant-on global business/political/social environment today.

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