technology – Page 65 – Andrew Careaga

Back in my college days, when I was learning about how to be a news reporter, I became interested in the notion of participatory journalism. Of course, back then, video display terminals (VDTs) were slowly replacing IBM Selectrics in newsrooms across America, the term referred to journalists like George Plimpton, who would play a role — for Plimpton, it was as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions — and then describe the experience for readers, listeners or viewers. (I was more interested in the participatory style of renowned gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, but that’s a topic best left alone for the moment.)

These days, participatory journalism refers to the readers, listeners or viewers actually participating in the process of gathering and reporting the news.

Now, Micro Persuasion blogger Steve Rubel in introducing another concept: participatory public relations. According to Rubel, it’s a brand of PR in which the flack (and I use that term as a term of endearment, for I am one) moves away from the time-honored practice of “pitching” a story idea to a media outlet to one of contributing and sharing — e.g., participating — in online social networks.

Also according to Rubel, PR agencies aren’t quite ready to give up the pitch for participation. “Many in PR seem to be treating Web 2.0 as simply an extension of the traditional media – another venue for buzz. They are pumping thousands of email pitches into the community every day.”

I just wrapped up an email interview with a fellow blogger who asked me about the state of readiness among higher ed PR flacks to enter into this world of participatory journalism. I’d say we aren’t much further along than our corporate counterparts. At UMR, we’ve been using blogs (here, here and here) to connect with some of our audiences, and to talk about some big changes on campus. Difficult as it has been for some of us (read: me mainly), we’ve dropped our “press release voice” when we blog, opting for more authentic, real tones in our writing — stepping out from behind the curtain, as Rubel suggests all good PR practitioners do. We’ve even posted some video on YouTube, and some staffers in our communications department share feeds from our blogs on their Facebook pages. But we’ve got a long way to go before we achieve Rubel’s vision of participatory PR.

Seems the first thesis* of The Cluetrain Manifesto is still relevant, eight years later, as Jeremy Pepper reports in one of a few posts from what appears to be a marketing conference of some sort. But there’s apparently still plenty of clueless marketers out there.

[David] Weinberger [one of the four original Cluetrain authors]: I always see senior people think that they can do the work of marketing, because they do not understand the real value of marketing. There is an uptake of “markets are conversations” and done with enthusiasm, but my blood curdles because marketers have trouble entering the conversation. It’s hard for them to be the bloggers, because it is hard for CEOs and marketers to be bloggers, because they have been trained to talk one way, have an interest in presenting the conversation in one way. Marketers are trying to figure out a way into the conversation, and the first instinct is to talk – they want to bring the conversation in, but it’s going on already on the outside.

* markets are conversations