✅ Wadds Inc. back to school
Emerging perspectives on the role of public relations in management, highlighting key summer stories in AI, the economy, media, and public relations
I’ve spent much of the summer focussed on my doctoral research at Leeds Business School. Two robust arguments are emerging about the role of public relations in management.
Management undertakes much of the public relations role but doesn’t recognise it as public relations practice. It only calls on expert support in a minority of situations. The elevation and growth of public relations practice during the pandemic has reverted.
Public relations practitioners aren’t qualified in terms that management understands (training, qualifications, measurement, and accreditation) and don’t adhere to professional management standards.
Unlocking these two issues would enable public relations practice to realise its potential. If you have a comment or perspective, please let me know.
I’m travelling to the World PR Forum and PRAXIS conferences in India in September to test these ideas with an international audience. Thank you to conference director Amith Prabhu for inviting me to present a keynote.
In this back-to-school newsletter edition, we’ve pulled together the key stories from the summer from the media, marketing and public relations world. It’s a bumper edition.
Have an excellent week.
Our community projects
🛠️ HELP BUILD #PRSTACK: The #FuturePRoof community is launching a crowdsourced AI #PRstack guide to support the understanding and ethical adoption of AI tools. Practitioners are invited to submit articles describing their favourite AI tools for the guide, which will be edited by Stephen Waddington, published on Amazon, and promoted as part of a community project by #FuturePRoof and #PRstack. Source: Wadds Inc.
👤 CULTURE NOT CONFIDENCE: At the inaugural Socially Mobile alumni lecture, Hannah Barlow identified capital, connectivity, and cultural barriers as significant obstacles to social mobility in the UK. Sharing her personal journey, Hannah highlighted the importance of understanding unwritten business and societal norms as a powerful catalyst for progression for people from underrepresented backgrounds. Source: Socially Mobile.
⚖️ ETHICAL AI: Razor PR has launched an AI Governance Framework and Risk Assessment Model to provide ethical guidelines and benchmarks for using AI tools in the PR industry, with plans to make the framework available on an open-source basis globally. The policy aims to guide agencies and clients towards ethical and effective AI implementation amid the fast-paced changes and risks posed by new generative AI technologies. Source: Provoke Media.
Economy
📈 M&A RESILIENT: The UK agency market continues to show a strong appetite for M&A activity despite economic challenges like Brexit, COVID-19, and interest rate hikes. There is continued interest from Private Equity, with demand for digital capabilities and trends such as ESG, sustainability, and data analytics driving the market. Source: Wadds Inc.
📉 ECONOMIC WHIPLASH AHEAD: ONS revisions have added almost two per cent to the size of the UK economy, showing that the country recovered much faster from the pandemic than reported. Expect economic whiplash ahead. The Bank of England has used incorrect data as the basis for 14 interest rate decisions: monthly manufacturing and property data point to rapid slowdowns. Source: Financial Times.
Artificial intelligence
💼 AI DIRECTORS’ BRIEFING: An IoD paper highlights benefits for the UK, such as increased productivity, while emphasising the need for clearer regulations, education, and risk management. It advocates for international cooperation on AI standards, urges businesses to include AI as a core board topic and suggests that the government should boost AI skills training and R&D in national priority areas. Source: Institute of Directors.
🗒 UK AI AGENDA: The UK Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has identified 12 key governance challenges related to AI, including biases, privacy, misrepresentation, access to data and computing power, transparency, intellectual property, liability, employment impacts, international coordination, and existential threats. The report calls for greater international cooperation to address these challenges ahead of the November UK AI Safety Summit. Source: UK Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
🧑💻️ OPENAI ENTERPRISE: OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Enterprise, offering enhanced security, privacy, and features, targeting business needs with capabilities such as longer input processing and advanced data analysis. It is an important change to address data management and security. Source: OpenAI.
🧑🎓️ KNOWLEDGE EXTRACTION TOOL: Anthropic has opened its conversational AI chatbot Claude to the public in the US and UK, claiming it is more natural to talk to than rivals like ChatGPT and Google's Bard. The tool can handle attachments and extract content from documents such as research papers. Source: New York Times.
Media
🤷 MEDIA MORALITY: In his Edinburgh TV Festival MacTaggart address, Louis Theroux said that a prevailing “atmosphere of anxiety” results in "less confident, less morally complex filmmaking." Reflecting on his career, he questioned whether some of his past programs would be commissioned today. He called out the challenges faced by the BBC and traditional journalism amidst the rising influence of populism and digital media. Source: BBC.
🔰 KEEP TALKING: In his new book, David Dimbleby reflects on a 50-year career as a political interviewer. He is critical of the modern era of political communications, created by Tony Blair’s communication director, Alastair Campbell. Short-form broadcast interviews provide limited opportunity for scrutiny. However, Dimbleby acknowledges that social media has created a challenging media environment for politicians. Source: Amazon.
Tools and platforms
✖️ LINK LIFT: X (previously Twitter) is set to alter how news stories appear on its platform, displaying only a link and the story's lead image, removing headlines and summaries. It aims to enhance aesthetics, reduce clickbait, and encourage journalists to publish directly on the platform. Source: ZD Net.
🧵 THREAD BARE: Threads has added a web app, but it has had a limited impact on the take-up of the tool. Most users continue to cross-post content from X. Source: Techcrunch.
🚫 COMBATTING IMAGE DISINFORMATION: Google is trialling a digital watermark called SynthID to identify AI-generated images to combat disinformation. The watermark embeds subtle changes into images, making them undetectable to human eyes but discernible by computers. Source: BBC.
Good and bad practice
🏟 UNITED IMAGE ISSUE: Manchester United has parted ways with Mason Greenwood after allegations of attempted rape, assault, and controlling behaviour, despite the charges being dropped by the CPS. The club's decision and communication have been criticized for seeming more concerned with protecting the club's image than with the welfare of the alleged victim. Source: The Guardian.
🦆 RSPB REGRETS REMARK: The head of the RSPB has apologised after the conservation charity posted on social media accusing UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other ministers of being "liars" for planning to scrap water protection rules for housing developments; the RSPB boss admitted the post's "framing" was inappropriate but maintained the policy change goes against previous government environmental pledges. Source: BBC.
⚽ SLOW GAME: Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales says he will continue defending himself against widespread criticism after kissing player Jenni Hermoso without consent. He has refused to resign despite being suspended by FIFA over the incident, which is being investigated as a potential crime. Source: BBC.
We’re running the Great North Run from Newcastle to Gateshead on Sunday for Winston’s Wish, fundraising for youth bereavement charity Winston’s Wish. It has been a tremendous help to our family in the past nine months. If you enjoy this newsletter, we’d appreciate a donation. Thank you for your support.
Thank you to the following community members for sharing and debating stories covered in the newsletter over the summer: Rob Bruce, Stuart Bruce, Liz Bridgen, Mairi Clark, Elaine Fee, Alayna Francis, Michael Greer, Kat Harrison-Dibbits, Hayley James, Alan Morrison, Nigel Sarbutts, Andrew Bruce Smith, Victoria Stepanova, Rebecca Elisabeth Taylor, Samuel Wallace, Jonny Ward, Alex Waddington, and Sarah Waddington CBE.
Razor PR, mentioned in this newsletter, is a Wadds Inc. client.