{"id":703,"date":"2014-04-07T11:10:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T03:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iiumtoday.fadhilahwahid.com\/?p=703"},"modified":"2014-04-29T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-29T07:20:00","slug":"public-relations-credibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/?p=703","title":{"rendered":"Public Relations Credibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aznan\u00c2\u00a0Mat Piah<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the outcome of the\u00c2\u00a013th general\u00c2\u00a0 elections, the role of the government public\u00c2\u00a0 relations machinery becomes more prominent as the public needs to be\u00c2\u00a0 convinced of policies and programmes that would bring about continued\u00c2\u00a0 development and progress for the country and the people.<\/p>\n

Certainly\u00c2\u00a0 there’s the need to bring in new strategies to win the hearts and minds\u00c2\u00a0 of the people, particularly among young people, towards what have been\u00c2\u00a0 done by the present government. They need to be reminded what the\u00c2\u00a0 government had achieved and what they have\u00c2\u00a0 benefited, and what would\u00c2\u00a0 they stand to benefit in the next years to come, especially with regard\u00c2\u00a0 to transformational programmes currently embarked by the government.<\/p>\n

Despite\u00c2\u00a0 efforts been carried out to promote the image of the government and to\u00c2\u00a0 maintain good relationship with the public, many people still have not\u00c2\u00a0 understood the real meaning of public relations. Critics are saying that\u00c2\u00a0 public relations is an act of lies and manipulation or an attempt to\u00c2\u00a0 spin. Public relations people are often called “spin doctors”.<\/p>\n

But\u00c2\u00a0 I would say that practitioners too are partly to be blamed if they\u00c2\u00a0 allow themselves to be misunderstood or misjudged by the public or to\u00c2\u00a0 indulge in a situation where they appear ignorant of certain\u00c2\u00a0 developments and policies.<\/p>\n

Public relations is about\u00c2\u00a0 managing image and perception. It is about ethical practice,\u00c2\u00a0 credibility, openness and transparency. It is about giving the right\u00c2\u00a0 perspective, taking into considerations the public opinion and feedback\u00c2\u00a0 from the audience. It concerns building trust and confidence. This could\u00c2\u00a0 only come about through constant monitoring of the environment and by\u00c2\u00a0 being sensitive to public response in ensuring survival of\u00c2\u00a0 organizations, in this case the government agencies. It involves\u00c2\u00a0 engaging the public.<\/p>\n

It would mean that public relations\u00c2\u00a0 people in government agencies have to work extra hard to prove their\u00c2\u00a0 worth and to put the present government in positive light. There’s so\u00c2\u00a0 much the government have done over the past years and these are track\u00c2\u00a0 records for people to see and to judge for themselves. The facts and\u00c2\u00a0 details must be made available for the public to see. Public relations\u00c2\u00a0 people must be able to rationalize and not to spin the facts when they\u00c2\u00a0 are approached by the public. They should not just paint the positive\u00c2\u00a0 picture but must attempt to be balanced so that the public would be able\u00c2\u00a0 to judge for themselves the progress that have been brought about by\u00c2\u00a0 the government.<\/p>\n

There is the need to do an audience study.\u00c2\u00a0 The present audiences, particularly the younger generation, may not\u00c2\u00a0 understand fully the history of the country and may not recognize their\u00c2\u00a0 identity. Where we are today does not come out of the blues from some\u00c2\u00a0 where but rather as a result of hard work of the past generation of\u00c2\u00a0 leaders. There is a lot of education process that the public must be\u00c2\u00a0 engaged and issues misunderstood to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Apart\u00c2\u00a0 from that the messages to the different target groups need to be well\u00c2\u00a0 crafted and well thought out.\u00c2\u00a0 Public relations practitioners now have\u00c2\u00a0 to address the audience who are more affluent and educated who are aware\u00c2\u00a0 of their rights. The government public relations machinery therefore\u00c2\u00a0 cannot operate on the basis of approaches\u00c2\u00a0 or strategies carried out in\u00c2\u00a0 the past which is already obsolete. Instead, they need to embrace the\u00c2\u00a0 new technology, use more of\u00c2\u00a0 the new media, and the officers or the\u00c2\u00a0 practitioners too must embark on more aggressive\u00c2\u00a0 strategies to\u00c2\u00a0 penetrate audience who are equally aggressive and demanding. The media\u00c2\u00a0 too ought to be balanced in their reporting and assessment.<\/p>\n

There\u00c2\u00a0 are now far bigger challenges for the\u00c2\u00a0 government public relations to\u00c2\u00a0 deal with the current issues which are being\u00c2\u00a0 manipulated by so many\u00c2\u00a0 elements which are opposed to what the government\u00c2\u00a0 is doing.<\/p>\n

Public\u00c2\u00a0 attitudes and behaviors towards government public relations must be\u00c2\u00a0 changed. The public should be made to understand that they should not\u00c2\u00a0 think whatever that comes from government officials are of propaganda\u00c2\u00a0 nature or simply mouthpiece of the government. Instead, the people must\u00c2\u00a0 be convinced that these are real efforts to explain the benefits the\u00c2\u00a0 public would gain following implementation of social and economic\u00c2\u00a0 transformation policies to bring about progress and development. The\u00c2\u00a0 rest would be left to the people to decide.<\/p>\n

Public relations efforts therefore must be interpreted and implemented wisely with credibility in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Aznan\u00c2\u00a0Mat Piah In the outcome of the\u00c2\u00a013th general\u00c2\u00a0 elections, the role of the government public\u00c2\u00a0 relations machinery becomes more prominent as the public needs… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"nelio_content":{"isAutoShareEnabled":true,"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"followers":[],"suggestedReferences":[],"efiUrl":"","efiAlt":"","highlights":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/malaysia.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1771,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/1771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}