PR Review Professional CompetitionPUBREL825 (1)

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Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Public Relations Review Professional competition and cooperation in the digital age: A pilot study of New Zealand practitioners Margalit Toledano ∗ Management Communication Department, The University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 29 November 2009 Received in revised form 12 March 2010 Accepted 27 April 2010 Keywords: Public relations Social media Professional futures Advertizing a b s t r a c t From early on, competition between professions has been identified as a major factor in the process of developing public relations as a profession. This paper updates consideration of the influence of inter-profession disputes by examining the interplay between public relations and advertising in the digital age. It attempts to assess how new technologies, especially social media, affect the relationships between them, with particular reference to two aspects: whether social media increases, or decreases, professional cooperation (or competition); and who takes charge in the new communication environment. In researching these issues, which form an important part of the professionalization process of public relations, the paper examined documents and online publications, and undertook interviews and a survey of public relations practitioners in New Zealand. The findings suggest that the responding public relations practitioners were not able to take advantage of the social technology in order to leverage their professional status and improve their position within the organization. In addition, it seems that while advertising and public relations are still looking for ways to benefit from social media, both are still in a process of adaptation. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. PR.2.0 The new communication technologies Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 were welcomed by the public relations industry and scholars with enthusiastic expectations and cautious suspicions. Speaking on the new communication technologies, Ray Hiebert caught the ambivalent approach by commenting first, that they: “can save democracy by restoring dialogic and participatory communication in the public sphere, thus preserving a role for public relations as two-way communication rather than propaganda and spin” (Hiebert, 2005, p. 1) but then concluding that “the pathway ahead for public relations is strewn with landmines” (p. 1). Hiebert’s (2005) article was developed from a 2004 keynote speech that he delivered to the 11th BledCom International Public Relations Research Symposium on “New Concepts and Technologies for Public Relations, Public Affairs, and Corporate Communication.” This gathering was one of many discussions held by public relations practitioners and scholars in conferences, and accompanied in print by a large number of articles and books. Many of these involved attempts to assess the implications of the technological revolution for public relations (see, e.g., Croft, 2007; Duhé, 2007; Gillin, 2007; Hallahan, 2005b; Hyojung & Reber, 2008; Kelleher, 2009; Lepkowska-White & Eifler, 2008; Scott, 2007; Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009; Wright & Hinson, 2008; Xifra & Huertas, 2008). Some publications tried to identify how the new tools can, and do, change the way practitioners carry out their jobs and to focus on the pace of adoption of the new technologies. Some of the writers recommend best strategies for using the new tools, while others analyze the dialogical nature of websites, blogs, and social media. ∗ Tel.: +64 7 838 4466x6112; fax: +64 7 838 4358. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.04.009 Author's personal copy M. Toledano / Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 231 The general message emerging from the accumulated publications is that public relations is in the process of embracing the new opportunities. Practitioners seek to participate in the online conversation on behalf of the organizations they represent, to expand their influence by using the immense space and speed that social media can offer, and to reach out to new stakeholders and influencers, as well, albeit in new ways, as maintaining relationships with existing ones. There is now no question about the relevance and benefits of new communication technologies to the practice, and no doubt that, currently, social media offers both a major challenge, and a major opportunity, for public relations. In an example that stresses the opportunity, PR 2.0 blogger Brian Solis and industry leader Deirdre Breakenridge’s (2009) book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, aims to teach practitioners to reach a new generation of influencers. On its back cover, Seth Godin puts the challenge succinctly: “There will be two kinds of PR professionals in the future: those who read this book and get with the program, and the unemployed. Your choice.” In the practice, however, key bodies in the industry are already getting ready for the next step: Web 3.0. For example, the PRSA’s journal, The Public Relations Strategist, devoted its Spring 2009 issue to social media with the title: “You are now entering Web 3.0” and stated that Web 3.0 “is likely to have a great influence on PR practice through a concept known as the Semantic Web” (Barrett, 2009, p. 14). To date, the most consistent, and comprehensive, research on the impact of Web 2.0 social media on public relations has been conducted annually by Wright and Hinson. In a 3-year-long survey of over 300 public relations practitioners around the world, starting 2006, they found that The emergence of blogs and social media has changed the way their organizations communicate, especially to external audiences. Findings suggest social media complement traditional news media, and that blogs and social media influence coverage in traditional news media. The study reports blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous by encouraging organizations to respond more quickly to criticism (Wright & Hinson, 2008). 2. Advertising 2.0 However, public relations practitioners are not the only players in the communication industry. The following observations build on Abbott’s (1988) seminal work on professions. According to Abbott (1988), the central phenomenon of professional life is the link between the profession and its work, which he called “jurisdiction” (p. 20) and “the interplay of jurisdictional links between professions determines the history of the individual professions themselves” (p. 20). Just as in Abbott’s (1988) description of the early 20th century struggle with journalism, no profession has exclusive power in the jurisdictional competition over the usage of new technology in the 21st century. The platforms, which are, for example, provided by blogs, podcasts, and Twitter, are also used to convey messages by groups of others, who include journalists, advertisers, and marketing professionals. According to research by Harvard Business School professors Deighton and Quelch, along with Hamilton Consultants: “online advertising is responsible for $300 billion of economic activity in the U.S. or 2.1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (cited in Shields, 2009) and they also estimated that over “3 million people are employed in the U.S. thanks (at least in part) to the online ad business, including 1.2 million with high-paying jobs that did not exist two decades ago” (cited in Shields, 2009). Not surprisingly, given that amount of business, the advertising industry is concerned about new regulations restricting all forms of ad targeting that employ consumers’ web-surfing data. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) used the Harvard Business School research to make the advertising industry’s case to lawmakers in Washington. Randall Rothenberg, IAB president and CEO, stated that “The results of this study confirm the vast influence and driving importance of the adsupported Internet to the overall economy” (cited in Shields, 2009). These kinds of proactive moves also allow advertiser to stake a claim for internet management as the jurisdiction of advertising professionals. The same kind of interest in the impact of new technologies on the profession may be found not only in public relations literature, but also in advertising and marketing publications (both professional and academic). Tuten’s (2008) book, Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in Web 2.0 World, covers viral marketing, doing online research, advertising within online games, and leveraging online opinions to increase sales (or grow a brand). She also describes how smart marketers let consumers generate ad content for products and brands. At the same time as it impacts on public relations, social media is expected by marketing scholars to turn conventional advertising on its head. More reserved, and disillusioned, opinion about the opportunities social media presents to advertisers was expressed, in an interview with the author, by Murray Kalis, who is an advertising authority from Los Angeles and a former Chairman of Worldwide Partners Inc., the largest owner-operated advertising, marketing, and communications agency network with 96 agencies in 54 countries. Based on extensive experience in the industry, Kalis (2009) described the current situation as disappointing: “Advertising in social media is still mostly restricted to display banners, interstitials, pop ups, and pull downs. In that regard it’s just like TV or print media, but with nowhere near the reach and cost efficiencies.” A major issue for advertisers is the remuneration system: “as a medium, social media doesn’t justify as much ad dollars as was initially thought” (Kalis, 2009). Another cause of frustration for advertisers is the loss of control over the message. People are talking and listening to each other and they do not want to be sold to, or preached to, by old-fashioned top-down messaging. Advertisers, who initially waded into social media with bags of cash, have pulled their budgets Author's personal copy 232 M. Toledano / Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 back, embarrassed by consumers who used their side of the conversation to bash the advertiser’s products. Chevrolet gave consumers tools to design and display Chevy commercials on a website, only to get posts of negative videos that made the marketing department wish the subject hadn’t been brought up in the first place (Kalis, 2009). In terms of jurisdiction disputes, public relations, whose practitioners are used to functioning in an uncontrolled environment, would have an advantage over advertisers in social media, which involves dealing with criticism and crisis. However, in Kalis’ (2009) assessment: “There is no question the entity most in charge of communication with stakeholders via social media is the marketing department.” 3. Division of labour, integration, and competition Public relations and advertising seem to be caught in a love–hate catholic marriage. That is to say that neither of them is able to divorce, and opt out of the relationship, but both are expected to work together in an integrated effort to achieve the organization’s goals. This may be regardless of bitter rivalry over key issues around strategy, tactics, budgets, and ethics. Historically, in many places and circumstances, public relations emerged from advertising agencies. L’Etang (2004), for example, in examining the origins of public relations consultancy in Britain, found roots in advertising agencies in the post-World War II era: the situation in Britain was very different from that in the United States, where, concurrently, all the big advertising agencies had public relations departments and some were beginning to concentrate almost entirely on public relations with advertising a minority interest. However, there is no doubt that advertising agencies financed the growth of some public relations consultancies (p. 105). Evidence given by Israeli practitioners supported a course of development closer to the British experiences than the U.S. experiences. In Israel, according to interviews with founders of the Israeli Public Relations Association, public relations in the private sector emerged at the first stage in the 1960s from advertising agencies, and only later from journalism (Toledano, 2005). In an interview conducted by the author in 2002, Eliyaho Tal, who was one of the founders of Israeli advertising industry and chairperson of the Israel Advertising Association in the mid-1960s, described the process: In the first era of advertising in Israel, the client expected the advertiser to provide public relations as part of the advertising campaign package, for free. As an advertiser I had to organize press conferences and deal with free publicity for the advertising messages. For me this was a headache, a burden that I did not want. Public relations services did not include any commission money from the media (whereas for advertising the commission was up to 25%, of which 10% was paid back to the client). Public relations at that time could not support itself financially as it was offered by the advertising agencies for free. Eventually advertising agencies stopped offering public relations services. They found that public relations caused them too much difficulty with clients, who were often frustrated when public relations could not control the message, and time of delivery, of free publicity. Public relations then developed its own expertise and was hired independently of advertising agencies to provide exclusive public relations services. More recent evidence to existing links between advertising and public relations is presented in a report about today’s experiences and ethical challenges of public relations practitioners in Turkey. For example, Koc’s (2006) research data found that “the incidence of corresponding news stories or editorials in newspapers and magazines and related paid advertisements increased by more than 100% between 1994 and 2004” (p. 331). The process for achieving it is described in the article’s title: “Order Three Advertisements and Get One News Story Free: Public Relations Ethics Practices in Turkish and International Companies in Turkey” (p. 331). These old, and new, unethical practices, which blur the lines between advertising and public relations, are only part of the issues involved in the history of the relationship. The professional distinction between advertising and public relations services identifies different approaches. The focus of public relations, using a variety of tools to reach out to small, as well as large, publics, is on building relationships between the organizations and their stakeholders; advertising is more focused on mass consumer markets promoting products and services. In effect, this “division of labor” meant that each profession used media in a different way: public relations created news for free publicity, depending on editorial selection processes; while advertising was buying media space, with full control over time of publicity and content of the message. Advertising’s ability to repeat the message depends almost solely on budget, whereas public relations ability is more reliant on practitioners developing new stories all the time. Public relations uses an informative, soft-sell style with a behind-the-scenes persuasive effort, whereas the advertising communication style is more emotional, sensual, and “hard sell,” with the result that the persuasive effort is both obvious, and, therefore, less credible. However, the distinction was not very clear to clients or consumers of campaign messages. Professionals in both advertising and public relations kept stepping on each others’ toes. Major competition concerned clients, especially their promotion and publicity budgets, and strategies to achieve the client’s goals. The more public relations was able to demonstrate its Return On Investment (ROI), and its ability to save client significant advertising budgets, the more advertising professionals reacted. They tried, for example, to take over traditional public relations tasks, to include public relations services in their pitch, and, sometimes, initiated strategic collaborations with public relations agencies. Author's personal copy M. Toledano / Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 233 Prior to the social media debates, these conflicts were addressed in Ries and Ries’ (2002) outline of the competing roles of advertising and public relations. In The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR (Ries & Ries, 2002), the authors list many advantages public relations has over advertising, especially in connection with establishing and building brands. They observe how, in general, public relations has a lower status than advertising in organizations and how advertising professionals are more dominant in the boardroom, and in advising senior management, while public relations are not considered part of the top team. Even in this pre-social media era, Ries and Ries’ (2002) message for public relations practitioners makes use of a marriage metaphor to get its points across clearly: PR professionals have a unique opportunity to seize the marketing reins of their clients, to become the leading source of outside marketing counsel, to become the driving force in the building of brands. Now is not the time to be bashful. Now is not the time for the reluctant bride (p. 278). In spite of this explicit public recognition by such leading advertising and marketing figures, their recommended “shift from advertising-oriented marketing to PR-oriented marketing” (Ries & Ries, 2002, p. 275) did not happen and public relations practitioners increased neither the number of leading roles in organizations, nor the number of seats in the boardroom. In the early 1990s, marketers and advertisers began to recognize the importance of using a “promotion mix.” As Hallahan (2005a) commented, this combined advertising, sales promotion, direct response, personal selling, and public relations/publicity in one strategy called Integrated Marketing Communication IMC and, as a consequence, the: Advertising agency business, in particular, became alarmed about reduced spending on traditional space and time advertising. Clients were shifting dollars away from building long-term brand awareness and brand equity to activities that would generate more immediate demonstrable results: trade and consumer promotions, direct response, and cause-related marketing and events. Agencies responded by promoting the idea that they could coordinate all these elements for clients (p. 426). Thus advertising made a bid for a leading role in the Integrated Marketing Communication combination. That meant that, while integrated “communications campaigns invariably involve the conjoint efforts of communications professionals with different skills, training, and orientations” (Hallahan, 2005a, p. 426), public relations practitioners were expected to conduct ancillary activities because these “inherent differences pose misunderstandings and conflicts” (p. 426). Consequently, among “some public relations practitioners, IMC has been viewed as an encroachment by imperialistic marketers who seek to take over the public relations function” (Hallahan, 2005a, pp. 426–427). The evidence about bitter competition between public relations and advertising, illustrates Abbott’s (1988) classic concept of “the Claim of Jurisdiction,” whereby “professions compete by taking over each other’s tasks” (p. 33). The rivalry over tasks is actually about budgets, and status within the organizational hierarchy, and externally, it concerns the professional industry and the community. In addition, in Abbott’s (1988) analysis, the process by which an occupation gains, and maintains, an exclusive jurisdiction over particular tasks is subject to social changes. These create new spaces for evolving jurisdictions and new technology is a major drive in creating jurisdiction. Abbott (1988) argues that it might be “absorbed by existing professions with their strong organizations” (Abbott, 1988, p. 92) but, if not seized by them, the vacuum will be filled by new professions. Indeed he goes on to claim that new technology may even destroy professions: When computers first began to show their potential, programmers were called coders and wrote simple algorithms for routine processes. As transistors and the magnetic core rapidly increased the computer’s capabilities, demand for programmers rose suddenly. The result was their replacement not by less qualified professionals. . .but by technology itself. Yet, the compilers that replaced them – FORTRAN, COBOL, and so on – in fact created new areas of expertise. The old jurisdiction of machine code became a small area for the few experts responsible for maintaining and upgrading the compilers (Abbott, 1988, p. 93). Social media presents similar opportunities and threats. On the opportunity side, public relations practitioners have an obvious advantage over advertising people and may achieve better results for their organizations in the online environment. This is the result of a number of factors: they are used to working with an uncontrolled media; they know better how to deal with criticism and prepare for crises (often more fast moving and intense in the online environment); they focus on two-way communication and on building relationships with different stakeholders; they are better trained to work with fragmented media channels and to communicate with small groups rather than mass audiences; and they are experts in creating content for news stories. In addition, another traditional area of public relations expertise – internal communication – has become much more sophisticated with new tools enabling each employee to function as the organization spokesperson. In effect, the burning need in all departments for social media training could give public relations a natural leadership position within the organization. Social media actually empowers the public relations industry to finally go ahead and get the recognition it deserve and the influence it needs in the board room. However, if this opportunity is not taken seriously by the practitioners, social media also present a great risk. In accordance with Abbott’s description of the development of jurisdictions, there is a strong possibility that the vacuum could be filled by new professionals with different skills, albeit without an appropriate training, who would take the leading positions. At this crucial crossroads for the profession, this article argues for the importance of investigating practitioner attitudes to the Author's personal copy 234 M. Toledano / Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 new opportunities, and the risks, presented by social media and exploring possible impacts on the future of the profession in the digital age. 4. The research project and questions The shift of organizations towards using the internet as a major tool for internal and external communication raises crucial issues. Before social media gained prominence, Hallahan (2005b) asked the following questions that have become even more relevant since: “who in the organization will control and manage site content? The consistent and proper branding of online communications (such as domain names), the maintenance of content quality, the usability or functionality of the system, and the integration of online and offline activities?” (p. 591). Those questions have still not been answered. As late as May 2009, the Chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Michael Cherenson (2009), blogged on PRSAY – the PRSA Blog – to encourage his 20,000 constituents (the members of the PRSA) as follows: “if your client or bosses still are asking who should be responsible for managing social media, tell them it should be the public relations professional.” He also gives them 10 reasons including “public relations professionals are accustomed to operating in an environment that cedes control to others, public relations has always been about engaging with key audiences to establish mutually beneficial relationships, public relations is a two-way discipline” (Cherenson, 2009). From a more academic perspective, Broom (2009) makes the case for greater integration in the digital age: “the growth of articulate protest and consumer groups, widespread use of the internet globally, investigative and consumer reporting, and government scrutiny, all make cooperation between public relations and marketing essential” (p. 87). But, at the same time, his reservations acknowledge the demarcation disputes: “Competition, even conflict, between these two functions is understandable. Practitioners often compete on parallel career tracks for recognition, job advancement, and budgets” (Broom, 2009, p. 87). This research used Hallahan’s questions in a survey of New Zealand practitioners and augmented them with additional questions to find out more about the relationships between advertising, and public relations in the new environment: who in the organization takes charge over the organization’s participation in the blogosphere discourse? Are public relations and advertising able to coordinate better and manage an “integrated marketing” approach thanks to new technology, or does the new technology increase the competition between the professions? How do public relations practitioners evaluate the current relationships with advertising professionals and do they believe the new technology empowered public relations or challenged their ability to compete? 5. Methodology The research uses a purposive sample of public relations practitioners, members of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRiNZ). They were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire during the PRiNZ conference in Wellington on 20 May, 2009. The reason for selecting this group of practitioners was that participants in an association conference are those who care about their professional identity and tend to be familiar with the industry. The conference included presentations relating to social media’s impact on public relations so the professional organization and the participants were assumed to be interested in those issues. In addition, the conference participants comprised people from the business, non-profit, and government sectors and thus represented a cross-section of the PRiNZ membership profile. One limiting factor was the lack of social media use among PR practitioners in New Zealand at the time of the survey. In fact, the population from which a sample could have been drawn (PR practitioners who were involved professionally in online communication with organizations’ stakeholders) is estimated in 2009 at less than 200 according to PRiNZ lists. In 2009, Pursuit PR agency, as part of their international partner’s Text 100 Global Survey, conducted a survey of New Zealand bloggers. Stephen Knightly (2009), Director of Pursuit reported in June 2009: “only 67% of bloggers (and we surveyed reasonably high-profile bloggers) have had contact from PR representatives in the last 6 months. Only 30% say they have contact at least weekly.” Although the PRiNZ membership is 1200, only 92 members participated in the conference. Nevertheless, the questionnaire was included, along with other materials, in all the participant packs. 30 participants placed the completed hard copy questionnaire in a special box on the reception desk either during, or at the end of, the conference. Ten more questionnaires were sent to specific practitioners who were identified as prominent in the New Zealand public relations scene. They were selected by the author of this paper based on personal knowledge about them and they submitted their questionnaires anonymously by post. The final total of 40 questionnaires was then analyzed using SPSS software. The small size of the sample does not allow a high level of confidence in its representativeness in relation to the industry as a whole so no significance tests were conducted. Nevertheless, given the high profile of the participants, and the fact that all sectors were included, the author suggests that, despite being based on a very limited sample, some tentative conclusions can be drawn from some responses. Of the 40 respondents, 15 (37.5%) worked for government or local government organizations, 11 worked for corporations, the business sector or state-owned enterprises (22.5%), nine worked for PR agencies (22.5%), and six for non-profit organizations (15%), and one respondent worked for an advertising agency (2.5%) (NB those working for consultancies serving more than one organization were asked to relate their answers to one of their clients). Author's personal copy 235 M. Toledano / Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 Table 1 Respondents’ opinions and attitudes towards the impact of social media on competition/cooperation in the industry. Statement Strongly agree & agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree or strongly disagree Social media gave public relations an advantage over marketing and advertising in managing my organization’s communication with stakeholders PR, marketing, and advertising contribute different expertise to the creation of digital content—each has a different task Public relations practitioners are better trained than advertising and marketing executives for online communication with organization stakeholders Social media increased the competition between PR and advertising/interactive marketing Social media increased cooperation between public relations, marketing, and advertising in an integrated communication approach 30% 50% 20% 79% 2.6% 18.4% 65% 25% 15% 28.2% 41% 30.8% 35.9% 53.8% 10.3% In responding to a question about their status within the organization, 80% of the responses said that they (or the PR function) reported directly to the CEO of their organization and influenced major decisions. Another 10% reported to the marketing department, and the rest to community relations, or human resources. 6. Results More than half of 39 respondents (53.9%) said their organization was not using social media to communicate with stakeholders. However, 36% reported that public relations was indeed conducting the dialogue with stakeholders (23.1%), or involved in conducting it together with marketing, advertising and/or IT (12.9%) via social media such as Facebook and Twitter. 37.5% (out of 40 respondents) said public relations in their organization was in charge of, or involved in, participating in the blogosphere dialogue, and 66.7% (out of 39 respondents) said that public relations is either in charge (43.6%) or involved (23.1%) with either advertising, marketing, or the IT departments, in managing their organization’s website. A Likert scale question was used to measure attitudes and beliefs of practitioners towards the professional competition and/or cooperation in the industry in the digital age. Respondents were asked to mark their level of agreement/disagreement to six statements and the most interesting responses are presented in Table 1. For the purpose of this paper, the most significant response related to the practitioner images of themselves as professionals. 50% of the respondents answered “neither agree nor disagree” to a statement saying: “social media gave PR an advantage over marketing and advertising in managing my organization’s communication with stakeholders,” and only 30% agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. 20% disagreed or strongly disagreed—they did not feel social media helped them advance their position within the organization. This in spite of the fact that a majority of 60% agreed, or strongly agreed, to a statement saying “public relations practitioners are better trained than advertising and marketing executives for online communication with organization stakeholders.” To this statement 25% responded with “neither agree nor disagree” and 15% said they disagreed, or strongly disagreed. These responses point to a clear gap between positive professional self-image and the ability to translate it into an advantage in the competition with other professions within the organization. 7. Discussion The quantity of indecisiveness recorded by respondents to many of the survey’s attitude questions indicates a kind of twilight zone. It suggests how the communication industry in general, and public relations and advertising in particular, are struggling to adapt to the new environment. It points to the need to forge a new professional identity in relation to the changes. The nature of the project made it impossible to clarify if hesitant responses were due to lack of experience with social media, insufficient knowledge, or confusion. However, even when they do not use social media in their own work, it would be reasonable to expect that public relations practitioners would have strong opinions about major communication developments. At this time of change it seems that many New Zealand practitioners are either unaware of, or are uncertain about, even near future developments and risks. The pilot study might be repeated over time to identify how increased involvement in new technology might change concepts and attitudes to the issue in the future. At the time of the survey, in New Zealand, a majority of 60% of the survey respondents believed in equal sharing, and 79% believed in fair contribution of different professional skills to the organization’s social media challenges. More of the responding practitioners believe that social media increased cooperation, rather than competition, between advertising and public relations. It is important to note that this is in spite of the fact that most of the respondents felt they were better trained to fulfill the job. In fact, only 30% felt social media gave them an advantage within their organizations. Indeed, one leading figure, Kevin Ptak, Senior Account Manager at the public relations agency Porter Novelli New Zealand, suggested in an interview with the author that public relations was not the main beneficiary. He estimated that, at this point in New Zealand, advertising rather than public relations, was leading the way in organizational use of social media. According Author's personal copy 236 M. Toledano / Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 230–237 to Ptak (2010), resourceful advertising agencies that were able to develop measurement tools for social media gained an advantage in communicating with management. Ptak stated that: Public relations practitioners have better understanding of the organization goals and relationships and they are better prepared to use social media for organizational communication. Social media should give public relations better access to the boardroom, though they should have been there regardless of social media. However, in New Zealand, public relations operates on a survival mode and has been struggling with the challenge of measurement. The organization’s management is impressed by the measurement tools presented by advertising and consult with them first (Ptak, 2010). This is of concern in the light of Abbott’s (1988) concept of “the Claim of Jurisdiction,” whereby “professions compete by taking over each other’s tasks” (p. 33) represents a risk to a profession. When a task is not being fulfilled by an existing profession, an evolving jurisdiction often takes its place. By this logic, if public relations fails to compete successfully, it runs the risk of core business being taken over by competing, or emerging, professions, such as “social media consultants,” “social media experts,” “content managers,” “marketing communications,” “online community managers” and “online reputation managers.” These would be likely to emerge from such areas as Computer Design, Advertising, or IT and would be unlikely to have knowledge of public relations principles and practices. 8. Conclusion Social media present opportunities and challenges to the communication industry, including advertising and public relations. In the New Zealand conext, it seems that PR practitioners are still learning about ways to benefit from social media and are not fully aware of professional survival issues. This situation exists even despite explicit guidance from experts such as Gillin (2007), who perceive social media as opening a door for public relations: PR people intuitively understand the value of relationship marketing, with social media simply being another way to build relationships. PR pros have flocked to social media because it plays so naturally to their strengths as relationships managers. PR has long been the neglected stepchild of corporate marketing departments hooked on lead generation and advertising metrics. Social media is PR’s turn to shine (p. 125). However, on the evidence of even this small scale research, New Zealand practitioners did not look well prepared either to take advantage of the opportunity, or to be alert to the threat to their profession. In spite of a positive self-professional image and a belief in the superiority of public relations skills to lead the organization’s communication in the digital age, the practitioners surveyed did not make, or did not intend to make, any move towards a leadership position. The emergence of new kinds of practitioners and young agencies offering “content management” services and “social media productions” is not high on the agenda of either advertising or public relations. Overall, social media might increase both – cooperation (within an integrated marketing approach) – and competition (over organizational resources). However, public relations practitioners do not seem to be taking advantage of their specific skills to leverage their status within the organization or to take over the emerging professions by including them as part of public relations services. 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