The Research

This reading tells me the importance of researching. It is tedious yet fulfilling to do. Doing research can help the public relations practitioner to understand more about the attitudes of the public, able to set up benchmark and so on (Synnott, 2009). In any case, I think that having a good and thorough research is one of the crucial steps to success in a campaign or event.

According to IPRA (1994), research is necessary at all levels of public relations formulating of plans and executing them out. I have to agree with this. You need to research in the beginning to find out what is the most appropriate thing to do next. Later on, you need to make sure that you are meeting the budget or the target that is set out by the organisation. Then, you need to ensure that everybody is doing what they are assigned to do. Finally, you need to know whether your campaign or event has attained its purpose.

Thus, this reading made me learn to appreciate the hard work from various events or companies such as the IT show in Singapore, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and World Vision. They went through so much to get this far. For SPCA, it has started in 1800s, however, it becomes more known to the public in 1970s (Singapore Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 2009). Animal welfare work was more understood by the public with the use of media coverage in newspapers and the television only in the 1980s and 1990s. It takes nearly a hundred years to make the organisation more known to the public! This was what the public relations practitioners had done, together with the help of other departments as well and it is not an easy task to do.

In a nutshell, this reading gives me a better understanding of the processes of research by the public relations practitioners and it is important for the practitioners to be updated on the latest news and events going on around the world and the implications of them.