Behind The Spin

Not another survey...

Here's a challenge for Behind the Spinners... How do you get PR practitioners to fill in an online survey? I am a lead researcher for EuroBlog 2006, a pan-European Survey backed by the European Public Relations Education and Research Association and we are trying to capture a snapshot of what practitioners (sorry, they must be practitioners, not students) think about web logs. It is an adacemic survey that has to be broadly similar across every European country so we can't  incentivise responses (no chance to win a free i-Pod!) but we do need to persuade people to take the trouble to go online and spend about five minutes filling it in. Without giving too much away, the responses from just two countries have dominated the results so far (and no, the UK is not one of them). How do we change this - any ideas gratefully received. And if you have any contacts within the industry, please ask them to spread the word. Thanks, Philip

Blogs and the 2005 election

There was much talk about weblogs in 2005, but did the online chatter swing many votes? Nigel Jackson explores the role of political blogging

General election campaigns are competitive events and parties seek to use tactics, techniques and technologies which they believe will give them an edge. In 1997 the Labour Party's use of the Excalibur supercomputer provided that technological edge. In 2001 videos, the web, SMS and email were all experimented with.

Now we know!

Alexandra Cook (left) and Nicola Wilkinson wonder why students sign up for PR courses when they don't have a clue what it involves

After three years at university it's hard to remember why you chose that city, much less why you selected one particular course. Indeed it becomes evident that some students didn't decide; the choices were made for them. Some of these stick it out, even learn to enjoy it; others do not.

PR is a difficult discipline to define; almost impossible at university entry level, marginally easier on graduation, though perhaps only so because after three years you become used to justifying the wide range of working possibilities that fit within the "broad church" that encompasses our profession. So why do students sign up to study PR, if they don't clearly understand what it is?  Few, we suggest, come to study PR based on a definite view of what it actually involves, and with a reasoned ambition to enter the business. Others - count us amongst them - are guided by a relative, teacher, or friend who claims to recognise some facility or attribute that suggests "you're a natural for PR". And so, without any great depth of knowledge or expectation, you sign up for a critical three years of your life on the basis of faith in that recommen-dation, or for lack of a better idea.