Behind The Spin

See it right

Heather Smith does a consumer test to find out which websites are accessible to the two million people in the UK with sight problems

Jamie Oliver grates nutmeg on to a bowl of pasta and Sainsbury's report an increase in weekly sales of the spice from 1,400 to 6,000 jars. The stomach-churning sight of fat oozing from cigarettes in a British Heart Foundation TV ad sends addicts 'in droves' to smoking cessation clinics.

These facts reinforce what PR practitioners already know about the ability of the well-chosen image to sway hearts and minds.

Website designers also understand the power of the visual image. Buttons, banners, Flash animations, photographs, colour schemes and text are all used to create the right impression with visitors. But what happens when the target audience has difficulty seeing these images? How do companies communicate messages effectively to visually-impaired audiences on the web?

According to the RNIB, two million people in the UK have sight problems. Of these, approximately one million are classed as blind or partially sighted. The web is especially important for the visually-impaired who may find accessing services through 'traditional' routes difficult or impossible.

Getting Students to Get Out

Eileen Jones, who heads the PR course at Huddersfield University, was impressed by recent Behind the Spin articles on Blogging (here, here, here, here).  But she says there are dangers in students spending too much time at the keyboard.

Firstly, blogging suffers the same fate as much unedited, web-placed material. Much of it is poorly written and personally opinionated, so that the occasional item of excellence has to be sought with the fervour of a gardener in search of a four-leaved clover.

Secondly, young people coming into university to study PR and journalism appear to have a scepticism of their own. Some are unimpressed by the ego-centricity of some blogs; others see yet another “new media revolution” which they believe will be surpassed or bypassed in a few years’ time.

We may be wrong, very wrong, and we will certainly not sit back and ignore what is happening in the blogosphere. But it is Tony Bradley’s demand “People skills are a must” that engages my attention more.

He says:  “I mean being curious about people (the ones you like and the ones you don’t!), what makes them tick, how they respond to communications and how and why they make the decisions they do.”

My experience as a teacher is that young people – bloggers or not – belong to a generation which has lost the ability to engage directly with people. They can compose a text message (under the desk, during a lecture, without looking at the keyboard,) but they are afraid to make a phone call to someone they don’t know.

From Soap Box to Soap Opera

Television, Politics and the Dumbing-Down of the Electorate

There has been a good deal of speculation in recent years concerning the negative impact of the media, especially television, on politics and political culture in British society, writes Liam French.

Poor election turnout rates and political apathy, particularly amongst young people, is often attributed to the increasing attrition of political culture brought about by the trivialising effects of the media. Politics now has to be packaged in order to grab our attention amidst the many media and communication channels that dazzle and distract us.

To this end, politicians come to rely more and more on PR consultants, press advisors and image-management experts. In today's media saturated society, image management is paramount and manifests itself in various practices such as 'the walk-about' (or ‘the ride-around’ in David Cameron’s case), the press conference or carefully stage-managed public appearance at a high profile media event.

The Road to Eden

Chris Hines, the founder of Surfers Against Sewage, is now Sustainability Director of the Eden Project in Cornwall. He spoke to the Behind the Spin conference about the steps individuals can take to improve the Environment

Sustainability impacts on every single aspect of our lives: the air we breathe, the food we eat, pollution, environment, quality of life, happiness…

And for most of us, once we earn over a certain amount (£22,000 is often quoted) we don’t become any happier. When I get stuck in a little wicker box at the end of my life and put in a hole or burnt I’m not going to say: “Damn, I never did get that Mercedes Turbo SP20 Super charged car”.

The things that I will regret will be not having spoken to people like you, not having gone and seen my parents, my partner – all of those things – and celebrating the natural environment that I live in. So we need to change some of our value systems.

Every organisation and every person has an impact and sustainability is about minimising that impact, maximising the efficiency of what we’ve got and making it relevant.

Action speaks louder than words, and we at the Eden Project put in a lot of effort to make sure that we do walk the talk.