Behind The Spin

Global warming changes attitudes to nuclear power

Dorothy Seed (left), Head of Communications, Corporate Affairs, BNFL, says that growing public understanding of the impending energy crisis has reduced hostility to nuclear power

It is a memory that still remains with me.  As our holiday flight prepared for take-off I heard a loud voice from a few rows behind.  “I work for Public Enemy Number One”. 

A few seconds pause, as fellow travellers like me assumed the very vocal passenger was about to refer to the Inland Revenue.  But no, it turned out he worked for the nuclear industry and was just expressing his own feelings about working in an industry that nobody liked or trusted.

That was back in the 1980s when the UK nuclear industry was going through a very difficult time. Company press officers were inundated on an almost daily basis with negative stories at national and local level and they were permanently on the defensive. 

There was also another side to public attitudes, perhaps best summed up by a comment I received from a member of the public visiting a nuclear exhibition stand in North West England.  “Nuclear power, that’s a thing of the future isn’t it?”  The fact that, even in those days, nuclear energy was contributing more than one fifth of the UK’s electricity supplies was generally not widely known.

Blogs: answer to voting apathy?

Do you know what your local councillor does? Well, one easy way for them to keep you informed –and help to boost electors’ interest in local politics – is to start a blog. And it’s an idea that works, reports David Ross-Tomlin

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.

Seven trends signal PR's rise

About 17 years ago, when I began a part-time PhD in public relations, there was little empirical research into the subject, writes PHILIP KITCHEN. A decade later, I was privileged to publish an edited textbook on the discipline. In that 1997 book there were several predictions of future development. Let's reconsider these statements eight years on.

The New Language of PR

PROs are finding it increasingly harder to contact their consumers by traditional methods, writes CARRIE KNOWLES.

It is suggested that a new kind of consumer has developed, one who is more educated about marketing and PR and with easy access to the Internet.

Champion of Democracy

Public relations is an old and noble profession that can only flourish in a democracy, writes Dejan Vercic. Most of the time we work on the mundane activities of trying to sell a product, service, organisation or idea to people that seem not to care about it. But we are the essence of a free society, market economy and political democracy. And we should start thinking about ourselves as such.

Download dejan_vercic_on_pr_and_democracy.doc

Behind the Spin

Welcome to the web log of Behind the Spin, the magazine for and written by Public Relations students. Behind the Spin was first produced by students from the College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth, but was quickly opened to students, practitioners and academics across the UK. The print magazine is published three times a year, the blog will uopdated every Monday. Please send articles for consideration to Editor John Hitchins (you can of course comment anyitem by clicking Comment at the bottom of each post).