Here's another contribution to the ongoing debate about the merits and demerits of public relations that I've been exploring in the last couple of weeks. I'm always suspicious of surveys - they are the standby copy for Monday morning newspapers - so, with only an occasional comment, I'll just give you the "facts".
According to a study by Ciao Surveys, 60.3% of people in Britain believe that PR officers often lie, while only 3.3% are convinced of the opposite. Additionally, only 17.9% of the respondents think public relations have a positive effect on society, against 26.5% who disagree.
Despite these findings, the survey shows that nearly a third of Britons believe the PR industry is a necessary one at 32.7%, as opposed to only 21.1% who believe it to be unnecessary.
Respondents evidently showed a good understanding of the industry because, when asked about their impression of a PR officer's main job function, they stated it is strongly related to: media relations (49.6%), event planning (18.2%), advertising (9.5%) and word of mouth marketing (7.9%). [I can't let that pass without inserting a comment here: is it not obvious that the participants were merely responding to a list read to them?]
According to Ciao, 55.1% of respondents seem to be aware of the symbiotic relationship between the PR industry and the media, as they declared that the two are biased by each other. [Biased by each other?]
Some people recognise that the media are the main vehicles for the PR industry's messages, with 13.8% believing that up to half of the content in daily newspapers is initiated by public relations, and a sizeable group think up to 80% of the content in consumer magazines is PR-related.
Ciao does concede that some of the participants lacked a clear opinion on many questions. "In some instances", says the survey group, "approximately half of the respondents answered that they were either indifferent or did not know the answer to the question." [So the claims about widespread knowledge of PR falls, does it not?]
For the record, Ciao's online survey involved 1,005 people, aged 18 and above, in the UK during March. [But does it, in all honesty, tell us anything we need to know?]
