PR and Rich Media

How are rich media being used in your profession and what are the implications for the way you will work as a professional in the years to come?

Rich media is the term broadly used to describe a variety of interactive digital media. In theoretical terms, Daft and Lengel (1986) proposed the concept of media richness in which richness refers to the ability of media to improve human understanding by reducing equivocality, or ambiguity. Basically, richer forms of communication such as video-conferencing are more effective than less rich forms of communication such as phone calls, as they are able to convey gestures and other elements of human communication that reduce equivocality.

So how is media richness relevant to public relations practitioners? Rich media is highly important to the field of public relations because it serves to enhance an organisation’s level of interaction with its publics and facilitates a 2-way symmetrical model of communication (Johnston & Zawawi, 2009). To refer back to the media richness theory, rich media does this by reducing message ambiguity and facilitating honest and transparent communication between an organisation and its stakeholders. More than ever before, public relations practitioners are employing rich media tools to engage with publics and communicate an organisation’s key messages in different ways.

One of the most important emerging tools in public relations and corporate communications is rich media webcasting. Rich media webcasting incorporates audio, video and graphical content to create a live or on-demand Web presentation and is ideal for sharing product overviews, executive briefings and leadership seminars via the Internet without the high cost of traditional video productions (Douglas, 2009). All that is required is a laptop, a video camera to capture video and audio content and a rich media recorder so a live webcast can be conducted anywhere, anytime. Think of it is as a tool to stream important information to stakeholders that personalises an organisation’s communication efforts.

In the midst of an evolving communications landscape, it is important that public relations practitioners can look beyond traditional means of communication and find ways for organisations to stand out in competitive markets. An example of a company that has achieved this through the use of rich media is Delphi Steering Systems, which used rich media to promote itself as a thought leader and introduce new methodologies that it was bringing to the market (Douglas, 2009). It produced an hour-long webcast to communicate its value proposition to its publics through the use of visuals and graphs, which would not have been possible through the use of audio alone. In this case, visual imagery conveyed through rich media webcasting allowed the company to engage audiences and deliver its key messages in a new and interesting way.

The adoption of interactive digital media has been progressively changing the corporate communications landscape over the past several years. Historically, the media and entertainment industry has led the demand for the development of rich media content. Now, as the use of rich media has increased dramatically, so has the need for organisations across all sectors to manage and deliver rich media communications to its stakeholders (Krishna, 2007). By utilising tools such as rich media webcasts, public relations practitioners have the ability to communicate with audiences in a way that is transparent, engaging and unambiguous. This in turn has the effect of enhancing the organisation’s brand image and reinforcing positive relationships with stakeholders. Moreover, rich media has proved to be a valuable development for the public relations industry and will undoubtedly continue to assist organisations in maintaining the all-important 2-way symmetrical model of communication with its publics.

References

Daft, R., & Lengel, R. (1986). Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design. Management Science, 32(5), 554-571. Retrieved from E-Journals database.

Douglas, T. (2009). Get rich quick: How you can use rich media webcasting. Public Relations Tactics, 16(11), 22. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.

Johnston, J. & Zawawi, C. (2009) Public Relations: Theory and Practice, 3^rd ed., Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Krishna, M. (2007). Realizing the promise of enterprise video communications. Journal of Digital Asset Management, 3(4), 197-208. Retrieved from E-Journals database.