I recently talked about why you should write a dissertation about PR. Hopefully, I’ve managed to convince you and if so I think you might find this piece quite useful as it would give you some direction how to get started with a PR dissertation – by creating a plan as a first and most important step.

Writing a dissertation is a pretty difficult task. I’ve done it twice: the first time when writing my dissertation about PR and social media, and the second time with my dissertation about social media for sustainability communications. And both of them within a year!

So as you can see, I know first-hand how much time and effort it requires if you want to do it right.

The Vital Step for PR Dissertation Success

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from my dissertation experiences is that the groundwork for an outstanding dissertation is your initial plan – that’s the backbone of your PR dissertation.

We are storytelling creatures. From the very beginning of civilisation, humans have told stories to transmit messages that needed to be remembered and retold.

The emergence of the Internet and digital technologies has brought about some significant changes to how we tell stories today. Blogging, Facebook, SEO, wearable technology are among the driving forces that have shaped the evolution of modern storytelling.

Over the centuries our need to tell stories hasn't gone away, I would say it's become bigger and bigger. What's changed though are the array of mediums we can use for our stories.

Storytelling tools and mediums

During the past ten years this array has grown massively, accounting for the most rapid evolution of storytelling in communications history and some new storytelling trends such as short videos on Vine or Snapchat stories that disappear in 24 hours. This, in turn, has had a significant impact on the PR business. As natural storytellers, PR people have had to evolve to and adapt new tools and channels to tell clients' stories and disseminate information.

Today is a big day. Today, I start a new chapter in my life as a Channel Consultant at HubSpot's EMEA headquarters in Dublin. As you can imagine, this is a big move for me not just because it's a new city (if you check out my About page, you'll see that I've moved a lot in the past years, so that wasn't really a problem), but because inbound marketing entails a much bigger responsibility spectrum than just social media and comms (the focus of my previous jobs).

And because you'll probably be seeing more and more content about inbound marketing on this blog, I thought it's important to introduce you to the concept.

Please bear in mind, I am still a 'beginner', but I hope to become a lot more proficient in the inbound marketing methodology. In fact, that's my goal. And because I am now in Boston for my two-week induction training, I'm sure I'll have a lot of things to share with you!

But first, what is inbound marketing?

As HubSpot puts it, the inbound methodology is “the best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters of your business”. It is more scalable, efficient and cost-effective than traditional outbound techniques.

PR is on the rise! With the ever growing importance of social media, storytelling and influencer relations for business, the public relations industry has a bright future.

So here’s my advice to all PR, communications, marketing or business students who are wondering what dissertation topic to choose: Write a dissertation about public relations.

Why write a dissertation about PR

It’s been over two years since I wrote my dissertation about PR and social media. However, my reserch findings are still relevant today. What’s more, publishing the results on this blog and creating a summary in the form of an infographic has driven tremendous interest from other students and professionals as well as some great endorsements. This has allowed me to make a name for myself and even build my own brand, especially after my PR dissertation was published as a book. 

"Social media is less about technology and more about anthropology, sociology, and ethnography." – wrote Brian Solis in his book Engage. When I read that I was confused. Particularly with the anthropology bit and I thought to myself "What does anthropology have to do with social media and communications?" I did get it to a point, but I only fully got to grips with the idea once finishing a recent MOOC about anthropology. It was an enlightening experience and today I would like to share with you what I've learned.

Let's start with some definitions.

According to Philippe Bourgois, University Professor of Anthropology & Family and Community Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania:

"Anthropology is the study of humans by any means necessary ... to understanding what's around us, whether it's where we live or somewhere far away. The crucial thing is that anthropology has this insight; it brings to understanding human society and human culture, which is that everyone lives within their logic. Nothing is right or wrong. Our duty, to put it that way, as anthropologists, is to uncover the logic of the people or the setting that we want to understand."

As noted in the course materials, social or cultural anthropology is about people: the environments they inhabit and the things they get up to, examined from the bottom up, not top down to find different ways of seeing the world, inhabiting the world, and in fact different worlds altogether.

That's actually very similar to what PR is about. PR lives upon other people's behaviours and cultural interactions that are the very essence of one of the most fundamental PR activities – storytelling. This, in turn, goes hand in hand with Paul Stoller's definition of anthropology: