PR Then and Now: Did Technology Destroy the Practice?

As someone who has become naturally drawn to anything about social media and PR and is super interested in the impacts of social media on communications (I wrote my dissertation on the subject!), I was thrilled when I saw an infographic called ‘PR Then and Now’ the other day.

The infographic illustrates how barely recognisable today’s PR industry is in comparison to just a decade ago. Technology seems to have played a significant role into this development. We no longer use fax machines, we use e-mails; we don’t wait for user’s feedback anymore, it comes directly to us all the time via social media. Do you see? Technology is in all of this.

Which makes me wonder: has technology changed the practice into a more positive direction or the contrary? Because as you can see, it is gadgets like laptops and smartphones and channels like social media that have pushed society (and PRs) towards a new type of communications – a mobile one, an always-on one. What happened to face-to-face communication? Of course, such interactions are still crucial, but we must admit their frequency has decreased massively. Is that good or bad?

Tough question, I know... And there’s no easy or straightforward answer.

Then again, technology has offered us so much! It has opened up a whole new world of communications on a global scale and has certainly made our lives easier in many ways – PRs can now just google the name of a journalist on their mobile, find his/her Twitter and tweet him/her then and there. Isn’t that great!?

Have a look at the infographic below for a summary of what role technology has played into the world of PR.

I would love to hear your thoughts: did technology destroy or regenerate the practice?

Infographic by Inkhouse

Image courtesy of thanunkorn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net