PRWeek on the Influence of Gadget Blogs

PRWeek last week posted a fascinating story about how some savvy PR pros are using Weblogs to reach gadget enthusiasts.

According to the article:

While leaked photos are not new to the public relations industry, the sheer speed and absence of unwieldy hierarchies at blogs allows leaks reach the public instantly. Professionally-done blogs have become the firebrand of the media world: quick, dedicated and unapologetic. With the use of RSS feeds, readers can be alerted the minute that something is posted.

A must-read for anyone interested in tracking the micro persuasion phenomenon.

Does Blogging=Journalism?

An interesting essay from Jay Rosen @ NYU Department of Journalism looks at a quintessential question - what is a journalist?

By "journalism" we ought to mean the practice of it, not the profession of it. Journalism can happen on any platform. It is independent of its many delivery devices. This also means that journalism is not the same thing--at all--as "the media." The media, or Big Media as some call it, does not own journalism, and cannot dispose of it on a whim.

Nor does any professional group own journalism, any more than museums and galleries can "own" painting. Although the best journalists around today are professionals, this has not always been the case. During Benjamin Franklin's time, printers were the people who served as journalists. They were stationed at the right point in the information flow, and they had the means to distribute news. Printers were often postmasters too, which helped.

If printers and postmasters, who didn't set out to be journalists, can wind up as that, then in any era we should think it possible for people to wind up doing journalism because they find it a logical, practical, meaningful, democratic, and worthwhile activity.

Micro Media is Changing the PR Practice

The proliferation of Weblogs and RSS news feeds has changed the practice of public relations forever. Despite all of the hype about media consolidation, we are no longer living in a mass media world dominated by conglomerates.

Today we're just as likely to be influenced by something we read on a blog like Scobleizer as we are by an article in the Wall Street Journal or a segment on Good Morning America.

This means that the role of the public relations counselor is changing...quickly. Clients are still looking to agencies to reach key audiences. This hasn't changed. The difference, however, is now PR pros must not only secure "earned media coverage" but also know how to influence influential bloggers, many of whom are part of the audiences we covet.

The rules of engagement are different in this world of micro persuasion. PR pros now must: 1) continually study how news spreads online, 2) identify and qualify the most influential and vocal members of their audience, 3) know how to reach these influencers and 4) learn how to easily assimilate into the audiences they want to reach by launching and promoting their own weblogs.

The goal of this blog is to track the phenomena of Micro Persuasion. It is designed to serve as an open forum where all PR pros can learn how micro media outlets persuade audiences and how to communicate key messages through the blogsphere in this new age.