06 November 2009

First signs of PR in South Africa

The author of Chapter 14 titled as Public Relations in South Africa: From Rhetoric to Reality from The Global Public Relations Handbook, Ronel Rensburg has said that the field of PR in South Africa can be characterized by search for identity, legitimacy and professional recognition, and its role is shaped by the dynamics of an ever-changing and developing society.

It was interesting to read that public relations in Africa also go back back decades, if not centuries. Parallel between the task of PR practitioner and that of a spokesman at the chief's seat of power in traditional South African villages has been drawn. It is claimed that no African chief or elder statesman spoke directly to a visitor. All communication was channeled through a spokesman who assumed eminent position in the society and was highly respected by the people. And this is still the case in some remote and traditional rural areas of South Africa!

The author also brings an example of African marital affairs, such as arranged marriages and lobola (bride price), to illustrate the concept of early PR activities in Africa. From the beginning to the sealing of marriage contact, the go-between or the middle man plays a crucial role in the success of the union.


Rensburg claims that public relations are also expressed in the use of traditional music, dancing, and beating drums to communicate to the inhabitants of the traditional African village. All in all, the concept of PR is neither alien nor a practice that arrived with colonialism, commercialization, or Western media imperialism - it has been around on the African continent in a different format for centuries.








Tool of Public Relations
Photo taken from here

Facts & Figures: Republic of South Africa


  The Republic of South Africa (conventional short form: South Africa) is located at the southern tip of Africa. The population of the country is 49 million as estimated in 2009. There are 11 official languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Northern Sotho, Tswana, English, Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Venda and Southern Ndebele. Most South Africans can speak more than one language, and the main language of commerce and politics is English, although English is only the fifth-most common (some sources say sixth) home language (IsiZulu 23.8%, IsiXhosa 17.6%, Afrikaans 13.3%, Sepedi 9.4%, English 8.2%, Setswana 8.2%, Sesotho 7.9%, Xitsonga 4.4%, other 7.2%). Literacy of the total population is 86.4%.


South Africa has three capital cities: Cape Town, the largest of the three, is the legislative capital; Pretoria is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. There are nine provinces: Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North-West, Western Cape. South Africa has a bicameral parliament: National Council of Provinces (upper house) and National Assembly (lower house). Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South African politics have been dominated by the African National Congress (ANC), which has been the dominant party with 60–70% of the vote. The political system in South Africa is constitutional democracy. The president of the Republic of South Africa is Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma who was elected in 2009 by parliament following his party's (ANC) victory at the general election.

From the point of view of means of technical communication:
  • 4.425 million telephone main lines in use (2008)
  • 45 million mobile phones (2008)
  • 1.73 million internet hosts (2009)
  • 4.187 million internet users (2008)
Unfortunately available data on radio and television broadcast stations are relatively old and have most probably changed by now:
  • Radio stations (in 1998): 14 AM, 347 FM (plus 243 repeaters), 1 shortwav
  • TV stations (in 1997): 556 (plus 144 network repeaters)

Sources:
Central Intelligence Agency - The World Factbook
Wikipedia - South Africa
South Africa's official tourism website

05 November 2009

Search of PR in Ethiopia

Due to my short visit in Ethiopia in 2007 I had the interest to find out how the PR is conducted in that beautiful country. I started my research with enthusiasm and found already many interesting paradigms…

Ethiopia is considered one of the oldest human settlement areas as well as one of the oldest countries in the world dating back to amazing 1000 BC. Ethiopians are also Africa's second-most populous nation by estimated population of over 79,000,000. So there has been interpersonal communication for long time and there are a lot of message senders and receivers. However PR seems to be still a very hidden phenomenon.

Some other facts of the country may also help us to understand the background of PR in Ethiopia. In addition to mostly spoken official Amharic the country has eighty-three other indigenous languages, which is a challenge for PR and countrywide communication (as earlier Tiiu discussed at Overview of PR in Africa)

I got the impression that Ethiopians are very proud of their history and highly value their beautiful mountain country. Historically, people in Ethiopia practiced some of the oldest democratic systems in the world, but according to The Economist’s Democracy Index, Ethiopia is now-a-days closer to Authoritarian Regimes than real democracy. For example radio and television are under the control of the Ethiopian government. As we YVIA313 students know after our first lecture, democracy is a necessity for real PR to be able to take place.

One more challenge for the nationwide PR practises are several main religions, which include Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Paganism. There is a freedom of religion, but also some tension exists between the different religions.

Nevertheless there must also exist some high level of international PR since Ethiopia is known as the Africa's "Diplomatic Capital". It is for example one of the United Nations original members. The headquarters of both the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa are in Addis Ababa.


The PR field now and in the future is certainly changing as the country has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. In 2008 the GDP per capita was $898 which meant 11,11 % increase. (Source). Despite these economic improvements, urban and rural poverty remains an issue. Due to poverty and low literacy rates (42.7% ) print media serves only a small portion of the population. The government restricts the freedom of the press and assembly. ENA (The Ethiopia News Agency) seems to be the propaganda tool of the Government. You can have a look at their new web pages here. If you still are interested in reading more you can find Ethiopian news links from Abbaymedia and at DOMZ.

At first I doubted whether PR even exists in Ethiopia, but I’m determined to find it. :) So you’ll be sure to hear more interesting findings about my search of the PR in Ethiopia… Keep your fingers crossed and feel free to help me with any interesting questions or ideas.

With exiting PR explorer greetings,

Anna

Photos:
1. Flag of Ethiopia
2. Bakery
3. Shop
4. Coming from work

General sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Ethiopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_in_Ethiopia

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html

04 November 2009

What kind of PR is needed in Africa?




What kind of PR these children would benefit form?












Togo Children diligently helping their mother

do the laundry in the river.
Photo taken from
here.




Will this be enough?



















Unicef Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham
holds Foday in the town of Makeni
in Northern Province.
Photo taken from here.

Egyptian PR Industry

In Egypt, PR is often considered synonymous with hospitality or customer relations. The service industry is probably the one most associated with PR jobs, and for instance hotels employ PR directors who are responsible for guest services. It can be said that there is a lack of understanding for the parameters of the PR profession in Egypt, and confusion exists among organisations with regard to the distinctions between PR, advertising, and marketing. Sales are often considered the primary goal of PR, with little interest in or patience for programmes or tactics that do not directly tackle sales. By one estimation, out of all who consider themselves part of the PR business in Egypt only 10% truly are skilled professionals.

The dominant coalitions in most Egyptian organisations have traditionally not included PR specialists, which is why they don’t have a very high regard for the contributions that PR could make to organisational effectiveness. A further challenge is the lack of formal training in modern PR theory and practices.

There are numerous obstacles and problems to be dealt with before PR is fully accepted as an effective and integral organisational function in Egypt, but there seems to be cause for optimism. The recent years have seen some changes as some international PR firms have entered into affiliation agreements with local agencies in Cairo. Also more sophisticated PR strategies and techniques have already been tried out, and the country’s economic and social systems are continuously evolving for the better.

--
Kevin L. Keenan: Public Relations in Egypt: Practices, Obstacles, and Potentials, published in The Global Public Relations Handbook.

Facts and Figures: Egypt

To better understand communication in Egypt, I thought I'd post some elucidating facts. These are taken from The CIA World Factbook.

Population: 83,082,869 (July 2009 est.)

Literacy (age 15 and over who can read and write): in total population 71.4%, male 83%, female 59.4% (2005 est.)
Languages: Arabic (official), English and French widely understood by educated classes

Telephones: main lines in use 12.011 million (2008), mobile cellular phones 41.272 million (2008)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 42 (plus 15 repeaters), FM 11, shortwave 3 (1999)

Television broadcast stations: 98 (Sept. 1995)

Internet hosts: 177,443 (2009)

Internet users: 11,414 million (2008)

Press Releases related to Africa

African Press Organization offers a Database of Press Releases related to Africa. You can also search news according to countries.

03 November 2009

Specializing

As a result of the preliminary research and discussions within our group, we decided to focus our next postings on different countries. Some of the reasons why it would be difficult to speak about Africa as one entity are pointed out here.

From now on, Anna is our expert on PR in Ethiopia, Susanna focuses on Egypt and Tiiu tackles PR in South Africa. Hemmo has not made up his mind yet, but we'll let you know if he has.

02 November 2009

Overview of PR in Africa

The following overview is based on the material from the book mentioned in our previous posting (The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research, and Practice). I focused on chapter 14, titled as "The Nature and Status of Public Relations Practice in Africa" and written by Chris Skinner and Gary Mersham.

Skinner and Mersham begin their overview stating that research on the practice of PR in Africa is for the most part sparse and fragmented, and mostly carried out on specific aspects in specific countries. They claim that the best report available was compiled in 2006 by UK-based consultancy Gyroscope called "The Public Relations Landscape in Africa" and it also stresses that Africa consists of 53 separate countries that differ from each other significantly.

The authors have listed four challenges that need to be addressed before one can speak about integrated and united Africa:
1. Lack of physical infrastructure
2. Profound and mutual ignorance of different countries and cultures
3. Language barriers (e.g., South Africa has 11 official languages, Nigeria 390 dialects, etc.)
4. Differential economics and discrepancies in the GDP's of Africa's states.

These social, political, geographical and economic diversities of Africa are formidable challenges to many communication professionals for whom the commercial sector in Africa remains out of bounds, although Africa is a potentially vast and untapped market for commercial organizations.

There are media channels that cover most or all of Africa (BBC, Voice of America, Channel Africa, Africa Online). Unfortunately these channels have limited value for PR managers, as in trying to be broadly "African", they lose much of the localism, and they are limited to particular audience (English-speaking, relatively literate).

From the point of view of communications infrastructure, Skinner and Mersham have pointed out that although the number of cell subscribers and internet access points is increasing, there are huge variations throughout Africa. The policies and regulations also need more attention due to the recent changes in this field.

For conducting local PR in African countries, locally trained public relations practitioners are needed because of the complexities of languages, cultures and media structures. Levels of education vary widely. The authors have found variations in professional or vocational education in PR and communications management. In many cases some public relations focused components are offered as a part of mass communication and journalism programmes. Many countries do not have degree courses in communication management but there is a growing trend towards their introduction.

As with many other things mentioned above, Skinner and Mesham say also that standards of professional practice and ethics in the African countries range from excellent to very poor. Ghana, Botswana, South Africa and Namibia are considered to be among the best, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia somewhere in the middle, and Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe at the end of the list.

A professional association called the African Public Relations Association is a non-governmental, non-political and non-profit-making organization that fosters unity and interaction among PR practitioners in Africa. Information about the organization is available here. Although the organization has been more successful in its activities in recent years, the authors claim that majority of public relations professional associations established in Africa have low key operations and small membership.

In most African countries there are PR and corporate communications agencies but the sector itself is underdeveloped. The above mentioned Gyroscope report describes four types of agencies:
1. Local offices or affiliates of the global PR groups
2. Africa specialists with claimed or actual expertise across several countries
3. Local agencies that are genuine PR specialists
4. Local agencies that claim PR as part of a service they offer.

For those who are interested, I would like to recommend reading pages 280-285 that give an overview of the Africa Communication Index developed by Gyroscope consultancy. It is created to help communication managers to match their needs and objectives in Africa to what is actually possible.

The future for PR in Africa... Skinner and Mersham believe that PR will continue to develop throughout Africa. They suggest that one of the most powerful influences might be broadly encompassed as the African world-view --- the concept that encompasses the value community and the recognition of the value of all individuals. The philosophy of "Ubuntu" (the idea of being one's brother's keeper) runs deeply throughout African thought and action.