Ms. Zena Martin, founder of Acknowledge Communications, presented to the class on Diversity communications. Her consultancy business specializes in advising commercial, government, and non-governmental organisations on how to respectfully reach diverse audiences. Diversity communications is about creating external and internal communications that target specialist groups such as ethnic minorities, senior citizens, and gays and lesbians.
I enjoyed Ms. Martin's presentation, mainly because many of the campaign advertisements brought back memories of home in the United States. Ms. Martin explained that Diversity Communications has existed in the United States for atleast 30 years. There is a lot of diversity in the United States, especially in large cities. Black and Hispanic populations are the largest ethnic minorities in the United States and both are large consumers. Therefore, many of consumer campaigns will also include these minorities in advertising and promotional materials.
Most of the presentation was a contrast between diveristy communications in United States and the United Kingdom. I was highly disappointed in the lack of diversity communications in London. The sad thing about it is that it does not surprise me. I am not fully aware of the racial demographic throughout the U.K. but I do know that London is a diverse city. Many people from various racial groups have complained about the lack of resources and representation in television and print media. There are stereotypes which persists in society about ethnic minorities, older people, and homosexual people, which prevents the media from representing these individuals in campaigns, advertising, or televesion; and if they are represented, most of the time it is in a stereotypical manner.
One of the arguments in the lack of diversity in public relations is the fact that ethnic recruits are hard to find. From one perspective I can believe it because many immigrants have certain expectation of their children to get "real jobs" such as doctor, lawyer, economist, etc. Public Relations is not a real job to many people so there is pressure on students to study other occupations. However, that does not discount the fact that there are people of color who currently work in the public relations field who could be recruited to help strenghten the numbers of graduates who could possibly consider public relations. You do not need a public relations degree to work in public relations, which we explored during the class exercise.
In the class exercise, my group was assigned the task of getting more men into the PR industry. We targeted graduate males who were not studying public relatons. We wanted to recruit them into the financial, business to business, and corporate sectors. If PR directors recruited from other sectors the minority and gender gaps could possibly be filled.
Food for thought: "Minorities" have been in the United States since before the 17th Century and they are only within the last 30 years starting to be recognized in advertising, what does that say about how far the U.K. will have to go?
I enjoyed Ms. Martin's presentation, mainly because many of the campaign advertisements brought back memories of home in the United States. Ms. Martin explained that Diversity Communications has existed in the United States for atleast 30 years. There is a lot of diversity in the United States, especially in large cities. Black and Hispanic populations are the largest ethnic minorities in the United States and both are large consumers. Therefore, many of consumer campaigns will also include these minorities in advertising and promotional materials.
Most of the presentation was a contrast between diveristy communications in United States and the United Kingdom. I was highly disappointed in the lack of diversity communications in London. The sad thing about it is that it does not surprise me. I am not fully aware of the racial demographic throughout the U.K. but I do know that London is a diverse city. Many people from various racial groups have complained about the lack of resources and representation in television and print media. There are stereotypes which persists in society about ethnic minorities, older people, and homosexual people, which prevents the media from representing these individuals in campaigns, advertising, or televesion; and if they are represented, most of the time it is in a stereotypical manner.
One of the arguments in the lack of diversity in public relations is the fact that ethnic recruits are hard to find. From one perspective I can believe it because many immigrants have certain expectation of their children to get "real jobs" such as doctor, lawyer, economist, etc. Public Relations is not a real job to many people so there is pressure on students to study other occupations. However, that does not discount the fact that there are people of color who currently work in the public relations field who could be recruited to help strenghten the numbers of graduates who could possibly consider public relations. You do not need a public relations degree to work in public relations, which we explored during the class exercise.
In the class exercise, my group was assigned the task of getting more men into the PR industry. We targeted graduate males who were not studying public relatons. We wanted to recruit them into the financial, business to business, and corporate sectors. If PR directors recruited from other sectors the minority and gender gaps could possibly be filled.
Food for thought: "Minorities" have been in the United States since before the 17th Century and they are only within the last 30 years starting to be recognized in advertising, what does that say about how far the U.K. will have to go?
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