By Ryan Sexton
Do you have Prestige? That’s what an up and coming PRSSA organization at the University wants to know. PRestige, a University public relations group associated with the Public Relations Student Society of America, took off at the beginning of the fall semester. They are already representing noteworthy clients both on and off campus.
Public relations, the art of shameless promotion, is a multi-faceted and complex service. It’s not really journalism, but the two certainly interact on several wavelengths. Journalism spreads concise, comprehensive information. Unfortunately or not, people’s curious instincts are often to blame for the sordid but cute and fun content seen on the like’s of the MSN home page: not really news but clickworthy nonetheless. Public relations is immune to this virus by generating a singular message.
“What a PR person does is learn how to relay that message to their target audience,” said Rebecca Carlson, the club’s quirky and cool conduit to the outer world. Officially the chair of PRestige’s Development Committee, she handles any question you may have about the agency.
Information technology is changing rapidly. With that, PR is evolving as well by converging with electronic media and doing what they already do well on paper on the Internet. “I’m way into digital media, so I’m slightly biased,” said Carlson, who viewed the profound shift towards the Internet in virtually all domains of communication to be a positive one. “It puts way more power in the hands of the consumer,” she said, also noting that “people nowadays interact more with how they get their information.”
What PR really does, though, involves communicating a message to the narrowest audience possible-not the largest, as journalists and Internet bloggers try to do. Last semester, that narrow message was projected towards Hugs Across America, the off-campus client for PRestige, and Sigma Capella, the on-campus client. Each semester, Prestige takes on the challenge of tailoring and propagating exclusive content promoting two clients, one on and one off campus.
College-level public relations isn’t nearly as simple as posters and flyers. It involves a comprehensive, thoughtful generation of promotional content, differing from client to client. According to Carlson, it’s a far cry from the endearing but frumpy high school election posters from not too long ago. Some instances involve vastly differing services, often not relegated to just promotion.
“Content depends for each client. The NAACP was creating a fashion show, we created media lists of different outlets and had them come cover the event.” This semester, PRestige’s clients include the Center for Civic Engagement and Hofstra Music Fest.
In the same way that much Internet content is meandering and linking out to multiple sources, Carlson is tying PRestige into other ventures. She is using Media Alert, which she desired to be integrated with PRestige to tie news outlets together. It alerts any outlet of content going on, whether it be the Chronicle or a litany of other publications. The Destination Runway Event, popular and a success in many respects, has a facebook page to accompany it. There’s no telling what will be on there next, but as long as PRestige is in business, you can expect your homepage, and your University, to be hitting you with messages for some time to come.
Students looking to get involved with Prestige can check out http://prestigeagency.wordpress.com. They are always hungry for clients and staff members.