The blog is taking a break for a while. Back after some maintenance –for the blog not the site – but in the meantime a few snippets.

Readers should check out the new book by Murdoch University’s Dr Kate Fitch. The book – Professionalizing public relations: History, gender and education – explores “the historical development of public relations in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. It offers new insights into public relations history with a focus on the changing relationship between women and public relations, the institutionalization of public relations education, and the significance of globalization in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on archival and interview research, it challenges common misconceptions around the origins of Australian public relations and women’s early contributions and careers,” Kate says. read more

The Australian Bureau of Statistics paid a PR company $395,000, according to Mumbrella, to create and implement a media and PR strategy for the recent Census. They also paid an ad agency $2.8 million to create the advertising campaign. Yet an FOI request revealed the government had no crisis communications plan. read more

On October 22 2004 Bangerang elder Uncle Wally Cooper provided the catering for an RACV planting day at Lake Mokoan in Victoria – now the Winton Wetlands. The blog knows this because a remarkable man painted the scene and has included it in an illustrated pamphlet, Caring for Country: One person’s thoughts. read more

The stark contrast between Australian Army PR strategies and those of the Australian Border Control approach has been highlighted in two journal articles – one by a serving Australian Army Military Public Affairs officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Logue, and the other by a University of Newcastle academic, Leicha Stewart. read more

We hear a lot about bubbles, post truth and so on – all important in their way – but obscuring a larger puzzle: are the right wing media leading or following their audiences?

The puzzle was highlighted by a recent New York Times article on what it termed the ‘civil war’ among the right wing commentariat. The article by Robert Draper (September 29) highlighted the problems confronted by a right wing media activist and a key Tea Party player, Erick Erickson, who opposed Trump then lost 30,000 subscribers, was maligned by other conservative commentators and received numerous death threats. read more

The EC President, Jean- Claude Juncker, is believed to have said some years ago that: “We all know what we need to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we do it.”

Whenever there is discussion of ‘reform’ or the current economic problems the phrase gets trotted out with the sub-text – the masses don’t know what’s good for them. But the problem may be different altogether as the author, James Crabtree, said in the Weekend FT (17-18 September 2016). “What if the rich world’s political class no longer know what to do?” he wrote. read more

One of the amazing things about humans is that they are all convinced they are above average. If you don’t realise what this means you are an example of what is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Basically the finding indicated that the smartest among us realise their limitations while the rest are not aware of quite how ill-informed they are – which is a nice way of saying dumb and dumber. read more

It has been common to believe that, while small to medium consultancies are doing well, there are fewer really big accounts around as corporates and government beef up their own communication functions and salaries.

So it was good to see some really big fees earnt from the massive Anhaeuser-Busch InBev SABMiller takeover according to the shareholder documents released late in August. The banks were big winners out of the 79 billion pounds deal with financing and advisory banks getting north of a billion pounds – almost as much as the taxmen. The blog reports this in pounds and US dollars because it derived the information from The FT (20-21 August 2016) and couldn’t be bothered converting to $A after recently holidaying in Europe and finding the process disconcerting. read more

At a time when the range and nature of communication channels has exploded it has never been more difficult to make yourself heard or heeded.

While we have an increasing number of ways to reach people the reality is that more and more of them have closed their ears and minds to messages which don’t fit with their belief systems or prejudices. It is this paradox that explains much about political surprises such as Brexit and Trump; the difficulty of convincing the minority that keep making poor health choices and of getting the Australians who are making obesity as big a problem here as it is in the US to eat less and more wisely; and why business and political leaders are proving incapable of convincing people that what business and conservative politicians believe as gospel is not nonsense. read more

The continued militarisation of Australian history and the consequent manufacture of ignorance about both our general and our military history suffered a minor setback the other day.

The setback was largely due to the intelligent leadership of someone who knows much more about military history than the politicians who cloak themselves in the flag and foster the myths about Gallipoli as the defining national Australian event. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan – the biggest battle Australian troops have been involved in since the Korean War – and one in which vastly outnumbered troops fought bravely supported by massive artillery support (from the blog’s old Battery, although on an earlier tour than his, and NZ gunners) and armoured personnel carriers. read more