Putting the Public Back in Public Relations

Chapter 14. New “Marketing” Roles

In the era of the “new” Social Web, the field of communications is actually devolving back to its origins of communicating with people, not at them. It might seem implied, but communications doesn’t usually embody two-way discussions. Unfortunately, communications has evolved into a one-way distribution channel that broadcasts messages at target audiences. In the process, communications stopped being about communication, and people stopped listening. The focus became the marketing aspects of top-down message push and control. We now commonly refer to this as marketing communications (marcom). Marcom embodies traditional and new marketing branches, including advertising, PR, Web or interactive, ...