My name is Tshokologo Makolo also known as Teekay!!..i am a final year student in Limkokwing university (Malaysia).And i am very passionate about Public relations profession inspired by one of the PR gurus Mr Matthew Freud (also refereed to as father of PR) who is head and founder of the Freud communications which is an international public relations firm in the UK.
During my summer vacation i got an opportunity to accomplish my PR working experience at the department of broadcasting and services Botswana (DBS)Which is a government sector under the ministry of communications science and technology it comprises of radio Botswana (RB1 and RB2)and Botswana television(BTV).I can say it is a national media management unit as it is in charge of all the government media stations .
The first day of my internship program i was toured around the whole of mass media complex and introduced to different officers from different divisions . Then after i was briefed about the department and was given the department's booklet to learn more . One thing i got to realize was that the department has a lot of divisions and i thought it must be hard to manage this department ,but when i got to learn the significance of public relations in the department i got to realize that this department management is laid on the hands of the public relations unit liaise with the management unit.
I saw this recognition of PR significance promising as most companies in Botswana have not yet figured out that public relations has to be the heart and soul of a firm or a company.With that is raised hope that the PR industry in Botswana has a chance to be recognized to what it really is..and DBS been one of the biggest department in Botswana most people will see the recognition they have given the PR unit and hopefully they will adopt the same concept.
3 comments:
It must been great being part of a giant organization such as department of broadcasting and services Botswana (DBS),which is a government sector under the ministry of communications science and technology it comprises of radio Botswana (RB1 and RB2)and Botswana television(BTV)as you stated above. It was my was dream to be part of the organization and is still is. Looking forward into that in the near future.
What i have realized from your post is that P.R at Botswana is still not popular. I was expecting more from an information organization to have strong Public Relations. The organization faces a lot of criticism from large sectors of the community of Botswana and even rumours from the media about internal wars. Thus one will expect a post a which state the amount of effort P.R is doing their. Am hoping you will solve this as time goes and also having a great time.
Yes i agree with you Tshokologo,Botswana have not yet figured out that public relations has to be the heart and soul of a firm or a company, especially in government departments. I was thinking may be PR people need to explain to their staff the important of public relations,and how PR can change the organization, especially top Management.They need to understand the importance of Public Relations so that they can try by all means to involve them when ever possible.I know and trust that Public Relations can bring change to a an organization. PR can help to build passion and commitment,create vision and purpose and also Develop teamwork and cooperation.Public Relations deals with influencing public opinion.
In our department our main purpose was mostly working with media and event management. I will say they don't know more about other rules that can bring a difference to an organization.Things like, internal communication,communication inside an organization is more important than external communication,because the organization has to function effectively towards its goal in order to survive,for example most of customers were complaining about bad services they get from the department,and the question is, who give them these services?definitely Employees. This challenge is not faced by only The department of Road Transport and Safety.I will say it is a challenge facing almost all Government departments ,and this is where PR get in,we know and understand the important of internal relations and Employee communication. There is a lot that PR Unit can bring to the organization.
Well i am Ronald Ntane and im doing my final year in Public Relations Management at Vaal University of Technology South Africa. I tend to agree with Tshokologo that indeed the value of Public Relations is not highly recognised back at Botswana. As a matter of fact, both companies and the government does not understand what PR is all about. They believe that everyone can be a Public Relations practitioner, that PR is not for PR people and that is really killing our profession because those people do not have a clue of what is expect of a Public Relations Officer. Another point is that, companies seem to confuse marketing with public relations. From what i have learnt, i understand that a person who did marketing cannot be a public relations practitioner but a person who did pr can work as a marketing practitioner as marketing is also part of our studies
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