Phillips D., Young P. Online Public Relations
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Transparency
At the turn of the century, no PR department would send a copy of a press
release to a competitor at the same time they sent it to the press. Today a very
large proportion of organizations do. This is part of the new transparency
and PR people are involved.
In fact, they don’t sent press releases to competitors, but they do load
them onto the website where competitors can download them. In addition,
these newsrooms are published for others to access, such as the list of
newsrooms in the ‘PR Books’ wiki maintained by the Leeds Met academic
and blogger Richard Bailey at h�p://prbooks.pbwiki.com. Transparency,
however inadvertent, is alive and well in online PR.
A lot has been said about the shi� in transparency in recent years.
Organizations are invited to become more transparent, and for PR this shi�
is also part of a new imperative as the internet mediates more organiza-
tional communication.
3
In a just a week during August 2008, not the high spot for big news
in the United Kingdom, there were over 20 different stories calling on
organizations to increase transparency. Among the more telling ones:
The UK Government’s Business Secretary urged energy companies
to address the ‘lack of transparency’ in their accounts or face the
A shift in culture, communication and value
38
Transparency has to be considered in a wide context. It is one of the core
elements that drive online public relations, the others being internet agency,
internet porosity, richness in content and reach. These five basic elements
of online public relations are mediated by three other components: the
platforms or devices we use to access the internet, the many and growing
channels for communication, and the context in which all these elements
come together for people to enjoy.
Practitioners are at the heart of organizational transparency, and knowing
its many faces is very useful in online PR.
Transparency, as used in the humanities, implies openness, communica-
tion and accountability. The term is a metaphorical extension of the meaning
used in the physical sciences: a ‘transparent’ object is one that can be seen
through.
Examples of transparency are typified when government meetings are
open to the press and the public, when budgets and financial statements
may be reviewed by anyone, when laws, rules and decisions are open to
discussion. Then decisions are seen as transparent and there is less oppor-
tunity for the authorities to abuse the system in their own interest. Trans-
parency is, in this sense, a building block of democracy. The extent to which
political PR practice is comfortable with the nature of transparency has a
number of advantages. It provides a framework for good practice.
possibility of having to open their books to reveal the profits of their
supply and generation arms. (Reported in Financial Director.)
The greater independence being granted to the USB’s three divisions
suggests that changes will be aimed at improving flexibility and
transparency. (Reported in the Financial Times.)
Commenting on the continuing rise of online retail sales, Stuart Tofts
remarked: ‘What really interested me this month, though, was a
comment made by Mike Petevinos, Head of Consulting for Retail at
Capgemini UK. He explained growth is rapid, even within the current
gloomy economic climate. One reason he gave was “the increased
choice, price transparency and convenience that online has to offer”.’
The BBC reported the AA saying that a $2 fall in the price of a barrel
of oil should be reflected in a 1p fall at the pumps. This would be
the equivalent of prices dropping by 14p from the peak to the latest
low. But the motoring organization said that a lack of transparency in
pricing meant that it was very difficult to tell whether motorists were
getting a fair deal.
Transparency is in the news and across a range of sectors.
Transparency
39
CASE STUDY: GOVERNMENTS ARE BEING
LOBBIED TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY
Poland’s finance minister vowed greater transparency in the public finances of
European Union members as he unveiled long-promised draft legislation designed
to streamline government spending in 2008.
The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, said the
government needed to strengthen data-sharing rules, as well as taking steps to
clarify and simplify the legislation over the loss of government-held personal data
by one of its contractors. But he said businesses also had to take responsibility
around data sharing, because there was a ‘lack of transparency and accountability’
in the way many firms dealt with personal information.
Stephen Hockman, commenting in The Guardian on 19 August 2008, noted the
understandable reluctance of developing countries to sign up to carbon commit-
ments unless the developed world is prepared to make an equitable contribution,
and called for more radical options. Those options must be realized at state,
regional and international levels, and they will require political, economic and
legal solutions. In this mix, international legal instruments are crucial. The existing
tools lack the necessary jurisdiction, clout and transparency.
In economics, a market is transparent if much is known by many: what
products and/or services are available, at what price and where. Trans-
parency is the bastion against cartels and price fixing, a guarantor of product
efficacy and at the core of competition.
Transparency in communication is evident when the media are trans-
parent, such as when there are many, o�en competing, sources of information;
when much is known about the method of information delivery; and when
the funding of media production is publicly available.
In each case, the internet is now a major component in delivering the
advantages of transparency and nowhere more so than for organizations
and managers with roles as guardians of reputation.
RADICAL TRANSPARENCY
Radical transparency is a management method whereby nearly all decision
making is carried out publicly. All dra� documents, all arguments for and
against a proposal, are freely available; the decisions about the decision-
making process itself, and all final decisions are made publicly and remain
publicly archived.
The case for transparency, according to Frank Buytendijk, Vice President
of Corporate Strategy at Hyperion, is compelling:
1
A shift in culture, communication and value
40
With perfect corporate transparency, everyone within a company has access
to relevant information. Management accurately represents the drivers of the
business. Annual budgeting is replaced with a system of continuous planning
supported by a collaborative process. Every manager knows exactly how his
or her decisions affect other aspects of the company. There is visibility into
how external changes impact internal ma�ers. And the organization is able to
predict precisely how the market will respond to various activities.
For most organizations, radical transparency offers a number of disad-
vantages, including competitive disclosure for companies, and risks to state
secrets for some government departments. It can expose corporate intel-
lectual property (IP) that may provide a unique competitive advantage, and
in many organizations the conflict between radical transparency and loss of
competitive advantage is an important concern.
Martine Courant-Rife, a professor at Lansing Community College, Michigan,
attorney and blogger, wrote that ‘what’s becoming an all too common
assertion of IP rights by estate holders is demonstrated by the case of a
teacher (Dale Herbert) who’s been conducting educational funded use
of Flat Stanley and who may have to end his efforts which have reached
across the globe’ (http://www.flatstanleyproject.com/).
From the George Lucas Educational Foundation Article:
Today, the project has become a veritable global phenomenon, and because
of it, thousands of children from more than forty countries have exchanged
pictures, stories, and goodwill, turning a half-inch-thin storybook character
into a cultural icon. Flat Stanley look-alikes have even been photographed
with Clint Eastwood on Oscar night, soared aboard a space shuttle, and visited
heads of state around the globe. But now, as the project enters its thirteenth
year, Hubert might be forced to pull the plug on the popular project.
Citing legal challenges from the estate of Jeff Brown, the late author of
the original Flat Stanley book, Hebert posted a message on the project
home page that reads: ‘Sadly, the Flat Stanley Project may be forced to
end.’ Letters of support illustrating the project’s – and the character’s – far
reach have since poured in.
There is a lesson here for PR practice, which is the fine line between a
client’s intellectual property and its use by the online community. At what
point does transparency become an infringement of intellectual property
or a commercial opportunity?
The extent to which transparency can be used as a tool for commercial
advantage is shown by organizations as diverse as Procter & Gamble and
Wikipedia.
Transparency
41
CONTROLLED TRANSPARENCY
Controlled transparency is the controlled posting and release of information
to the internet. It can occur through e-mail, web-based and other device
channel outlets. It may be institutional, overt, covert and unintentional.
INSTITUTIONAL TRANSPARENCY
Institutional transparency is where information about an organization is
made available by a wide range of authorities. Many managers find it extra-
ordinary that so much is made available online without the organization’s
say so. It may be the information about a company on the government’s
list held by Companies House and made available online, a register of
members of a trade association, a list of suppliers made available through a
trade journal portal or the registration details of an organization’s website
published by the registrars. There are hundreds, if not thousands of such
In 2003 the website Ethicalcorp.com commented on the move by Procter &
Gamble towards transparency. The article was supportive.
If you’re worried about phosphonates in your detergent, want to know
what’s in your Fairy Liquid, or what chelators do for your wash, visit www.
scienceinthebox.com. This website is a vivid demonstration of a move towards
transparency by a company that has traditionally been one of the most secretive
– the household products, beauty and foods group Procter & Gamble.
The company itself admits its past difficulty in talking to people. Chris Start,
vice president of the Fabric Care division, jokes: ‘Research & Development
didn’t even talk to Marketing – the first they knew of new products was then
they bought them in the shops.’
Mr Start was speaking at an international event in Geneva designed to
demonstrate how things have changed as well as how P&G views sustainable
development.
The Science in the Box website combines both aims. First, by providing access
to the EU Safety Data Sheets for each product, it allows consumers, NGOs and
anybody else who is interested to find out what is in P&G products. So far this
covers detergents, but coverage will be extended to other cleaning products
and possibly others beyond the Fabric Care division. Other sections cover the
impacts and safety aspects of particular chemical ingredients.
The strategic decision to embrace transparency as a corporate approach
to communication is now helping one of the biggest companies in the
world to gain competitive advantage. P&G is one of many examples of
companies looking at how they can benefit from added transparency.
A shift in culture, communication and value
42
places where information about an organization, its people, brands, services
and products are declared online. It takes the form of information that is
required by law, or the rules that are part of the infrastructure for a licence
to operate. It’s not just for companies. This form of transparency applies
equally to voluntary organizations like charities and even to individuals.
OVERT TRANSPARENCY
Overt transparency is where an organization seeks to make information
available. This can be to markets, consumers, employees and many other
organizations and constituencies. O�en this form of transparency is on a
website, offered in e-mails or provided to social media participants. For
example, many organizations publish pages about corporate social re-
sponsibility on corporate websites or have listings in Wikipedia, with trade
associations and so forth. Other forms of overt transparency are when an
organization (or individual) makes information available to distribution
technologies such as RSS.
COVERT TRANSPARENCY
Covert transparency is where organizations ‘push’ or manipulate informa-
tion. Push content includes online advertising and similar marketing
promotion. It can be a�empts by the organization to get an advantage,
for example in making websites more prominent in search engine listings
(called search engine optimization – SEO), or information delivered to
social media.
Astroturfing (the practice of falsely creating the impression of in-
dependent, popular support by means of an orchestrated and disguised
marketing exercise) is the antithesis of transparency.
UNINTENTIONAL TRANSPARENCY
A classic case of unintentional transparency is the listing of a company
website in Google. It is where information is available or made available
through the offices of the organization and is ‘harvested’: that is, collected
from websites and used to offer information to other internet users. This
harvesting of information can be simply a person taking information
from a page on the organization’s website and transcribing it; it can be the
same thing but done by a computer; in more recent years it may be use of
information from just part of a web page that could be no more than a line
Transparency
43
of two, an image, video, sound file or hyperlink to other pages (such as
a news story in a newspaper’s website). Web widgets o�en contribute to
transparency as well as contributing to internet agency (see Chapter 5).
Transparency happens because, as part of the licence to operate (both
as a legal requirement and as part of building trust with constituents), in-
formation is available online. Some is required by regulatory bodies, and
some comprises references in online directories, association membership
data or rules of trade bodies. It happens when people are named in associ-
ation with organizations (and that can be as simple as the name of the
organization or website being listed, or because of e-mail addresses published
online) and through social media. All organizations are to a greater or lesser
degree transparent. So too are people. The amount of information made
available about us all is quite considerable and is growing all the time.
IN BRIEF
Internet transparency is already affecting PR practice.
It is a significant driver in modern management.
It implies openness, communication and accountability.
Transparency is a building block of democracy.
It is a bastion against cartels and price fixing, a guarantor of product
efficacy, and at the core of competition.
It provides a framework for good practice.
The media is transparent when, for example, there are many, often
competing, sources of information; when much is known about the
method of information delivery; and the funding of media production
is publicly available.
With perfect corporate transparency, everyone within a company has
access to relevant information.
Radical transparency offers a number of disadvantages, including com-
petitive disclosure for companies and risk to state secrets for some
government departments.
Controlled transparency is the controlled posting and release of
information to the internet.
Institutional transparency is where information about an organization
is made available by a wide range of authorities.
Overt transparency is where an organization seeks to make informa-
tion available.
Covert transparency is where organizations ‘push’ or manipulate
information.
Unintentional transparency is the listing of a company website in
Google. It is where information is available or made available through
the offices of the organization and is ‘harvested’.
A shift in culture, communication and value
44
Note
1. Buytendijk, F (2008) Corporate transparency is a great thing. . .
or is it? h�p://blogs.oracle.com/frankbuytendijk/2008/02/corporate_
transparency_is_a_gr.html (accessed 20 October 2008)
45
How organizations
become porous
Throughout history, information has ‘leaked’ out of organizations, perhaps
in the form of gossip at social gatherings or conversations between, for
example, representatives of companies and customers or suppliers.
Today, the same thing happens but on a much grander scale. The same
gossip is available in e-mails, instant messaging and web-mail discussion,
SMS messages on a mobile phone and social media interactions at work
and at home. In addition, the pub gossip of yesteryear can also find its way
online. Porosity can be interpreted as a form of inadvertent transparency.
4
Four songs from U2’s upcoming album were leaked on to the internet after
front-man Bono played them too loudly on his stereo at his villa in the
south of France. A U2 fanatic from the Netherlands who was holidaying in
the village of Eze, on the French Riviera, heard the new tracks being blared
from Bono’s window and decided to record them on his mobile phone. The
fan boasted about his find on the forum of U2 fan site Interference.com,
and members there advised him to publish the clips on YouTube, which he
did and thus scooped the launch.
Incidental porosity even affects top bands.