Thursday, 30 April 2009

The Media In Practice: Stereotypes

As part of this assignment we've been asked to look at what stereotypes may exist surrounding our chosen careers. During the first few weeks of this term we had the university's careers advisor Esyllt Geroge come to the class to talk to us about employment and she spent a lot of time talking to us about stereotypes (including making us walk around the room and pretending we were people working in certain professions. We may have felt silly but it got the point across).
Different careers come with their own set of stereotypes but all careers that in some way involve working with the press seem to have the same set.
To quote another very common, and often overused, saying: "There's no such thing as bad press".
Press Officers, Spokespeople, Press Relations Managers and anyone associated with dealing with and drumming up press for a client are all believed to be very ruthless and opportunistic, taking the above saying and exploiting it. It is a common belief that any event can be exploited by a press team to someones advantage. For example, after Kate Moss was caught snorting cocaine on camera it was her press team who worked the situation to her advantage and turned what could have been a potentially career destroying scandal into something which got her name back in the headlines and made her a hundred times more famous than she had been before.
In some ways this is a stereotype which is based in the truth. It is the job of the press team behind any client, be it a celebrity, a major company or even a small charity, to work any situation to their advantage and make sure the client is kept in the public's consciousness.

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