General Overview of Public Relations in China

Public Relations.
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Overview of Public Relations.
China is a rapidly growing economy and consumer market for companies all over the world always devising ways to develop their marketing, branding and communication strategies that are significant to Chinese consumers. Marketing and public relations in China are the two most important concepts to the nation and companies in the country fail because they fail to understand the role of the government in media and how powerful the two are, for the success of businesses. Therefore, before Matter Communications establishes its branch in China, it is significant that it understands the public relations of the country.
Public Relations is an essential and integrated component of public policy or service. As a professional activity, it serves the role of not only helping the organization providing it but also the citizens and consumers of products to whom the services and policies are directed to and meant for. Therefore, before setting up a business between two groups or parties, the two firms are obliged to establish a solid and functioning PR model that will aid in building an effective relationship between them, the organization, and the public (Grunig et al., 2016). The second function of a constructive model is that it creates a reciprocal module for understanding and goodwill and also in establishing a successful mode of communication, identifying the policy and the public interest of the organization as well as analyzing the public perception and attitude of the company. Thirdly, PR builds credibility for a company because it will perform its primary duties with through several intermediaries that communicate to a certain audience which depend on them to censor out all irrelevant information. Therefore, if the information that reaches the public is carefully chosen and reviewed, the company will gain credibility.
General Overview of Public Relations in China.
In China, communicating a message effectively requires that an individual understands the exquisitely moving parts of the country's complex operating environment. Particular elements directly affect corporate communications strategies in China including the sense that the media in the country is controlled by the government, the numerous interests of the Chinese Communist Party, its vast and sudden economic reforms and the rapidly increasing use of the internet (Black, 2015). Therefore, to maintain efficient public relations, Matter Communications and its executives should be ready and open to tackling all sorts of challenges, as well as understand that engagement and full operation with China is the most difficult thing to do in the world of business.
The difficulty in public relations emanates from the number of stakeholders that the Chinese and other foreign companies in the country must influence and satisfy, and also the built relations and motivations that exist between and among the shareholders. Thereupon, an effectual PR miniature in China must pay attention to, understand, accept, examine and re-examine the challenges to identify credible opportunities for and threats to their business. Another fact to understand and appreciate is that is that the government and the country's PR interconnected and work together (Chen & Culbertson, 2018). All the affairs of the government are related to the general PR of the country and that is where foreign companies fail as they treat it as that of their countries where the two functions are separate entities.
Political Censorship on Public Relations in China.
In China, the role of the government in media is stiffer than that of the United States. The Council of Foreign Relations in the country filters information while determining the vagueness of the laws set to deal with the publication of state secrets. Therefore, major information outlets in the country are fully aware of the pieces of news that are appropriate and politically acceptable information to be aired to the public. Content on independent movements of China, for instance, religious movements of Falun Gong, secrets concerning the democracy of the nation, protests, massacre of 1989, police brutality, corruption and issues of food safety, are filtered and banned before release.
Compared to the U.S, the government of China regulates all forms of communication including all the sources of information such as the media, television, radio, the press, films, literature, mobile phone calls, messaging and the internet (Jiang, 2018). The precaution was established in the country in April 2015 and enacted in December 2015 as a way of staying in line with the policies of the government of ensuring that it is free of communication issues from external environments. There are several reasons for the censorship and apart from the political reasons of maintaining law and order in the country, the government prevents certain media from reaching the public so as to uphold the proper morals of the land. Moreover, China chose to filter information to protect its culture. Because of this, the company should spend a significant amount of time deciphering the most efficient and appropriate modes of communication with the right channels and on a relevant context in the country. Secondly, besides the political censorship, Matter Communications should ensure that it gathers and publishes correct information that is in line with the political obligations of China to avoid been flagged and blamed for not supporting the territories of the Union of China.
Defamation Laws
With the rapidly increasing media industry and services and improving people’s awareness of their legal rights, the government has reciprocated by heightening the effect of its defamation litigation. In other countries, defamation is a civil matter but in cases where a particular piece of information is a threat to the well-being of the nation, it is treated as a criminal offence. Although article 101 and 102 provides citizens with the right to enjoy their reputation and right to honour, article 246 and 87 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, defamation is a crime and its penalty is imprisonment, criminal detention, public surveillance and deprivation of political rights. The 2015 law states that “People in China] who fabricate or disseminate false information about crises, disasters, epidemics or emergencies on social media or other media platforms may be sentenced to up to three years' imprisonment if their actions result in social disorder. Rumors with grave consequences could lead those spreading them to be jailed for up to seven years." (Cottrell, 2016).
The first circumstance in which defamation is found as a crime in China is where any written or oral insults against another person or group of people damages their reputation. The second one is where an individual, in an unauthorized manner, discloses personal information of another individual, causing harm to their honor and reputation (Cottrell, 2016). Finally, it is a case of defamation when a news content contains a major error and the error harms the reputation of another party.
On the other hand, in the United States, defamation is not independently a crime. When an individual, group or company breaks the law of defamation, there are specific steps that they ought to follow to win the case against the court standing in place for the government. One of the things that the plaintiffs must present to the government is a published or broadcast false statements about themselves, and one that is utterly factual. Secondly, the plaintiff should provide a detailed statement of harm that the false statement has caused him and those around him. Lastly, they should state the initial act of the subject, either an act of negligence, actual malice or politely. This means that in the U.S, opinions are not considered defamation and therefore, false statements that may harm the reputation of an individual or business, are not covered by the Constitution of Free Speech (Cottrell, 2016).
Social Media and Printed Media in China.
Since the target audience of the busine...