Blogging with Ivy

Introduction Facial recognition is a technology that can be beneficial to various industries in certain circumstances. However, technology is only as good as the person who created it and ensures that it works properly. Facial recognition software can also have dire effects on some if given to a person with the wrong intentions. Issues with this technology can arise from user biases, the misidentification of people of color, and data inaccuracies. It also begs the question of how much data is okay to use and to what extent should we allow technology to have access to our data before it becomes a violation of privacy. Source: Guardian/Getty Images Police departments across the country have been utilizing facial recognition technology to compare suspects to images of people found across the internet and in databases. But what happens when detectives and police use facial recognition to solve a case and it results in a wrongful detainment? This is exactly what occurred when a DeKalb Count...

Hello everybody, welcome back. This week we will be discussing public affairs and diplomacy. How do public relations coincide with public diplomacy? I want to start this off by being quite frank by saying I had no clue what public affairs or public diplomacy were before reading the articles for this week. In fact, I had to look up the differences online. I didn't get much of an answer from a vague Google search so I decided to differentiate these two concepts from what I understand of public relations. Public relations is seen as having an "agency role" where a person works with a firm or organization to build relationships with various publics.  Public affairs are somewhat parallel to PR in the sense that the function is the same, but the role is slightly skewed to involve disseminating propaganda and messaging to the public (citizens). This person would also typically work for a governmental body. The difference between public affairs and public diplomacy is one is focu...

Welcome back to my blog, where I discuss topics related to international public relations. This week I will discuss ethics and whether ethical standards can be applied internationally. Let's begin: I am sure we all understand what the term ethics means, but for the sake of this post, I will briefly summarize the definition. Ethics are moral principles that govern how a person should behave. In the business sense, codes of ethics are documents that formalize the expectations of how any employee should act in an organization, from management to the front line. Codes of ethics outline the ideal behaviors expected from all employees. Codes of ethics help mitigate crises in an organization and maintain its reputation. Now that that's all cleared up, I will lead us right into the first article for this week, 'Business Ethics: International Analysis Of Codes Of Ethics And Conduct' written by Otávio Bandeira De Lamônica Freire. The author conducts a study to determine the diffe...

Hello everybody, welcome back. This week I will discuss international public relations concepts related to governments. How does the role of public relations shift when it comes to governments? I just want to start by saying the more I read the articles for this week, the more I became confused over the difference between lobbying and public relations. I had to do some research for myself to understand the distinction between both. I stumbled across an article written by Elizabeth Blair of  NPR  that I would like to share with you all (especially if you felt the same sentiment I did). Blair explains the difference as this: lobbyists have to disclose the activities they do to change political processes versus with public relations you don't. However, the confusion comes because the themes of both professions play into each other because they both are meant to shape the publics opinions on the goals of their client. Public relations tends to work ahead of lobbying though because...

Welcome back, welcome back! It's been a minute since I last posted so let's jump right in. This week we will be discussing public relations and war. What influence does public relations have on wartime and conflict? The founding fathers of public relations, P.T. Barnum, Ivy Lee, and Edward Bernays, mastered the art of persuading others and changing the public's opinion. Barnum utilized press agentry to organize pseudo-events. Press agentry is a one-way asymmetrical model that used the media to persuade its audience. Lee used the public information model by printing handouts with facts to inform the public. The public information model is a one-way asymmetrical model that shares objective information with the media to persuade the public of other perspectives. Bernays utilized the two-way asymmetrical model during World War I which is categorized by its use of propaganda, persuasive methods, and what is referred to as "engineering consent" to change the public'...

Hello everyone, welcome back! This week I took a personal strengths questionnaire to determine what my strengths are in life that will help me in my career and relationships. I just wanted to discuss a few of them below and leave this list here as a reminder of what I do great in! I actually thought this test was quite interesting and highly accurate (well worth the $70 I spent!). I found out things about myself that I didn't know before and was reminded of what I excel at. The report gives you 34 strengths listed in order of your best to weakest. This test is great because it doesn't make you essentially feel like you're 'bad' at doing anything, but that certain strengths are utilized more than others and the themes are prevalent in your life. The values I found most interesting were the consistency and discipline values. The description for each literally had me saying "This is an exact description of me on a daily basis!!!". I will share those descripti...