In some ways the answer is yes but I think the reason is a self-delusion that marketing and PR professionals have held for many years that social media is laying bare.
Essentially, PR folk have felt like they "controlled" the public perception of the brand because they could look at coverage of the brand and evaluate how it was being represented in the media.
What social media has revealed is the conversation that has always been held informally and privately - the word of mouth that more closely reflects how consumers, customers, etc. truly feel about a brand. This conversation was hard to measure prior to the emergence of social media. Consumer/customer surveys never did a very good job capturing the nuance inherent in people's opinions.
So, in that sense, social media has killed the perception of control that PR folks had. But, for those who can adapt to a new conversational model, social media opens a whole new opportunity, as Kara rightly points out.
And, in fact, with all the social tools PR folks now have, it is easier than ever for them and companies to go right around the gatekeepers of the media directly to customers.
I'd also add that PR is best positioned to do this among the marketing disciplines because of the longstanding dialogue we've had with the media. Unlike most other marketing disciplines that excel at creating one-way message delivery platforms, PR knows how to have a conversation about an industry, brand, etc.
If Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington are fed up with PR people, wait until they hear from folks who only know how to force feed messages to the public.
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