History of Public Relations

Perhaps no one has had a greater impact in the field of public relations as Edward Bernays. He was named one of the 20th century most influential people by LIFE magazine, yet most people don’t even know his name. Known as the “father of public relations”, Bernays was born in Austria in 1891, but his family moved to New York when he was one year old. He would go on to graduate from Cornell with a degree in agriculture, but instead of becoming a farmer he decided on becoming a journalist. During World War 1 he helped the Woodrow Wilson administration to promote the idea that US efforts would bring democracy to Europe. It was during this period that Bernays began to understand the power of propaganda and wondered if it could be used just as effective

Early PR practices were deemed "press agentry" and were thought of a group that fell into a comparison with propaganda. This was because of the use of hype and manipulation of information. For the most part during development of the practice, there was little to no ethical boundaries. In the early 1900's however, there was a major focus on using factual information and labeling it public information, though somewhat manipulation, in order to help gain the public's interest or trust. This factual information however, was based solely around one-way communication, where the information was published simply for the knowledge of others, and not necessarily with the expectation that any action would come of the information. Of course the name of the game in public relations was always to convince someone to change or solidify their opinion on a topic or issue, in the

During the twentieth century public relations operated with a ‘thin’ understanding of ethics, which caused complex problems for society. To understand why and how this happened we must first understand what ethics and public relations are and how they work together. Public relations is ‘the management of communication between an organization and its publics’ (Tench & Yeomans 2009, p. 5)); its role is to establish a positive relationship between an organisation (or individual) and society. Public relations has power – with that power comes a responsibility to be ethical, accurate and aware. Ethics is ‘the study of individual and collective moral awareness’ (Grassian 1992, p. 3); ethics allow people to identify what is ‘right and wrong, good and bad’ (Breit 2007, p. 309). Making ethical choices in public relations means to have honesty, loyalty, respect and integrity. Throughout this essay I will discuss why public relations has been perceived as unethical and examples of unethical communication; I will then

The most recent definition of public relations, according to the Public Relations Society of America (2012), states that “Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Through the rapid advancement of modern media and technology, there have never been more outlets and opportunities available for accomplishing the goals of public relations. Believing the development of social media has not created serious changes in the way public relations practitioners go about their duties would be foolish and a fast track to falling behind in this rapid world of communication. The main goals of public relations are “to

Public relations (PR) is essentially the practice of managing the flow of information that goes on between the people and a particular organization. Public relations in some situations provides organization or individual trying to gain exposure to people involving topics of public interests, issues and news items that do not require direct payment. The main purpose and aim of public relations done by a company or an organization mostly is to persuade the public, investors, partners, and other stakeholders to maintain a proper image and goodwill about it.. Some of the frequent and common activities that come under Public Relations are speaking at conferences, industry awards functions, press confrences, and employee communication.

The negative portrayal of public relations in media has created a bias for those entering the field and working in the field. This impacts society by giving them a negative view when they’re really just uneducated on the profession. My grandmother, being 85 when explaining to her what I was planning to do with my life I made sure that public relations sounded exciting and useful and that stuck with her and that is what she will tell her friends, and our relatives. But for example when someone researches on it and finds only negative things, they will spread that, they will repeat the negative things they read and the key terms like “ manipulator, schemer, controller” will be used and thought of pertaining to the profession. Media has an extreme influence on everyone these days, especially the newer generations to come. Why when looking for a future job would someone follow a path of something people view as negative? As a joke, As a wedding planner with no jobs? Media is ruining the reputation of public relations with its harsh assumptions, its movie characters with their easy, boring, unchallenging careers, and just uneducated people writing stories on how they’ve been “manipulated” by someone in the public relations profession.

Public relations is the contrary of marketing. In marketing, one pays to have their communication positioned in a tabloid, television or broadcasting. In public relations, the editorial that landscapes one’s business is not funded. The journalist, whether radio or newspaper, composes about or movies one’s business as an end result of data he or she established and investigated.

Public opinion is not just a belief, but rather an expression of a view that is central to a functioning democracy. In 1965 Krugman stated that advertising doesn’t change attitudes, it simply changes the perception of what should matter when buying. Whether what that citizen is buying is a certain brand of coffee or the idea of going to war, communication is the cornerstone for how our society functions as a whole. Public relations is not just for products and companies, it shapes ideas and movements. With an increasing global market and issues the need for public relations has and will continue to grow.

Public relations (PR) is defined as ‘the way organisations, companies and individuals communicate with the public and media.’ (IPR, 2012) It is essential for an organisation to have a strong public relations team as they are the ones who helped the organisations to build relationships and mutual understanding, to create a positive image for the organisation and to communicate effectively to its public. The term ‘public’ used here refers to not just members of the public, but also involves internal and external stakeholders such as the organisation’s employee, shareholders, clients they are working with, government bodies etc. There are no exact rules on how an organisation should practice PR. However, organisations should view the excellence

Among the many competing definitions of public relations, J. Grunig and Hunt’s is the most widely

Due to the world's rapid change through advanced technology public relation became more and more a global activity. Nowadays it is one of the fastest-growing

Media relations can be defined as one of the most significant areas of the practice of public relations. (Shaw&White, 2004) It enhances the practice of public relations by serving a systematic, strategized and mutually beneficial relationship between journalists and the public relations practitioners to build credibility, understanding and respect between the two parties. (Supa&Zoch, 2009) It is essential to cultivate a positive and healthy relationship between public relations practitioners and journalists because journalists tend to look at public relations practitioners in a negative way where they believe that they spin information to get free publicity which making it difficult for journalists to report legitimate news and at the same time, against the basic rules of news writing. (Fedler and DeLorme, 2002) Another study by Kiranjit and Halimahton (2006) also suggests that public relations practitioners and journalists are very much sceptical about each other’s role and the relationship between two of them is doubtful and uncertain. From the point of view of public relations practitioners, they complaint that journalists do not understand the role of public relations. On the other side, journalists tend to think that public relations

     Good public relations is key to the success of any business. A company must strive to make itself stand out in its particular field. The media can be a very effective public relations tool if it is used right.

The theory explains that the value of public relations in organization and society lies in socially responsible managerial decisions and quality organization to public relations. Organisations must behave in ways that solve the problems and satisfy the goals of the stakeholders as well as the management in order to be effective. Good relationship with organisation’s strategic publics is helpful in developing and achieving goals desired by both the organization and its publics, reducing costs of negative publicity, and increasing revenue by providing products and services needed by stakeholders. Practitioners identify publics who are affected by or affect organizational decisions and communicate symmetrically with them to build high quality long term relations.

As the name of the discipline implies, public relations is how an organization builds beneficial relationships with its key stakeholders. With effective communication as the practices’ primary tool, modern day organizations have taken advantage of proficient practitioners to boost exposure of their company and its message across to international audiences.