Public Relations During World War I

The First World War impacted significantly on the homefronts of the participating nations in many different social, political and economic areas. There was a widespread restructuring of primary industry with a large orientation towards militarism. There was massive political change where new systems of power were introduced that gave governments a range of new powers including the control over industry. The civilian population had severe restrictions placed upon their rights and liberties due to the necessities that total war required.

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

World War I changed America greatly. It had an obvious effect on the way we handle business on the home front. Propaganda, rationing, and political views all played a part on American citizens in World War I.

Social ramifications of World War 1 were all communities on all sides were damaged and lost to war. Millions of men and women were killed over greed and power of just a handful of men. There was civil unrest for years and even after the war was ended, many people still had hate for the other countries.

The purpose of this interview is to see first hand how different people view public relations. Participants were chosen based on their major in order to avoid having only PR majors answering the questions. These interviews were conducted one-on-one in order to avoid biasing the participants’ opinions and views.

When individuals are not use to voicing their opinions, their minds often go to a standstill and thoughts are lost,. They live daily just hoping they can work hard enough to move out of the circumstances they are currently in. “ Public relations provides the tools

The perceived ‘cantankerous’ relationship that characterises the exchanges between public relations professionals and media practitioner’s has been rife since the birth of public relations. The pair is, in its simplest term ‘frenemies’, they do work together, albeit covertly, and are usually hesitant to admit (on the media side) their cooperation. However, there is no absolute trust held between the two since there is a shifting power of control and influence that continually changes, which Fletcher (as cited in Hobsbawn, 2010, p. 64) believes is due to the market value of the particular product that public relations is representing. Media practitioners are often called the ‘watchdogs’ of

The past couple years have been difficult journey for me. Life has become a game, with trying to figure out how I can use my talents and interests to find a career that suits me. I have been told that I am a great communicator, good at managing different forms of social media, very creative, and that my writing skills have improved exponentially. These traits and talents led me to exploring public relations. A couple of my hobbies include cheering for sports teams, and traveling. One of the things that I find appealing about studying public relations is that you can go in a million different routes with a PR degree. Henceforth, I want to pursue getting a job in a public relations field with a sports team. To begin this pursuit, I looked up communications jobs within the National Hockey League. There happened to be a posting with the Arizona Coyotes franchise for a Director of Media Relations. To figure out whether this kind of job is right for me, I must analyse the required tasks and responsibilities that I would be have to deal with. They are as follows:

The public relations staff is composed of usually two staff members and several unpaid interns. The second of the three staffs is the fan relations staff. Fan relations are responsible for making sure that fans are happy. They are responsible for the promotions around the arena that are directed at making sure the fan who is actually a customer stays happy and returns another day. There day to day staff is much smaller although on game day they bring in a very large part time staff to give away posters or sign people up for credit cards or do any number of other things. The third staff and probably the most important is the Media Relations staff. Media Relations is responsible for the media’s interaction with the team itself; they are the contact for interviews as well as for media clearance for games. Every clip, picture, quote, press release or story that a team releases to the media and general public crosses the desk of a Media Relations representative. The small staff which makes up media relations is the official spokespeople for an athletics organization. The three divisions of the PR department work together in order to keep the media and the fans happy as well as informed.

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

Public relations and public relations practitioners focus heavily on maintaining mutually beneficially relationships. Through these relationships, public relations allow companies and products to gain exposure and public acknowledgement, without the need to pay for advertising. This paper will focus on the sports industry in Australia, specifically focusing on the illegal drug use in the Essendon Football Club that came to the medias attention in late 2011. Due to the severity of the doping occurring within the club, sponsorships were lost and most recently, players and staff were banned from the game they love. The media follows the Australian Football League (AFL) with great priority during the playing season. Without public relations, clubs would not be able to relay information such as player injury updates, team statistics and club news to the public. Through discussing the drug scandal within the Essendon Football Club, the way in which public relations deals with crisis’ within professional sport will also be reviewed. In doing this, theories; framing and relationship management will also be demonstrated and appropriately discussed in relation to how the above case study was handled by the public relations team.

This view is supported by a public relations expert Devon Blaine, who says that “openness with the press and honesty are the best practices”. It to apply this view to the situation of sports public relations crisis situation, in practice it may

Public relations work is often associated with the feeling of mystery and backroom practices. That is due to the fact that practitioners operate behind the scenes and in a way that is not directly obvious to the public. Stauber and Rampton (2004:1) explain this behaviour by stating that public relations “can’t work if you see it coming”. This dissertation aims to shed some light on the way a public relations campaign is carried out. In order to not only provide a theoretical point of view this thesis will draw on the practical of one of the biggest sport events in Yorkshire: the Tour de Yorkshire. A case study of that campaign in combination with the relevant academic literature will show how a media construction of an event works. The Tour de Yorkshire was promoted as an “international cycle race” (TDY FAQ) on the official info spread sheet and can be seen as a spin-off from the great interest that surrounded the Tour de France departure in Leeds last year. The event took place from the 1-3 May of 2015 and it included a men’s race with 144 participants as well as a separate women’s race with 98 riders. In addition to the sport aspects the event also included several musical and cultural performances. According to the numbers published by the press team, one and a half million people attended the event. Furthermore the race attracted media coverage in more than 150 countries (TDY Press Release 22). After the event was over the public relations campaign team

Public relations can be seen as a deliberate and planned effort to establish and maintain understanding between an organisation and an audience. Public relations is the key to effective communication between two parties. In addition to this, communication is the biggest part of how meanings circulate within our society. Its strategy is determined by values that organize and frame public ideas. Public relations may also look after the emotions and behaviours of a group of audience and to support their influence of their attitudes and behaviours. It may use propaganda to attempt to affect a certain audience and for example, citizens of a given society. Propaganda is manipulative and persuasive when it gives misleading information as it attempts to cause an affect on the emotions of the given audience. In many cases, it is hard to break propaganda and public relation apart as the two have a huge similarity. It has been noted by many critics that because the two are so similar, public relations should not be practiced. They add that public relation is an oxymoron and is an unreal possibility.

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.