The Unseen Power: The Influence Of Public Relations

Today, it is without a doubt that public communication is at the heart of our economy, our politics and our society. It is being used in different aspects of society - studios use it to advertise their films. Advocates use it to encourage social causes. The businessmen use it to furnish their image. Politicians use it, for them to get elected. It is a field constructed on various ideas and images, many information and persuasion, tactics and strategy. There is no product or policy that will ever succeed without a clever message that targets the right audience or people in innovative and creative ways. To communicate strategically is one of today’s ability to communicate and what our programs are all about. Therefore, public communications

In November 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. With a campaign centered around otherization and nationalism, the atmosphere of this election, as well as the attitudes of the citizens of the country, bears similarities to 1930s Nazi Germany. While it may initially seem far-fetched to compare Donald Trump 's election to Adolf Hitler 's rise to power, both campaigns utilize nationalistic, racist sentiment and a fear of the "foreign other" to gain power within the country. Moreover, both campaigns utilize propaganda and the media in their own way to generate hatred and fear to further their own goals. I will argue that these tactics used by Donald Trump has inspired numerous acts of hatred, and that any person who is not a white male has a reason to fear Trump 's presidency.

Public Relations (PR) can sometimes be grouped in with the advertising and marketing industry, but the industry has continued to expand with the increasing digital media platforms and the need to relay information to targeted audiences. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics” (“About Public Relations”). The annual revenue of the global relations industry generated more than $14 billion with the U.S. accounting for $12 billion with experts believing it will keep expanding (“Public Relation Services” 2).

Public relations, also referred to a PR, represent an essential component of business, in which the business interacts through various modes such as promotions, initiatives, and so forth with its customer base, as well as, the potential new customers. Subsequently, according to Davis (2009), this interaction permits the business, as well as, the public to intermingle in such a way to disseminate information to the public, which possesses a newsworthy nature via media sources such as a trade magazine or journal, the traditional radio or television networks, the newspaper, or the internet. Hence, an effectual public relations program has the potential to not only maximize, as well as increase sales, but also, enhance profitability by establishing a competitive advantage with relation to business contenders. Therefore, an effective PR campaign accomplishes this goal by creating greater visibility for the business, its products, and augmenting the credibility of the business, while, attempting to neutralize potential crises, as they arise. Thus, public relation programs represent an invaluable tool utilized by businesses such as the Olive Garden Restaurant.

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

Public relations practitioners have to cautioned because the demographics of the United States is not monolithic, instead it is very diverse and complex in aspects as geography, history, economics, ethnicity, generational, socio-economic status. The PR practitioners must understand and act base on those aspects to positive approach the audience. Otherwise, the communication with the audience will be not effective and the channel use may be not the adequate for the specific

This paper was prepared during the Spring Semester of 2016 for COMM 226-003 - Introduction to Public Relations.

Public relation is communication process placed strategically to build mutual and beneficial relationship between organization and public on products, leadership and organization policy. Since the two depend on each other, they have to interact and have amicable relationship (Hunt and Grunig 1992). Throughout human history public relation provide right information, persuading public to uptake the information and has public to integrate with the information given. (Edward 1971). In any society people who live, work and interact in all levels must have relationship which intricately joins them, (Richard W. Darrow 1996).

As public relations and journalism, the PR practitioners and the journalist are always related to each other nowadays. Both of them are important factors of the modern mass media, which aim to influence public opinions since the early twentieth century (Coombs and Holladay, 2010). In order to sharp citizen’s opinions, Charron(1989) mentions that the PR practitioners and journalists often prefer to work together and share information as cooperation. The dependent relationship, as Coombs (2010) explains, the PR practitioners scheme to cover through media, while the journalists are exploiting

Public Relations in New Zealand is widely useful, practised and builds up an organisation’s relationships with its publics. PR in short, is essentially about communication and relationship building. PRINZ [Public Relations Institute of New Zealand] (2009) defines PR as “The deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.” This essay will deconstruct and critically examine this definition of public relations in relation to PR theories. These theories being Systems Theory, Relationship Management and Excellence Theory will be examined and applied to campaign examples. This will give a comprehensive understanding of the theory’s meanings as well as relationships with aspects of the PRINZ definition of PR. To understand PR theories however, the term publics must first be addressed.

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

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 are the efforts to build relationships with institutions outside the business and the main aim is to improve the image of the enterprise buy continually sending positive messages to the outside world.

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.