Public Relations
| Author | Jensen Zhao |
| Pages | 624-626 |
Page 624
Public relations (PR) is a profession that includes the functions of communication, community relations, crisis management, customer relations, employee relations, government affairs, industry relations, investor relations, media relations, mediation, publicity, speechwriting, and visitor relations. The first World Assembly of Public Relations Associations, held in Mexico City in August 1978, defined the practice of public relations as "the art and social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organizational leaders, and implementing planned programs of action, which will serve both the organization and the public interest."
With the advancement of the profession, in 1988 the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) adopted a short definition, "Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other." In 1994 the British Institute of Public Relations offered its definition: "Public relations practice is the discipline that looks after reputation with the aim of earning understanding and support, and influencing opinion and behavior." Although these definitions vary to some extent, they all imply that the fundamental functions of PR are communicating and improving the behavior of an organization and the perceptions of that behavior by its clientele.
People sometimes confuse public relations with advertising and propaganda. Actually, they are different.
The purpose of advertising is to stimulate consumers' desires for a product or service and to motivate them to buy that product or service. Designing advertisements, preparing verbal and graphical messages, and buying time and space from the mass media for their exposure are the tasks of advertising. When necessary, PR professionals will use advertising as one approach to building goodwill and creating proper public attitudes toward their organizations. Tobacco companies' goodwill ads and television commercials are one example of such a use.
The purpose of propaganda is to generate conditioned reflexes among people in order to replace their reasoned actions with the conditioned reflex. Propaganda is used to brainwash people with...
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