Understanding Public Relations

1. Understanding Public Relations

2. Purpose: • The purpose of Public Relations practice is to establish a two-way communication to resolve conflicts of interest by seeking common ground or areas of mutual interest and to establish understanding based on truth, knowledge and full informations.

3. Actually, the process of development in society creates certain problems. The resolving of these problems require the mutual understanding and goodwill between many groups, often having conflicting interests. That’s where public relations steps in and as long as these societal processes operate, public relations holds great promise for the future.

4. Difference between PR and propaganda • PR is completely different from propaganda, but it is misunderstood as propaganda. • Goebbels felt that the aim of propaganda was not necessarily to inform but influence, not necessarily to convert but to attract followers to keep them in line. • Propaganda is described as an “instrument of politics, a power for social control”.

5. According to Goebbels, the task of propaganda was “to blanket every area of human activity so that the environment of the individual is changed to absorb the Nazi movement’s world view.” • In propaganda, it is believed that one is free to distract or even falsely achieve the designated purpose.

6. Public Relations, in contrast, recognizes the long term responsibility and aims at persuading and achieving mutual understanding and not coercing people to toe a particular line.

7. Harwood I. Childs wrote in 1930s that the essence of public relations was not the presentation of a point of view, or the art of tempering mental attitudes or the development of cordial or profitable relations, but to reconcile or adjust in the public interest those aspects of our personal corporate behaviour which have a social significance.

8. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has defined 14 activities that are associated with PR: • Publicity • Communication • Public Affairs • Issues management • Government relations

9. f) Financial public relations g) Community relations h) Industry relations i) Minority relations j) Advertising k) Press agentry l) Promotion m) Media relations n) Propaganda

10. Broadly speaking, PR has three major aims: • To change or neutralize hostile public opinion. • To crystallize unformed opinion. • To conserve positive public opinion.

11. Definitions: • Baskin, Aonolf and Lattimore define PR as a “management function that helps achieve organizational objectives, define philosophy and facilitate organizational change. PR practitioners communicate with all relevant internal and external publics to develop relationships and to create consistency between organizational goals and societal expectations. PR practitioners develop, execute and evaluate organizational programmes that promote the exchange of influence and understanding among the organization’s constituent parts and publics.”

12. The British Institute of Public Relations describes Public Relations as “the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between the organization and its various publics.”

13. Crable and Vibbert describe PR as “the multi-phased function of communication management that is involved in researching, analyzing, affecting and reevaluating the relationships between an organization and any aspect of its environment”.

14. Dr. Rex F. Harlow, a PR scholar developed the following definition of PR: • “PR is a distinctive management discipline which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organization and its publics; involves the management of problems or issues; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and sound ethical communication techniques as its principal tools.”

15. According to Gruing and Hunt, “PR is the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest and plans and executes a programme of action to earn public understanding and acceptance”.

16. An interesting and modern definition of Public Relations is the Mexican statement made at an International Conference of Public Relations institutions held in Mexico City in 1978. • It says, “Public Relations practice is the art of social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organization leaders and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both the organization and the public interest”.

17. This is a very helpful and practical definition. • First of all, it introduces the need for research, to audit or assess the situation and to consider the implication of what is discovered. • Second, it stresses the advisory role of Public Relations, its service to management.

18. Third, it shows that Public Relations programmes must be planned. • Finally, it states that PR action must not only benefit its sponsors, but must also be in public interest, that is it should be socially responsible.

19. Analyzing all the above definitions, we find that they may differ in their emphasis on certain elements, they have a great deal in common. All these definitions give following conclusions: • PR is a planned effort or management function.

20. PR is the relationship between an organization and its publics. • PR is evaluation of public attitudes and opinions. • It is an organization’s policies, procedures and actions as they relate to its publics.

21. It is steps taken to ensure that these policies, procedures and actions are in the public interest and socially responsible. • PR is execution of an action and communication programme. • It is development of rapport, goodwill, understanding and acceptance through a two-way communication.