Public relations

For how to participate on Wikipedia as a public relations professional, see WP:COI.

Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The aim of public relations by a company often is to persuade the public, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products, or of political decisions. Common activities include speaking at conferences, winning industry awards, working with the press, and employee communication.

History

Ancient origins

Although "public relations" was not yet developed as a concept, the history of public influence and communications management dates back to ancient civilizations. The earliest evidence dates back to the Babylonians of 1800 BC. Stone tablets were used to educate farmers about how to sow and harvest crops.

Egypt Scribes were “officials” elected by the pharaoh or other person of authority to “superintend and to write deeds.” The Egyptian government was reliant upon documents for its facilitation; a scribe recorded all laws onto papyrus. However, the government held a firm grip on these documents and released them to the public with an official order. It was Egyptian practice to carefully review the documents prior to their circulation. The original writer of a document was generally the only person to make copies to ensure consistency and credibility.

Athens & The Roman Republic

Athens was home to what can be considered another of the first public relations specialists, but through oratory. Town criers were available for hire, often by the government to proclaim new laws to the community. Criers, due to their low socioeconomic statuses, also accepted work from traders and artisans to advertise and represent their companies in revolutionary ways. Aesclyptoe, an Athenian cosmetics vendor, created what is considered the precursor to the modern day jingle to sell his product and his credibility to peddle the product. When he sang, “…for prices in reason, the woman who knows, will buy her cosmetics at Aesclyptoe,” the cosmetics retailer created a persona of a trustworthy businessman. Ancient Greece was also home to the first theories of rhetoric, a field of research and practice that has had extremely powerful influences on public relations as an art, skill, and ethical practice. Ancient Greek writers such as Isocrates critiqued unethical practices of oratory as dangerous to democracy, while Plato and Aristotle devised academic distinctions to limit persuasion or maintain standards for judgment and action. The field was further extended under the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero in the Roman Republic.

The Roman Empire

In the Ancient Roman Empire, Emperor Augustus instated what he called “Pax Romana,” otherwise known as the Roman peace. The peace was a mutual understanding and respect amongst citizens of the empire and merchants who traveled through villages. With standardized money and Roman legions protecting merchants, trade increased precipitously to include marketing of products beyond previous communal boundaries. The Empire created symbols and propoganda to demonstrate its economic prosperity and stability, so that it could entice unconquered regions to submit willingly.

The Silk Road in Asia & the Middle East

Kublai Khan, emperor of the Mongol Empire, instituted improvements to make the Asian trade route seem safer. Kahn built a postal relay system, essentially a system of checkpoints along the route, each about one days worth of travel apart. Coupled with the staunch security patrolling the route, Khan changed the perception of the route from thief-ridden to one where “… a young woman could walk across Asia carrying a gold tray on her head without concern for her safety.”

Early Pre-History

Although the history of a professional field goes back only to around 1900, Public relations professionals secure the validity of their work by anchoring it in historical events. For example, Edward Bernays,one of the pioneers of public relations, claimed, “The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people. Of course, the means and methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as society has changed.” So while there is a concrete history of public relations beginning at the turn of the 20th century, there is also what can be called a “pre-history” – public relations before it was called such.

Professionals cite modern public relations in the promotion of the New World by explorers. Land promoters used exaggerated stories of grandeur to persuade English citizens to migrate to the New World in the 1600s. Famous explorers such as Magellan, Columbus and Raleigh have been declared “public relations” people by the current professionals, because their appeals to rulers for funding and to colonists for immigration are similar to those used in contemporary practices.

Another example of exploratory public relations occurred during the movement west in the United States. Exaggerated stories of Davy Crocket and the California Gold Rush were used to persuade the public to fight the war against Mexico and to migrate west in the US, respectively. Land-owners promoted offers to attract settlers.

American colleges have led the way in the use of public relations in the promotion of higher education. In 1641, Harvard College developed the first fund-raising brochure, New England's First Fruits, as part of the first fund-raising campaign. Three Harvard preachers on a begging mission to England had asked for a pamphlet to explain its financial needs. King's College (now Columbia University), sent out an announcement of its 1758 graduation ceremonies, the first anywhere in the colonies, and several newspapers printed this information—apparently the first instance of a new release. Princeton, meanwhile, was the first to make it a routine practice to supply newspapers with information about activities at the college, particularly information of interest to prospective students.

Public relations professionals also link practices to propaganda in the U.S. narrative. The Boston Tea Party was a staged event to rally protest against the British rule in the American colonies during the late 18th century, and some historians consider it to be an example of a kind of early “public relations event.” Pamphlets such as Common Sense and The American Crisis were used to spread anti-British propaganda, and the phrase “taxation without representation is tyranny” had huge persuasive power. After the revolution was won, disagreements broke out regarding the United States Constitution. Supporters of the constitution sent letters now called the Federalist Papers to major news outlets that persuaded the public to support the constitution.

Within the U.S. government, an 1807 address to Congress by former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson may be the first time the term "public relations" was coined. During the 1820s, President Andrew Jackson appointed the first Federal Press Secretary in the US, Amos Kendall. Kendall served as spokesperson for the government administration, working to consistently protect the administration from slander and rumors in the news. Kendall was one of the first persons whose paid profession centered on media management around a particular organization or party.

Eventually, corporations and organizations realized the trend to have public relations professionals on staff. Westinghouse Corporation created the first in-house PR department in 1889. Many of the first practitioners of public relations in the U.S. supported railroads, and in particular were a part of the railroad companies. Many scholars believe that the first appearance of the term "public relations" appeared in the 1897 Year Book of Railway Literature to persuade US consumers to use the new rail system. Three former Boston journalists created the first public relations agency in 1900 under the name "Publicity Bureau."

Foundation as a profession

Ivy Lee, a former Wall Street reporter, is sometimes called the father of public relations and was influential in establishing it as a professional practice. In 1906, Lee published a Declaration of Principles, which said that public relations work should be done in the open, should be accurate and cover topics of public interest. Ivy Lee is also credited with developing the modern press release and the "two-way-street" philosophy of both listening to and communicating with respective publics.

In practice Lee's work was often identified as spin or propaganda. In 1913 and 1914 the mining union was blaming the Ludlow Massacre, where on-strike miners and their families were killed by state militia, on the Rockefeller family and their coal mining operation, The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. On the Rockefeller family's behalf, Lee published bulletins called "Facts Concerning the Struggle in Colorado for Industrial Freedom," which contained false and misleading information. The press said Lee "twisted the facts" and called him a "paid liar," a "hired slanderer," and a "poisoner of public opinion."

Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, is also sometimes referred to as the father of public relations for his work in the 1920s. He took the approach that audiences had to be carefully understood and persuaded to see things from the client's perspective. He wrote the first text-book on public relations and taught the first college course at New York University in 1923. Bernays also first introduced the practice of using front groups in order to protect tobacco interests. In the 1930s Bernays started the first vocational course in public relations.

Bernays was the profession's first theorist. He was influenced by Freud's theories about the subconscious. Bernays authored several books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). He saw public relations as an "applied social science" that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and "herdlike" public.^{[citation needed]} "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society," he wrote in Propaganda, "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."

Early professional public relations

One of Bernays' early clients was the tobacco industry. He consulted psychoanalyst A. A. Brill on how to persuade women to smoke. Brill told him that the desire to smoke was suppressed and could be released by emancipation and that cigarettes could become "torches of freedom" from gender imbalances. In 1929, he orchestrated a now-legendary publicity stunt by convincing women to smoke at the Easter parade in Manhattan as a statement of rebellion against the norms of a male-dominated society. The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the publicity stunt. Bernays dubbed his PR campaign the: "Torches of Liberty Contingent".^{[citation needed]}

Publicity photos of these beautiful fashion models smoking "Torches of Liberty" were sent to various media outlets and appeared worldwide. As a result, the taboo was dissolved and many women were led to associate the act of smoking with female liberation. Some women went so far as to demand membership in all-male smoking clubs, a highly controversial act at the time. For his work, Bernays was paid a tidy sum by George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company.

Paul Chabas's September Morn made famous through a publicity stunt.

Another early practitioner was Harry Reichenbach (1882–1931) a New York-based American press agent and publicist who promoted movies. He claims to have made famous the Paul Chabas painting, September Morn. Supposedly, he saw a print in a Chicago art store window. He made a deal with the store owner who had not sold any of his 2,000 prints. Reichenbach had hired some boys to "ogle" the picture when he showed it to the moralist crusader Anthony Comstock. Comstock was suitably outraged when he saw it. Comstock's Anti-Vice Society took the case to the court and lost. However, the case aroused interest to the painting, which ultimately sold millions of copies.

Modern public relations

The foundation of the Public Relations Society of America in 1947 was followed by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in London in 1948 and similar trade associations in Australia, Europe, South Africa, Italy and Singapore among others. In 1955, the International Association of Public Relations was founded.

Advertising dollars in traditional media productions have declined and many traditional media outlets are seeing declining circulation in favor of online and social media news sources. One website even tracks the "death" of newspapers. As readership in traditional media shifts to online media, so does the focus of many in public relations. Social media releases, search engine optimization, content publishing, and the introduction of podcasts and video are other burgeoning trends.

Social media has increased the speed of breaking news, creating greater time constraints on responses to current events.

Increasingly, companies are utilizing social media channels, such as blogs and Microblogging. Some view two-way communications in social media in two categories: asymmetrical and symmetrical. In an asymmetrical public relations model an organization gets feedback from the public and uses it as a basis for attempting to persuade the public to change. A symmetrical public relations model means that the organization takes the interests of the public into careful consideration and public relations practitioners seek a balance between the interest of their organization and the interest of the public.^{[citation needed]}

Salaries

In the United States, public relations professionals earn an average annual salary of $49,800 which compares with £40,000 for a practitioner with a similar job in the UK. Top earners make around $89,220 annually, while entry-level public relations specialists earn around $28,080. Corporate, or in-house communications is generally more profitable, and communications executives can earn salaries in the mid six-figures, though this only applies to a fraction of the sector's workforce.

The role of public relations professionals is changing because of the shift from traditional to online media. Many PR professionals are finding it necessary to learn new skills and to examine how social media can impact a brand's reputation.

Methods, tools, and tactics

Specific public relations disciplines include:

• Financial public relations – communicating financial results and business strategy
• Consumer/lifestyle public relations – gaining publicity for a particular product or service
• Crisis communication – responding in a crisis
• Internal communications – communicating within the company itself
• Government relations – engaging government departments to influence public policy

Within each discipline, typical activities include publicity events, speaking opportunities, press releases, newsletters, blogs, social media, press kits and outbound communication to members of the press. Video and audio news releases (VNRs and ANRs) are often produced and distributed to TV outlets in hopes they will be used as regular program content.

Building and managing relationships with those who influence an organization or individual’s audiences has a central role in doing public relations. After a public relations practitioner has been working in the field, they accumulate a list of relationships that become an asset, especially for those in media relations.

Audience targeting

A fundamental technique used in public relations is to identify the target audience, and to tailor messages to appeal to each audience. Sometimes the interests of differing audiences and stakeholders common to a public relations effort necessitate the creation of several distinct but complementary messages.

On the other hand stakeholders theory identifies people who have a stake in a given institution or issue. All audiences are stakeholders (or presumptive stakeholders), but not all stakeholders are audiences. For example, if a charity commissions a public relations agency to create an advertising campaign to raise money to find a cure for a disease, the charity and the people with the disease are stakeholders, but the audience is anyone who is likely to donate money.

Messaging

Messaging is the process of creating a consistent story around a product, person, company or service. Messaging aims to avoid having readers receive contradictory or confusing information that will instill doubt in their purchasing choice or other decisions that have an impact on the company. Brands aim to have the same problem statement, industry viewpoint or brand perception shared across sources and mediums.

Social media marketing

Main article: Digital marketing

Digital marketing is the use of Internet tools and technologies such as search engines, Web 2.0 social bookmarking, new media relations, blogging and social media marketing. Interactive PR allows companies and organizations to disseminate information without relying solely on mainstream publications and communicate directly with the public, customers and prospects.

Other techniques

Litigation public relations is the management of the communication process during the course of any legal dispute or adjudicatory processing so as to affect the outcome or its impact on the client’s overall reputation (Haggerty, 2003).

Ethics

The field of public relations is generally highly un-regulated, but many professionals voluntarily adhere to the code of conduct of one or more professional bodies to avoid exposure for ethical violations. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations, the Public Relations Society of America and The Institute of Public Relations are a few organizations that publish an ethical code. Still, Edelman's 2003 semi-annual trust survey found that only 20 percent of survey respondents from the public believed paid communicators within a company were credible.

Spin

Main article: Spin (public relations)

Spin has been interpreted historically to mean overt deceit meant to manipulate the public, but since the 1990s has shifted to describing a "polishing of the truth." Today spin refers to providing a certain interpretation of informant meant to sway public opinion. Companies may use spin to create the appearance of the company or other events are going in a slightly different direction than they actually are. Within the field of public relations, spin is seen as a derogatory term, interpreted by professionals as meaning blatant deceit and manipulation. Skilled practitioners of spin are sometimes called "spin doctors."

The techniques of spin include selectively presenting facts and quotes that support ideal positions (cherry picking), the so-called "non-denial denial," phrasing that in a way presumes unproven truths, euphemisms for drawing attention away from items considered distasteful, and ambiguity in public statements. Another spin technique involves careful choice of timing in the release of certain news so it can take advantage of prominent events in the news.

Negative PR

Negative public relations, also called dark public relations (DPR) and in some earlier writing "Black PR", is a process of destroying the target's reputation and/or corporate identity. The objective in DPR is to discredit someone else, who may pose a threat to the client's business or be a political rival. DPR may rely on IT security, industrial espionage, social engineering and competitive intelligence. Common techniques include using dirty secrets from the target, producing misleading facts to fool a competitor. Some claim that negative public relations may be highly moral and beneficial for the general public since threat of losing the reputation may be disciplining for companies, organizations and individuals. Apart from this, negative public relations helps to expose legitimate claims against one.

Politics and civil society

In Propaganda (1928), Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy. In public relations, lobby groups are created to influence government policy, corporate policy, or public opinion, typically in a way that benefits the sponsoring organization.

When a lobby group hides its true purpose and support base, it is known as a front group. Front groups are a form of astroturfing, because they intend to sway the public or the government without disclosing their financial connection to corporate or political interests. They create a fake grass-roots movement by giving the appearance of a trusted organization that serves the public, when they actually serve their sponsors.

Definition

Ivy Lee and Edward Louis Bernays established the first definition of public relations in the early 1900s as

"a management function, which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures, and interests of an organization... followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."

In August 1978, the World Assembly of Public Relations Associations defined the field 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."

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defined public relations in 1982 as:

"Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other."

In 2011 and 2012, the PRSA developed a crowd-sourced definition:

"Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics."

Public relations can also be defined simply as the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics.

The European view of public relations notes that besides a relational form of interactivity there is also a reflective paradigm that is concerned with publics and the public sphere; not only with relational, which can in principle be private, but also with public consequences of organizational behavior.

See also

• Impression management
• List of public relations journals
• Promotion (marketing)
• Propaganda
• Reputation management
• Brand management

Further reading

• A History of Public Relations, from The Institute for Public Relations
• Scott Cutlip (1994) The Unseen Power: Public Relations: A History, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates ISBN 0-8058-1464-7 .
• Scott Cutlip (1995) Public Relations History: from the 17th to the 20th Century, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates ISBN 0-8058-1780-8 .