So I’m going to study Public Relations at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in July and I’m getting an early start on the homework by reading This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations, which is apparently the standard introductory textbook for the profession. I’ll be sharing some notes on this text and others as I wade my way into public relations. Feel free to add any comments you may have below.
Chapter 1- Major Points
“All public relations should exist to preserve a consistent reputation and build relationships” – Robert I Wakefield
International Consistency of PR Practice:
Despite differences in the social, economic and political climates in difference countries there is an increasing general acceptance on what constitutes public relations.
Lucien Matrat, author of public relations’ international code of ethics writes “Public relations…forms part of the strategy of management. Its function is twofold: to respond to the expectations of those whose behaviour, judgements and opinions can influence the operation and development of an enterprise, and in turn to motivate them… Establishing public relations policies means, first and foremost, harmonizing the interest of an enterprise with the interests of those on whom its growth depends.”
The PR practitioner
- serves as an intermediary between the organization that he/she represents and all of that organization’s stakeholders
- sets organizational politics which affects its stakeholders
- distributes information that enables the institutions’ publics to understand the policies,
- adjusts policies in response to feedback from those stakeholders
- research on stakeholders
- receiving info from them
- advising management on their attitudes
- helping set polities that demonstrates attention to them
- Command over a body of knowledge.
- PRSA has developed such a body but it applies in the US only and “has been criticized by the International Public Relations Association for its parochialism” (3).
- General acceptance of a standard educational curriculum.
- This which exists to a degree in the US but may be difference elsewhere, where education in PR is growing rapidly.
- Control over entry and exit
- Guidelines set by PRSA membership exist but are not mandatory to ‘practice’ public relations
- Staff Member
- In smaller organizations they may be responsible for all PR
- Large organizations may pay outside firms for services (research, comm. audits, etc)
- Commercial and Large Nonprofit Organizations
- Due to tech, # of lower jobs have decreased and middle management has grown while senior levels remain consistent
- Government
- Jobs vary widely from the equivalents of publicist to VP Communication
- Commercial and Large Nonprofit Organizations
- Firm/Agency Employees
- Depending on firm size there may be specialists in different areas.
- Independent Practitioners/Counselor
- Works in advisory role for consultant’s fee commiserate with value of knowledge and experience
- serves to control publics, by directing what people think or do to satisfy the needs or desires of an institution (manipulative)*
- responds to publics- reacting to developments, problems or the initiatives of others (service)*
- achieves mutually beneficial relationships among all the publics that an institution has (transactional)*
- Ignore the problem
- If publicity calls widespread attention to the problem, admit its existence but present business as a victim of circumstances it cannot alter
- When the public takes the problem to lawmakers, lobby, testify in legislative hearing and advertise to get opinion leaders to believe that the proposed solutions constitute government interference in the private economy
- After new regulations are final, announce that business can live with them
Note: excerpts and analysis of this text are fair use in that they constitute a “reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson“.
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