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Public relations (PR) is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.

An earlier definition of public relations, by The first World Assembly of Public Relations Associations, held in Mexico City, in August 1978, was "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."^[1]

Others define it as the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics.^[2] Public relations provides an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that provide a third-party endorsement^[3] and do not direct payment.^[4] Common activities include speaking at conferences, working with the media, crisis communications, social media engagement,^[5] and employee communication.

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 behaviour ^[6][7] A much broader view of interactive communication using the Internet, as outlined by Phillips and Young in Online Public Relations Second Edition (2009), describes the form and nature of Internet-mediated public relations. It encompasses social media and other channels for communication and many platforms for communication such as personal computers (PCs), mobile phones and video game consoles with Internet access. The increasing use of the mentioned technologies give the media a democratisation power and thus, aid to the demystification of subjects.

Public relations is used to build rapport with employees, customers, investors, voters, or the general public.^[4] Almost any organization that has a stake in how it is portrayed in the public arena employs some level of public relations. There are a number of public relations disciplines falling under the banner of corporate communications, such as analyst relations, media relations, investor relations, internal communications and labor relations. Most of them include the aspect of peer review to get liability.

Other public relations disciplines include:

• Financial public relations – providing information mainly to business reporters
• Consumer/lifestyle public relations – gaining publicity for a particular product or service, rather than using advertising
• Crisis public relations – responding to negative accusations or information
• Industry relations – providing information to trade bodies
• Government relations – engaging government departments to influence policymaking

Status of the industry

The practice of public relations is spread widely. On the professional level, there is an organization called Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the world's largest public relations organization. PRSA is a community of more than 21,000 professionals that works to advance the skill set of public relations. PRSA also fosters a national student organization called Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).

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 [1]. 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.^[8]

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.^[9]

Methods, tools and tactics

Public relations and publicity are not synonymous, but many public relations campaigns include provisions for publicity. Publicity is the spreading of information to gain public awareness for a product, person, service, cause or organization, and can be seen as a result of effective public relations planning. More recently in public relations, professionals are using technology as their main tool to get their messages to target audiences. With the creation of social networks, blogs, and even Internet radio public relations professionals are able to send direct messages through these mediums that attract the target audiences. Methods used to find out what is appealing to target audiences include the use of surveys, conducting research or even focus groups. Tactics are the ways to attract target audiences by using the information gathered about that audience and directing a message to them using tools such as social mediums or other technology. Another emerging theme is the application of psychological theories of impression management.^[10]

Tools

There are various tools that can be used in the practice of public relations. Traditional tools include press releases and media kits which are sent out to generate positive press on behalf of the organization. Other widely used tools include brochures, newsletters and annual reports. Increasingly, companies are utilizing interactive social media outlets, such as blogs and social media as tools in their public relations campaigns. Unlike the traditional tools which allowed for only one-way communication, social media outlets allow the organization to engage in two-way communication, and receive immediate feedback from their various stakeholders and public. Furthermore companies can join discussions with multiple user identities to create a positive image of the company.

One of the most popular and traditional tools used by public relations professionals is a press kit, also known as a media kit. A press kit is usually a folder that consists of promotional materials that give information about an event, organization, business, or even a person. What are included would be backgrounders or biographies, fact sheets, press releases (or media releases), media alerts, brochures, newsletters, photographs with captions, copies of any media clips, and social mediums. With the way that the industry has changed, many organizations may have a website with a link, "Press Room" which would have online versions of these documents.

The art of public relations is more than simply press kits and social media. 'PR' is synonymous in many people's minds with "Press Release", but the tools of the PR industry are actually many and varied as well as sophisticated and subtle. They include media relations kits containing video and audio news releases, referred to in the industry as VNRs and ANRs, which are often carefully produced to emulate the signature style of a particular network news or current affairs program. These products are then delivered to networks and run as regular program content, with or without source acknowledgment, thereby saving the network tens of thousands of dollars in production costs and delivering for the client of the PR firm an extremely effective and subtle method of managing public opinion. Crisis and issues management campaigns often utilize VNRs and ANRs in their efforts to manage information pertaining to threats to client reputation or profit. Astroturfing, or creating front groups designed to appear as genuine grass roots movements, (hence astroturf or fake grass) has proven to be a very effective method of opinion management because people are less suspicious and critical of "ordinary people voicing their concerns" than they are of representatives of corporations or governments. Buzz generation, or buzz marketing is another powerful and subversive form of PR in which people are paid to create a "buzz" amongst their peers by exposing them to products or opinions in a manner that appears not to be deliberate marketing or opinion management. Most PR campaigns use many or all of these "communication" techniques and a great many more in creative ways that deliver practical results in marketing or public opinion management.

Targeting publics

A fundamental technique used in public relations is to identify the target audience, and to tailor every message to appeal to that audience. It can be a general, nationwide or worldwide audience, but it is more often a segment of a population. A good elevator pitch can help tailor messaging to each target audience. Marketers often refer to socio-economically driven "demographics", such as "black males 18-49". However, in public relations an audience is more fluid, being whoever someone wants to reach. Or, in the new paradigm of value based networked social groups, the values based social segment could be a trending audience. For example, recent political audiences seduce such buzzword monikers as "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads."

An alternative and less flexible, more simplistic, approach uses stakeholders theory to identify 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.

Sometimes the interests of differing audiences and stakeholders common to a public relations effort necessitate the creation of several distinct but complementary messages. This is not always easy to do, and sometimes, especially in politics, a spokesperson or client says something to one audience that creates dissonance with another audience or group of stakeholders.

Lobby groups

Lobby groups are established to influence government policy, corporate policy, or public opinion. An example of this is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which influences American foreign policy toward another country. Such groups claim to represent a particular interest and in fact are dedicated to doing so. When a lobby group hides its true purpose and support base, it is known as a front group. Moreover, governments may also lobby public relations firms in order to sway public opinion. A well illustrated example of this is the way civil war in Yugoslavia was portrayed. Governments of the newly seceded republics of Croatia and Bosnia, as well as Serbia invested heavily with UK and American public relations firms, so that they would give them a positive image in the USA.^[11]

Spin

Main article: Spin (public relations)

In public relations, spin is sometimes a pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in specific favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, spin often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics. Politicians are often accused of spin by commentators and political opponents when they produce a counterargument or position.

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. A famous reference to this practice occurred when British Government press officer Jo Moore used the phrase "It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury", (widely paraphrased or misquoted as "It's a good day to bury bad news"), in an email sent on the day of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The furor caused when this email was reported in the press eventually caused her to resign.

Skilled practitioners of spin are sometimes called "spin doctors", despite the negative connotation associated with the term. Perhaps the best-known person in the UK often described as a "spin doctor" is Alastair Campbell, who was involved with Tony Blair's public relations between 1994 and 2003, and also played a controversial role as press relations officer to the British and Irish Lions rugby union side during their 2005 tour of New Zealand.^{[citation needed]}

State-run media in many countries also engage in spin by selectively allowing news stories that are favorable to the government while censoring anything that could be considered critical. They may also use propaganda to indoctrinate or actively influence citizens' opinions. Privately run media may also use the same techniques of "issue" versus "non-issue" to spin its particular political viewpoints

Negative PR

Negative public relations, also called dark public relations (DPR), is a process of destroying the target's reputation and/or corporate identity. In other words, instead of concentrating efforts in the maintenance and the creation of a positive reputation or image of your clients, the objective is to discredit someone else, usually a business rival. Unlike the regular services in public relations, those in DPR rely on the development of industries such as IT security, industrial espionage, social engineering and competitive intelligence. A common technique is finding all of the dirty secrets of their target and turning them against their very own holder.

The building of a dark PR campaign, also known as a dirty tricks or a smear campaign is a long and a complex operation. Traditionally it starts with an extensive information gathering and follows the other needs of a precise competitive research. The gathered information is being used after that as a part of a greater strategical planning, aiming to destroy the relationship between the company and its stakeholders.^[12]

Other

Example of publicity Publicists, Public Relations professionals at a Hollywood Red carpet.

• Publicity events, pseudo-events, photo ops or publicity stunts
• Talk show circuit: a public relations spokesperson, or the client, "does the circuit" by being interviewed on television and radio talk shows with audiences that the client wishes to reach
• Books and other writings
• Blogs
• After a public relations practitioner has been working in the field for a while, he or she accumulates a list of contacts in the media and elsewhere in the public affairs sphere. This "Rolodex" becomes a prized asset, and job announcements sometimes even ask for candidates with an existing Rolodex, especially those in the media relations area of public relations.
• Direct communication (carrying messages directly to constituents, rather than through the mass media) with, e.g., newsletters – in print and e-letters
• Collateral literature, traditionally in print and now predominantly as web sites
• Speeches to constituent groups and professional organizations; receptions; seminars, and other events; personal appearances
• The slang term for a public relations practitioner or publicist is a "flack" (sometimes spelled "flak")
• A desk visit is where the public relations person literally takes their product to the desk of the journalist in order to show them emerging promotions
• Astroturfing is the act of public relations agencies placing blog and online forum messages for their clients, in the guise of a normal "grassroots" user or comment (an illegal practice across the larger practice areas such as the European Union)
• Online social media and Internet mediated public relations practices

Politics and civil society

Defining the opponent

In the USA, but not in the larger public relations markets, the tactic known as "defining one's opponent" is used in political campaigns. Opponents can be candidates, organizations and other groups of people.

In the 2004 US presidential campaign, Howard Dean defined John Kerry as a "flip-flopper," which was widely reported and repeated by the media, particularly the conservative media. Similarly, George H.W. Bush characterized Michael Dukakis as weak on crime (the Willie Horton ad) and hopelessly liberal ("a card-carrying member of the ACLU"). In 1996, President Bill Clinton seized upon opponent Bob Dole's promise to take America back to a simpler time, promising in contrast to "build a bridge to the 21st century." This painted Dole as a person who was somehow opposed to progress.

In the debate over abortion, self-titled pro-choice groups, by virtue of their name, defined their opponents as "anti-choice", while self-titled pro-life groups refer to their opponents as "pro-abortion" or "anti-life".

Managing language

If, in the USA, a politician or organization can use an apt phrase in relation to an issue in interviews or news releases, the news media will often repeat it verbatim, without questioning its aptness. This perpetuates both the message and whatever preconceptions might underlie it. Often, something that sounds innocuous can stand in for something greater; a "culture of life" sounds like general goodwill to most people, but will evoke opposition to abortion for many pro-life advocates. The phrase "States' rights" was used as a code for anti-civil rights legislation in the United States in the 1960s, and allegedly in the 1970s and 1980s.

Conveying the message

The means by which a message is communicated can be as important as the message itself. Direct mail, robocalling, advertising and public speaking are commonly used depending upon the intended audience and the message that is conveyed. Press releases are also used, but since many newspapers are folding in the USA, they have become a less reliable way of communicating for American practitioners, and other methods have become more popular.

In the USA and India, news organizations have begun to rely more on their own websites and have developed a variety of unique approaches to publicity and public relations, on and off the web.^[13]

Israel has employed a series of Web 2.0 initiatives which are indicative of how a small nation can use internet mediated communication. Israel's initiative in 2008 included a blog,^[14] MySpace page,^[15] YouTube channel,^[16] Facebook page^[17] and a political blog to reach different audiences.^[18] The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs started the country's video blog as well as its political blog.^[18] The Foreign Ministry held the first microblogging press conference via Twitter about its war with Hamas, with Consul David Saranga answering live questions from a worldwide public in common text-messaging abbreviations.^[19] The questions and answers were later posted on IsraelPolitik, the country's official political blog.^[20]

Front groups

One of the most controversial practices in public relations is the use of front groups, organizations that purport to serve a public cause while actually serving the interests of a client whose sponsorship may be obscured or concealed. Critics of the public relations industry, such as PR Watch, contend that some public relations firms involve a "multi-billion dollar propaganda-for-hire industry" that "concocts and spins the news, organizes phony grassroots front groups, spies on citizens, and conspires with lobbyists and politicians to thwart democracy." ^[21]

Instances with the use of front groups as a public relations technique have been documented in many industries. Coal mining corporations have created "environmental groups" that contend that increased carbon dioxide emissions and global warming will contribute to plant growth and will be beneficial, trade groups for bars have created and funded citizens' groups to attack anti-alcohol groups, tobacco companies have created and funded citizens' groups to advocate for tort reform and to attack personal injury lawyers, while trial lawyers have created "consumer advocacy" front groups to oppose tort reform.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Charm offensive
• Chief communications officer
• Customer relationship management
• History of public relations
• Interactive public relations
• Litigation public relations
• List of public relations journals
• Message discipline
• Nation Branding
• News conference
• Online Reputation Management
• Promotion (marketing)
• Reputation management
• Spokesman
• Sports information director

References

Footnotes

1. ^ Jensen Zhao. Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd. Ed. Retrieved from findarticles.com
2. ^ Grunig, James E. and Hunt, Todd. Managing Public Relations. (Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 6e. Public relations is what you do with what you know and what other think about what you say.
3. ^ Seitel, Fraser P. The Practice of Public Relations. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007), 10e.
4. ^ ^{a b} Answers.com Marketing Dictionary: Public Relations Retrieved August 7, 2008.
5. ^ Rubel, Gina F., Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Doylestown, PA: 1 ed. 2007, ISBN 978-0-9801719-0-7
6. ^ name=On the definition of public relations: a European view.
7. ^ Sciencedirect.com
8. ^ "Public Relations Specialist Careers: Employment & Salary Trends for Aspiring Public Relations Specialists". http://www.collegedegreereport.com/articles/public-relations-specialist-careers-employment-salary-trends-aspiring-public-relations-spec. 
9. ^ NMA.co.uk
10. ^ Kamau, C. (2009) Strategising impression management in corporations: cultural knowledge as capital. In D. Harorimana (Ed) Cultural implications of knowledge sharing, management and transfer: identifying competitive advantage. Chapter 4. Information Science Reference. ISBN 978-1-60566-790-4
11. ^ See Peter Viggo Jakobsen, Focus on the CNN Effect Misses the Point: The Real Media Impact on Conflict Management is Invisible and Indirect, Journal of Peace Research, vol.37, no.2. Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen (2000).
12. ^ Wattenberg, Martin P. (Aug. 22, 1996). Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer. eScholarship Repository. UC Irvine, Department of Politics and Society. Retrieved on January 29, 2005; Bike, William S. (March 28, 2004). Campaign Guide: Negative Campaigning. CompleteCampaigns.com. City: San Diego. Retrieved on August 3, 2005; Saletan, William (November 25, 1999). Three Cheers for Negative Campaigning. Slate. City: Washington. Retrieved on August 3, 2005; Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate? Stephen Ansolabehere, Shanto Iyengar, Adam Simon, Nicholas Valentino, 1994, American Political Science Review, 88:829-838; Winning, But Losing, Ansolabehere and Iyenger, 1996
13. ^ Promoting Theater in a World without Print
14. ^ Israel Video Blog aims to show the world 'the beautiful face of real Israel', Ynet, February 24, 2008.
15. ^ Israel seeks friends through MySpace page, Bobby Johnson, The Guardian, March 23, 2007.
16. ^ Israel uses YouTube, Twitter to share its point of view, CNN, December 31, 2008
17. ^ Israel's New York Consulate launches Facebook page, Ynet, December 14, 2007.
18. ^ ^{a b} Latest PR venture of Israel's diplomatic mission in New York attracts large Arab audience, Ynet, June 21, 2007.
19. ^ Battlefront Twitter, Haviv Rettig Gur, The Jerusalem Post, December 30, 2008.
20. ^ The Toughest Q's Answered in the Briefest Tweets, Noam Cohen, The New York Times, January 3, 2009; accessed January 5, 2009.
21. ^ PRWatch

Works cited

• Bernays, Edward (1945). Public Relations. Boston, MA: Bellman Publishing Company. 
• Biagi, S. (2005). Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Chicago: Thomas Wadsworth.
• Burson, Harold (2004). E pluribus unum: The Making of Burson-Marsteller. New York: Burson-Marsteller. 
• Calcagni, Thomas (2007). Tough Questions, Good Answers, Taking Control of Any Interview. Sterling, VA: Capital Books, Inc.. ISBN 978-1-933102-50-4. 
• Caponigro, Jeff (2000). The Crisis Counselor: A step-by-step guide to managing a business crisis. New York: McGraw-Hill/ Contemporary Books. ISBN 0-9659606-0-9. 
• Phillips, David (2009). Online Public Relations. London: Kogan Page. ISBN 9780749449681. 
• Cutlip, Scott (1994). The Unseen Power: Public Relations, A History. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-1464-7. 
• Ewen, Stuart (1996). PR!: A Social History of Spin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-06168-0. 
• Forman, Amanda (2001). Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire. New York: Random House USA Inc; New Ed edition. ISBN 0-037-5753834-0. 
• Grunig, James E.; and Todd Hunt (1984). Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 0-03-058337-3. 
• Hall, Phil (2007). The New PR. Mount Kisco, NY: Larstan Publishing. ISBN 0-9789182-0-7. 
• International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
• Macnamara, Jim (2005). Jim Macnamara's Public Relations Handbook (5th ed. ed.). Melbourne: Archipelago Press. ISBN 0-9587537-4-1. 
• Nelson, Joyce (1989). Sultans of Sleaze: Public Relations and the Media. Toronto: Between The Lines. ISBN 0-921284-22-5. 
• Phillips, David (2001). Online Public Relations. London: Kogan Page. ISBN 0-7494-3510-0. 
• Seitel, Fraser. The Practice of Public Relations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 10 ed. 2006 ISBN 0-13-230451-1
• Stauber, John C.; and Sheldon Rampton (1995). Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. ISBN 1-56751-061-2. 
• Tye, Larry (1998). The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-70435-8. 
• Tymson, Candy; and Peter Lazar (2006). Public Relations Manual. Sydney: Tymson Communications. ISBN 0-9579130-1-X. 
• Stoykov, Lubomir; and Valeria Pacheva (2005). Public Relations and Business Communication. Sofia: Ot Igla Do Konetz. ISBN 954-9799-09-3. 

1. Scott M. Cutlip/ Allen H. Center/ Glen M. Broom, "Effective Public Relations," 7th Ed., Prentice-Hall, Inc. A Simon and Schuster Company, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632, 1994, Figure 10-1
2. Center, Allen H. and Jackson, Patrick, "Public Relations Practices," 5th ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle, N.J., 1995, pp. 14–15
3. Crifasi, Sheila C., "Everything's Coming Up Rosie," from Public Relations Tactics, September, 2000, Vol. 7, Issue 9, Public Relations Society of America, New York, 2000.
4. Kelly, Kathleen S., "Effective Fund Raising Management," Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, N.J., 1998
5. Wilcox, D.L., Ault, P.H., Agee, W.K., & Cameron, G., "Public Relations Strategies and Tactics," 7th ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA, 2002
6. Grunig, James E. and Hunt, Todd. Managing Public Relations. (Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 6.

Further reading

• Sharon Beder (2002) 'Global Spin: the corporate assault on environmentalism', Totnes, Green Books.
• Edward Bernays. (1928) "Propaganda".
• Boorstin, Daniel J. (1972) The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Atheneum.
• Ewen, Stuart. (1996) PR! A Social History of Spin. New York: BasicBooks.
• Hall, Phil. (2007) The New PR. Mount Kisco, N.Y.: Larstan Publishing.
• LA Yellow Shuttle.
• Seib, Patrick and Fitzpatrick, Kathy. (1995) Public Relations Ethics. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace and Company.
• Friedman, Marsha. (2009) Celebritize Yourself: The Three Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business. North Carolina: Warren Publishing, Inc. "Celebritize Yourself".

External links

• Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management
• Stockholm Accords for Public Relations
• Russia (independent) Alliance for Public Relations
• Public Relations at the Open Directory Project

About the industry

• A History of Public Relations, from The Institute for Public Relations
• PR industry to double in size to US$10.5bn by 2012: Assocham