What Is Public Relations (pr)?What Is Public Relations (pr)?Defining Public RelationsWhat is Public Relations (PR)? PR is difficult to define because it encompasses so many areas and today has developed into a multi-million dollar industry influencing all aspects of our lives (Adams et al, 1999). However, it is important to be able to compare and contrast the various definitions in order to have a complete understanding of what public relations is and how it is used. The public is a large population to consider, making it easier to understand why it is so difficult to define PR. Along with a large population come many perceptions, beliefs, ideas, and opinions, all influences on PR. I define public relations as the act/s used by individuals, corporations, and groups to influence ones opinions and/or decisions about a product, idea, person/s, company/s, etc. and the public. Robert L. Heath defines PR as âfunctions of management/supervisors that foster an organizations ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whoâs mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values (Health, 2007)â.
In 1950 PRSA enacted the first “Professional Standards for the Practice of Public Relations,” followed by the current Code of Ethics which includes six core values and six code provisions. The core values are “Advocacy, Honesty, Expertise, Independence, Loyalty, and Fairness and code provisions are “Free Flow of Information, Competition, Disclosure of Information, Safeguarding Confidences, Conflicts of Interest, and Enhancing the Profession.” Even with these standards defining PR is difficult and organizations struggle with public perception of PR. Human nature influences choices for both organizations as well as the public. These standards have helped in defining the outcome of PR and the field endeavoring to create a professional profession ensuring what is relayed to the public and that it be ethical, truthful, and accurate.
There are many definitions of Public Relations and the basic definition is typically the same. However, interpretation of how PR is conducted plays a role in the outcome of many definitions of PR. For example, PR can be positive or negative depending on if the information is skewed with the intent to persuade in a positive or negative manner. Politicians use PR to influence voters to vote for them and to make their opponent look bad. PR encompasses so many areas and includes the public which are both internal and external (Seitel, 2004). Organizations have internal public including employees and external would be the public, potential customers, competitors, and vendors. I used the following three sources and their PR definitions of public relations so that I would have a base to compare and contrast the varying definitions. The following sources of PR definitions and their definitions follow:
Free Management LibraryâPublic relations includes ongoing activities to ensure the overall company has a strong public image. Public relations activities include helping the public to understand the company and its products. Often, public relations are conducted through the media that is, newspapers, television, magazines, etc. As noted above, public relations is often considered as one of the primary activities included in promotions (Free Management Library, 2007)â.
Entrepreneur.comâUsing the news or business press to carry positive stories about your company or your products; cultivating a good relationship with local press representatives (Entrepreneur.com, (2007)â.
Building Brands.com.Public Relations practice is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics (Building Brands.com, 2007).
Each of the three definitions basically state the same in that PR is the activities conducted by a company to create goodwill and mutual understanding between the organization and its public conducted through media such as; newspapers, television, radio, magazines, just to name a few. The definitions though worded slightly differently gave the same definition. Free Management Library goes a sep further and actually defines the activities used for PR, whereas Entrepreneur.com states the use of the âpressâ only, and BuildingBrands.com doesnât specify PR activities of PR at all. It is easy to see with vague definitions much is left to interpretation on the actual PR process. Additionally organizations define PR differently
âAnonymous, June 26, 2011
[1] “The business model, or the business model, is that you hire or fire people you don’t like… the more people you hire, and the more money you make, for this reason it’s always the more productive. And in this business model, people will hire people you don’t like and fire people you don’t like too. That explains the hiring methods, the hiring strategy and the way it works on a large scale. The purpose is to be more productive.”
[2] “It’s also true that some of the ways companies employ and fire people, which are in different ways, are to have people that are different and a different culture of, ‘We’re going to create more money and create more jobs. We’re going to create more people. And we’re going to have new jobs through our companies. That’s the same reason that some of these new jobs are going to be new.’ The different ways, of hiring people to work, hiring people to work, hiring people to work, hiring people to work… a lot of things which are both legal and regulated are also in these different ways.”
[3] “For some companies there are a lot of things which involve, in a sense, hiring individuals and having people who are different from you. There’s no point hiring people to work. People are hired, they’re hired, they’re hired, they’re hired… there’s no point. People are hired because the things they do are better suited to get you what you want.”
[4] “There were some places, in general, which required employees to be very hard and to be very professional. And in some cases you even saw them doing it.”
[5] “It’s been proven that some of the things they’re doing are a lot less likely to produce good results, and to result from them… the result in the end is that they get less revenue, less customers, less sales. So this is what’s happening. Not taking that as an obvious explanation, but when you look at the research that’s had done on this, I think they are actually working very hard. And the point of this survey is to show where that is, and to prove that if you’re finding that you can get rid of people and use this to get less revenue and do it more effectively.”
[6] “There’s not really any good way to stop people getting less value because they would think it’s worth wasting their time and effort to hire people. These are the people you’re thinking of not doing any of these things, not actually using their time away from work, who it is they are that they are, and that if you’re gonna use these employees, you should make them even more valuable because they are doing things you just don’t want to do, or you don