Publicity

Types

Publicity about an organization, product, service, personality, or cause can be generated by the entity or by others interested in the entity's activities. Publicity can be favorable or unfavorable. Controlled publicity (such as the typical personnel announcement) is internally generated and almost always favorable. Compromised publicity originates from an entity, but can turn unfavorable when negative comments or perspectives are added by media or others. Corroborative publicity is favorable and originates externally—and is especially valuable because it comes from an ostensibly independent third-party source. Countervailing publicity is unfavorable and originated externally— and can include attacks, criticisms, or other detrimental information.

Origins

The antecedents of modern publicity include all the ways that people through the centuries shared news and information—tribal drums, stone tablets, papyrus leaflets, and printed handbills. Publicity activities began to rely on public media with the advent of the newspaper (circa 1620). The first news release dates to 1758.

Modern publicity emerged in the mid-1800s with techniques pioneered by Amos Kendall to promote the American presidency, by P. T. Barnum to promote the American circus, and by the railroads to promote the American West. The first corporate publicity department was established by Westinghouse in 1889. Meanwhile, the first public relations consulting firm (The Publicity Bureau in Boston) opened in 1900. Public relations pioneer Ivy Lee famously referred to his work as publicity, a term that was widely used to describe public relations prior to World War II.

Importance

Today, publicity is considered a mundane aspect of public relations work. However, publicity is vital to public relations because awareness, knowledge, and favorable predispositions are all prerequisites to forming relationships, shaping behavioral intent, and gaining acceptance. Publicity is described as one of four models for how public relations is practiced and serves as a critical element in each of the major purposes when public relations is practiced over time: profit, recruitment, legitimacy, agitation, and advocacy.

Publicity versus Propaganda

Publicity has generally fallen out of favor as a term because of its close association with [Page 756]propaganda and persuasion. Propaganda usually involves messages controlled by the sender and riddled with lies or half-truths. The source is usually not identified, and audiences have limited access to other information. By contrast, effective publicity must be truthful because it is subject to the scrutiny of third-party gatekeepers who distribute it and by audiences exposed to competing perspectives. Entities seeking publicity for legitimate purposes usually want their names and activities to be identified prominently.

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