Public Relations

However old the practice of public relations is, its identity as we know it today became a serious professional practice in the latter part of the 19th century in the United States. The 20th century witnessed its development as a refined set of strategic best practices, an academic discipline to prepare future practitioners, and the subject for refinements through sophisticated scholarly investigation and discussion. Along the way, it never lost its fondness for knowing and following the best practices of effective professional practitioners.

In the opinion of some, public relations can be defined as the art of stealthy manipulation of public opinion, the manipulation of the opinions of consumers and politicians. It is viewed as spinning the truth to the selfish interest of some organization, issue advocate, person, or viewpoint. Journalists and other critics have referred to practitioners as flacks, meaning that the practitioners of this art deal with self-interested promotion of idea, set of facts, or points of view.

In contrast, public relations has been seen as a professional practice and academic discipline dedicated to fostering effective two-way communication between some organization or entity, such as an industry, and persons whose opinions can make or break the future success of the sponsor. Some discussants of the nature of public relations have advocated that instead of fostering sham relationships, [Page 680]senior practitioners are the consciences of their employers. They know better than other disciplines the moral standards by which their employers are judged. They advocate that first the organization must be good before it can be effective in its communication efforts. Practitioners recognize that the challenge of ethics is both broad and a matter of the devil is in the detail. Each word can pose ethical challenges as well as the formulation of the public relations policy of the organization.

Public relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organization's ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its mission and vision.

Public relations practitioners are problem solvers. They are counselors who advise the organizational management on how to fit best into its environment. They are tacticians and technicians who design and craft communication tools such as media releases, employee newsletters, fundraising campaigns, publicity and promotion efforts, investor reports, and issue backgrounders and fact sheets.

No single definition of public relations exists. Throughout the plethora of definitions found runs a central theme. Public relations professionals communicate for and help to favorably position their clients to earn the favor of targeted markets, audiences, and publics. One of the earliest leaders of the practice, Ivy Lee, was characterized by his biographer as a “courtier to the crowd.” His ideas, like those of many of his early successors, featured the democratic spirit that called on the practitioner to put accurate and credible information before the public that would—and could—then judge the worthiness of the case being made. In turn, judgment would be passed on the client of the practitioner. In this regard, public relations practitioners worked to bridge the relationship between the organization and the persons in society who could help or harm the organization. Ray Eldon Hiebert (1996) captured the essence of Lee's career: “His work was central to the entire problem of public communication in a complex and industrial environment” (p. ix). Lee was compared to the likes of major figures of the American colonial period such as Sam Adams and Thomas Jefferson. “Like them, he understood the necessity for using words to get people to understand his point of view. Unlike them, however, he lived in an age when words could be used increasingly to maintain rather than prevent an excess of power” (1996, p. ix).

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