Public Relations Basics

PR is such a necessity when dealing with matters of the public that there are even PR organizations. One such organization is the Public Relations Society of America.

“PRSA builds the public relations profession and the public relations professional in three core areas: âÂ?¦Advancing the ProfessionâÂ?¦.Strengthening the SocietyâÂ?¦and Establishing Global Leadership.” Organizations such as PRSA exist in order to encourage responsible PR and to help strengthen the image that marketers have. According to the Institute of Public Relations, PR is the deliberate, planned, and sustained effort to institute and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its publics (Institute of Public Relations, 2005).

I looked at several places on the internet and the general concept of PR seemed to be agreed upon. There was minimal difference depending on the persons stance in the market. That difference depends on the position of the person (as a marketer or as the product). Typically a product would be considered a non-living item; however, when discussing PR a product can refer to a person because PR is about making that product favorable to the community (or unfavorable if you’re up for election and on the opposing team!). Marketers engage in public relations to develop a favorable image of their organizations in the eyes of the public at large, customers, suppliers, government, media, competitors, shareholders, employees, and the society (India Infoline, 2006). While the product itself has to act in specific ways to avoid negativity, the PR representative has to take any of that negativity and make it more favorable.

According to our text, public relations is: a planned process to influence public opinion, through sound character and proper performance, based on mutually satisfactory two-way communication (Prentice-Hall 2004). Looking through all the definitions I feel that the general concept of PR is the same: creating a good will towards a person, place, or thing. The main disagreement is in the actions that are required to create that good will.

There are several different processes for conducting PR. PR can be conducted through RACE: research, action, communication, and evaluation. ROSIE, another term that is used is a way of encompassing a more managerial approach to the field. R-O-S-I-E prescribes sandwiching the functions of objectives, strategies, and implementation between research and evaluation. Lastly, there is RPIE: research, planning, implementation, and evaluation, which emphasizes the element of planning as a necessary step preceding the activation of a communications initiative. (Prentice-Hall, 2004). All these methods are popular ways that have been created to conduct PR. PR obviously can be handled in any of these ways and a specific process can not be decided upon by the industry.

Public relations is the business of promoting positive ideas towards an organization or person. Public relations is akin to sales. The PR representative is selling an idea to the public to attract loyalty, sympathy, or create an image. PR has existed for as long as sales have occurred and people have been elected. Public relations will continue to evolve and organize especially with outlets such as television, magazines, and the internet.

Resources

Mott.com, 2006, Retrieved from www.motto.com/glossary.html, on April 26, 2006

Institute of Public Relations, 2006, Retrieved from

wps.pearsoned.co.uk/wps/media/objects/1452/1487687/glossary/glossary.html,

on April 26, 2006

India Info Online, 2006, Retrieved from http://www.indiainfoline.com/bisc/jmam.html on

April 27th, 2006

The Public Relations Organization of America, 2006, Retrieved from

http://www.prsa.org/_About/overview/index.asp on April 26, 2006

The Practice of Public Relations Chapter 1: Defining Public Relations, Prentice-Hall

2004, retrieved from

https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBookLibrary/content/eReader.h,