Public relations is defined by Wikipedia as "the practice of conveying messages to the public through media on behalf of a client, with the intention of changing the public's actions by influencing their opinions" (www.wiki media-culture.org). Public relations can have a benign purpose, such as educating the public about HIV/AIDS or advertising a charity, but often the clients of PR firms play neither a constructive role nor offer a public benefit, but simply want some advantage to the detriment of the public good.
The history of public relations is therefore a spotty one. Too often the success of a PR campaign is judged narrowly, by whether or not it achieved its stated goal of motivating the public, ignoring the ethical or social implications of a given effort to mould opinion. Two of the three men generally considered to be the founders of the field of public relations may be seen as having done much more harm than good, in spite of their brilliant manipulative ability. And the current unquestioned master of manipulating American public opinion through the use of PR techniques, Karl Rove, can hardly be regarded as a benefactor of mankind.
Ivy Lee, held up as the father of the press release and originator of the "two-way street" concept of public relations, in which listening to the public is considered as important as influencing it, is best remembered for "propagandising on behalf of clients despised by the public, including robber baron John D. Rockefeller" and helping the Nazis consolidate their power (ibid.).
Edward Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud who used some of the psychologist's insights that unconscious and irrational factors play a dominant role in developing and shaping public opinion in his theories of public relations. He is best remembered for recruiting an army of attractive debutants to march smoking in the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City to change the negative image of women smokers for the be...