History of Public Relations Public relations is def

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 he

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ational corporations to privatise and sell water in places where it had previously been provided free, such as Bolivia, which has produced public protests and riots in reaction. The difference between public relations and advertising is that while PR seeks to change people's behavior by influencing their opinions, the goal of advertising is a narrower one - to induce the public to buy a product. The two concepts are not perfectly separate conceptually, and have a distinct overlap. Massive public relations campaigns involving press releases and conferences, media access, and staged publicity events may be used to launch a new product. Conversely a product may be advertised with a focus on changing public attitudes and actions, such as the pro-smoking campaign of Mr. Bernays. The American political campaign, and increasingly public issues of vital political concern to a party, faction, interest group, campaign contributor, or corporation are increasingly dependent on the techniques of mass manipulation and selective information control mastered by PR firms. American PR companies have been active in Israeli, Iraqi, Afghani, Ukrainian, and European elections recently, showing that the slick use of media marketing campaigns are the

Category: Psychology - H