Whilst public relations sits beside other marketing and communication disciplines such as advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, internet and new media communication, today its status has been advanced significantly. More accountable and more measurable than ever before, public relations now plays a strategic role in identifying, responding to and even creating trends, crafting the appropriate messages, providing sophisticated targeting methods to reach the broadest range of audiences from national populations to one key influencer.

Public relations practitioners are widely recognised for their role and special expertise in media relations and publicity management. These specialties are taken for granted and will clearly continue as primary functions of the profession, no matter how sophisticated new media may become.

Today, public relations has proved its broader value and secured ownership of a much wider strategic communication landscape. It is now a communications driver. PR creates awareness, educates and influences public opinion, promotes and protects reputations and guides organisations to communicate change and to re-examine the values and ethics of their operations. There is every reason to be confident that the PR practitioner has an assured career role for the future!

Integrated communication and relationship marketing are well accepted principles of the 21st century. PR is leading the way and is almost always a key element in any communications mix and will continue to grow in relevance and importance as the messages become more complex, the audiences become more diverse, demanding and sophisticated, and the choice of medium broadens and globalises.

Where once public relations was the 'poor cousin' of other traditional forms of communication…for many years a part of what the advertising industry described as 'below the line', it is today a leader in its own right.

Here are some definitions

It is a melancholy fact that the term 'public relations' is still frequently both misused and misunderstood. Over the years it has incorrectly been associated with propaganda (particularly by government groups), confused with advertising, and abused by door-to?door salespeople and escort agencies! Here we examine how the profession has described its activities over its first half century. Later we detail the roles and responsibilities delivered under the name "public relations".

It is difficult to define public relations simply, because it has been constantly evolving and growing in its role and because it encompasses such a broad range of philosophies and techniques.
Let's look at some definitions:

The following definition was used for several decades by the Public Relations Institute of Australia:

Public Relations is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.

The World Assembly of Public Relations Associations has this:

Public relations practice is the art of social science in analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organisation leaders, and implementing planned programs of action which will serve both the organisation and public interest.

IPRA (The International Public Relations Association) says:

Such a definition has been the subject of much debate over the years-and various options have been proposed. The difficulty has always been that with members in currently more than 90 countries it has never been possible to come up with something succinct that could be acceptably translated into so many languages and cultures.

Here is the official PRSA definition of PR from the Press section of their website:

In 1988 the governing body of the Public Relations Society of America its Assembly formally adopted a definition of public relations which has become most accepted and widely used:

Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.

In this definition, the essential functions of research, planning, communications dialogue and evaluation are implied. Key words are 'organization' rather than the limiting implication of 'company' or 'business', and 'publics' which recognizes that all organizations have multiple publics from which they must earn consent and support.

Public Relations News, a leading American publication, said:

Public relations is the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organisation with the public interest and plans and executes a program to earn public understanding and acceptance.

The Macquarie Dictionary defines public relations as:

The practice of promoting goodwill among the public for a company, government body, individual or the like; the practice of working to present a favourable image.

When a leading American practitioner was asked to describe it, he said:

PR?…Why, it's doin' good and tellin' people about it.

The PRIA (Public Relations Institute of Australia) as it moves into the 21st century, defines PR as follows :

Public Relations is the management function concerned with communication. It includes understanding issues and analysing public attitudes which may have an impact on an organisation, and planning and implementing communication initiatives.

Dr Rex F. Harlow, APR, Professor Emeritus of Stanford University and a pioneer in public relations education, spent many months developing the following definition. The study was made possible by a grant from the Foundation for Public Relations Research and Education.

Public relations is a distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organisation and its publics; involves the management of problems or issues; helps management to keep informed on and responsible to public opinion; defines and emphasises the responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilise change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and sound and ethical communication techniques as its principal tools.

Clearly there are plenty of definitions and it seems incongruous that PR is still misunderstood. But other communication disciplines clearly have similar difficulties. AANA (Australian Association of National Advertisers) has this definition for its area of interest:

Advertising can be defined as the means by which matter is published or broadcast to individuals for payment or other valuable consideration and which draws the attention of the public or a segment of it , to a product, service, person, organisation or line of conduct in a manner calculated to promote or oppose directly or indirectly that product, service , person organisation of line of conduct.

Some additional definitions include:

• A two?way communication between an organisation and its publics
• What we do, what we say, what we are
• PR means performance plus recognition.

Stripped to its fundamentals, public relations means communicating with others.

THEORY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public relations is based on these premises:

• That in a modern society every organisation, from the national government
• to the corner store, survives ultimately only by public consent
• That the consent of the public cannot exist in a communications vacuum
• That this consent can be withdrawn by community action
• For all kinds of organisations, especially large public companies and government departments (to take just two examples), public relations is an important function of management. The best public relations policy reflects the culture of all components of the organisation.
  

Public relations policy needs to be based on a long?term view of an organisation's relations with the various groups of people that make up its public. No organisation can bestow upon itself a good reputation nor tap a reservoir of public goodwill on demand. Goodwill or trust has to be earned, cultivated and safeguarded.

Public relations has to be based on something more solid than a vague 'liking' on the part of the organisation's publics. It should follow from understanding of and respect for the organisation's objectives, policies, standards, products, practices, services and intentions. To win and hold goodwill in that way, an organisation must demonstrate the right values, operate ethically, communicate effectively, and prove itself sensitive (and, when appropriate, responsive) to community needs and aspirations.

Thus, public relations concerns itself with the psychology of the individual and the group, how and why people come to hold or change their opinions and attitudes, and with the understanding and application of superior communications theory and practice.

It is perhaps a truism to say that an organisation has public relations, in the sense of relations with its public, whether it likes it or not. Everything an organisation says or does can be either good or bad public relations. And it may seem to be no more than ordinary common sense to aim at making these relations harmonious and mutually advantageous. In practice, however, most organisations-certainly the large ones-can best achieve this aim by employing modern professional public relations skills and techniques.

TECHNIQUES OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public relations practitioners are called on to advise boards of directors and management executives on a wide range of matters-whenever the organisation's internal or external relations could be affected. In the implementation of public relations policy, various communication techniques may be used, but no public relations activity should be undertaken unless it relates to a recognised objective. Publicity for its own sake, for instance, is pointless. Here are some examples of public relations activities.

Public Relations Practice

Professional public relations involves a number of important aspects: the area of practice, the functions and tools of practice, knowledge or content, and related fields of practice. Figure 1.1 gives an overview.

What becomes clear from this model is the fact that public relations is an activity which requires qualified people to undertake the varied functions which fall under the broad category of communication. It is no longer simply a matter of being able to get along with people or being able to churn out large numbers of news releases. Today the public relations professional is an important part of the management team (see Chapter 3).

Media Relations

Most organisations at times have a story to tell which will interest the press and possibly radio and television stations. The public relations practitioner has to be an expert at seeing an organisation through the eyes of the editors and program directors, assembling the facts which the media would use and giving the material to them at the right time.

Anything from a speech from the chairperson, to a new product, has greater news potential if expertly handled. In addition, the media can have a vital impact on just about every other public.

Government Relations

One of the principal tasks of the business community today is establishing and maintaining a form of contact with government. If business is to have its voice heard and its views considered by government, then it must know what government is planning and the pressure points in the decision?making process, before legislation is tabled in Parliament.

Government relations is the art of working with the myriad of legislative and regulatory bodies that have influence over your organisation. It takes place at local, state, and federal levels. And if your organisation does any kind of business abroad or has clientele overseas, government relations becomes important at the international level as well. (See Chapter 8).

Financial & Investor Relations (IR)

The investing public provides capital and credit. These factors can become critical when a privately owned company goes to public ownership, when a corporation seeks to borrow money for its expansion, considers a merger or when major new funding is required.

Investors comprise a prime source of support or disapproval of corporate management. Further, the investing public can use its proxies to endorse or discourage actions by corporate management requiring stockholders' approval, voice views publicly, and potentially represent a preconditioned market for the products or services of the organisation. (See Chapter 9).

Internal Communication & Employee Relations

A vital element in good public relations for any organisation is a climate of trust and understanding between employees and management. Here the public relations practitioner's role may be to produce a house journal or information bulletin and to contribute to policy reviews on such matters as personnel administration, recruitment, training, industrial relations, inter-departmental liaison, benefits schemes and social activities for the staff. (See Chapter 11).

Community Relations & Social Responsibility

A practical and effective way for an organisation to demonstrate its good citizenship and social responsibility, at the neighbourhood, state, and national levels, is to involve itself in community activities and, where appropriate, to support them financially. (See Chapter 12).

Other areas of public relations practice

Many specialised aspects of the work of the public relations practitioner are covered in this manual. The list, in no special order, includes issue and crisis management, corporate and public affairs, customer and supplier relations, charity public relations and fund raising, sponsorship leveraging, branding, environmental public relations, 'marcoms'-marketing support, not-for-profit PR, industrial relations, event staging, audio-visual production / multi-media / visual communications, print production, web enablement and internet PR.

WHERE IS PR GOING IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

The future of public relations will concern itself with applying the disciplines and techniques developed over the last half century and adding a number of significant new building blocks. The 21st century client (organisation, group, or individual) is required to have-and be seen to have-values which create and maintain favourable relations with all of its customers, employees, suppliers, stakeholders. And it must demonstrate a convergence of what it does, what it says and even what it intends. The 21st century client must be seen to be doing this transparently. The right cultural values lead to shared values amongst all stakeholders. The Futures Foundation in Australia sees the future of branding to reflect these concepts under the heading of "Deep Branding".

In order to achieve this, public relations plays a key role in defining, creating or capturing the culture of an organisation and ensuring that this is communicated internally and externally to build and maintain trust and reputation. Together these will contribute to the achievement of a sustainable future. The measure of that success will deliver triple bottom line profits-make positive financial, environmental and social progress and enable the achievement of a preferred future.

The public relations profession in the 21st century is the custodian of Reputation Management. It counsels on corporate conscience, builds internal and external recognition of the importance of establishing values and trust. The 21st century is the age of the power of the peer group, an age in which people are more likely to be moved and influenced through a process of personal discovery-a time when new and non-traditional methods of information transfer are rivalling the traditional methods. Examples include information communicated through the internet, the views of chat-room participants, guerrilla and youth marketing. Think about how you presently get your information and what influences you. How is that different from how your parents got their information when they were your age?

It is also important to think about the impact of the global community and its interactions at local levels. How fast and accessible information now is and how few boundaries exist in this area. The recognition of these new concepts has powerful implications on how we communicate, on whom we trust and what is believable. The impact of new technology continues to escalate. But it also brings new challenges and dangers. The amazing ease with which anyone can disseminate information world-wide represents a huge change. There are new and ever-present risks associated with internet security in the 21st century. These include the frightening power of hackers to break into, change and manipulate data.

Examples include the rash of email conducted viruses which have disabled entire computer networks and the ever-growing need to build in protective systems and firewalls to provide secure communication for internet users.

All of these place more and more demands on the PR profession to manage the establishment and maintenance of credibility and trust. To do this, the PR professional must be a realist in the face of these complexities and recognise the threats and opportunities they provide.

The inescapable fact is that the growing needs of the information age provide significant opportunities for the future well-being of the public relations profession. Practitioners who understand this need and can shape the messages for the future will find that their role as interpreters, creators and conduits of information will continue to grow, no matter how sophisticated the channels of communication may become.

Excerpt from Tymson & Lazar: The Australian & New Zealand Public Relations Manual