Analytical Essay on Public Relations: Global Historical Perspective and Relationship with Media

Introduction

It is generally satisfactory to say that public relations rose up out of the United States of America, on the worldwide scale in the late 19th and mid 20th century. This is on the grounds that public relations like exercises were found in the beginning of American settlement as every one of the states utilized exposure procedures to pull in pilgrims. Harvard College initiated the first systematic US fund-raising campaign in 1641. The campaign was supported by the first fund-raising brochure, entitled New England’ First Fruits and in 1758, King’s College (now Columbia University) issued the first press release- to announce graduation ceremony.

Public relations procedures were significantly progressively predominant during the American Revolution and every single consequent clash or circumstances when force has been undermined or when open help is required. Not long before the insurgency, Samuel Adams started what can be known as a public relations campaign when he was to impart measurements of the Revolutionary War and utilized Liberty Tree that were effectively recognizable and stir feelings (Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman, Toth and Van Leuven 2004).

Historical antecedents

The historical backdrop of public relations could likewise be connected to the old Greeks, who had the idea of the ‘Open Will’ and to the Romans, who utilized the articulation ‘The voice of the individuals is the voice of God.’

It is argued that the endeavors of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire for the benefit of Charles James Fox in the 18th century which included press relations, campaigning and, with her companions, big name crusading are forerunners to the present public relations.

Public relations could likewise be traced to certain Americans, also called Publicist who spent significant time in promoting bazaars, dramatic exhibitions, and other open spectacles. These are the individuals who were said to have created public relations/advertising in support of the railways. Actually, numerous researchers accept that the first appearance of the expression ‘Public relations’ sprung up in the 1897 Year Book of Railway Literature. One of the renowned publicist was Harry Reichenbach (1882-1931), a New York-based American member of the press who advanced motion pictures.

The famous Paul Chabas painting was recognizable to Reichenbach. He saw a print in a Chicago art store window and made an arrangement with the store owner who had not sold any of his 2,000 prints. Reichenbach had contracted a few young men to gawp at the picture when he showed it to the moralist crusader Anthony Comstock. Comstock was outraged when he saw it. Comstock’s Anti-Vice Society took the case to the court and lost. Be that as it may, the case aroused public interest to the painting, which ultimately sold millions of copies.

Two names worthy of mention connected with public relations are Ivy Better Lee and Edward Bernays. Ivy Better Lee originated the concept of public relations and established public relations as a vocation, while Edward Bernays was the first to teach public relations in a university faculty. In depicting the origin of the term Public Relations, Bernays remarked, ‘When I returned to the United States (from the war), I concluded that on the off chance that you could utilize propaganda for war, you could positively utilize it for harmony. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words, so we found the words Counsel on Public Relations”.

Ivy Lee was credited with the improvement of the cutting edge news discharge (likewise called a ‘Press release’). He upheld a way of thinking reliable with what has in some cases been known as the ‘two-way approach’ way to deal with public relations which comprises of helping clients convey messages as well as listen to their public. Lee engaged in propagandizing the interest of customers detested by people in general, including Standard Oil founder, John D. Rockefeller.

Another school of thought holds that Bernays was the profession’s first theorist. Bernays drew a significant number of his thoughts from Sigmund Freud’s hypotheses about the unreasonable, oblivious intentions that shape human conduct. Bernays wrote a few books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). He pictured public relations as an ‘applied sociology’ that utilizes experiences from psychology and sociology.

One of Bernay’s initial customers was the tobacco business. In 1929, he organized a now-unbelievable exposure stunt planned for convincing ladies to take up cigarette smoking, a demonstration that at the time was solely likened with men. It was viewed as unfeminine and wrong for ladies to smoke; other than the occasional prostitutes, for all intents and purposes no ladies took an interest in the demonstration openly.

Back in western Germany, the public relations crusade was initiated by Guster Mevissen. He was of the opinion of that public’s view of the critisim of businesses be countered by the greatest possible publicity and that all hands be on deck to to show business in good standing. Another industrialist, Alfred Krupp, was likewise known to pay attention to public relations, when he instructed his agents to ‘conduct their businesses in public veiw’.

Another typical example can be drawn for the 2nd world war, whereby an office of war information was created and headed by Elmer Davis, a former radio personality himself to align public opinion more with the head and pace of government. Many government agencies from then on began to have public relations departments and sometimes, consultants were contracted to study and interpret public opinion on touchy issues of the times.

Global historical perspective of public relations origin

From the global historical point of view, Public relations blew as a result of four dominant practices and traditions which include;

1. Rhetoricians and Press agent Tradition: made popular by speech makers and publicist who were involved in the art of rhetoric and press agentry. The rhetoricians provided services like speaking for clients, training for questions to be asked, persuasion skills as well as speech writing. This was thought to have been established in Greece during the era of Plato (ca. 27 to 346 B.C). One of the fore runners was Gorgias of Leontinum in Silicy (ca. 483 to 375 B.C) who believed that the job of Rhetoricians was to cultivate influential aptitudes more than it was to determine if arguments and claims were true or false.
2. Journalistic Publicity Tradition: this was advanced by Industrial Revolution which hit America with full force in the 19th century. The resultant industrialization changed the structure of society and made public relations unavoidable. Dorman B. Eaton’s 1882 address to the graduating class of the Yale Law school attempted to achieve this.
3. Persuasive Communication Campaign Tradition: this was rooted in the US’s publicity and propaganda initiatives on World War 1.
4. Relationship-Building and Two-way Communication Tradition: this was made popular by Arthur Page, who believed that winning public confidence and trust not only required ad hoc attempts to answer criticism but also a continuous and planned initiatives of positive public relations using institutional advertising and other means to push home an agenda.

Theories of public relations

Public relations also performs a myriad of functions like building the image of corporate brands and lobbying – not limiting to supporting and enhancing marketing efforts like forming relationships with various publics to ensure public acceptance and approval (Harris, 1998). Basically the purpose of public relations is create a positive view in the eyes of the public about an organization via the various tools of communications available. As defined by the Public Relations Society of America (PSRA), public relations is ‘a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organisations and their publics’ (Public Relations Society of America, 2013).

Having undergone over a century of evolution, public relations has transitioned from a one-way to two-way communication process. This phenomenon can be observed from the four models of public relations known as the press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetrical model.

1. The press agentry otherwise known as the publicity model was the first model of public relations, created by P.T. Barnum in the 19th century, who said ‘the public be fooled’; this model was also practised by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s at that time who said, ‘the public be damned’ (Grunig and Hunt, 1984). Barnum also coined the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’ and used a variety of dubious publicity stunts to attract crowds to his shows. This model uses one-way communication, as it does not pay attention to facts rather its deployed to manipulate and propagandize, to change the public’s behaviour.
2. Thereafter, the press agentry or publicity model was succeeded by the public information model, which was developed to tackle trickery and better inform the general public with facts. It was created by Ivy Ledbetter Lee, who said ‘the public be informed’; as much as this model utilizes one-way communication, however, it disseminates objective and factual information based on research (Grunig and Hunt, 1984).
3. Following the public relations model is the two-way asymmetric model which was created by Edward Bernays between 1920 and 1950; it uses two-way communication to enhance communication based on the research of the public’s feedback to reinforce the attitudes or beliefs of an organisation (Grunig & Hunt, 1984).
4. The two-way symmetric model, developed between 1960 to 1980, was also created by Edward Bernays; similarly, it makes use of the two-way communication, nevertheless, its communication emphasises on dialogue to build mutual understanding/trust between an organisation and its stakeholders (Grunig & Hunt, 1984).

As stated by Grunig & Hunt, (1984), ‘professionals are individuals who possess a body of knowledge and have mastered communication techniques that are not known by the average citizen’. Public relations has been noted to being one of the fastest growing professions worldwide (Taylor, 2016), as such it is fair to say that acquiring the knowledge is crucial, as much has evolved in the area of public relations since its inception, especially with the advent of the Internet and social networking sites or to summarize ‘Online media’

Relationship between public relations and the media

Public relations can be said to be the act of connecting and communicating via various channels at the disposal of an organization to the public. The public in this instance could include and is not limited to employees, customers, industry, government entities, investors, charities, suppliers and the media. For instance, if you’re a business and you want inform, influence or even persuade a certain group of people, you can be said to be a publicist.

The public can also be classified into the groups listed below;

• Non-public – the organisation has no consequence on the group or the group has no consequence on the organisation.
• Latent public – a group faces a common threat from the organisation, but they do not know a problem.
• Aware public – this group knows a problem exists.
• Active public – having recognised that a problem exists, this group comes together to do something about it and to establish what should be done to stop such problems gaining momentum.

Public relations takes into cognizance the bigger picture of how an organization relates and is looked upon by the general public. A good public relations strategy can not only help a company understand its customers and provide meaningful solutions, but it can also help track results and forecast outcomes for future circumstances.

Media relations focuses more on the company’s interactions with editors, reporters and journalists. The media in this perspective could be newspapers, radio, television, bill boards and the internet. The goal here using these mediums is to push a client’s newsworthy message, story or information using the appropriate media outlets for a desired result. A company may need only one person to work with the media or choose to hire a team depending on the amount of information that has to be disseminated. This can be achieved by the internal in house PR team or an external contracted agency hired for a specific purpose.

Communications

Communication theory can be said to be the study of the way humans communicate with each other. Communication theory can help public relations specialist understand why some campaigns work and some turn out to be a disaster. However the case may be, one can say that PR isn’t solely based on communication theories, the history of PR has greatly contributed to the expansion of the PR theory and has in turn successively helped to develop its practise. Public relations can be said not to be static, it is constantly developing, changing and adapting to new circumstances and situations.

The current dominant paradigm in PR can be said to be the excellence theory which argues that the most successful form of both internal and external form of communication is the Symmetrical communication process. This implies that organizations must engage in a constructive ‘two-way’ communication with stakeholders but must also ensure to additionally be prepared to change certain policies as a result of that dialogue or openness. The most effective companies practising excellent PR have the PR function operating at the very best level in the company. For many businesses however, the PR practice tends to be pragmatic and employs a variety of PR models depending on the cases and situations.

In conclusion, this essay has tried to deliberately cover a lot of ground and may amongst other things illustrate what a complex or difficult topic this can turn out to be.