Author: Susan chiang

Public relations is fundamentally the art and science of establishing relationships between an organization and its key audiences. Public relations involves supervising and assessing public attitudes, and maintaining mutual relations and understanding between an organization and its public. The function of public relations is to improve channels of communication and to institute new ways of setting up a two-way flow of information and understanding. Most public relations practitioners were and are still recruited from the ranks of journalism.

The First World War stimulated the development of public relations as a profession. Public relations pioneers like Carl Byoir, Edward Bernays, and Ivy Lee, got their beginning with the Committee for Public Information, which organized publicity for U.S. objectives during World War I.

“When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. 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 Council on Public Relations,” commented Edward Bernays, while describing the origin of the term Public Relations.

At present public relations as a career option exists in private companies or government institutions that actively market their product, service and facilities. Public relations training courses are widespread in educational institutions. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 122,000 public relations specialists in the United States in 1998 and approximately 485,000 advertising, marketing, and public relations managers working in all industries.

As public image is important to all organizations and prominent personalities the role of public relations specialist becomes pertinent in crisis situations. Public relations agencies provide important and timely transmission of information that helps save the face of the organization. In the words of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), “Public relations helps an organization and its public adopt mutually to one another.”

Public relations is effective in helping:
* Corporations convey information about their products or services to potential customers
* Corporations reach local government and legislators
* Politicians attract votes and raise money, and craft their public image and legacy
* Non-profit organizations, including schools, hospitals, social service agencies etc. boost support of their programs such as awareness programs, fund-raising programs, and to increase patronage of their services.

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Author: Pearl Deloria

Public relations now forms a major part of the entertainment industry, business and politics. It can be a fascinating career for someone who is dedicated, creative and a strong communicator. It involves long hours and much inconvinient over-time, but for the commited and talented few it can open doors or provide a satisfying job for life.

What does a job in pubic relations involve? Basically, you would be working to communicate the message of the person or company you represented to the wider public. In a culture often described as media saturated, it has become incredably important for businesses and institutions in the public eye to be represented positivly.

PR proffessionals communicate this message to the public through traditional media – such as press conferences for news reports, and working in connection with advertising stratagists – and through new media like the internet. Many news reports on TV, in the papers and online have their origins in articles sent out by PR agents.

However, professionals in this feild do not simply portray a false impression of a company to the media (although sometimes that is part of the job!). Good agents also conduct research and risk analysis on public attitudes, which impacts the way the institution represented performs. They look out for potential scandals that could harm the reputation of the business, and discuss these with the company managment.

There are a great number of facets of PR you could go into once you are qualified. You will either be working in an office environment, or sometimes from home - but you can look to represent businesses, charities, government agencies, famous individuals or practically any organisation that comes into contact with the general public.

So what is needed to start a career in PR? Reletivly recently, universities around the country have begun offering degrees in PR. These should deal with both the practical business and the ethical elements of the job. However, other degrees in business, management, media, English and IT are looked upon positively by employers.

Before you are eligable for a PR job though, you will need to have had some relevant experience. Normally this takes the form of an internship. To get an internship you will have to display absolute dedication to your chosen career – even if it means doing some serious work for very little pay for serveral years.

You could then decide to work for a specific organisation, or with a PR firm that represents many different clients. A starting salary in either one will be between 18,000 and 20,000 dollers, but if you have a good record or experience this could increase.

To know more about Reputation Management visit Online Reputation Management.

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