Multimedia scrapbook: Public relations
From Engwiki
Contents |
1.What is public relations?
Public Relations is the business of giving the public information about a particular company in order to create a good impression. It's about maintaining a public image for a company's reputation. In PR work skilled publicists who are able to present a company to the world in the best light. Ivy Lee, called the first PR counselor, gave a definition: "PR means the actual relationship of the company to the people and that relationship involves more than talk. The company must act by performing good deeds."
2.Brief history of PR
Greeks defined PR as how to get people to believe things and do things. Some important persons for PR are Julius Cesar, St.Augustine who was one of the first people in charge of PR. There is also Thomas Paine known as a master of political propaganda, because his writing could get people to do things and to believe things. Franklin is known by the rules of "personal relations" wich he estimated before mass medaia and "public relations". There is also Barnum, master of promotion, Seward who understood how to use press, Lee with his principles followed to proffessionalize PR. Edward Bernay established PR principles and functions and is called the father of PR.
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3.Techniques of PR
In public relations, techniques that make press releases look like news events or new stories are often the most successful for businesses. Expert Glenn Selig emphasizes that one of the things about PR is that you don't want people to know that you use PR at all. The idea is to make it look like you are not doing anything. You have to find a way to get on TV or newspapers and that involves using techniques. You want people to know what you are doing but you want it to sound like a news article. He also mentions that the best PR campaignes are the ones that don't look like campaignes at all. They are masked as news events or new stories.
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4.Future in PR
Landing a job in PR has a bright future, especially for PR professionals with expertise in science, finance, medicine... Employers are companies, government agencies, schools, hospitals and other organizations that need PR. Median salary for a PR specialist is around $35 000.
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5.PR is booming
The Council of Public Relations Firms has announced a report with world's top PR firms, wich shows enormous increase in earnings over the last ten years. That means that PR business is booming as very important tool today.
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6.PR across cultures
It's the easiest for PR practitioners to deal within their own nation and culture, but when that's not possible it's important that cultural differences are recognised. There are a few key areas wich shall be highlighted in order to help PR practitioners begin to consider how culture may affect future projects. Those are: Language and culture, The spoken word, The writen word, Communication channels and PR materials.The aim of implementing a cross cultural analysis in PR is to build campaignes that target the audience as best as possible, meaning appealing to their world view while avoiding offense.
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7.PR for start-up firms
Mary Keating and David Chin are giving great public relations tips for start-ups. Start-ups should know why is PR important, when to start thinking about it and what to do when they get that first big media interview. PR is important because it's two way conversation-it allows you to see what people are thinking about your company, and send your massage to stakeholders.
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My comment on the sources
I selected those sources because I considered them most atractive and informative. It is mentioned all that is important to know about PR, as history as future. Also trends are described, cultural impact and tips for startups. In my opinion, all these sources support each other and are logicaly connected so they fit together to define the topic. In whole, the topic is summarized and it gives a lot of interesting informations for the reader. In general, I liked the task because I choosed the topic that I'm interested in. What could be a little minus is that it took me a lot of time to do it. :)
CRITICAL EVALUATION
The thing that I liked in your page is that you clearly explained what PR is. You mentioned, at the beginning, the history of PR, which is important so we can see how it developed. The sources which you have chosen are really interesting and informative. PR is very important in company beacuse it gives informations about particular company and lives a good impression about it. And also PR is used to maintain a public image for non-profit organizations or high profile people,such as celebrities and politicians.
Anita Fučec
