Readings - Week 2 (taken from "Public Relations- Theory & Practice")
Chapter 1 - What is Public Relations?
Chapter 2 - A History of Public Relations in Australia
I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were...
Harold Burson's 4 most important functions of public relations in society.
- Sensor of social change
considers the positive and negative repercussions on society, and helps prepare for onslaught and impact of those issues.
-Corporate conscience
Henry David Thoreau- corporation has no conscience, but corporation of conscientious men has conscience. Qualities are basic to job descrip. of PR officers.
- Communicator
communications mainly thought to be predominate role of PR. Communication only one of 4 most important roles
- Corporate Monitor
seeks to make corporate policies and programs match public expectations
This explanation lends itself to a clearer understanding of the field of PR in general terms. Here we can now start to develop our idea of PR using these outlines.
Over time the definition of PR has changed
"management of communication between an organisation and its publics" (Grunig & Hunt : 1984)
"a management function that uses communications to facilitate relationships and understanding between an organisation and its publics" (McElreath : 1996)
These days the definition has needed to encompass more than just the corporate context in which earlier definitions were based. Today we "define public relations as the ethical and strategic management of communication and relationships in order to build and develop coalitions and policy, identify and manage issues and create and direct messages to achieve sounds outcomes within a socially responsible framework"
Roles of PR Practitioners
Technicians
provide services such as producing publications i.e news releases & newsletters
Problem-solvers
ask clients or senior management to rethink or clarify problems and to look out for solutions
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Wow Annika, this is really detailed and you clearly have a firm understanding of the subject matter presented to us in the readings this week. We have both concentrated on different aspects of the material.I appreciate the understanding I was able to gain from your blog this week in particular the changing definitions of Public Relations and moreover the important roles of PR practitioners.
I'm interested in perhaps finding out your interpretation on what the 4 important functions of Public Relations are used for... I would agree that being alert to the repercussions of an action (sensor of social change) especially with Communications as that combination allows you to debate the veracity of another avenue of action, or explain and justify why you picked a different action, The question i have though, are Sensor of Social Change, Corporate Conscience and Corporate monitor really so fundamentally different that they cannot be grouped together? and why or why not?
Post a Comment