INTRODUCTION

TO PUBLIC RELATION
1. Have a clear meaning of public relations and its relationship
with other functions in an organizations

2. Identify the areas of public relations

3. State the skills and qualities that a public relations practitioner

needs to be effective, and compare the PR with other functions.
 WHAT IS PUBLIC RELATION ????
“Public Relations is the organization’s effort to
build and manage long-term relationship with
its strategic publics and minimize conflicts
with them”.

(J. Grunig, 1982)

“Public Relation is the deliberate, planned and
structured effort to establish and maintain
mutual understanding between an organization
and its publics”.

(Institute of Public Relations Malaysia (IPRM))

“Public relations practice is the art and social
science of analyzing trends, predicting their
consequences, counseling organizations
leaders and implementing planned programs
of action which serve both the organization’s
and the public interest”.
(International Public Relations Association (IPRA, 1978))
“Public relation is about reputations, the result of
what you do, what you say and what others say
about you. PR practice is the discipline which
looks after reputation with the aim of earning
understanding and support and influencing
opinion and behavior”.

(Institute of Public Relations, UK (IRR, UK))

 “Public relation is the management function
which evaluate public attitudes, identifies the
policies and procedures of an individual or an
organization with the public interest and plan
and execute a program of action to earn public
understanding and acceptance”.

(Public Relations News, USA)

The 5 key concepts of the practice includes:

• Practicing two-way communication.

• Creating mutual understanding and positive relationship with

important publics.
• Researching the needs of the publics.

• Reputation management of the organization.

• Counseling organization’s management.

 The most common & important PR activities includes:

Media Community Financial

relations relations relations

Customer Employee Governmental

relations relations relations

Image Crisis Issues

buildings management management

* Each of these activities will be covered in following chapters .

 WHAT ARE THE SKILLS REQUIRED TO BE
PR PRACTIONERS?
 PR practitioner must have different types of
expertise & skill in order to carry out their task
effectively.

 Identified skills required by PR practitioners:

Other
Writing and Organization
Research skills Production skills communication
Editing skills skills
skills
 Research
skills

 To identify the important publics.

 To find out what public wants or needs from organization and what the
organization can do to meet this needs.
 Practitioners must be able to gather facts about potential problem and
emerging issues.
 Able to advise the management and to come out with programs
 E.g. of research skills :
1. Skills to conduct personal interview,

2. Review library materials,

3. Do content analysis of published / broadcast materials

 Writing &
Editing
skills

Able to write and edit:

1. press release 4. report

2. Speeches 5. articles
3. products and technical info 6. brochures and etc.

Organization
skills

 Skills and knowledge in organizing and managing events such as

anniversary celebrations, launchings, open house, news conferences, etc.
 Production
skills

 Has knowledge on how to design and do layout of copy.

 Has multimedia knowledge to enable practitioner to prepare audio visual
materials for corporate video and film.

Other
communication
skills

 Arranging speeches for chief executives, coaching this executives how to

present their speeches and also able to present speeches themselves.
Edward L. Bernays listed 11 personal characteristics of a PR
practitioner should have:

1. Character and integrity.

2. A sense of judgment and logic.

3. The ability to think creatively and imaginatively.

4. Truthfulness and discretion.

5. Objectivity.
6. A deep interest in solution of a problem.

7. A broad cultural background.

8. Intellectual curiosity.

9. Effective powers of analysis and synthesis.

10. Intuition.

11. Training in the social science and in the mechanics of

public relations.
 Advertising Public Relations

• Total control of • Limited control of

message content, message. Enhance by
method of presentation careful planning, in-
and format. depth preparation and
professional execution.
• Unlimited choice of
communication • Choice of
medium to reach the communication media
target audience. are restricted by
Budget being the only editorial policies and
consideration. media requirements.
 Advertising Public Relations

• Timing and frequency of • Timing and frequency of

message can be media coverage and
controlled. product exposure cannot
be projected or dictated
to any large extent.

• Lower level of credibility • Achieve greater appeal

and believability among and acceptance through
consumers. third person
endorsement in the
media.
 Advertising Public Relations
• Receptivity and retention • Editorial placements in
of advertisement the media have a higher
message are usually low reader, viewer or listener
attention and recall

• Advertisement • PR outlays are often less

expenditure – higher as than one tenth of
time and space has to be advertisement budget
purchased
 Advertising Public Relations
• Length of commercials, • In-depth report and
page sizes and layouts detailed articles offer
are limited more scope for analysis
and comments and
evaluations
 Marketing Public Relations

• Marketing is the management • Concerned with building

process responsible for relationships with all the
identifying, anticipating and organization’s strategic public
satisfying customer like community, employee
requirements profitably. and media.

• Only one function of business. • Involve several functions like

financial, human resources
and others.

• Concern with only one • Concern with many public

public- consumer. such as employee, consumer,
community, media and others.
 Propaganda Public Relations

• The purpose of • Concerned with being

propaganda is to gain factual and unbiased.
support for an opinion,
creed or believe with the • Aimed at getting its
aim of keeping services understood and
government in power. used properly.

• Propaganda is
prejudiced in favor of its
topic.