Philosophy of Public Relations

I was reading an interesting article this week that you may also glean some insights from. In summary here are some of the key points...
Public relations is about man, its fundamental function is to enlighten, educate, emancipate, energize, empower, elevate and enrich man. It can empower an individual through the dissemination of relevant information (education). Therefore the philosophy of PR is the philosophy about human kind. It is important to know the nature of man,this will help in knowing the means of educating man. Because man is not just a biological organism but an animal endowed with reason whose highest dignity is in the intellect. Public relations as a management function helps in defining and achieving organizational objectives and philosophy, adapts to a changing environment and facilitate organizational change. PR practitioners communicate with all relevant internal and external publics in the effort to create consistency between organizational goals and societal expectations. Their duties go far beyond the skills of communicating like their counterparts in other functional areas of their organization, must be able to influence policy decision and developing strategies to implement them. PR informs, creates ideas,persuades people and makes things happen. It establishes and maintains mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organization and its publics.
To access the full article visit http://www.globalpr.org/knowledge/features/philosophypr_odele.pdf
All the best
Heidi Alexandra Pollard