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
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1 comment:
Thank you for sharing this wonderful description of the philosophy behind public relations. It strikes me as especially poignant in its timelessness. With debates constantly raging throughout the web over whether or not PR will continue to be a relevant marketing tool, it is refreshing to be reminded of the fact that, as you quote, “the philosophy of PR is the philosophy about human kind” and as such will never become outdated. As an industry it has the lucky prospect of adapting quite well to the new decentralized environment that has become such a difficulty for the advertising world. In fact, it is uniquely suited to perform well. Public relations is fundamentally a pull marketing tactic and has had to be creative long before now in the ways it disseminates its clients’ messages. Its fundamental goals, to “inform, create ideas, persuade people, and establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between an organization and its publics” are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. The beauty of PR is that it can be adapted to any medium (so long as it permits verbal communication) and shall always provide a seemingly more credible source of information to consumers. For those in doubt of the continued efficacy of this field, I sincerely hope they will re-examine the fundamental philosophy behind public relations. Perhaps then suggestions of its imminent demise will be silenced for good.
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