Public relations

Public relations, abbreviated as PR,is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.

An earlier definition of public relations, by The first World Assembly of Public Relations Associations, held in Mexico City, in August 1978, was "the art and social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organizational leaders, and implementing planned programs of action, which will serve both the organization and the public interest."^[1]

Others define it as the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics.^[2] Public relations provides an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that provide a third-party endorsement^[3]and do not direct payment.^[4] Common activities include speaking at conferences, working with the media, crisis communications, social media engagement,^[5] and employee communication.

The European view of public relations notes that besides a relational form of interactivity there is also a reflective paradigm that is concerned with publics and the public sphere; not only with relational, which can in principle be private, but also with public consequences of organizational behaviour ^[6][7] A much broader view of interactive communication using the Internet, as outlined by Phillips and Young in Online Public Relations Second Edition (2009), describes the form and nature of Internet-mediated public relations. It encompasses social media and other channels for communication and many platforms for communication such as personal computers (PCs), mobile phones andvideo game consoles with Internet access. The increasing use of the mentioned technologies give the media a democratisation power and thus, aid to the demystification of subjects.

Public relations is used to build rapport with employees, customers, investors, voters, or the general public.^[4] Almost any organization that has a stake in how it is portrayed in the public arena employs some level of public relations. There are a number of public relations disciplines falling under the banner of corporate communications, such as analyst relations, media relations, investor relations, internal communications and labor relations. Most of them include the aspect of peer review to get liability.

Other public relations disciplines include:

• Financial public relations – providing information mainly to business reporters
• Consumer/lifestyle public relations – gaining publicity for a particular product or service, rather than using advertising
• Crisis public relations – responding to negative accusations or information
• Industry relations – providing information to trade bodies
• Government relations – engaging government departments to influence policymaking