INTRODUCTION

Vox populi, vox Dei.

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

- Ancient Roman proverb.

What is Public relations?

Public relations is a profession in transition. In an environment of rapid social change every organization must change or die. Public relations practitioners must possess the communications expertise and social sensitivity necessary to help organizations adapt to their changing environments.

In many ways this is a new role for public relations practitioners. They are no longer mere technicians who shape and transmit messages from organizations to their publics because public relations is now a critical dimension of management. All management now recognize that they themselves practice public relations and they also see that public relations practitioners should be part of the management mainstream.

To this broadened role, public relations practitioner must bring all of the traditional skills of the craft. The ability to understand public opinion, to plan public relations programs, to create effective messages in all media for all organizational publics, and to evaluate public relations effectiveness remain crucial areas of talent, skill, and knowledge. Public relations as it is practiced today, though, demands much more. A full understanding of all communication processes and a complete acquaintance with the methods of management are crucial to the successful practice of public relations. Thorough knowledge of the environment of the organization in which the practitioner works is a prerequisite to public rwelations effctiveness.

Public relations is an outgrowth of three factors: the recognition of the power of public opinion, continuous competition among institutions for public support, and the development of media through which the public can be reached.

Historically, public relations has gone through three stages: manipulation, information and mutual influence and understanding. Their development was sequential, but all three still exist. Public relations has generally moved from using any available means to achieve desired public opinion toward informing the public and providing information and counsel to management.

The future of public relations can be better predicted and prepared for if trends in its history are identified and understood.

I

FROM THE HISTORY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

1. 1. Read the text paying attention to your time of reading.

ANCIENT BEGINNINGS

Although modern public relations is a twentieth-century phenomenon, its roots are an­cient. Public opinion has always been a force in human events. Leaders in virtually every great society throughout history understood the impor­tance of influencing public opinion through persuasion. They courted the sentiments of the people to sustain their power and gain support for their actions. Public opinion is a force that has been reckoned with in all civilizations. Artifacts of what can be construed as public relations materials survive from ancient India, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. For example, the Babylonians of 1800 b.c. hammered out their messages on stone tablets so that farmers could learn the latest techniques of harvesting, sowing, and irrigating. The more food the farmers grew, the better the citizenry ate and the wealthier the country became—a good example of planned persuasion to reach a specific public for a particular purpose; in other words, public relations.

Later on, the Greeks put a high premium on communication skills. The best speakers, in fact, were generally elected to leadership positions. Occasionally, aspiring Greek politians enlisted the aid of Sophists (individuals renowned for both their reasoning and their rhetoric) to help fight verbal battles. Sophists would gather in the amphitheaters of the day and extol the virtues of particular political candidates. Thus, the Sophists set the stage for today's lobbyists, who attempt to influence legislation through effective communica­tions techniques. From the time of the Sophists, the practice of public relations has been a battleground for questions of ethics.

The Romans, particularly Julius Caesar, were also masters of persuasive techniques. When faced with an upcoming battle, Caesar would rally public support through assorted publications and staged events.

The Crusades, the exploits of Lady Godiva, the adventures of the Conquistadores seeking El Dorado all been explained as examples of ancient public relations activities. Even the Catholic Church had a hand in the creation of public relations. The creation in the 17th century of the Congregatio de Propaganda (the congregation for propaganding the faith) by Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of Pope Gregory XV, is often pointed to as a keystone in the development of public relations. The action brought us the term “propaganda” but was not a significant development in a church. The church established a college of propaganda to "help propagate the faith." In those days, the term propaganda did not have a negative connotation; the church simply wanted to inform the public about the advantages of Catholicism. Indeed, the roots of public relations lie in the development of propaganda, defined neutrally. Today, the pope and other religious leaders maintain communications staffs to assist relations with the public. Indeed, the chief communications official in the Vatican maintains the rank of Archbishop of the Church.

During World War I, a special U.S. public infor­mation committee, the Creel Committee, was formed to channel the patriotic sentiments of Americans in support of the U.S. role in the war. Stealing a page from Caesar, the com­mittee's massive verbal and written communications effort was successful in marshaling national pride behind the war effort. According to a young member of the Creel Commit­tee, Edward L. Bernays (later considered by many to be the father of public relations), "This was the first time in our history that information was used as a weapon of war."

But should a Sophist or a lobbyist or a public relations professional "sell" his or her talents to the highest bidder, regardless of personal beliefs, values, and ideologies? When modern-day public relations professionals agree to represent repressive governments in Serbia or Nazi sympathizers in Switzerland or when dyed-in-the-wool Republicans like David Gergen switch sides to join staunch Democrats like Bill Clinton, these ethical questions remain very much a focus of modern public relations.

2. Answer the questions to the text.

1. Is PR a twentieth-century phenomenon?

2. Who sets the stage for today’s lobbyists?

3. What is propaganda?

3.Find all the international words in the text and translate them without the dictionary.

2. 1. Read the texts paying attention to your time of reading.

1. Early american experience

The American public relations experience dates back to the founding of the Republic. In­fluencing public opinion, managing communications, and persuading individuals at the highest levels were at the core of the American Revolution. The colonists tried to per­suade King George III that they should be accorded the same rights as Englishmen. "Tax­ation without representation is tyranny!" became their public relations slogan to galva­nize fellow countrymen.

When King George refused to accede to the colonists' demands, they combined the weaponry of sword and pen. Samuel Adams, for one, organized committees of corre­spondence as a kind of revolutionary Associated Press to disseminate speedily anti-British information throughout the colonies. He also staged events to build up revolutionary fer­vor, like the Boston Tea Party, in which colonists, masquerading as Indians, boarded British ships in Boston Harbor and pitched chests of imported tea overboard—as impres­sive a media event as has ever been recorded sans television. Indeed, Adams's precept, "Put the enemy in the wrong and keep him there," is as solid persuasive advice today as it was more than two centuries ago.

Thomas Paine, another early practitioner of public relations, wrote periodic pam­phlets and essays that urged the colonists to band together. In one essay contained in his Crisis papers, Paine wrote poetically: "These are the times that try men's souls. The sum­mer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country." The people listened, were persuaded, and took action—testifying to the power of early American communicators.

1. Later american experience

The creation of the most important document in the USA nation's history, the Constitu­tion, also owed much to public relations. Federalists, who supported the Constitution, fought tooth and nail with anti-Federalists, who opposed it. Their battle was waged in newspaper articles, pamphlets, and other organs of persuasion in an attempt to influ­ence public opinion. To advocate ratification of the Constitution, political leaders like Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay banded together, under the pseu­donym Publius, to write letters to leading newspapers. Today those letters are bound in a document called The Federalist Papers and are still used in the interpretation of the Constitution.

After ratification, the constitutional debate continued, particularly over the docu­ment's apparent failure to protect individual liberties against government encroachment. Hailed as the Father of the Constitution, in 1791 Madison framed the Bill of Rights, which ultimately became the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Fittingly, the first of those amendments safeguarded, among other things, the practice of public relations: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the rights of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of griev­ances." In other words, people were given the right to speak up for what they believed in and the freedom to try to influence the opinions of others. Thus was the practice of pub­lic relations ratified.