Organizational and societal functions of PR

Solution Preview

Meaning of Public relations

"Public relations is the management function that identifies, establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and various publics on whom its success or failure depends"
( Effective Public Relations by S. Cutlip , A. Center, and G. Broom)

Public relations people work for businesses, government agencies, professional and trade associations, nonprofit charities, schools and universities, hospitals, hotels, and many more. They work for large and small organizations. Many public relations people work entirely within their own country; others practice their profession on a global basis.

COMMON ELEMENTS IN THE FUNCION OF P/R:
PR is planned:

Public Relations isn't just happening, it is a well planned communications effort. Usually a PR practitioner defines the target groups, tailors the messages and a lot more, before he or she executes the plan.

PR is based on mutual understanding :

In order to communicate effectively we have to engage in a two-way communication. For example do we have to listen to journalists in order to understand their needs, so we can tailor the message in a way they can better process.

The organization:

The term organization refers to the company which wants to convey its message through the help of public relations. It can be a commercial company in the traditional sense, a non-profit organization or a country club.

The Publics:

The target group to which the organization wants to communicate with. This could be the consumers of a product, employees, investors, governmental officials etc. The publics are sometimes called stakeholders.

Management function:

PR is not just a means to get the name of the organization known, or to get cheap advertisement for a new product. It is more involved in planning the communication of the whole organization, and thus has become a part of the management. If a PR manager believes that a certain product would send the wrong signal to the publics, he or she could advice the top management and thus help to bring the company on the right track.

As we can see, PR includes an ...