Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns (original) (raw)
Think: Public Relations, 2nd edition, New York: Pearson Education, 2012.
This introductory public relations text, just published in its second edition is popular among faculty and students because it is an innovative approach to standard textbook design and layout. This 400-page textbook is a comprehensive overview of the public relations field with plenty of up-to-date case studies presented in a magazie format featuring large photos, bold headlines, and colorful graphics throughout the book. Perfect for the highly visual younger generation.
Public Relations Research and Planning
The role of research and planning is essential to any public relations effort. Until recently, this aspect of public relations practice has suffered from what has been described as a lack of measurable outcomes. That is, public relations has been seen as a soft practice (one that focuses primarily on outputs such as news releases) or "publicity," most often an in-house organ or media relations unit that produced press releases and other promotional materials. As such, much of public relations planning was focused on getting a message out to as many constituents as possible, often without much thought to the outcomes that these materials were seeking to influence.
Public Relations [encyclopedia entry]
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society, 2018
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
Rethinking public relations Political strategists, market research firms, think tanks, lobbyists, media advisors, third party mobilizers and 'grassroots' organizers, social media gurus, and other communication specialists have flourished in size and influence and transformed the role of communication in social, political, and economic life. Critics decry the expansion of professionalized communication, impugning the public relations (PR), polling, advertising, and marketing industries for overpowering the media with a torrent of sound-byte journalism, spin control, and 24-hour campaigning, and thus undermining the political process and civic discourse (e.g., . In his research note, featured in this issue, Matt Soar uses war terminology ("commercial carpet bombing") to characterize the impact of the ad industry, in particular, on the civic landscape: "[a] city skyline awash in prominent logos," he writes, "is indicative of a profound imbalance between the wants of marketers and the needs of citizens." Others are less discouraged by the rise and intensification of promotion and publicity in the public sphere and see potential for expanding, rather than restricting, the democratic process. One recent book argues that we have entered a period of "public relations democracy" in which more news sources operating outside the traditional institutions and arenas of power are exercising influence over how media report on political, cultural, and economic affairs . Such "pluralist optimism" brings to mind Ray Hiebert's famous statement that "without public relations, democracy could not succeed in a mass society" (1966, p. 7). 1 The growth in PR, and the professionalization of promotional communication generally, can be attributed to myriad cultural, political, and economic forces: the broader changes associated with globalization, including the development of new information and communication technologies; the emergence, expansion, and contestation of market capitalism (in its neo-liberal and other guises); the increasing importance of symbolic and promotional labour; and the revitalization of the public sphere, where new, emerging forms of grievance and risk are defined, contested, and amplified (e.g., . The articles, research notes, commentaries, and reviews that appear in this special issue address continuities and changes in public relations and professional communication practice. We argue that against the backdrop of these changes, communication (especially persuasive and instrumental forms of communication) has become a more salient feature of the cultural landscape of late modern society. In different ways, the issue takes up the challenge of rethinking public relations.