Media Today, 4th Edition
Chapter Recaps and Study Guide
Chapter 16: The Public Relations Industry
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

Sketch the development of the public relations industry.

Analyze the nine areas of the public relations industry.

Explain how public relations, advertising, and other persuasion activities are
coming together to produce integrated marketing communication.

Discuss concerns that media critics have about the persuasion industries.

Public relations is the use of media channels to favorably influence public opinion
about corporations, organizations, and individuals; unlike the advertising
specialist, the PR specialist attempts to perform this function without paying for
time and space.
The basic public relations strategy tries to avoid public recognition of the
influence that PR specialists have on media content, although much of what we
experience by means of media content is influenced by PR.
Although PR specialists seek to gain favorable publicity for their clients, the PR
function includes other complex operations, involving “information, activities and
policies by which corporations and other organizations seek to create attitudes
favorable to themselves and their work, and to counter adverse attitudes.”



The rise of public relations.
o The various functions of contemporary public relations can be traced back
to the ancient world; in the American experience, various revolutionaries,
Ben Franklin, and the great showman P. T. Barnum performed many tasks
recognizable as PR activities.
o Advertising and public relations grew apart in the early 1900s, and public
relations specialists positioned themselves as PR “counselors” who guided
the production of public images of large corporations.
o Unlike many PR specialists in the early twentieth century, Ivy Lee
cultivated a reputation for honesty and encouraged his clients to be open
and honest with the public; Lee’s “statement of principles” advanced the
PR profession beyond publicity.
o Lee’s handling of the Ludlow, Colorado, massacre tarnished his reputation
and the PR profession, creating the long-term impression that PR misleads
and manipulates the public.
o Following World War I, George Creel’s writings about the role of public
relations in managing wartime opinion reinforced the idea that PR was
manipulative and untrustworthy.
o Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud and credited as “the father
of public relations,” developed the two-way model of PR.
o The Great Depression and World War II encouraged the development of
large PR agencies that worked for corporate and governmental clients.
o The conflicts of the 1960s encouraged the development of a more
symmetrical two-way model.

An overview of the modern public relations industry.
o Many companies have in-house corporate communication departments
that perform both external and internal relations.
o Public relations agencies perform a variety of services for their clients and
are increasingly located within large agency holding companies, similar to
advertising agency holding companies and media conglomerates.

Major public relations activities.
o PR practitioners help their clients (1) understand the challenges that face
them, (2) formulate objectives that they would like to reach in meeting
those challenges, (3) develop broad approaches—strategies—for meeting
the objectives, and (4) carry out particular activities—tactics—that put
these strategies into action.
o Corporate communications involves the creation and presentation of a
company’s overall image to its employees and to the public at large.
o Financial communications involves helping a client’s interactions with
lenders, shareholders, and stock market regulators proceed smoothly.
o Consumer and business-to-business communication involves marketing
activities aimed at the two groups.
o PR agencies perform consumer and business-to-business communication
activities involving two especially important industries: advanced
technology and health care.
o Public affairs PR centers on government issues that impact a client.
o Crisis management refers to the range of activities that help a company
respond to its business partners, the general public, or the government in
the event of an unforeseen disaster affecting its image or its products.
o Media relations refers to the various activities that PR specialists perform
when contacting media outlets on behalf of clients.

Production in the public relations industry.
o The press release is the most basic product of public relations.
o It is very important for PR specialists to understand the work routines and
the needs of media specialists in order to influence media content.

Distribution in the public relations industry.
o PR distribution is achieved by locating proper media outlets for the
materials provided by PR specialists.
o A variety of media technologies are used for the distribution of PR
materials.

Exhibition in the public relations industry.
o Media outlets benefit from the media subsidies provided by the PR
industry.
o The placement of PR materials in media outlets does not guarantee that the
subsequent stories will be beneficial for the PR specialist’s client.

The rise of integrated marketing communication.
o Integrated marketing communications (IMC) attempts to combine the
activities of advertising and public relations in order to benefit a client.
o Branded entertainment involves associating a company or product with
media activities in ways that are not as obviously intrusive as
advertisements.
o Event marketing involves creating compelling circumstances that
command attention in ways that are relevant to the product or firm.
o Event sponsorship involves companies paying to be associated with
particular activities that their target audiences enjoy or value.
o Product placement takes place when a firm manages to insert its brand in a
positive way into fiction or nonfiction content.
o Database marketing involves the construction of lists of customers and
potential customers that can be used to determine what those people might
purchase in the future.
o Relationship marketing involves a determination by the firm to maintain
long-term contact with its customers.
o Agency holding companies are particularly well positioned to perform
IMC, because the companies contain advertising, public relations, and
marketing capabilities.

Media literacy and the persuasion industries.
o A media literate person should be aware of the hidden influences that
advertising and public relations specialists have on the overall content
produced by media industries.
o Although the advertising profession and the public relations profession
have professional codes that attempt to assure ethical and honest behavior,
critics argue that the industries violate their own codes every day.
o Customized media driven by target-oriented advertising and PR heighten
the potential negative outcomes of audience segmentation.
o Media literate persons should be aware of the ability of large agencies to
influence targeted content everywhere.