Definition
Ivy Lee and Edward Louis Bernays established the first definition of public relations in the early 1900s as
"a management function, which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures, and interests of an organization... followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."
In August 1978, the World Assembly of Public Relations Associations defined the field as
"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."
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defined public relations in 1982 as:
"Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other."
In 2011 and 2012, the PRSA developed a crowd-sourced definition:
"Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics."
Public relations can also be defined simply as the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics.
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 behavior.
Read more about this topic: History Of Public Relations
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man’s fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“... we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“It is very hard to give a just definition of love. The most we can say of it is this: that in the soul, it is a desire to rule; in the spirit, it is a sympathy; and in the body, it is but a hidden and subtle desire to possess—after many mysteries—what one loves.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)