Understanding twenty-first century public relations

Guth and Marsh (2009) stated that public relations is driven by values or has values-based approach. I guess this is the feature making me interested in this profession. Throughout the functions conducted by public relations practitioners (internal communication management, external networking communication, crisis management, research, public affairs, etc.), the final goal of public relations is to maintain the mutual trust and benefits between an organization and its public. To maintain this relationship, public relations people carry out various measurements and techniques which cultivate and promote benefits for all parties involved. The campaign "Free six million cups of milk for poor children" done by Vinamilk posted in previous blog post is a good example for public relations values. Both Vinamilk and the public gained some benefits from the campaign. The campaign built trust, a good public image as an ethical business for Vinamilk whereas poor children enjoyed free milk from the company. I suppose this efficient characteristic contributed to the proliferation of public relations in the world.

Nowadays, there is a drastic increase in the number of public relations practitioners on over the world. Public relations organizations such as PRSA (US), Public Relations Institute in New Zealand, Institute of Public Relations of Singapore, Malaysian Institute of Public Relations, China International Public Relations Association are facing the growing number of members. According to Joy Chia (2009), the number of members of Australian Public Relations Institute climbed up to 2648 by 2008 from a small number of 35 in 1949.

It is believed that public relations is five times effective more than advertisement. I suppose public relations has a strong power in involving different parties, especially the public, in gaining a specific goal or objective. Joy Chia (2008, p.14, in L'Etang, 2008) stated that "PR has the ability to set the agenda and thus intervene and disrupt the bottom flow from citizens to those in power". I think that the two most important factors contributing to the efficiency of public relations are the value-driven purpose and transparent communication.

Public relations aims to cater to both parties - the organization and the public. The ultimate objective of public relations is to maintain the organization's reputation and to create social and ethical values. Therefore, most public relations campaigns are widely supported by the public. In other words, the power of public relations in getting people involved in taking common actions is attributed to the nature of the profession - bringing what-is-best-to-society. I have been shown the public relations campaign done by Unicef, Tap water project, in the effort to give clean water to people in underprivileged areas. Due to the values driven purpose of the project, it was strongly advocated. Tap water project was so successful that it became a brand.

Advertisings are so popular and widely-used that their credibility is being questioned. In order to build a lasting relationship and mutual trust between an organization and its public, I think using transparent communication is a good idea. Reporting the truth and updating information timely is the way to gain trust from the public.

However, if a CEO or manager of an airline company does not want to inform the public about what is happening when there is a plane accident, public relations functions are not performed properly. In this case, what should the public relations people in that company do? I think the performance of public relations is really affected by policies, rules of organizations and by individual circumstances.