The Origins of Public Relations
Chapter 1: The Origins of Public Relations
3. What is Public Relations?
Chapter 1: The Origins of Public Relations
Chapter 1: The Origins of Public Relations
involved. This is where the reputational issue is for the public relations profession and we will discuss this further in the section on history in this chapter and in the chapter on political communications.
To understand first of all what public relations is, it is useful to look at the worldwide definitions of public relations.
In Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, public relations is a young and growing field.
In a recent report on the industry by BlackHouse Media (2020), it found that only 9% of agencies in Nigeria have been in operation for over 20 years. Bob Ogbuagu, who is
commonly considered to be the founding father of the PR industry in Nigeria is cited by Olisa (2021) as defining public relations as ‘the art of building bridges of rapport between an organisation and its publics’.
In the United States of America the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) describes public relations as: ‘a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics’ (PRSA, n.d.).
In Canada, the Canadian Public Relations Society quotes Flynn, Gregory & Valin (2008) in its following definition of public relations: ‘public relations is the strategic management of relationships between an organisation and its diverse publics, through the use of
communication to achieve mutual understanding, realise organisational goals and serve the public interest’ (CPRS, n.d.).
In the UK, the PR industry is valued at £15.7 British Pounds and there are approximately 97,300 PR practitioners working in the industry (PRCA, 2020). Here, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations defines public relations as: ‘the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual
understanding between an organisation and its publics’ (CIPR, n.d.).
Across all the various definitions, the same phrases or words are used: relationships between an organisation and its publics, communications and mutual understanding.
In 1978, world leaders in public relations made an attempt to standardise the profession when they came together in Mexico and drafted what is the most widely documented definition in public relations education, the Mexico Definition. This definition states that:
Chapter 1: The Origins of Public Relations
‘Public Relations is the art and social science of analysing trends, predicting their
consequences, counselling organisation leaders and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both the organisation’s and the public interest.’
This definition of public relations is distinct in that it describes public relations as both an art and a social science and recognises the wide ranging strategic role that public relations plays in helping organisations to understand trends and markets. The ability to be able to communicate complex messages in simple terms, manage media and client relations is an art that requires interpersonal skills and certain competencies. For example, research from Barnes & Tallent (2015), Flynn (2014) and Madigan (2017) have indicated that there are common competencies often requested by the public relations industry such as critical thinking and communications skills and that these competencies can be difficult to teach (2003, cited in Flynn, 2014, p. 4). Creative teaching methods have been recommended to assist, such as simulations and what Barnes and Tallent (2015, p. 437) referred to as
“constructivist thinking tools”. Constructivist learning tools include discussions, reflective writing and exercises that encourage learners to visualise information and solve problems.
As we have seen in the example of the COVID-19 pandemic at the opening of this chapter, an understanding of human behaviour plays a huge role in successful communications. If public relations professionals are to communicate with and persuade people to change behaviours and attitudes, then they need to understand the public and what motivates them.
Harold Burson, the esteemed communicator and founder of international public relations agency Burson Marsteller is reported to have described public relations as: ‘a process that impacts public opinion. Its objective is to motivate individuals or groups to take a specific action. Like buying a certain brand of toothpaste or automobile; voting for a specific candidate; supporting one side or the other of a political issue; signing up with one cable provider over another. As such, public relations is an applied social science that draws on several social sciences, among them psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, geography. Actually, one could more accurately describe public relations as a maturing applied social science. It is all too slowly developing theories and a body of knowledge, mainly case histories, that can bring about greater discipline, uniformity and predictability in delivering our services’ (Ovait, n.d.). In today’s world much of the information on an organisation’s public is derived from algorithms which help organisations to analyse trends by informing them as to how their customers are behaving online and what may motivate them to make a purchase or to form an opinion. This is what makes
organisations such as Facebook, who hold the database to modern-day human behaviour, so valuable.
Chapter 1: The Origins of Public Relations
Informed public relations professionals are positioned to provide counsel to organisation leaders and to implement strategies that are capable of communicating with the
organisation’s public. The word ‘publics’ is used inter-changeably in public relations with other words such as audiences and stakeholders. Publics can be identified in the context of public relations as a group of people who are affected by an issue, ‘stakeholders’ can be defined as those who are invested in the organisation but may not be directly affected and an ‘audience’ is anyone with whom the organisation could potentially communicate to (Butterick, 2011). In the 1960s public relations’ foremost theorist, James Grunig undertook a study of publics and the role they play in communications. He found that when companies sought to engage with an audience, communications activity was sometimes unsuccessful because organisations engaged ineffectively with their publics and developed policies and programmes that did not resonate with their target audiences as a result. Grunig identified the importance of segmenting the public into various groups based on their level of
engagement or relevance to the organisation (Grunig et al, 2002).
An example of the different groups a company may engage with, can be found in the ‘Dettol Clean Naija’ campaign run by the company, Reckitt Benckiser. In 2019, Reckitt Benckiser and its brand Dettol launched the public information campaign in Nigeria. The aim of the campaign was to encourage Nigerian people to practice better hygiene in order to prevent conditions and diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and dysentery. The audience for this campaign is any adult in the country as everybody can take responsibility for washing their hands and ensuring they are practicing good hygiene. In order to target the campaign and communicate relevant messages with those to whom it is addressed, it is necessary to segment this audience into various publics and stakeholders. This particular campaign was targeted specifically at market women in Oshodi, Obalende, Yaba and other areas. In an article in The Guardian, Dettol brand ambassador, Funke Akindele-Bellow said that ‘open defecation had become a worrisome practice in Nigeria’ and advised market women in those areas ‘to stop open defection and wash their hands always, especially nursing mothers (Adunwoke, 2019). The market women and nursing mothers in general are the ‘publics’ for this campaign and the identification of them allows content to be developed specifically relevant to them and for media to be carefully selected to pitch the news angle to that is popular amongst this group. Stakeholders in this case would be the department of public health in Nigeria and the groups for example controlling the local markets mentioned, as well as organisations representing nursing mothers.
Chapter 1: The Origins of Public Relations
Public relations is the communications between organisations and their publics. It requires interpersonal skills and competencies in order to create and implement informed two-way communications strategies that can change behaviours and attitudes. The Mexico Definition as well as the definitions of public relations from individual countries help identify what public relations is and what it seeks to achieve. What is missing from these definitions however is a mention of media relations. In public relations, the majority of the communication is done through the media and public relations evolved as a profession in tandem with the evolution of mass media in the early 20th Century. As the world moved out of war during this time, businesses began to employ what they perceived as successful wartime communications tactics and applied them to the corporate sector. At the same time, industry was beginning to boom throughout Europe and the United states, media was evolving and becoming more accessible and psychology was becoming recognised as a science. All these factors played a part in the eventual evolution of public relations into the structured and highly valued ‘art and social science’ that the Mexico Definition has identified.