Public relations: definition and core concepts

Public Relations

The concept of public relations or PR in short is a common concept among organizations and has continued to play a significant role in the running of businesses as long as they deal with customers, be they external or internal customers.

According to Investopedia (2012), PR can be defined as simply the act of communicating with the public. Though not directly embedded in the definition, PR is most of the times thought of or perceived as a 'spin' game with the ultimate aim of portraying the individual, an event or even a company in the best light possible. In majority of the organizations there is a PR department that handles the daily PR responsibilities of the organization. In some organization there is an agreed upon outside firm that is charged with the running of the PR related activities of the organization.

The main aim of PR departments is to make better the reputation of the organization each day, this is why the PR departments usually have people who are specialized publicists. These people are in a position to present the organization to the outside world in the bets light possible hence the work of the PR department can be taken to be that of protection of image. This is due to the fact that the current world is overly competitive and each company needs to have an edge over the others that make them to be more attractive to the media and the public than their competitors. In PR, the public is the consumer of the product and the media is the one that is charged with selling it out to the public.

There are therefore tools that the PR department will employ every now and again to reach the public which is the consumer. These are (Dry Pen, 2010);