Reference No: KLL-FO-ACAD-000 | Effectivity Date: August 3, 2020 | Revisions No.

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VISION MISSION
A center of human development committed to the pursuit of wisdom, truth, Establish and maintain an academic environment promoting the pursuit of
justice, pride, dignity, and local/global competitiveness via a quality but excellence and the total development of its students as human beings,
affordable education for all qualified clients. with fear of God and love of country and fellowmen.

GOALS
Kolehiyo ng Lungsod ng Lipa aims to:
1. foster the spiritual, intellectual, social, moral, and creative life of its client via affordable but quality tertiary education;
2. provide the clients with reach and substantial, relevant, wide range of academic disciplines, expose them to varied curricular and co-curricular
experiences which nurture and enhance their personal dedications and commitments to social, moral, cultural, and economic transformations.
3. work with the government and the community and the pursuit of achieving national developmental goals; and
4. develop deserving and qualified clients with different skills of life existence and prepare them for local and global competitiveness

DISCLAIMER: The contents of this module including the clip arts, cartoons, and photos were lifted from
different sources including but not limited to books, pdf files and websites. The credits and copyright of the
materials are given to its respective rightful authors and creators. More so, this module has been
conceptualized and localized for the purpose of the educational distance learning of Kolehiyo ng Lungsod
ng Lipa College of Communication Arts. In no way does this module should be reproduced, sold and used
for commercial purposes and by other academic institutions.

LESSON 1
MEANING AND SCOPE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Defining Public Relations

The British Institute of Public relations (BIPR)

defines public relations as ‘the deliberate
planned and sustained effort to establish and
maintain mutual understanding between an
organization and its publics.” This definition
suggests that public relations is the creation
or establishment of mutual understanding
between an organization and its publics. It
also suggests that public relations is not a
haphazard process. It must be consciously
designed. Planning calls for attention,
deliberation, research, anticipation, analysis
and consequences.

Public relations efforts must ensure that not

only does the organization understand its publics, the publics must equally understand the organization. It
must understand its reasons for whatever actions it takes. As a public relations officer or manager of your
firm, for instance, it is your duty to ensure that mutual understanding is achieved between your firm and its
several publics. More often than not, the publics are passive at performing this role. Therefore, your
organization must take proactive steps towards achieving it.

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‘Sustained effort’ means that it is not enough to start the plan; it must be carried through to a logical end.
This is not usually very easy in the face of a precarious economy, political instability and other factors. The
Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) says “public relations is concerned with or devoted to creating
mutual understanding among groups and institutions.”

The PRSA recognizes the place of groups and institutions in the public relations process. It admits that
these entities have interests that must be protected. It also presupposes a streamlining of these benefits
for mutual good. The concept of mutuality in this definition makes you as a public relations man or woman
an intermediary between your organization and its publics. This implies that you should be able to align the
interests of these two parties for their mutual advantage. You do this by convincing your organization that
public relations attempts to put the broad interest of the public first before the special interest of the
organization. By doing this, the organization is indirectly serving its own interest; hence PR has what is
called “enlightened self-interest”.

Another definition is that given Cutlip, Center and Broom, in their book Effective Public Relations which
is considered the bible of public relations in America. According to them, public relations is the
“management function that identifies, establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between
an organization and its publics upon whom its success depends.” Now, take note of the last part of the
definition, ‘upon whom its success depends,’ because this is one fact that very many organizations have
not realized. A company’s success or failure depends considerably on its relationship with its various
publics. We shall see these publics in another module.

Let us take two more definitions. Frank Jefkins, a British author, in his book Public Relation, says “public
relations consists of all forms of planned communication both inward and outward between an organization
and its publics for the purpose of achieving objectives concerning mutual understanding.” Jefkins’ definition
includes a term common to many other definitions of PR: mutual understanding. Mutual understanding is
a very broad concept which every organization must seek to establish. ‘Inward and outward communication’
implies a two-way communication involving both the organization and its various publics.

Our last definition is the one often referred to as the Mexican statement. This definition was adopted at the
first World Congress of National Public Relations Associations, held in Mexico in 1978. It states “Public
Relations is the art and social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling
organizational leaders as well as planning and implementing a program of action that will serve the interest
of not only the organization but also that of its publics.” You will agree that this definition is broad,
multidisciplinary and allembracing. It suggests that public relations borrow knowledge and expertise from
other fields, like psychology, politics, sociology, languages, etc. Public relations is an art because it involves
artistic skills, fine arts, language, writing, public speaking, etc. It is a social science because it uses social
scientific instruments to understand and predict human behavior. It attempts to understand its environment
and relates with it mutually. Public relations monitors, surveys and researches issues and happenings in
the environment. It advises the organization so that the policies of the organization are in line with the
expectations of its publics. It implements programs that will favor both the organization and the publics in a
win-win outcome.

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Components of Public Relations

Public relations have divergent parts. According to the Public Relations Society of America, the components
of public relations include the following:

Counselling: Providing advice to management concerning policies, relationships, and communication with
its various publics.

Research: Determining attitudes and behaviors of publics through research in order to plan public relations
strategies. Such research can be used to (1) generate mutual understanding or (2) influence and persuade
publics.

Media Relations: Working with the mass media in seeking publicity or responding to their interest in the
organization.

Figure 1: Components of Public Relations

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Publicity: Disseminating planned messages through selected media to further the organization’s interest.

Employee/Member Relations: Responding to concerns, informing, and motivating and organization’s

employees or association or club members.

Community Relations: Planned activity with a community to maintain an environment that benefits both
the organization and the community.

Public Affairs: Developing effective involvement in public policy and helping an organization adapt to
public expectations. The term is also used by government agencies to describe their public relations
activities and by many corporations as an umbrella term to describe multiple public relations activities.

Governmental Affairs: Relating directly with legislature and regulatory agencies on behalf of the
organization. Lobbying can be part of the government affairs programme.

Issues management: Identifying and addressing issues of public concern that affect the organization.

Financial Relations: Also known as Investor Relations or Shareholder Relations. It involves creating and
maintaining investor confidence and building good relationships with the financial community.

Industry Relations: Relating with other firms in the industry of an organization and with trade associations.

Development/Fund-Raising: Demonstrating the need for and encouraging the public to support an
organization, primarily through financial contributions.

Multicultural Relations/ Workplace Diversity: Relating with individuals and groups in various cultural
settings.

Special Events: Stimulating an interest in a person, product, or organization by means of a focused

"happening". They are activities designed to interact with publics and listen to them.

Marketing Communications: Combination of activities designed to sell a product, service, or idea. These
activities may include advertising, collateral materials, publicity, promotion, direct mail, trade shows, and
special events.

What Public Relations Is Not

One of the greatest problems which public relations practitioners in Nigeria have had to grapple with over
the year has been that of credibility stemming from society’s wrong perception of what a public relations
person actually does. Worse still is the fact that lots of practitioners themselves do not have a clear idea of
what public relations actually is. For this reason, many come into the profession with the wrong motives,
intentions and perceptions. Ikechukwu Nwosu (1997) identified some of these misconceptions, thus:

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1. Public relations is not about lying and selling falsehood about your product and organization. It is not
about denying every statement that does not favors your organization. It is not about prevarication. Public
relations is about telling the truth all the time.
2. Public relations is not about bribery. This wrong idea about public relations came to the fore recently
when a Nigerian minister of education excused his action of bribing the executive arm of government to
increase his ministries budget allocation as public relations. According to him, the bribe was ‘PR’. The truth
is that public relations is not bribe giving.
3. Public relations is based on moral principles and as such it is not ‘arranging’ pretty ladies for international
visitors to government houses or to chief executives of companies, clients, board members, etc. If there is
any profession where morality should be held in high regards, it is in public relations because it enhances
public confidence in the profession.
4. Public relations is not magic, enchantment or paranormal. For this reason, all its activities are based on
scientifically provable and empirical methods. Public relations is based on high performance, quality
performance, quality and credibility in terms of products, service, policies and practice.
5. Public relations is not about organizing parties and other social events. No doubt, public relations does
activities of this nature, but not in the sense of making it its only preoccupation.
6. Public relations is not about employing pretty ladies lacking in morals and principles to woo men into
acting against their wishes.
7. Public relations is not about being a yes-boy or a bag carrier for your boss’ madam or relations. Rather it
is a dignified and noble profession that attracts self-confident, intelligent and self-respecting men and
women.

Areas of Work of Public Relations Practitioners

The work of public relations may be divided into many areas or functions. Fundamentally, public relations
practitioners perform the following functions:
Writing and editing: Writing is a very vital skill in public relations. Therefore, you must learn not only to
appreciate good writing but must also be able to write well. The beauty about writing is that it is a skill that
can be learned. Good writers are in high demand in most agencies.
Mass Production: Practitioners of public relations engage in the writing of various messages for the
purpose of communicating with both internal and external publics. This is why the skill of writing is vital to
public relations. Some of the messages that PR practitioners write are packaged as magazines and other
forms of publications, which require editing and production.
Media relations: The mass media in both print and electronic are the channels through which public
relations practitioners communicate with the public. This is why PR practitioners need to need to cultivate
and maintain good relations with mass media organizations and other personnel, especially editors,
reporters and columnists.

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Research: Public relations problems are not solved by guess work. PR practitioners carry out formal
research to obtain information that is vital to planning.
Strategic planning: Public relations practitioners who operate at the top level participate in the formulation
of organizational missions, policies and goals.
Management and administration: Public relations practitioners engage in management work. Public
relations is a distinct management function which helps to maintain mutual lines of communication between
an organization and its publics. PR practitioners manage people, businesses, and events.
Corporate counselling: Public relations practitioners advise management on matters concerning their
organizations’ relationships with their various publics.
Organizing special events: The organization of events, such as trade fairs, trade exhibitions, `press
conferences, fashion shows, factory tours, special observances (e.g. mothers’ day) AGMs, etc. is part of
work public relations practitioners do.
Speaking: To represent their organizations, PR practitioners do engage in speaking assignments of
different kinds for different publics. For example, your organization may be invited by students who are
studying a subject that underlies the work of your organization to give a public lecture during their career
day.
Coaching: PR practitioners also engage in training and coaching top management staff on public speaking
and press interviews.
Crisis Communication: A very special type of work that PR practitioners do is helping their organizations
to resolve crises whenever they occur. They do this essentially by managing the flow of information between
the organization and the public, via the mass media, and by advising management on what to do and how
to do it, so that the crisis is not aggravated. To practice preventive public relations, it’s necessary to plan
extensively to avoid crisis, but since crisis must occur, it is your duty to counsel management in crisis
situations.

Public Relations and Related Concepts

So far, we have succeeded in defining public relations, but we must go a little further by explaining the
relationships that subsist between public relations and similar or related concepts. The nature of public
relations is quite broad and as such it includes a wide range of activities which are sometimes confused as
public relations rather than elements of public relations. We shall take a look at some of these concepts and
attempt an explanation of the differences and similarities between them and public relations.

Publicity: This refers to any attempt designed to expose an organization, its services or product to the
public through any public media. It includes advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, etc. However, in
a technical sense, it is more limited and defined, so that it means free publicity which is provided essentially
by the press. It is the practice of placing newsworthy and factual information written in a journalistic and

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editorial format published in the news media at no cost. An example of publicity is a situation where a
company issues a news release about a new product or new functions of an existing product.
Press Agency: Unlike a news agency, a press agency deals with staging newsworthy events that are
designed to attract the attention of the public by publicizing them in the media. Such events include press
conferences, trade exhibitions, fashion shows, etc. These must be distinguished from events that happen
daily. They are rather pseudo-events because they are stage-managed for the purpose of being reported
by the media.

Lobbying: This is one of the most abused expressions in common usage. In a technical sense, lobbying
is a professional attempt designed to influence the government or any authority to change a public program
or policy in favor of an organization, a cause, a group, an event e.g. organizing a petition drive against a
cause, e.g. open letters in daily newspapers or magazines. Lobbying is a legal thing when it has points,
information and logical reasons.

Merchandising: This deals with blending an acceptable appearance. It is part of promotion. You blend the
product or person with the real it or him, so as to win acceptance and patronage from public for a group, a
product, service, cause or an idea e.g. the grooming of a positive image by a politician who acts, dresses
and speaks like a real native even though he is from somewhere else, e.g. during political campaigns when
politicians dress like the native people he is going to speak to. In commercial merchandising, most products
are designed to convey messages by their packs. You know that normally people do not patronize badly
packaged products.

Promotion: This involves molding or mobilizing opinion favorably to an organization to get it to support a
worthy cause, e.g. the mounting of events or fund raising programmes for motherless babies’ homes.

Personal Selling: This talks about a personal effort involving a person who is attempting to woo other
people on behalf of a product, a group, an idea, etc., e.g. religious crusaders who go from door to door.
There are two types of personal sellers namely: order-takers and order-getters.

Human Relations: Human relations deals with an individual’s ability to develop and maintain a personality
type as well as image that is capable of successful and spontaneous interpersonal relationship with other
people. Human relations are relating well with others. It talks about manners and character. Good human
relations are the basis of good public relations.

Persuasion: It is a fundamental assumption in public relations that effective public relations is persuasive,
not intimidating or forcing. Persuasion is any mass communication effort designed to change public opinion,
believe, attitudes as well as action.

Communication: This is a process of sharing ideas with other people. In a professional sense, it is a
means of sending information from one person to another. Public relations in all its forms embraces
communication in one form or the other.

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Jobs in Public Relations

If you have chosen to take public relations as a career, you probably know what I know: that it is a field with
great job prospects, especially in the world of today. Today’s corporate world has become very competitive
in every sense. Every organization goes the extra mile to keep its various publics by creating and
maintaining mutually cordial relationships with them.

Since public relations has equally become scientific and technology-based, it is hazardous for any firm not
to hire appropriately qualified personnel to man its public relations office. Aside from working for a firm
however, there are other options of employment for a good public relations person. The Public Relations
Society of America outlined the following as the activities average public relations personnel does.

Information Service
Part of building a company's reputation is the role of supplying information to a variety of publics.
Companies send news releases to the media in order to inform the public about earnings, acquisitions, new
products and the like (media relations). Companies must respond to inquiries from customers, distributors,
government officials and community residents.

Product Publicity
Introduction of new products, and campaigns to put fresh life into the sale of established products, are
important functions in what is broadly called marketing communications. PR practitioners work closely with
the marketing department to develop product publicity that reinforces advertising and promotion campaigns.
Product recall is the negative side of product publicity.

Investor Relations
Also referred to as stockholder communications, investor relations are a means for providing information to
individuals who own stock or have a special interest in the corporation. Elaborate annual reports, quarterly
reports mailed with dividend checks and other printed materials are sent to stockholders on a regular basis.
Staff members may have to convince stockholders that an acquisition or merger is in their best interest.

Financial Relations
A parallel function to investor relations is to provide extensive information to the financial community
including security analysts at brokerage houses, large banks and similar institutions, and to weigh the
information and make judgments on a company's financial strength and prospects. On the basis of their
recommendations, institutional investors and brokerage firms buy or sell a company's stock. A thorough
knowledge of finance, as well as Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules, is essential for a public
relations person specializing in financial relations.

Community Relations
A company is a vital part of a community and as such has obligations to that community through various
kinds of support including encouraging employees to do volunteer work, providing a grant to the local
orchestra or art museum, donating needed equipment to local schools or hospitals and so on. Good
community relations include efforts to improve the quality of life in the community.

Employee Relations
In any organization, there must be a good communication "flow" between management and employees and
employees and management. The public relations department often works closely with personnel or human

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resources to achieve good employee relations through publication of an employee newsletter, magazine,
newspaper, or video news magazine, the writing of brochures to explain company policies and benefits,
preparation of audio-visual materials for training and policy-transmission purposes, the scheduling of staff
meetings and seminars, the training of speakers among managers and supervisors who serve as
communicators to employees, and coordination of employee productivity or energy conservation
campaigns.

Special Events Management

Public relations personnel are responsible for the planning and implementation of special events including
sponsorship of the games, of civic or cultural events and festivals.

Public Affairs
The actions of government on the local, state, and national level have major effects on how companies
conduct their affairs. Thus, a number of PR people work in an area often referred to as governmental
relations. In this role, public affairs executives seek to influence legislation through contact with legislators
and governmental regulatory agencies. A public affairs manager must be "concerned with the management
function covering the relationship between the organization and its external environment and involving key
tasks of intelligence gathering and analysis, external action programmes directed at government,
communities and the general public as well as strategic issue management and internal communications."
A lobbyist has a narrower function "concerned with direct or indirect means of exercising influence on
passage or defeat of legislative bills or regulatory actions, and to influence their outcomes."

Issues Management
Issues management is the management process of determining how various public issues will affect a
company. The manager must identify the issue, analyses it, ascertain options open to the company, initiate
a plan of action and evaluate the results.

Trade Associations
Trade associations are generally comprised of member companies that produce the same type of product
or provide similar services. The association works to promote or oppose legislation, informs the public about
the industry, and undertakes statistical and other types of research for the benefit of its members.

Labor Unions
Labor unions must use public relations extensively to inform members about pension plans, insurance
programs, and contract negotiations to name a few tasks. In addition, labor unions participate actively in
politics from the federal to the local level by endorsing and financing candidates and taking positions on
political issues,

Professional Societies
They work to support legislative campaigns, advocate professional standards, publish information at both
the skilled professional and general readership levels, recruit membership, and generally work to
strengthen the profession's stature in the public mind.

Government or Military Relations

Government or military offices personnel work as public relations practitioners although they are most
commonly referred to as public information officers (specialists) or public affairs officers (specialists).

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Sports Information and Entertainment Publicists
These work basically as press agents to promote the personalities and careers of movie stars, musicians,
rock bands, athletes, politicians, authors and so on. Professional sports teams have a public relations
specialist. Many university sports teams or athletic departments have public relations specialists in most
developed countries. Generally, professionals in the sports industry are referred to as promotions directors
or managers.

Educational Public Relations

Public relations play a vital part in almost every educational institution. Fund raising is an important part of
educational public relations. In urban areas, elementary and high school districts frequently employ public
relations officers to assist the news media and to work with parents and school groups. Collegiate public
relations practitioners may distribute news releases containing information about campus events and
personalities, prepare periodicals, brochures and catalogues, maintain ties with alumni, maintain relations
with local, state and federal government officials, recruit students, maintain internal relations with faculty,
staff and students, solicit donations from foundations, alumni, federal and state governments and special
interest groups (a serious task in private institutions).

Generally, however there are five major areas where public relations experts usually work which are:

1. Corporations
2. Non-profit organizations and Trade Associations
3. Governments- State, Federal, Local
4. Public Relations Agencies
5. Independent Consulting Firms

It is important to note that working in any of these public relations job areas entails same general skills but
there are very wide differences in terms of job demands, challenges and complexities.

Corporations: Corporations refer to organizations that produce goods and services with a strong motive
for profit. In today’s world, corporations do not only offer most of the jobs in public relations, but they equally
offer the greatest variety of jobs. Can you think of the reasons for this? In most corporations, public relations
jobs focus on specific publics. Indeed, several big corporations create different sub departments for their
various publics, thus you have employee relations, media relations, government relations, community
relations consumer relations, etc. If the corporation is a public limited liability company, it could have a
financial relations department otherwise known as investor relations department. Each of these
departments is usually headed by public relations personnel who is an expert in a given sub-field. Their
duties would include research as well as advising the organization’s management. They also plan, execute
and evaluate communication programmes. It is important to look at specific job demands in each of these
areas.

Governments: Government Departments at Federal, state, and local levels also employ public relations
personnel. If you get a job in any of these places, you would be called by such titles as press secretary,
public information officer, public affairs officer, etc. Your job would involve writing news releases and
position papers, speaking with reporters, speech writing and press briefing. You may equally ply your trade
with political parties. Your duties will include all the above and voter relations and media relations.

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Public Relations Agencies: There are lots of challenges and opportunities for growth and development if
you work in a public relations agency. The work is enormous because companies that have in-house public
relations departments and those who do not would at one time or the other require the services of an
independent public relations organization. Thus, agencies handle public relations activities of other
organizations, corporations, non-profit set ups, governments and even individuals. For instance, some
corporations may hire your agency to handle its annual report to stockbrokers or its overseas investors.
You could be hired to partner with other agencies or bodies or even the public relations department of a
corporation to do research, planning, communication and evaluation.

Just as it is in advertising agencies, staff of public relations agencies are often assigned to accounts.
Usually, an account would include all the public relations activities planned for one particular client.
Accounts are managed by account executives. It would be their job to research into the public relations
problems, write messages, and decide on media and placement. They equally do evaluation of such
campaigns. It is now very common to have public relations staff specializing in various areas of an account.
Some are experts in message designing, media planning and placement, while others focus on research.
In some cases, a staff could take up more responsibilities than one. Public relations agencies vary in size.
There are some that work as a small part of big advertising agencies while others are full-fledged, fullblown
agencies, yet others are one room agencies.

Independent Public relations Consultants: You may equally which to ply you trade as a one-man public
relations consultant. Successful public relations consultants are often persons with broad experience
having worked in a few agencies and handled several successful accounts. They are a one-man agency.
Very often they specialize in small areas of public relations like crisis communication, speech writing,
international public relations, etc. In the words of Guth and Marsh (2000) ‘The main appeal of independent
consulting is also is biggest burden. The consultant alone bears the responsibility for success or failure.

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