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Mastering Public Relations

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Mastering Public Relations

Palgrave Macmillan,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Good PR, which is more complex than you think, has great business boosting potential – but what it does is up to you.

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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • For Experts

Recommendation

The academic side of public relations is often overlooked, but author Anthony Davis plunges in and takes a formal look at the often misunderstood practice of PR. Davis has given a lot of thought to the theories that drive PR, and the various behavioral and attitudinal models PR professionals should know. Occasionally, this gets densely academic, as he loses sight of the forest to dwell on specific trees. But, Davis is diligent in presenting almost every environmental factor that affects the practice of PR. With regard for the amount of work it would take to put all the ideas he has gathered and generated into practice, getAbstract recommends this book to veteran PR professionals, to the author's fellow academicians and to students, who should use it for background to complement their PR courses.

Summary

An Intellectual Discipline

Modern society has embraced public relations as a useful communications tool amid growing civic and commercial pluralism. One definition says that public relations is the "management of communication between an organization and its constituents or customers." In 1978, a group of practitioners defined PR as "a science and an art...concerned with trends, analysis, predictions, counseling and developing action plans for organizations that will serve the public interest." This neatly avoids the controversially debated question as to whether PR is an art or a science.

Public relations professionals examine each client's operating environment to identify issues and analyze how they will develop in a social context. This is called "issues management." It fits the part of PR that maintains and enhances a client's reputation and customer relationships, and that endeavors to create goodwill.

Public relations outreach increases a company's status and influence. It establishes a product or service brand, and imbues it with certain values, implying that the advantage of those values will be conferred on the user. A brand is a mark of trust which...

About the Author

Anthony Davis, writer and management consultant, specializes in corporate and marketing communications. He has lectured at several universities.

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