It is amazing how public relations can portray and inform
the audience about a product, service or story, and at the same time persuade,
intrigue or stretch the truth. Public relations as a profession entails great
technical ability to inform the audience but can capture different emotions
while doing so. In the nineteenth century public relations was used to populate
the western United States. Pamphlets and publicity used exaggerated statements
to describe the land; although some were still modest there would have been a
huge amount of people believing the exaggerated statements.
This history of public relations portrays how a strategy is important in a
campaign. Ivy Ledbetter Lee opened a publicity office in New York City in 1904
that portrayed the following principles: dissemination of truthful, accurate
information rather than the distortions, hype and exaggerations that
characterised press agentry. Ivy’s approach and principles towards public
relations still remain today and set the example for the practices in the
future. I think these two periods in
history really show how powerful public relations can be (Wilcox, Cameron, Reber & Shin 2013).
I think there will always be a need for public relations in
the future. However, with technology constantly changing, public relations will
need to adapt and improve alongside those changes. Previously, public relations
did not have the ability to utilise the Internet, as there was only print
media, television and radio. Now there is the Internet, and it is easily
accessible by everyone. Which will change the way Public Relations professionals
go about their tasks. The future of public relations may head towards a social media approach, the response is much quicker using the technology that is available today compared to previous history. It is important to still maintain effective communication, but also to ensure the way a message is communicated is understood by the target audience (Fallon 2014).
References
Fallon, N 2014, 'The future of PR: focus, fit and friendship,' Business News Daily, viewed 06 December 2014, http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6668-future-of-pr.html
Wilcox, D., Cameron, G., Reber, B & Shin, J. 2013, Think Public Relations, Pearson Education, New Jersey
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