COM410

INTRODUCTION TO
COMMUNCATION AND
MEDIA STUDIES
DR IREENA NASIHA IBNU
 Learning Objectives

 Outline the history and development of the public relations industry.

 Describe how the organizational and economic nature of the contemporary public
relations industry shapes the messages with which publics interact, especially in an
increasingly converged media environment.
 Identify different types of public relations and the different publics each is designed to
serve.
 Explain the relationship between public relations and its various publics.
 Apply key media literacy skills when consuming public relations messages, especially
fake online reviews.

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What Is Public Relations??
What public relations do?
?
Why Is PR Important?

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 Defining Public Relations

• Public relations is “the management of communication between an organization and

its publics “
Grunig and Hunt (1984)

• process that is emphasizing “mutually beneficial relationships”

 Defining Public Relations
• M. Cutlip, Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom provide another widely taught definition
stating, “Public Relation is the management function that identifies, establishes, and
maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the various
publics on whom its success or failure depends.”

• The term “public relations” often carries such a negative connotation that most
independent companies and company PR departments now go by the name “public
affairs,” “corporate affairs,” or “public communications.”
The Boston Tea Party 1773, (The
American Revolution)
 The 1ST Public Relations Counselor

IVY LEE

The Father Of Public Relations

EDWARD BERNAYS
Public Relations and Its Audiences
 Public Relations Activities
For more details and examples, read Baran page 459-462

Development/fund-
Employee/member
Community relations Counseling raising (cause Financial relations
relations
marketing)

Government Marketing
Industry relations Issues management Media relations
affairs/lobbying communication

Minority
Special events and
relations/multicultural Public affairs Research.
public participation.
affairs
 Scope and Structure of the Public
Relations Industry
Today some 240,700 people identify themselves as working in public
relations; virtually every major U.S. company has a public relations department
Public relations firms bill for services in a number of ways:
 Hourly rate - Leigh Dow with the 48 West Agency in Phoenix, for example, charges between $120
and $140 per hour. (Forbes,2015)
 Monthly fee for public relations counsel- Reputable PR firms charge anywhere from
$5,000 to $10,000/month to start (Forbes,2015)
 Fixed-fee arrangements-firm -performs a specific set of services for a client for a specific
and prearranged fee.
 Collateral materials- adding a surcharge as high as 17.65% for handling printing, research,
and photographs.
 Why Do Companies Need Public
Relations?
• With the abundance of information readily available to audiences
worldwide, companies are more vulnerable than ever to misinformation
about their brand.
• An audience’s attitudes and beliefs about a company can greatly influence
its success.
 Organization of a Public Relations Operation

Account Creative Media

Executive
executives specialist specialists

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Trends and Convergence in Public Relations
Globalization, Concentration, and Specialization

 Foreign ownership and reach of PR firms’ operations into foreign countries

 For example, Marketing giant Omnicom Group operates in 100 countries, has over 100,000
employees, and serves more than 5,000 clients
 Dentsu Aegis Network alone has 23,000 employees serving clients in more than 100 countries.
 Specialization
 Greenwashing Skills - process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading
information about how a company's products are more environmentally sound.

©2018 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Trends and Convergence in Public Relations

• A 2017 USC Annenberg Global Communications study shows that 87% of

professionals believe the term “public relations” will not describe the work
they do in five years. Additionally, 60% of marketing executives believe PR
and marketing will become dramatically more aligned in the near future.
(Forbes,2017)

• The public relations industry is responding to the convergence of traditional

media with the Internet in other ways as well.
• Online information and advertising and a social media presence are growing
parts of the total public relations media mix
 ContemporaryPR’s relationships with its clients and its
publics.

The goal of this integration is to provide the client and agency with greater
control over communication (and its
interpretation) in an increasingly fragmented but synergized media environment

©2018 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE

• 1. Western countries : PRO is able to

stand before the media and authority
to give direct answers to the media.
•
2. Eastern countries : PRO only
prepared the draft answer for the
authority to state the comments to
the media at media conference.
RELATIONSHIPS WITH INTERNAL
AND EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
• Internal stakeholders :
i) Make a good communication with the
organization.
ii)Coordinate the needs of the organization.

• External stakeholders :
i) Establish contact with media, clients, publics or
citizen.
ii) Serve them with good services.

©2018 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Trust in Public Relations
• Trust in public relations is essential if the industry is to perform its role
for its clients and publics.
• Bernays’s concern- especially when the industry’s own research shows
that 69% of the public does not trust public relations, while only 12%
said they do.
• A growing number of public relations professionals take little comfort in
the invisibility of their work or in the public’s inability to distinguish
between news and PR.
• In 2007, after Wal-Mart’s and Sony’s PR operations were discovered
paying authors of fake blogs (flogs) to promote their brands (and attack
competitors’)

©2018 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Smartphones, Tablets, and Social Networking Sites(SNS)

Source : The Evolution of the Public Relations World

©2018 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

©2018 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 DISCUSSION

1. Discuss the similarities and differences between the advertising and

public relations.
2. In your opinion, why do people spread fake news online?
3. Share your personal experience when encountering a fake news related
to COVID-19 (vaccine, covid treatment etc,). Provide an example of fake
news that you received from your social media/application. Can you
identify it as a fake news? If yes, How? If no, Why? Which platform?
4. Explain how do you determine if the news is real news or fake news?
 References

• Baran, S.J. (2018) Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Lit, Mc-Graw Hill [ISBN
:9781259924972]
• Turow, Joseph (2017) Media Today Mass Communication in a Converging World, Routledge
[ISBN :9781315681726]