Chapter 12: Public Relations: Interactions, Relationships, and the News
Summary and Learning Objectives
Public relations developed out of the press agentry of the late 1800s. Publicity firms used one-
way communication, deceptive techniques, and bribery. By the beginning of the 20th century,
large corporations such as railroads and utilities realized that they needed to develop more
sophisticated relationships with the press if they hoped to control their images.
Ivy Lee and Edward L. Bernays are generally considered to be the founders of public relations as
a profession. Lee was among the first press agents to recognize that dealing with the press
promptly and truthfully was the best way to obtain positive coverage for his clients. In 1906, he
codified this approach in his “Declaration of Principles.” Bernays wrote the first book about
public relations and taught the first college course on the subject.
During World War I, the federal government realized the value of public relations and used a
variety of techniques to build support for U.S. participation in the war. Public relations continued
to grow as a profession as businesses became increasingly regulated and the public began to
distrust both businesses and the government.
Public relations can be seen as performing three main functions: informing, persuading, and
integrating (bringing together) publics, both internal and external. Among the most important
publics are the media. Effective public relations generally include both communication and
action. The PR process consists of four steps: (1) defining the problem, (2) planning, (3)
communicating, and (4) evaluating. Successful companies work at communicating with their
publics during both good times and times of crisis. The rise of the Internet and instantaneous
communication not controlled by major media has forced the public relations industry to speed
up its rate of response to problems and to deal with a wider range of problems. Public relations is
used by a wide range of organizations, including corporations, the government, and activist
groups.
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Discuss how public relations developed from press agentry to a profession.
2. Describe the three major functions of public relations.
3. Explain the five components of the ROPES public relations process.
4. Explain how a public relations professional should deal with a crisis.
5. Explain how the Internet has changed the public relations process.
6. Discuss how public relations shapes the news we receive and our view of politicians.
7. Describe how political activists use public relations to promote their causes.
Review Questions
1. How did Procter & Gamble use public relations to fight the accidental and deliberate misuse of
Tide laundry packs?
2. How does professional public relations differ from press agentry?
3. Name and explain two ways to mess up responding to a crisis affecting your organization.
4. How does interacting with your publics through social media differ from going through legacy
media?
5. How did Martin Luther King Jr. make good use of public relations techniques during the Good
Friday march in Birmingham, Alabama?
6. How did Coca-Cola use IMC techniques to deal with consumer demand for more choices of
beverages?
Media Literacy Exercises
Public relations and the daily news
Critics charge that a substantial portion of the daily news originates with the public relations
industry. Look at the front page of your state newspaper or record a half hour newscast. Count how
many of the stories contain news that started out as public relations. Be sure to count press
releases, press conferences, speeches, video news releases, and information from spokespersons.
Are there any stories that don’t have a PR component? What are these stories about?
2.
Suggested Readings
• Hiebert, R. E. (1966). Courtier to the crowd: The story of Ivy Lee and the development of public
relations. Ames: Iowa State University Press. An old book that you will need to track down in
your college library, this title does an excellent job of describing both Ivy Lee and the growth of
public relations.
• Jeff & Blyskal, M. (1985). PR: How the public relations industry writes the news. New York:
William Morrow. Although critical in tone, this book does a good job of exploring the connection
between the news industry and the public relations industry.
• Kasher, S. (1996). The Civil Rights Movement, a Photographic History, 1954–1968 New York:
Abbeville Press. Although not explicitly about public relations, this history of the civil rights
movement clearly illustrates how Dr. King and the other civil rights leaders in the 1950s and
1960s made use of public relations techniques to further their cause. The photos from the era
are both stunning and disturbing.
• All of the Chapter 12 links posted to my RalphEHanson.com at blog:
http://www.ralphehanson.com/category/chapter-12/
Lecture Builders
Teaching IMC with Coca-Cola Freestyle
You can find a lot more out about Coca-Cola Freestyle here, see a promotional video, and hear a
fascinating lecture on just what the “Coke Machine of the Future” means to the company.
• https://www.ralphehanson.com/2018/04/04/teaching-integrated-marketing-
communication/
Bernays
A page on the New York Times website includes coverage of Bernays from the 1930s, 1940s, and
1950s, along with reviews of recent books about “the father of public relations”:
• https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/16/specials/bernays.html
Notes: Bernays continues to be a somewhat disturbing figure for the public relations profession
because he was willing to talk in blunt terms about manipulating public opinion. One of his books
had the unambiguous title of Propaganda, and he spoke of “engineering consent.”
PRSA
The Public Relations Society of America is the professional society for public relations practitioners.
Learn more about this organization (including its student branch PRSSA) at
• https://www.prsa.org
PR Newswire
PR Newswire is an Internet service that distributes recent press releases, video news releases, and
news about the public relations industry. Visit the site for numerous examples of the PR tools talked
about in this chapter:
• http://www.prnewswire.com
Notes: PR Newswire can be an almost overwhelming site with the depth of material on it. The site
is a clearinghouse for news releases, photos, video news releases, and contact information. For
example, their ProfNet service (https://profnet.prnewswire.com/) put journalists in touch with
academic experts for their stories.
Media Activities
Classroom Discussion: Occupying the News
Public relations as a part of political activism involves telling your story honestly while making
sure that your target publics understand and sympathize with your point of view. That’s what the
Occupy Wall Street movement was trying to accomplish during the fall and early winter of 2011.
How successful were the occupiers? The protestors who took over New York City’s Zuccotti
Park wanted to draw attention to the divide in the United States between wealthiest 1% of the
population and the remaining “99%,” and they certainly attracted media coverage. But was this
activism effective in creating an ongoing movement or leading to a change in public opinion?
History professor Michael Kazin told NPR’s On the Media that he saw Occupy as more of a
protest campaign than a full-fledged movement: “For it to become a movement, it has to become
organized, it has to have recognizable spokespeople. It has to have a strategy and not just a set of
protest tactics.”
1
He went on to argue that liberal-leaning Occupy differed from the conservative
Tea Party movement because the Tea Party was built on more than 30 years of conservative
protests and organizing.
The flow of messages from the Occupiers took on a wide range of forms, including “the human
microphone” that had crowds repeating the words of speakers in locations where PA systems had
been banned, creative individually produced signs, and streaming cell phone video produced by
people like Occupier Tim Pool.
Pool’s work helps illustrate why the Occupiers had a hard time transmitting a unified message to
their publics—not everyone wanted to send the same message. Pool streamed video from his
mobile phone through his Upstream Internet video channel on Tuesday, November 15, 2011, the
night police drove Occupiers out of Zuccotti Park. He was interested in having true transparency
about the protests, and that meant showing the bad with the good. So when a group of masked
protestors started letting the air out of a police van’s tires, Pool kept on streaming video, even
though the vandals tried to push him away. He told On the Media, “I don’t care what the reason
is; when we’re at something as pivotal, something as historic as that night, the camera’s not
going off. Especially, since we have a very large amount of people watching, and I have an
obligation to those people to let them know what’s happening.”
2
PR professional Leslie Gottlieb says the Occupiers were successful at making the message “We
are the 99%” a popular phrase on social media, but that they were less successful at capitalizing
on all the attention they were getting. As Gottlieb put it, “When you have the fully attention of
the Huffington Post, The New York times, and all three major U.S. nightly TV newscasts, it is a
game changer.”
3
To find out more about the Occupy movement’s use of public relations, read the following link:
Occupying Public Relations. Make sure you pay attention to how members of the Occupy
1
Gladstone, B. (2011). Occupy Wall Street: Transcript. October 7 Retrieved from
www.onthemedia.org/2011/oct/07/occupy-wall-street/transcript/
2
Anderson, D. (2011) Q&A: Tim Pool on Streaming Occupy Wall Street. November 18. Retrieved from
www.onthemedia.org/blogs/on-the-media/2011/nov/18/q-tim-pool–on-streaming-occupy-wall-street/
3
Gottlieb, L. (2012) Occupy Wall Street Abandoned PR 101. March 7. Retrieved from
prsay.prsa.org/index.php/2012/03/07/occupy–wall-street-abandoned-pr-101/.
movement made use of public relations techniques to grab attention for their cause. Pay
particular attention to how independent journalist Tim Pool brought attention to the movement
using long-tail media.
After you have read the above, you are to discuss the following issues:
• Who were the Occupy protestors? What was their purpose?
• What message were the Occupiers trying to get across with their protests?
• What message was Tim Pool trying to transmit with his streaming video? Did the video
streamed by Tim Pool help or hinder the cause?
• Were the Occupiers successful in presenting their messages to the various publics?
• How well did the Occupiers apply the principles of effective public relations?
• How would you judge the success of the Occupy movement? If you were going to give advice
to the Occupiers on how to better communicate, what advice would you give them?
Homework—Crisis Management
During the middle of April 2017, several companies and organizations had a week of crazy public
relations problems.
To prepare for this assignment, I want you to read the following blog post. Read the links to articles
along with the tweets.
• Pepsi, United, and Sean Spicer in a race to see who can be worst at PR
http://www.ralphehanson.com/2017/04/11/pepsi-united-airlines-and-sean-spicer-in-a-
race-to-see-who-can-be-worst-at-pr/
In an essay that runs at least 500 words:
• Pick two of the examples and explain what each did to create a PR problem for their
organization.
• How did they make things worse through their actions?
• If you were brought in now to be in charge of PR for one of the companies, what would you
do to help solve their problems?
Support your arguments with information from your textbook and outside sources.
Grading Rubric
Levels of Achievement
Criteria
Deficient
Less Than assigned
Superior
Length &
Research
25.00%
0%
Assignment is
significantly
under length.
50%
Assignment is under
assigned length or
does not make
effective use of
research.
100%
Assignment is fully
developed essay
that goes beyond
basic assignment.
Makes effective use
of multiple outside
sources.
Defines
Problem
25.00%
0%
Assignment
does not
meaningfully
address the
central
problems.
50%
Assignment gives
brief or incomplete
definition of
problems, only covers
one of the problems.
100%
Assignment gives
broad picture of
problems two of
the cases are facing,
along with specific
details.
Making
Things
Worse
25.00%
0%
Assignment
omits multiple
required details
50%
Assignment is vague
or incomplete. It
provides either
underdeveloped
answers or an answer
for only one case
study.
100%
Assignment goes
beyond basic
requirements to
give fully
developed
discussions of
failures using
multiple outside
resources.
Your
Solutions
245.00%
0%
Assignment
omits
significant
details.
50%
Assignment has
simple or unclear
suggestions; provides
suggestions for only
one case study.
100%
Assignment has
added depth to
look at the broader
picture of how
these case studies
could have been
handled better.