Chapter 1-3

This week's readings cover Part 1 of 'Public Relations: Theory and Practice'. This set of assigned readings are crucial as an introduction to the module of Public Relations. Chapter 1 defines what is Public Relations (although it should be mentioned how hard it is to acknowledge a single definition).

McElreath described it as 'a management function that uses communications to facilitate relationships and understanding between an organisation and its publics'.

An important key point of Chapter 1 would be understanding the two primary roles of public relations practitioners: technicians and problem-solvers. Technicians produces services such as producing publications (e.g news releases and newsletters). Problem-solvers ask clients or senior management to rethink or clarify problems and to look for solutions. Technicians hold lower positions within organisations than problem-solvers although one public relations practitioners may perform both roles.

Chapter 1 has opened my eyes to the differences between advertising and public relations. I used to mistaken public relations' job scope to be that of advertising. However, as it can be can read from Chapter 1, advertising is the buying of space to transmit a message to an audience. On the other hand, public relations practitioner's publicity is 'free' however the practitioner has no control over the publicity. Media releases that are sent from the technicians may be tweaked by the journalist before being published in the newspapers. As such, the message being transmitted is uncontrolled.

Chapter 2 provided me with background information of the emergence of public relations from the 1840s. This chapter did not leave me much to think about as it was more of an information feed. Such information may not be extremely useful however it is good to have some background knowledge of the emergence of public relations.

Chapter 3 covers the different theoretical approaches to public relations. Semiotics was one of which I remember learning in the previous trimester under the module of Introduction to Communication Studies. This chapter is certainly important as we come to realise the usefulness in application of such theoretical approaches in public relations.