According to Rex Harlow, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) founder, "Public Relations is a distinctive management function which helps to establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between an organization and its publics; involves the management of problems or issues; helps management keep informed on and responsive to public opinion; defines and emphasizes the responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and sound ethical communication techniques as its principal tools."
Amiee Shelton, Professor and RWU PRSSA faculty advisor, teaches her students a more succinct definition of PR:
"Public Relations is the deliberate, planned, and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its publics, in order to make the world a better place."
Public Relations is an extremely versatile field. Here are just some of the many areas trained PR professionals may work in:
- Counseling
- Research
- Media relations
- Publicity
- Employee/member relations
- Community relations
- Public affairs
- Government affairs
- Issues management
- Financial relations
- Industry relations
- Development/fund-raising
- Multicultural relations/workplace diversity
- Special events
- Marketing communications
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