Public Relations – Day 2 – Introduction to Public Relations
On the Board:
Today – Current Events, Defining PR, Brainstorming
Tuesday – Reading Prompts for Chapter 2
1. Begin class by having the students write out what they learned from last class period.
a. Pair up, and, while standing, have each person go over their notes from last class.
2. How prominent is Public Relations?
a. PR is a multibillion-dollar business practiced by 158,000 professionals in the U.S.
alone.
b. Employment growth is increasing faster than average through the year 2012.
c. PR has grown rapidly across the globe,
from Europe to China, Latin America to Africa.
d. A 2005 survey of Fortune 1000 company executives revealed strong support for
the practice.
e. 250 U.S. colleges and universities offer PR degree programs to more than 20,000
majors.
f. Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has 20,000 members in 116
chapters.
3. Defining PR
a. “Public relations is a planned process to influence public opinion, through sound
character and proper performance, based on mutually satisfactory two-way
communication.” – Seitel
b. “Information given to the public, persuasion directed at the public to modify
attitudes and actions, and efforts to integrate attitudes and actions of an institution
with its publics and of publics with those of that institutions” - Bernays
c. “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each
other. Public relations is an organization’s efforts to win the cooperation of
groups of people.” – Public Relations Society of America
4. Public Relations as a process.
a. How does PR move to persuade or influence their publics?
1. Research and Analysis – What is the problem?
2. Policy Formation – advice management and decision makers
3. Programming – the planning of a communication eventthat meets
the policy objectives
4. Communication – execution of the communication event.
5. Feedback – Similar to the first step.
6. Assessment and adjustment – the cycle is assessed then adjusted
to more accurately assess the job.
b. Three Major Jobs:

i. Management- To succeed, PR must report to top management, unimpeded
by any other group
ii. Action - True PR cannot take place without ethical, consistent action. No
amount of persuasion will cover up for poor performance.
iii. Interpret – PR professionals must be effective interpreters of both public
needs, desires, opinions and management’s philosophy, identity,
5. Publics – Any organization will have multiple publics, thus it is unwise to refer to one
public:
a. Let’s describe WSC’s multiple Publics.
b. We often define them as
i. Internal vs. external
ii. Primary vs secondary vs. marginal
iii. Traditional vs. future
iv. Proponents vs. opponents vs. neutral.
c. Or…
i. Actualizers - the wealthy
ii. Fulfilleds - professionals w/ resources
iii. Believers – fullfilleds without resources
iv. Achievers – high resources and status oriented
v. Strivers – lack resources, but are status oriented
vi. Experiencers - high resources and high risk takers
vii. Makers – action oriented with low resources
viii. Strugglers – lowest resources
6. Spin – We know about spin from folks like Bill O’Rielly. What is it?
a. What does Seitel think about it?
b. Rich – Spin is what we do. It is not lying, but it is giving our take of a situation.
When we state our position on an issue, we are spinning.
i. Others may accuse us of hiding the truth, but it is essentially not focusing
on their spin.
ii. Spin is essential to any PR professional. Without the ability to spin our
view, we end up at the mercy of those who are willing to spin.
7. Now that we have a general idea of what public relations are, let’s look at some current
events. (Approximately 30 minutes)
a. Sara; Natasha; Andrew