Download History of Public Relations

History of Public Relations
The precise advent of public relations is open to debate, since any effort that
an individual or a group has made to promote a cause, an idea, or another individual
or group could be considered public relations. Certainly such behavior is part of the
human condition and stretches back to the dawn of speech and public discourse.
Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman, and Toth (2009, pp.19-22) recognize these
ancient roots when he puts forth four traditions of public relations, the first being
rhetorician and press agent. He points to Gorgias of Leontinium in Sicily, who unlike
his better-known contemporary, Plato, was less concerned with the truth or falsity of
an argument and more focused on his ability to persuade his listeners to accept his
point of view.
In keeping with this first tradition, Lattimore et. al also note the Crusades, the
antics of Lady Godiva, and the posting of Martin Luther’s anti-papist principles as
public relations activities, as all can be seen as dramatic—and even brutal—means of
bringing one’s message before the public.
In revolutionary America, slogans such as “Give me liberty or give me death”
and “Taxation without representation is tyranny” rallied the populace to oppose
British rule. During Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1829-1837), Amos Kendall served
as what was essentially the first presidential press secretary and congressional liaison.
Perhaps the most famous press agent of all was circus promoter P.T. Barnum, who
shamelessly exaggerated the attributes of his performers.
Lattimore et. al’s journalistic and publicity tradition (2009, pp. 22-26) was a
natural outgrowth of the urbanization of America and the exploitation of workers.
Businesses were making money, and behemoth monopolies were making a lot of
money, but they were continually besieged by workers and social activists who were
demanding a share of the wealth and decent workplace conditions. In short,
businesses had a public relations problem and turned to professionals to clean up their
image in the public’s mind. The term “public relations” made its first appearance in
1882, and former newspapermen found new careers in the field. In 1900, George V.S.
Michaelis founded the Publicity Bureau in Boston to gather information on his clients
and distribute it to newspapers. Though near the end of his life Ivy Ledbetter Lee was
disgraced for having assisted the Nazis, his other work—especially with the railroads
and with John D. Rockefeller—did much to nurture the fledgling profession. He
maintained that public relations professionals should never withhold the truth from
the public about their clients’ wrongdoings or failures, holding that honesty is always
the best policy. As early as the 1880s, large firms like American Telephone and
Telegraph (AT&T) and Mutual Life Insurance Company established public relations
departments to build goodwill with their customers, and during the early 1900s, notfor-profit organizations and colleges began using public relations firms to improve
their image and to fund-raise.
George Creel and Edward L. Bernays typify Lattimore et. al’s third
tradition—that of the persuasive communication campaign (2009, pp. 28-29). Exjournalist Creel was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 to head the
Committee on Public Information, what was essentially a pro-war propaganda
machine that used modern psychological techniques of mass manipulation. Bernays
shared Creel’s vision of public relations as propaganda, expounding his philosophy in
the seminal Crystallizing Public Opinion, in which he saw his task as “the conscious
and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses.”
Bernays had an “obsessive desire for recognition” (Stauber & Rampton, 1999)
and so saved numerous documents that chronicled his career. These papers, writes
biographer Larry Tye (1998),
provide illuminating and sometimes disturbing background on some of
the most interesting episodes of twentieth-century history, from the
way American tobacco tycoons made it socially acceptable for women
to smoke to the way other titans of industry persuaded us to pave over
our landscape and switch to beer as the 'beverage of moderation.' The
companies involved aren't likely to release their records of those
campaigns, assuming they still exist. But Bernays saved every scrap of
paper he sent out or took in. . . . In so doing, he let us see just how
policies were made and how, in many cases, they were founded on
deception (p. ix).
Lastly, Lattimore et. al present a fourth tradition of relationship building and
two-way communication (2009, pp. 29-33). Arthur W. Page, who headed public
relations at AT&T, insisted on a new way of approaching the profession based on
transparency in business operations. His principles demand two-way communication
between the organization and its publics: tell the truth; prove it with action; listen to
the customer; manage for tomorrow; conduct public relations as if the whole
company depended on it; and remain calm, patient, and good-humored.
Public relations as a field of academic pursuit, as opposed to public relations
as a profession, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Edward L. Bernays (Cutlip,
Center, & Broom, 2000) taught the first public relations course at New York
University in 1923, but universities only began to offer public relations courses as a
field of study in the 1930s. Rex Harlow, who died in 1993 at the age of 100, is
believed to have been the first full-time professor of public relations, teaching at
Stanford University from 1940 to 1944 (Rex F. Harlow, 1993). In 1939, he founded
the American Council on Public Relations (Wilcox, 2007, p. 57), which became the
Public Relations Society of America in 1947 (Buffalo State College, 2008; Oklahoma
Historical Society), thereby giving testament to the strong ties between academics
who teach public relations and the working professionals who put classroom theories
into practice on a daily basis. Public relations courses are usually taught in
departments of communication or journalism, though sometimes they are also offered
in schools of business.
In the early 1950s, only a dozen institutions of higher learning allowed
students to major in public relations, whereas today more than 200 programs in
journalism or communication studies have public relations concentrations and some
300 others offer at least one course in public relations (Seitel, 2007, p.36).
Public relations—If ever there was a term that means wildly different things to
different people, “public relations” is it. Public relations practitioners are often
thought of as flacks and spin doctors; as such, public relations is the purview of those
who “know how to lie and twist or spin issues during press conferences and other
public forums to take the heat off of the organizations they represent” (Heath &
Coombs, 2006, p. 7). Granted, such unscrupulous people are found in public
relations, but they do not define the field. Rather, public relations is “the management
function that entails planning, research, publicity, promotion, and collaborative
decision making to help any organization’s ability to listen to, appreciate, and respond
appropriately to those persons and groups whose mutually beneficial relationships the
organization needs to foster as it strives to achieve its mission and vision” (Heath &
Coombs, 2006, p. 7). Cutlip, Center, and Broom (2006, p. 5) offer a more succinct
definition, which served the purposes of this dissertation: “the management function
that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an
organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.”