After studying public relations for a semester, I became interested in this subject, and combined with self-study and information inquiry in my spare time, I summarized and sorted out my past knowledge. At the end of the class, I made some self-explanation on the topic of "the development history of public relations".
Part II: Overview.
Public Relations (English: public relations), or public relations and institutional communication, usually refers to PR or public relations, and refers to various organizations such as celebrities, commercial organizations, governments and non-profit organizations. In order to improve the relationship with the public, promote public understanding of them, and establish a good image to gain public understanding and support.
Professionally, the public relations department is mainly engaged in organizing information dissemination, relationship coordination, image management consulting, planning, implementation, service and other management functions. Including selecting and creating organizational success, reducing the impact of organizational failure, announcing changes and so on. Similar to the face in China's traditional interpersonal relationship. [ 1]
In the marketing system, public relations is the only tool used by enterprises to build public trust.
The word "public relations" first appeared in 1807 American President Thomas Jefferson's congressional speech. [2]
According to Edward bernays's definition, public relations is a management function, and policies and procedures are formulated to gain public understanding and acceptance.
The rise, popularization and application of public relations in China originated from Miss Public Relations written by Kuang Zai 1989.
The history of public relations can be traced back to the beginning of18th century, but the real rapid development of public relations began in the 20th century. The earliest practical experience of public relations was that the British aristocrat georgiana cavendish and Mrs. Duke of Devonshire helped the gossip lover Charles James Fox in the British election in March 1784. Mrs. georgiana used media relations to carry out extensive publicity, and mobilized lobbying groups, her friends and celebrities to help Fox win the election, and Fox finally won the election with a slight advantage [3].
In the United States, as the birthplace of public relations, in fact, the early means of public relations were developed and widely used by railway companies. Some scholars believe that the term "public * * * relationship" first appeared in Railway Literature 1897 Annual [4].
Part III: The development history of public relations.
First, the embryonic stage of public-to-public relations
Time: germinated in ancient society.
The basis of germination: the understanding of human image. It is embodied in three aspects, namely, the organization's understanding of public power, the organization's understanding of its own value of the image and the organization's understanding of communication function.
1. Understanding of public power: The idea of public relations stems from the rulers' understanding of public power. And this kind of understanding originally started from the political field. The understanding of public power is the earliest bud of public relations. Without an understanding of public power, there is no public relations.
2. Understanding of one's own value of the image: After recognizing the power of the public, the next step is how to improve one's image in the public, so as to gain public support. This process is based on the improvement of the understanding of public power and the understanding of the value of the image itself.
3. Understanding the role of communication: How can we improve our image in the public? In practice, people realize that image works through communication. In ancient times, it was mainly carried out through the spread of language and characters between people.
Real public relations, as a science, came into being in America in the middle of19th century.
Second, the emergence of public relations.
The real "public relations" came into being in the capitalist period when the commodity economy was highly developed, and it first appeared in the United States in the19th century. The emergence of public relations has also gone through three stages: beautifying propaganda, appreciating ugliness propaganda and profound reflection. Some people call these three stages propaganda, reflection and innovation.
1. beautification propaganda stage: beautification propaganda began with the appearance of the first cheap and popular newspaper, American People's Daily. However, there was a strong false element in the commodity propaganda at that time. Therefore, it has been dubbed by historians as "beautifying propaganda" or "the period when the masses were fooled".
2. ugliness appreciation publicity stage: unprincipled beautification propaganda fooled the public and led to public distrust of advertising. So ... At the end of 19, some writers and journalists launched a campaign to expose the false and dark side of advertisements. According to statistics, ugly articles were published in newspapers almost every day at that time, which lasted for nearly 10 years. Exposing ugly articles dealt a heavy blow to the emerging advertising industry and enterprises that used advertisements to publicize at that time, forcing them to reflect, thus bringing the relationship between the public and the public into a new period-the stage of profound reflection.
3. Deep reflection stage: ideological understanding. At this stage, entrepreneurs realize that they must correct their past ideas and tell the truth to the public, so that the organization can truly establish a good image in the public. This movement began in the early 20th century, and was initiated by American Ivy Ledbetter, who is known as the "father of public relations".
Third, the development of public relations.
The development of public relations has gone through four stages, namely, practice stage, discipline stage, theorization stage and popularization stage.
1, the practical stage-the formation of the core idea: the theory of public relations originated from social needs, so social practice is its most important content from the day it came into being. In social practice, the business community began to gradually promote the public relations system. The public relations consulting industry has gradually formed and developed. In social practice, the core concept of public relations has been formed. This core idea is ivy? Li put forward the basic idea of "telling the truth" and the public relations principle of "the public must know".
2. Discipline stage-the formation of basic theory: Edward, a famous American public relations consultant, made "public relations" a discipline and became a formal course in university education. Berners. Edward? Berners is regarded as a master in the history of public relations development. 1923 published the first public relations monograph "Mirror of Public Opinion". That year, he opened a course of "Public Relations" in new york University. 1925, edited the textbook of public relations. As a result, "public relations" has officially become a subject in human science. In Edward? Berners solved a series of theoretical problems such as the principle, function and function of public-private relationship, and formed the basic theory of public-private relationship.
3. Theoretical stage-the formation of system theory: In 1950s, two famous American public relations experts, Dr. Catlip and Dr. Vincent, made a deeper study of public relations, and published a large number of works represented by effective public relations, which solved many problems in public relations and made it mature. Since then, the theory of public relations has a set of rigorous theoretical system, so this period is called the formation period of public relations system theory in history.
4. Popularization stage-the development of applied theory.