Chapter 4

Chapter four is about different types of publics (employees, government, domestic, international).

This chapter was less interesting than chapter three, and I was dissapointed that bloggers were not mentioned in the news media section.

Chapter 3

Chapter three discusses the history of public relations from it's premodern roots to the aftermath of September 11th.

I thought this was the most interesting chapter that I have read thus far. It was interesting to read how changes and advances in PR correspond to the evolution of mass media and history in America.

Week 2

Before I questioned my respondents they admitted to knowing little or nothing about PR. One said that she thought PR practitioners planed parties and charity events. Another said they get celebrities names in print. One even whinced at the thought of having to explain what PR is.

None of them could name a high profile person that worked in public relations. Although one did mention Samantha Jones, a fictional character on the show popular show "Sex and the City". All three of them thought for a while, but could not name one singlewith a high profile PR job. When I mentioned it was probably the Press Secretery, all three for the most said something to the effect of "why didn't I think of that?"

When I read them the text book definition and the one I made myself, my roomate actually said, "Huh. That's something I don't think about because I don't really care." Another person said they had never thought of it that way.


TEXTBOOK SUMMARY

Chapter two discusses the different types of PR positions and their corresponding duties. I thought that the “Working Conditions and Salary” and “What’s Important in a Job” were very lame. Again, to me these sections sounded as if they were written to encourage students to work in PR. The surveys and studies the author used to show how much money one can make in PR and levels of job satisfaction were conducted by the PRSA, which has its own agenda to paint PR in a favorable light. The author even admits after listing the averages in annual wages that the numbers could be distorted because of the way the research was conducted. The same survey also showed that 73% of practitioners are “somewhat satisfied” or “extremely satisfied”. The fact that an unknown percentage of that 73% (which itself is not that convincing of a number) are only “somewhat satisfied” does not lead me to believe that a sizeable majority of PR practitioners are happy with what they do for a living. In fact, the only credible study noted in these two sections (conducted by the BLS) reported that PR practitioners do not have set schedules and are often not paid for overtime.

Definition of PR

My definition of PR: The practice of nurturing favorable feelings toward an organization by it’s publics through planned communications.

Some of the definitions use more of a socially responsible feel. To me all of the definitions said, as indirectly as possible, the same thing: create favorable opinions among the publics of an organization. But some definitions stressed social responsibility more than others. PR often has a negative connotation and many people believe PR professionals try to smooth over mistakes made by an organization or cover them up entirely. By stressing the fact that PR must be based on the values and goals of an organization in order to be effective these definitions give the impression that PR can benefit the publics it is trying to reach.

TEXTBOOK SUMMARY

Chapter one defines what PR is and gives examples of how it’s practiced. The chapter also outlines what PR isn’t and gives examples of common PR misconceptions. At first I felt that the chapter sounded like it was written by a public relations specialist trying to promote PR as a career choice. But I was happy to see that the author pointed out that a positive press release will not make up for an organizations short comings when they fail to follow their own values listed in their mission statement.