Understanding Public Relations

Public relations can be defined as the management function that is supposed to create and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between the commercial or non-commercial entities and "publics", that include customers, investors, employees, suppliers, legislators, competitors, government officials and other constituencies. Public relations practitioners’ end-result program is to create favorable support of the organizations they represent, to obtain positive coverage in the print and broadcast media. It is considered more diplomatic “sell”, as opposed to advertising and marketing that are supposed to promote their product in more forceful way. Due to its intricacy, public relations are often viewed as “propaganda” or “spin.”[1] (Bates 2006)
Public relations roots can be traced throughout civilization.
[1] In public relations, spin is a usually pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor of an event or situation; it is a "polite" synonym for propaganda.