Critical Public Relations. Contexts and Issues

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, , language: English, abstract: Public Relations' definitions are divided into those that support the humanitarian side and the idealistic social role of them and those that support that Public Relations is a basic tool of corporate propaganda. This paper presents the idealistic side of Public Relations but also analyzes the critisisms of PR as a means of propaganda and media manipulation.The paper concludes that PR is not just getting material to the media and gain free publicity but it is rather a powerful means in the corporate armory. Definitely, it is not either propaganda or campaigning but it is a communicative mode aiming at promoting corporate interests while at the same time with the inclusion of ethics, it takes care of the company image and makes the company a responsible part of society.