CommSquared/PR

PR Toolkit I - Introduction

What is PR?

The acronym stands for "Public Relations". The term was used for the first time in the preface of the 1897 Yearbook of Railway Literature, by Ivy Lee. He pioneered in PR, along with Edward Louis Bernays: both consistently laid the foundations for a professional embodiment of the activity.

The latter established the first definition of public relations in the early 1900s: "a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures, and interests of an organization followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."

In 2012, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) used crowdsourcing to come up with an updated definition of the field, which resulted in: "a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics" <ref name="PRSA"> mediapost.com turututu. </ref>. This approach tries to think beyond Bernay's traditional definition, strongly influenced by crowd psychology, in favor of communication and relationship building.

We turn to PR to maintain our organization’s reputation with the market, users, developers, and influencers. Much like how we develop our products in the open, we strive to communicate in an open and transparent way: reporters have direct access to information on wikis and attend public project meetings, providing information and context as-it-happens.

Objectives

promote goodwill