PR: Public Relations in Society

¶ … PR: Public Relations in Society is an enterprise authors Coombs and Holladay took as a consequence to the gap they felt it was created between various opinions expressed by those who attacked the field and its real meaning. The tone they set is objective and free of any partisanship. The introductory chapter of the book reveals the authors' intentions in expressing a correct attitude toward the subject of "public relations" from the point-of-view of both theorists and practitioners to the public.

Their work is dedicated to explaining the concept and its benefits along with its negative side to the contemporary society. Their work comes as an additional point-of-view in order to complete the picture of "public relations" today: "important to us in writing this book are the role of public relations by non-corporate entities. These two topics are underdeveloped in the public relations literature and one of our motivations for writing this book." Coombs and Holladay (2007, p.

1) The two authors' choice in presenting the topic starts with a review of the different approaches of the subject, mostly the critical voices who used famous negative examples such as Enron, Tyco and Health-South and athletes like Marion Jones, star of the 2000 Olympics team. Coombs and Holladay (2007), in order to mount argumentation in favor of a critical point-of-view of the field.

They use the literature written on the subject both by media and PR professionals, practitioners or academics to bring evidence and support to their intentions of taking the field of public relations out of the heavy negative connotations, especially the media gave it during the past decades and putting it on the place where it deserves fist understanding of the concept and then its importance to the society as a whole.

In their enterprise to find the causes that induced a negative response to the field of public relations from the public, Coombs and Holladay point out a first major player: the media. They blame the superficial and often wrong way of tackling the subject in the media that ends with the general misunderstanding and negative reaction to the topic. Coombs and Holladay (2007).

The authors use their knowledge as professionals in the filed and show the weak points in the argumentation various media people bring in favor of their criticism of public relations. They use surveys that show the percentage of materials that misused the term in the media: "in about 5% of them the term PR was used accurately, in ways that would be acceptable to the public relations Society of America." Coombs and Holladay (2007, p. 7).

By further inquiry into the percentage of materials published in the media that express critical views, the writers show the conclusions other researchers reached when it came to the proportions of the materials written to attack the field compared to those that sustained it. The conclusion is that the public was more likely to take the side of those who demonize the concept of PR simply because it the voices of the critics were much louder and often heard everywhere than those in favor of it.

The two authors go deeper and analyze the writings that openly criticized PR and emphasize first their means and the targeted public that are taking them out of the range of scholarly, academic writings and thus make it vulnerable to solid scientific arguments. They take out some of the key points those authors used when they built their argumentation in favor of the negative effect PR has on society and show their weaknesses.

One of the strongest argumentation Coombs and Holladay have here is that all those writings never attempt to explain correctly, scientifically the concept of PR. The authors finally review some common themes and means of PR criticism to point out the conclusion the public must reach after having acknowledged them. The public is in their opinion manipulated by media into believing that society would be "better off without it." (Coombs and Holladay (2007, p. 17).

On the other side, the attempts to present the positive aspects of PR are not only scarce compared to the negative voices, but they are also written by professionals for professional thus making the authors' intentions of reestablishing PR's importance and role in today's society more evident and necessary.

The conclusion they reach after having reviewed the literature written by professionals who intend to correctly explain the concept and show the real role it plays in society is that: "there is no real defense of public relations to be found in these books. But public relations is considered useful to society because it does help business." (Coombs and Holladay (2007, p.

21) It is clear that the authors' goal in writing this book is to defend PR in front of the public with an objective eye and using the right tools professionals have, without making it hard to understand for the nonprofessional readers. They take what the public understands by definition of PR and compare it to the definition one of the most prestigious societies of professionals in the U.S. uses in order to prove the first incomplete.

They further bring other professional opinions that sustain and complete the definition used by the Public relations Society of America. Coombs and Holladay also use a comparison between the PR's role in society and tat of the law in order to show that even if PR is often ill thought of, just like law it plays an important part in a democratic society. (Coombs and Holladay (2007).

The authors attempt not only to bring out an already existing definition of PR, but to recognize and add new material to what the theory of PR misses at a first glance. They explain the role of PR to the corporations themselves in order to be then able to explain its role in the society and finally its global implications.

This way of addressing the matter of PR leads tem to address another important issue, the issue of power and further that of "ethical implications" they discuss in the second chapter of the book.

The two authors explain the means of finding the material for an argument and the way to make an audience understand and adopt one's point-of-view taught by the classics, like Aristotle, Cicero and Quintillian and still used today by scholars to make a point in order to make the readers understand not only their means of sustaining their points-of-view, but also to show the basics of communication, the key tool in PR. The authors point out the ethical role PR practitioners play, due to their capability to influence public opinion.

Coombs and Holladay (2007). The ethics of the profession brings out the issue of its deontology: "if an organization says it values care and reflects those values in its actions, we will consider it to be morally competent and reflecting the ethic of care." (Coombs and Holladay (2007 p.33) in this respect, the writers review different codes of ethics of the two most important professional associations in the U.S. And analyze their use in practice.

The attempt to correctly explain the concept and the role PR plays in society is sustained by the authors by their intention to place he PR professional inside a corporation to the role he really plays. They describe communication models, the way the two players, the corporations and the stakeholders use them and the intermediary role the PR professional plays between them.

The author's keep their objectivity and show how professionals can make use of their abilities and knowledge in communication in order to influence those who have less information in the field, taking advantage of their professionalism. Keeping their objectivity, the two authors explain the reasons corporations such as Wal-Mart starting listening to their stakeholders thus adopting the PR technique of two way communication, using the studies McGinn published on the subject.

Coombs and Holladay will finally place everything related to the correct definition, main tools and players in the PR field under the perspective of a postmodern perspective. After having defined de concept, set the role PR plays inside a corporation, analyzed the code of ethics and assessed the real power of a PR department has inside a corporation, the authors will address the history of PR starting with Ivy Lee, by 1900.

They will consider the existent literature on the subject of history of PR and find out the elements missing from the view of historians like Cutlip and enumerate others who concentrated on te history of PR in their textbooks mainly from the perspective of a "corporate-centric view of the practice." Coombs and Holladay (2007 p.50). They will develop the subject of addressing the history of PR by analyzing its causes and other fields that used PR.

After analyzing the most plausible and logical patterns of organizations- stakeholders relationships and the way these players use their power to influence the other ones reactions, the authors find an explanation related to the reason why an organization cannot keep every stakeholder group satisfied at the same time and thus being forced to set priorities in this relationship. Coombs and Holladay (2007) Coombs and Holladay use the support of the professional literature to find an explanation to the importance stakeholders came to play in their role with the management.

Their next movement is back to history, this time deeper to the times where there was no such field as public relations. They start in their investigation with the Anti-Slavery Society, formed by Arthur and Lewis Tappan in 1831. They were among the first to discover the role of using various ways of disseminating information to the public they targeted by using the printed word or by assembling in "meetings, sermons and public lectures." Coombs and Holladay (2007, p. 62).

Further examples show how tools specific to the PR industry nowadays were discovered and put to use by simple people who succeeded to start major changes in society: Carry a. Nation, the first woman who made an "event" in order to gain notoriety she would put to further use and whose actions eventually led to "Kansas to become the.