Although the term ‘public relations‘ has been in use for a little more than a century, when do you consider that ‘public relations’ started as a practice? The development of Public Relations begun much earlier than many think.
Was it at the beginning of the twentieth century or did it exist as an unnamed practice before then? You may want to consider the characteristics that define those historical activities as public relations before answering. The differences from other promotional or persuasive communication are important.
The History of Public Relations
From the Sumerians to the Romans, including the Crusades, there are examples throughout history that resemble Public Relations. But, these examples are not public relations. Because people did not see it as strategically planned activity. Also, they did not use the framing of language and accumulated best practice that we apply now.
They had PR-like practices, but those were not real PR. However, ‘proto-public relations’ is still a thing. A term which ‘is based on ‘proto’ meaning ‘original’ or ‘primitive’ and draws to mind the term ‘prototype’. Proto-public relations may be the antecedents of modern public relations, which begin in the twentieth century.
PR, as We Know It Today
PR has many, time-varied beginnings. In some countries and regions, religion and culture influenced it. In others, it played an important role in political, governmental and economic developments. Industrialization, the development of parliamentary democracies overlap with the development of Public Relations.
But in general, public relations is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. During the first half of the century, its expansion was primarily in the United States. The dominant models of public relations practices were developed in the United States from the final decades of the nineteenth century onwards- For example, the measurement and evaluation of media coverage is a major professional PR issue, which seems to have arisen from the 1970s onwards. However, the first president of the United States, George Washington, had staff who monitored newspapers in the new nation’s 13 states in the late eighteenth century so that he could understand political discussions and attitudes.
Although most countries have national approaches to public relations, there are ‘International PR’ models of practice in general and specialist areas that are used by multinational corporations and international organisations that have derived from US practice. Please get to know more about Public Relations here.