The public is a group of people who find themselves in a certain situation, are clearly aware of the problematic and ambiguous nature of this situation, and react in a certain way to it. Protesting citizens of the country, starving prisoners, striking workers, deceived shareholders, successful prosperous businessmen - all these categories of people are representatives of various social strata of the population of our society.
Public relations specialists. Their tasks and functions
Public relations specialists (PR specialists) should be able to establish two-way contact with it, coordinate their public management activities in such a way as to form public opinion or change it in their favor. Most prosperous firms organize PR campaigns aimed at coordinating and shaping people's opinions about their products and services, their quality, as well as strengthening public opinion about the positive qualities of this product or service.
Views of the public. Conditionalclassification
Conventionally, the public is divided into open and closed.
The open public is a group of people representing the broad mass of the population, united by one common criterion: consumers of specific goods and services, media audiences, demonstrators, activists of political movements, members of parties, factions, public organizations and movements.
A closed community is a group of people who represent some kind of closed society or social community: employees of a company or organization who are subject to official discipline and are united by working relationships, traditions, and responsibility.
Organization and public
The public of the company is divided into internal and external.
| Internal | Outer |
| groups of people that make up a given company or organization | groups of people not associated with this company or organization |
|
company staff, department heads shareholders, board of directors |
suppliers of raw materials, the press, infrastructure companies, customers and consumers of products, government agencies and state control bodies, educators |
For a more successful communicative work of the organization, in addition to the external and internal public, it is customary to single out the following groups:
- employees of the organization;
- media workers;
- state bodies of all levels of government;
- investors,statistical and insurance organizations;
- local residents, leaders of local religious, political, cultural, public organizations;
- consumers.
Depending on the degree of importance of the public for the organization, the following groups are distinguished:
- main (provides significant assistance or can cause significant damage to the organization's activities);
- secondary (has some significance for the organization);
- marginal (doesn't matter for this organization).
Some categories of the public can move from one group to another.
By the nature of the relationship between the public and the organization, categories can be distinguished:
- benevolent groups are employees of the company, heads of its departments, shareholders, suppliers, creditors, etc.;
- neutral;
- hostile - these are the company's competitors, dissatisfied consumers of the company's products, financial institutions that have discovered violations by the company, the local population, dissatisfied with the company's non-compliance with environmental and communal standards, etc.
Public opinion
The division of the public into certain groups and types is rather conditional. The composition of groups, their number and possible variants of reactions are determined by the situation. The purpose of public relations work is to influence the formation of public opinion in such a way that it becomes useful for the organization, company andother interested parties. The task of a PR specialist is to clearly group the public, that is, he needs to identify groups of people whose opinion affects the organization and its image.
Public opinion is the totality of individual opinions on any particular issue affecting that group of people.
In PR, the public is identified with the concept of "audience". For PR specialists, an active audience is the public. In this case, the public is a group of people who, under specific conditions, organized themselves around common problems or interests. We continue to consider this issue.
For a passive public to become active, James Grunig believes there must be 3 factors:
1. Awareness of their limitations, that is, to what extent people feel their limitations and infringement and are actively looking for ways out of the resulting problem.
2. Awareness of the essence of the problem, that is, to what extent people understand the essence of the situation, while feeling the need for additional information.
3. The level of involvement, that is, to what extent people feel drawn into the problem and feel its impact on themselves.
The following types of public are distinguished by the form and degree of activity:
1. An active public is a group of people who react to all problems, are active and enterprising on any issue. In turn, the active public is divided into 2type:
- the first type - is formed around one specific problem (demolition of dilapidated housing in the area, construction of a parking lot on the site of a playground);
- the second type of active public - is formed around the problem advertised by the media (global warming, deforestation in the Amazon, and so on).
2. An indifferent or passive public is a group of people who are not active.
Public Relations
Public relations is a professional activity of PR specialists in the interests of organizations, corporations, public and private institutions, charitable foundations, aimed at creating a positive image of an organization, a particular person, product or service in the eyes of the public. This activity is most often carried out by providing the media with the necessary information. Thus, the concept of "Public Relations" is closely related to such concepts as campaigning, advertising, marketing, propaganda, journalism and management.
History of public relations in Russia
The authorities of Ancient Russia used two channels to bring information to the population (the public): state (criers) and church. Heralds informed the population in the crowded central squares of the city about the appearance of new princely decrees.
Later, when writing appeared, decrees were hung out in the central squares for everyone to see. Through church channels, information was transmitted to priests, who transmittedher flock. Requests were transmitted from the people to the authorities through “petitions”, which could be submitted both to a state body and to the sovereign.
A common way of communication between the people and the authorities was a "conspiracy and osprey", having gathered in a large mass, the people went to the sovereign with demands or threats. Such a mass of people was a kind of public organ of ancient times.
In modern conditions, for the interaction of the population and state authorities, the Public Chamber has been created - this is a public body at the state level, which is engaged in monitoring the observance of the rights and interests of ordinary citizens of the country.
Types of public relations (PR) at present
- Black PR - deceit, falsification, compromising evidence in order to slander, denigrate, destroy a competing structure.
- Yellow is the active use of offensive, socially unacceptable statements, the use of sexual content in images, the implementation of public lewd acts in order to attract the attention of the audience.
- Pink - the creation of myths and legends in order to veil the event.
- White - open advertising in the first person, that is, self-promotion.
- Grey - advertising, embellished truth, no obvious deception.
- Conflict PR - designed to work in a conflict environment (politics, around property or business).
- Green - social orientation.
- Brown - elements of propaganda of fascist and neo-fascist ideology.
- Viral - works like social networks, for sharinginformation between people united by common interests.
To create a positive image of the country and to support the national economy, government agencies of various countries actively use the services of PR agencies: the United States annually spends about $2 billion, Russia - about $2 million.
PR is exclusive to the 20th century, but its roots go deep into history. In the ancient civilizations of Sumer, China, Babylon, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the rulers convinced people that they needed to recognize their power and their religion. In the modern period, there is a similar practice of public relations: the art of eloquence, organizing special events, interpersonal communication, etc. Since ancient times, the goals of public administration have not changed at all, only the ways and methods of work have changed.
