Public Relations

Public relations strategies are used by public relations practitioners to communicate various key messages to the public and to shape the public's and stakeholders' perception of the company. Hence, they are extremely important and significant to the practitioners and their clients.

A good public relations strategy may be able to help companies communicate their key messages effectively to stakeholders and the public and as such, portray the company in a positive light.

These strategies may be laid out well in advance, from a few weeks up to a year, for a company. Thereafter, public relations practitioners would carry out public relations activities and campaigns, disseminate press releases and pitch to the media based on their specific strategy. There is no ‘one size fits all' public relations strategy, as each company, even those in the same industry, is unique in terms of vision, key messages, promotional activities and ethical beliefs.

Issues management should also be a part of a public relations strategy. Managing issues that have surfaced along the way will decrease the chances of an imminent crisis and allow the company to preserve their good reputation.

Public relations strategies are not set in stone. They should be flexible. Also, it may be changed from time to time due to other occurrences that may have impacted the company, directly or indirectly. These occurrences vary greatly. This may be a natural disaster or a human-initiated incident, and it may be good or bad. In certain cases, a disaster may also be leveraged upon to make a company look good in the eyes of their stakeholders, their target market and the general public. However, public relations practitioners will have to be cautious and know where to draw the line or certain strategies may backfire and prove distasteful in the eyes of the public and the company's stakeholders.

As it is often known, public relations is not just about what one company is doing. On the other hand, it is what one company is seen to be doing in the eyes of the public. In other words, action alone is not sufficient. These actions must be communicated to stakeholders and the public in order for the actions to shape perceptions.

It is said that "few fields can invoke as much debate over ethics as can public relations" (Curtin et al., 1955). Kevin Moloney (1943) agreed and mentioned that there is "some amusment to be had" and that it is "indeed, a risible oxymoron". However, Moloney also noted that there would be some hope that the oxymoron would one day be no longer as public relations practices improve.

Whilst scholars and possibly many other stakeholders of the media industry may think that public relations is lacking in ethics, all the more should ethics be an integral part of effective public relations strategies. This does not exactly mean that there should be an ‘ethics' segment in any