Journal Resume - 135120207121011

Inge Ade Zinnia

135120207121011

What Is Public Relation?

Historically, the role of public relations as a practice has had three major interpretations which are controlling publics, responding to publics, and achieving mutually beneficial relationship among all publics (Newsom and Scott, 1985). There are 2 journals that I have read which are “what is the role of public relation theory” and “what should public relation theory do, practically speaking?”

Based on my understanding after reading the first journal is that when we talk about  science or a study about a profession or anything related that kind of things, if there is no theoretical base that support the accuracy of it, it will be bias. According to what is written in the journal by Reginald Watts “we live in an intense and increasingly knowledge-based society. Standards are soaring on all sides” (Reginald Watts, 2006) meaning that if we can’t support our argument or idea by giving an example of an exist research or accurate theory, people might get it in a wrong was. It happens the same to public relation area. Public relations are invaded by many kind of other professions. The writer said that the profession as a PR practitioner is not conduct properly due to theory toward public relation itself. Some of PR practitioner said theory is not important but more about feelings in doing so but in fact however it gives a bad image to PR practitioner who did not implement the theory of public relation and people see a PR practitioner as an unprofessional profession which lead PR practitioner being invaded by other profession. Therefore the writer trying to point out different perspective toward an idea that said PR is a craft that based on feeling or intuition. Being a professional in many kind of field as a profession is a must in order to get a high credibility, respect, good image of public.

A profession is distinguished from a skilled occupation in the following aspects: having a defined are of competence; an established body of knowledge; supported with scientific research and theory building; availability of continuing education; professional values and granted autonomy to practitioners (J.E Grunig & Hunt, 1984;Martson, 1986) clearly stated it is a must to have those criteria to be labeled as professional. It is support writer’s idea and perspective that as a PR practitioner, it is important to implement PR theory practically. To reduce the underestimate thoughts of PR graduate that usually being underestimate compared to other graduates that are not coming from public relation field. And also to point out that as a PR graduates, we have specific abilities that other graduates might not have thus PR theory is important to be applied practically to distinguish our ability as a PR practitioner compared to them who are PR graduates.

The second journal talk about the fact of public relation and how to be PR practitioner ideally, based on my understanding. Back then public relation had a bad reputation, image of public relation was biased because of the history of world war 1 and 2. It made PR has to make a clear definition of their self to public, to deliver the right value and the right fact about them. The writer briefly tell us about the fact of PR at the moment and how PR should behave ideally. It is a must to put a big concern that as a PR they should clear things up related to their reputation back then in order to create good reputation in a future so people might not get it the wrong way.

Briefly, both journals explained about PR condition and how do they should behave as a PR practitioner and how it is important to implement PR theory in order to reduce or to eliminate the bad reputation and to clearly stated that as a PR graduate we have certain abilities that other graduates might not have and due to this explanation, we as a PR should prove them by working properly and implementing PR theory in doing our job as PR practitioner. It is also important to put concern on the image history of PR that adopted from several tragedy such as world war 1 and 2 and how we fix the bad image of PR and how to clear things up and explain to the world what public relations really is. PR is not about following intuition but about implementing the true essence of PR both practically and theoretically.

Bibliography 

Grunig, J. E., & Hunt, T. 1984. Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

Marston, J. 1968. Hallmarks of a profession. Public Relations Journal, 24, 22-27.

Newsom, D. and A. Scott. 1985. This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations

(Wadsworth, Belmont).

Choi, Jounghwa. 2007. Elaborating The Concept of Public Relations Roles and A Test To Its Utility. Michigan State University.