Defining Public Relations

The formal practice of what today is called public relations is less than 100 years old. Yet during its relatively brief history, public relations have been defined in many widely differing ways. Not surprisingly, the earliest definitions emphasized the roles of press agency and publicity since these were major elements from which modern public relations grew (PRSA, Nd). Public relations is an effort to receive free news coverage in a publication, Web site, or broadcast program (Fabris, 2006). In this paper I will define public relations from three different sources, and include my own per…