Public Relations and Democratic Communication

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Consider the arguments for and against the view that Public Relations enhance democratic communication.

While democratic communication influenced by many different factors, especially in capitalist society, the elites represents as dominant groups that have more opportunities to express their voice. Among to the rest, Public Relations play an important role in the communication between public and different organizations. The core of this essay is based on the debate of whether Public Relations enhance democratic communication. This paper will mainly divide into three sections. Firstly, the discussion on the main question will focus on if the public relations have beneficially effects on democratic communication; secondly, the discussion will be the neutrality opinion about the relationship between public relations and democracy communication; thirdly, the reasons why the theorists considering the public relations reinforce the democratic communication will be listed.

The primary hypothesis of this debate is Public Relations have beneficial effects on democratic communication.

Public Relations mainly target on public, which through spinning and lobby group work to promote the image of political groups, corporate and other organizations, and then release the stress relationship between public and groups. In the beginning of twentieth century, the emergence of public relations was for getting on well with the speed of commercial development, as what Stanley Kelley describe, this group is ‘a class of professional propagandists’ (Stanley Kelley: 1956, p.16). However, in nowadays, this group of people actively can be found among political groups, advertising purposes and marketing issues etc. The members within professional ...

... middle of paper ...

...002) Public relations democracy: public relations, politics and the mass media in Britain Manchester University Press pp47

Miller, D & Dinan, W (2007) ‘Public Relations and the Subversion of Democracy’ cited in Miller, D & Dinan, W (eds.) Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy, London: Pluto Press

Moloney, K (2006a) Rethinking Public Relations, 2nd edition, London: Routledge

Kavanagh (1995) cited in Davis, Aeron (2002) Public relations democracy: public relations, politics and the mass media in Britain Manchester University Press

Neill (1998) appeared in Davis, Aeron (2002) Public relations democracy: public relations, politics and the mass media in Britain Manchester University Press

Miller, D & Dinan, W (2000) ‘The rise of the PR Industry in Britain, 1979-1998’ European Journal of Communication, 15(1): 5-35 pp. 13

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