PUBLIC RELATIONS - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY ACTIVITY

Every time that you open your mouth to take a fresh breath before you will say something and every time that you cast a glance at someone, you take part in public relations.

This could be one of six hundred definitions that are widely used to define one of the most famous, and at the same time most dynamical, contemporary “trades” whose aim is to “create a good relationship” between an organization and its public.

Of course, by an organization we could mean a family, a clan, a group, a political party, a state. It is any group of people who spend their time in a particular place creating a new value, at the same time creatin culture as by-product of their activity, and culture inevitably includes communication. The following anecdote can illustrate how important public relations and communication with the public are.

In the early 20th century, people were coming in crowds to watch actress and dancer Sarah Bernhardt in spite of the fact that clerical circles in the US called her “a Babylon whore”. The bishop of Chicago launched a particularly violent attack on her, but when she visited the city, she sent a 200-dollar cheque to his parish, expressing her gratefulness for promotion.

“The Divine Sarah”, as she was known, was not the first to be aware of public relations. In England, Sir Francis Bacon was also aware of it, when he said that man cannot speak about his achievements with modesty, neither can he praise himself, man cannot afford to deplore or beg...However, all these things, when they come out of a friend's mouth are charming and sweet, and disgraceful when we utter it.

Croats found such a friendly voice in Constantine Profirogenet, who in his work «De Administrando Imperio» wrote the following:

"At the time of the reign of prince Trpimir, the father of Krešimir, came from the Frankish Kingdom, the region situated between Croatia and Venice, a man called Martin, a very pious man but dressed as a layman. Croats also talked about his miracles. This pious man was feeble and mutilated and four men had to carry him. He preached to Croats in the name of the Pope and asked them to observe the words of the Pope. " We could say that he was the first Croatian PR expert.

Public relations as a discipline tries to bring an organization and all its aspects closer to various publics. Internal or external public relations are equally important and there should be no difference between them. Unfortunately, the ignorance of this fact very often leads to a crisis which puts an organization and its potential publics to a test. We should say that not all crises are destructive. More often than not one can learn and build something new from a crisis.

For public relations to be successful it is necessary to know not only an organization but also the channels of communication which make up «informational circulation» of any communicational organism.

Having in mind the above, we could conclude that public relations entail permanent efforts to develop and maintain good relations with various publics. In these efforts we should pay full attention to each of these publics, aware that any good relation can easily be changed, causing even irreperable harm to the organization.