PR History Up to 1970s
By Andrew Bishop Mkandawire (AB Deevado)-MC
Yr 4
4th May, 2012 Share World Open
University-BT Campus
The history of
Public Relation up to 1970’s can be divided into four sectors. The first could
be the Early Public Relations, the second the Propaganda-Publicity, the third
the Early Two-Way Communication, and the Advanced Two-Way Communication.
Early Public Relations has
stories from all sides of the global villages. At least in every country there
is a background history that displays how important and easier the pans or
efforts of serving power in respective societies got achievements through
information disseminations through communication.
In Africa,
America, Arabic Asia, Europe countries all have histories of communication. At
most communication was paramount in politics and leadership, religion and
cultural traditions and in inter-relations activities.
For example,
‘before the alphabets, characters and numerals, there were pictograms (of which
Chinese characters still provide examples). In the caves of primitive people,
thousands ago there were wall paintings. Ancient buildings such as the
pyramids, early temples, and the cave paintings of Zimbabwe, bear pictorial
messages. People also wrote on the tablets of stone; and on leather, parchment
and papyrus, as with Dead Sea scrolls’ (Jefkins 1998, p. 2).
Jefkins (1998)
describes by concurring that even the coming of west and eastern religion in
Africa got established with the means of communication where Bible and Qur’an
were used to defend the truth about their faith.
In Malawi, PR
existed way back in the age of kingdoms. In Nkhamanga Kingdom in the North of
Malawi, they could use drums and gongs to communicate to inhabitants about the king’s
health, power, social events and religion. For example, for inhabitants to go
to CHIKHANG’OMBE (the religious temple and cult) a gong and a bell made from
iron (since they were iron smelters who even produced iron hoes hence crowning
their kings-Chikula Mayembe) had to
ring to direct people orderly. The Nkhamanga kingdom was strengthened by the
Balowoka who crossed Lake Malawi to enter Nkhamanga territory. They came from
Ubena in the south of present Tanzania around 1850 AD. They soon became new
leaders and formed a kingdom under Chikulamayembe. Some of the
contributions of Nkhamanga to present Malawi include farming, hunting, iron
smelting, trade as well as language, Tumbuka, which is widely spoken in the
northern Malawi and the neighbouring Zambia (www.visitmalawi.mw).
The Maravi
Kingdom also used signs and the famous sign was fire. This fire
was fed with reed mats, used during puberty ceremonies, and it symbolised life
and fertility to their kingdom (www.books.google.mw).
In the
military, the public relations functions were also important. The Phoenicians
and Vikings of Europe when sailing to explore and conquer, their sail were
decorated with birds or animals which identified them. It can be argued then
that this was the origin of corporate identity which dominates in use of
symbols and colours.
In a period
between 5, 000 and 3, 500 BC the Sumerians developed Cuneiform writing, and by
2430 BC the Egyptians developed the picture writing called Hieroglyphics and in
1799 two French Soldiers found Rosetta stone in Egypt. It contained
Hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek writings, (Cootes and Sneligrove 1970).
Almost each
sector of life and development evolution leaves history that traces or
definitely provides origins of ancient public relations.
Propaganda-Publicity stage
in public relations also affected all continents but in this context. But in at
this stage much will be about what happened in America. This stage in public
relations took a risk of misinterpreting what PR is understood today. Those who
regarded public relations as propaganda ended up failing to create sustainable
good relations with their publics. They even found difficulties in creating mutual
knowledge and understanding with their publics. The sole aim of propaganda here
was to maximise their interests in society by demeaning the reputation, image
and ability of their opposition or contenders.
According to
(Baran 2002, p. 311) ‘mass circulation newspapers and the first successful
consumer magazines appeared in the 1830’s, expanding the ability of people and
organizations to communicate with the public. In 1833, for example, Andrew
Jackson hired former newspaperman Amos Kendall as his publicist and the
country’s first presidential press secretary in an effort to combat the
aristocrats who saw Jackson as too common to be president’.
Propaganda had one aspect that showed
sense of Public Relations function. The art of communication was the major
character despite the negative motive of the communication of message. Many
media houses then found themselves injuring other’s personal and private life.
If it were today this could suffer serious litigations. For example in the first real colonial newspaper was the New England Courant, published as a sideline by printer James Franklin,
brother of Benjamin Franklin.
Like many other Colonial newspapers, it was aligned with party interests and
did not publish balanced content. Ben Franklin was first published in his
brother's newspaper, under the pseudonym Silence Do-good, in 1722, and even his
brother did not know. Ben Franklin's pseudonymous publishing represented a
common practice of newspapers of that time of protecting writers from
retribution from those they criticized, often to the point of what would be
considered libel today (www.american colonial journalism.
org).
Public Relations in the propaganda-publicity stage was more
one-way communication thus from the individual or organization to the public.
For example, Henry Ford began using staged events like auto races to build
interest in his cars, started Ford Times,
and made heavy use of image advertising. This carried more of publicity
function, (Baran 2002)
The period of Propaganda and publicity in publication falls
between 1830 and 1890. Within this period PT Barnum was the main character as propaganda
machine.
Early Two-Way Communication emerged in a period between 1900 and 1940. In
this period
There was need to consider feelings of the public over the
individuals or organizations and government.
During this period public
information function was grand and many organizations including the
American Government. This PR tool was
propounded by Ivy Lee but it was established as a PR tool by the father of PR
Edward Bernays.
According to (Baran 2002, p. 313), ‘about this time public
relations pioneer Edward Bernays began emphasizing the value of assessing the
public’s feelings toward an organization. He would then use this knowledge as
the basis for the development of the public relations effort’.
For example, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the
radio to communicate about his new deal to the public as well as to hear
public’s reaction to the plan. However, this took more of asymmetrical two-way
communication where the president was simply aiming at persuading the public to
adopt the New Deal Concept.
Finally, Advanced
Two-Way Communication stage originated in early 1900’s up to this day. In this
stage of PR, the major issues that are concerned are ethical principle in PR,
the process and the system approaches and the art of lobbying.
Considering that PR is a profession and that it has had a
negative impression during the time of PT Barnum’s propaganda and publicity
stage in PR history, Bernays decided to come up with ethical concern which lead
Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) adopt ethical PR in Bernays time. For
example, Bernays wrote: Under present conditions, an ethical person can sign
the code of the PRSA, become a member, practice unethically-untouched by any
legal sanctions. In law and medicine, such an individual is subject to
disbarment from the profession...There are no standards...This sad situation
makes it possible for anyone, regardless of education or ethics, to use the
term “public relations”, (Baran 2002, p. 330).
The advanced Two-Way Communication considers that it is
necessary to hear public’s feelings and get them into organization’s planning
and implementing process where the needs of the organization and those of
public’s adjust to each other called Symmetrical Model Odedele (2008). But to
achieve this, the process and the system approaches need to be considered.
The process approach considers that for an organization to
know the needs of its public’s so that the two mutually understand and benefit,
it is necessary to institute research techniques before taking action to solve
the problem, communication progress to management and public and evaluation of
the action is taken. The process approach to PR is the
tool that helps to indicate the proper direction of communications program when
success is the destination of both the Public Relations Manager and the entire
organization. It has two directions the Research, Action, Communication, and
Evaluation (RACE) and Research, Objective, Plan and Evaluation (ROPE). And this
approach, the RACE can be used to solve negative perceptions and relationships
between an organization and its customers. For example:
Research; since there are public reactions to how the ESCOM is operating
leading to creation of negative perceptions, there is need to conduct a
business research which will show the level of reaction in terms of knowing the
level of public understanding and how much they are being affected with the
services ESCOM a monopolistic corporation is offering to its valued customers.
Research
to a business organization particularly a corporation is important because it
helps to discover opportunities the firm did not know, it helps to gather
information that can help the decision making process, it helps to come up with
mechanism to forecast business trends, it helps to increase level of
relationship as when the customer get involved in solving the problem by
recognizing they are respondents in the research projects, they feel the
organization is working to improve the services they consume, and research
helps to wholly move the management focus which lead to organization
integration and commitment to achieve the common objectives and goals.
The Electricity
Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) in this case can then conduct a business
research which according to (Malunga 2011, p. 5) is ‘something that people
undertake in order to find out solutions to business problems’. This means
research is mainly conducted to solve business problems which is supposed to be
conducted systematically thus a clear picture of what is causing and affecting
public to have negative perception and relations towards ESCOM, either to
collect data using personal interviews, questionnaires or observation, and
possibly ensuring that the research progresses from problem identification,
research design to data collection, interpretation and reporting. The research
is also supposed to be objective thus the research has to have objectives or
aims. For example in this work, the two
research objectives can be To
identify major causes enhancing negative perception an bad relation of the
public with ESCOM and To expose myths
that are attached to ESCOM service delivery held by the public. In business
research works, the research objectives are supported by research questions;
and business research has to be conducted also analytically. When data is
gathered it needs analysis. Data analysis involves reducing accumulated data to
manageable size, developing summaries, looking for patterns, and applying
statistical techniques, Cooper & Schindler (2003). This process in a research study is necessary
because it enables a researcher to convert data into information which gives
meaning for interpretation to respective users.
Therefore
conducting a research will enable ESCOM to identify its Strength. This can be
through ability to be a single hydro-electric power supplier which is only
servicing less than 20% of the population. This means it still has the large
market to develop which is Ansoff’s growth strategy where ESCOM can take
present product into fresh markets, and thus focusing activities on the market
opportunities’ and competitor situations, (Cole 1997). But before it does grow
the market is it necessary to increase level of relationship by ensuring the
customer’s needs are met with value thus 24 hours fully supplied energy and
power charged at reasonable price rates; Weaknesses. The weaknesses can be
failure to adequately supply power as well as failure to grow the market as
majority of the population does not use electricity in Malawi. This is not
because of poverty per se but because of delays to connect to rural and some
urban areas. Many have complained to have waited for more than two years
without connection even when they paid for every transaction demanded by the
corporation; Opportunities. These are like understanding what customers want,
what can make them reliable and loyal customers and ways of attracting and
maintaining existing and potential customers; and Threats. Failure to grow the
market and failure to provide adequate electricity to manufacturers and house
holds has started forcing people to shift loyalty from ESCOM to use of coal and
gas cookers for heating and cooking, use of fuel generators and solar panels
for lighting. This is gradually reducing the dependency on power supply from
ESCOM.
Action; this is actual execution aimed at rectifying the perception and poor
relations existing. The implementation will base its decisions on the data
collected through research. If according to the findings it shows that people
want quick response to power connection orders, stoppage of corrupt practices
when seeking power supply services, quick feedback from any inconvenience
caused, reliable power supply, low price rates, then efforts and programs to
solve these problems will have to be implemented. This is what is called
action.
This
stage demands a lot of money to be allocated to the budget. These moneys fund
operations as well as administration activities. One of the operations is PR
Communication Programs. One of such could be marketing education reflected in
PR Transfer where the negative situation is converted into positive
achievement-through knowledge- resulting in primary objective of public
relations, understanding, like
transferring Hostility to Sympathy, Prejudice to Acceptance, Apathy to Interest
and Ignorance to Knowledge, (Jefkins 1996).
For
example, not all found problems can be solved over night. Customers need to be
told what the corporation has felt possible depending on available resources to
start solving some within a given period. By assuring the public positive
change, public trust will start to rebuild which will replace negative perception
with a positive one. When change start to be experienced by the public the
relationship will also start shifting from negative to positive.
Communication; for PR program to take action, communication will be an on-going
demand. This takes two forms. The first focus at reporting progress of the
implemented efforts to senior management; and the second is the communication
between the organization and the public. In this second communication channel
many models are used which some are to be discussed in the 3rd
Scenario or Approaches below.
Communicating
with the public will help performance monitoring and evaluation researches to
succeed. At this stage efforts implemented like increasing the market by
installing electricity in rural areas, market education will enhance
familiarization of the Corporation to the new market and it will increase its
level of responsibility which will even position its responsibility to the
public-public trust and relationship establishment.
When
communication commences which is an on-going-activity, ESCOM and customer
relationship increases. For example, press releases, exhibitions, trade fairs,
press conferences, press receptions, community sponsorships all can help to
reduce gap between the organization and its stakeholders like the community.
Evaluation; efforts aimed at solving ESCOM’s problem of negative perceptions
and poor relationships held by the public cannot just stand in the
implementation channel without being assessed if there is progress to reflect objectives
achievements. Such objectives are linked to the implementation program. The
indication is that when these successfully solve the problems, the positive
perceptions and relation with the public are automatically to improve for
mutual understanding and benefit. Some could be: To connect electricity to 1, 000, 000 households and manufacturers in
two years time, To provide reasonable price discrimination to different
customers depending on their economic status and location, To increase customer
involvement in the cost-effective use of electricity through civic education. But
these objectives cannot be easily traced to know if they are achieved in the
implementation process. This call need for an evaluation effort to be done.
This is assisted by Evaluation Research which is ‘a form of research that is formal,
objective measurement and appraisal of the extent a given activity, project or
program has achieved its objectives’ (Zikmund et al 2010, p. 10). Actually evaluation starts from implementation
of an action-thus-where the PR Communication Program started attempts to solve
the problem by turning the negative and bad relations with its publics or
stakeholders. This is also known as performance-monitoring research.
The
societies are becoming dynamic and complex. This is because social, cultural,
economic, technological, legal, political, ethical and ecological factors are
changing almost in every year. This has forced PR to adjust itself to the
demands of its public in the society it is functioning or operating.
In
PR this is set of interacting units that endures through time within an
established boundary by responding and adjusting to change pressures from the
environment to achieve and maintain goals states.
Practically,
this is an issue of external business environments. This megatrend has famous
acronyms of PEST Political, Economical, Social and Technological or SLEPTEEC
(Social, Legal, Economical, Political, Technological, Ecological, Ethical, and
Cultural) business environments.
PEST analysis is
concerned with the key external environmental influences on a
business. The acronym stands for the Political, Economic, Social and
Technological issues that could affect the strategic development of a business.
Identifying PEST influences is a useful way of summarizing the external
environment in which a business operates. However, it must be followed up by
consideration of how a business should respond to these influences (www.tutor2u.net.com).
ESCOM can
therefore respond to such environments by implementing what can enable it meet
the demand of the environment. For example, cutting administrative costs,
buying locally produced cables, hiring local electricity specialists like
engineers can help save money which can be reserved or invested in other programs
of Pubic Relations. It can as well provide price rate discounts to suburb and
rural customers particularly in this time of economic recession. This is
responding to economic environment. It can also respond to technological
factor. This can be done by adopting new cost effective means of saving and
generating energy. This is true as this month (March) the corporation has
stopped recommending use of filament bulbs instead it is distributing mercury
bubs which are energy savers.
However
this can take two directions of this systems approach. The first can be Open.
This allows ideas from outside the organization. This satisfies many customers
as they feel involved in problem solving. The Open system is more suitable to
Tactical and Operational Management levels where implementation and control of
decision or strategy is held. The second can be closed. This system does not
allow ideas from outside the organization. It is more suitable to Strategic or
Corporate Management level where decision or strategy formulation originates.
Both can be used depending on the managerial level.
In
a rap up, this theory depends on research because it demands identification of
the problem, process information, get the results and respond to the public.
Government lobbying in another aspect that is common in
advanced Two-Way Communication. For example, before the 1964, the lobbying
process between the British and Malawi governments helped Dr. Hastings Kamuzu
Banda to assume the position of the first black prime minister of Malawi and
The first president of Malawi respectively. This was a reality because the
local showed interest to self-rule as it is described that in 1960 a commission
of inquiry was set up led by Lord Monckton who reported that Central African
Federation was a financial success but only few Africans liked the move.
Instead they would turn to civil war in protest against it. Through this report
and lobbying by the Kamuzu and some prominent members of Nyasaland African
Congress Party like Kanyama Chiume and Masauko Chipembere including local
Chiefs, Britain gave way and Nyasaland became Malawi, (Sneligrove 1968).
In relation to the above example, today in Malawi the
Federation of Disability Organizations in Malawi (FEDOMA) is lobbying Malawi
government to assent to its need of let Parliament enact the Disability Act
which will help enforcement of equality to access resources and other
opportunities between able and disabled individuals. The Malawi Confederation
of Trades Union (MCTU) is also lobbying government to revisit the minimum wage
of a civil servant considering that the costs of living keep on rising in
Malawi.
This is how it can be argued on the trace PR history up to 1970s.
REFERENCES
Baran, SJ 2002, Introduction to Mass Communication, 2nd
Edition, Boston: McGraw Hill
Cooper, D &
Schindler, P 2003, Business Research
Methods, 8th edition, Boston: McGraw Hill
Cole, GA 1997, Strategic Management, 2nd
edition, London: Thomson
Cootes, RJ &
Sneligrove, LE 1970, The Ancient World, London,
Longman
Jefkins, F.
1998. Public Relations Frame Works, 5th
edition, Harlow, Pearson Education
Malunga, AJ 2011, The Research Process Handbook, 2nd edition, Blantyre:
FGI-ED Consult
Odedele, S 2008, Public Relations and Communication
Management in Africa, Lagos: Petros-Faith Public Relations Consult
Sneligrove, LE
1968, The Modern World Since 1870, London,
Longman
Zikmund, WG 2010,
Business Research Methods, 8th
edition, Canada: South-Western CENGAGE Learning
‘Cambridge Press’ 2012, The Cambridge history of Africa: From c. 1050 to c. 1600, Viewed 2 April, 2012, http://www.books.google.mw/books?isbn=0521209811
‘Tutor2u.net’ 2012, Strategy: PEST analysis, Viewed 27th February, 2012, http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/PEST_analysis.htm
‘Visit
Malawi’ 2012, The Malawi ethnic tribes
and culture, Viewed 2 April, 2012, http://www.visitmalawi.mw/People%20and%20Culture/people_and_culture.htm
‘American Colonial Journalism’ 2012, History of journalism, Viewed 20 April,
2012,
http://americancolonialjournalism._org
