In less than six months, I will be graduating with a degree in Mass Media, with an emphasis in Public Relations. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to explain what Public Relations, or PR, is to my friends and family, and they still have no idea what it is. Defining public relations is challenging. So here’s me, taking what I’ve learned about public relations, and explaining it to the people who don’t understand it.

Public Relations is a field that is still fairly new, and the definition of public relations is constantly changing. If you’ve ever read a magazine, watched T.V., listened to the radio or read a newspaper, then you’ve probably witnessed a public relations campaign. Behind that campaign are a bunch of PR professionals who made it happen, with the purpose to build relationships for an organization.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) states, “Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” There are a few key points in this definition that can help define PR.

Publics: Essentially, publics are audiences that are important to an organization. This could be employees, customers, stakeholders, opinion-formers and media.

Relationships: This is the main role of public relations, which is to bring together organizations and individuals with their main stakeholders and build mutually beneficial relationships.

Organization: An organization can be a government body, a business, a profession, a public service or a body concerned with health, culture or education.

A big part of working in public relations is having two-way communication. For an organization to be effective, it needs to listen to the opinions of others. There are a lot of other aspects that go into public relations as well, such as anticipating and analyzing the public opinion. You need to be able to plan and implement the organizations efforts to change public policy or influence people's opinions.

Someone who chooses to work in PR should have excellent written and verbal communication skills. And they should know how to work under pressure and be able to answer a variety of questions in front of people. The main role of someone working in PR, such as a PR specialist, is to communicate with the target audience directly or indirectly through media with the main purpose to create and maintain a positive image and create a strong relationship with the audience.

The success or failure of an organization, no matter how big or small, largely depends on their public relations team. In today's day and age, PR as a profession is becoming more and more popular because it’s something that every organization needs.