Functions of Public Relations The functions of public relations take many forms in different organizations. Public relations specialists handle organizational and societal functions such as media, community, consumer, industry, and governmental relations as well as political campaigns, interest-group representation, conflict mediation, or employee and investor relations. They help an organization and its public become accustomed and adapt to each other (U.S. DOL, 2005). Public relations specialists handle organizational functions such as media, publicity, employee relations, investor relations, community relations, consumer relations and government affairs. However, public relations are not only about telling the organization 's side of the story. A very important part of the job is to understand the feelings and worries of consumers, employees, and other groups. To get better communication, public relations specialists create and preserve cooperative relationships with representatives of community, consumer, employee, and public interest groups, and with representatives from magazines and newspapers as well as broadcast journalism (U.S. DOL, 2005).
To advertise the interest of a company, the public relations department is mainly concerned with the preparation of verbal and written materials, which are intended to influence the public. From a societal approach, as defined, public relations are the firm 's communications and relationships with its diverse publics. The publics can include customers, suppliers, stockholders, employees, the government, the general public, and the society in which the organization operates (Van Hook, 2005). The public relations of a company are fundamental to the company 's success. Whether the public relations department is formal or informal, it is critical that the organization is concerned with the public relations. Social responsibility is referred to often from a societal approach to an
References: McNamara, Carter. Public and Media Relations. Retrieved: 11/20/05. http://www.mapnp.org/library/pblc_rel/htm The Department of Consumer Relations & Communications. Department of Consumer Relations. Retrieved: 11/20/05. http://www.shb.ie/s15/c.html The Public relations Profession: Careers in Public relation. An Overview. Retrieved: 11/20/05. http://www.prsa.org/_resources/careeroverview.asp?ident=prof2 U.S Department of Labor. Public Relation Specialist. Retrieved: 11/20/05. http://stats.bls.gov/oco/oco86.htm Van Hook, Steven R. All About Public Relations. Media Relations. Retrieved: 11/20/05. http://aboutpublicrelations.net/media.htm