HISTORY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Just like other disciplines, Public Relations have its fair share of history and evolution. When did Public Relation became an actual profession? How is Public Relation of the past, different from the present? We will summarize them in this post!

Welcome to today's blog post! As we delve deeper into the topic, we should also equip ourselves with the origins of public relation! Though there are several "fathers" of public relation, today, we will focus on Edward Bernays.

Edward Bernays initiated the "Torches of freedom" movement as a symbolism of women's fight against the social stigma held against them.

FUN FACT: Did you know that Edward Bernays is the nephew of Sigmund Freud? As such, his perception of public relation was widely influenced by Freud!

How it came about

In the past, people often associated negative connotations with women and smoking. There were stereotypes surrounding women smoking and they are often perceived as "loose". However, it was in the 1928, where Edward Bernays saw public relation as a persuasion method that incorporates psychological aspects, to manipulate behavioral and perception changes amongst people. As such, he uses the strategic communication techniques to rebrand cigarettes and changed how people perceive women smoking. After the "Torches of freedom" campaign, women gained more social status, respect and power.

During the World War 1, the United States made use of public relations to disseminate patriotic information to the widely fragmented audience, so as to persuade more people to be on their side and contribute to the war efforts. Apart from spreading such compelling messages, they also censored opposing contents so as to minimize outside influence on their people. As such, public relations during World War 1 was largely seen as a propaganda, where the focus is more on emotional and psychological appeal rather than factual accounts of information.

However, it was also after World War 1 that public relation was finally starting to be seen as an actual profession!