PR Practitioner or Public Information Officer?

Hello everybody, welcome back. This week I will discuss international public relations concepts related to governments. How does the role of public relations shift when it comes to governments?

I just want to start by saying the more I read the articles for this week, the more I became confused over the difference between lobbying and public relations. I had to do some research for myself to understand the distinction between both. I stumbled across an article written by Elizabeth Blair of NPR that I would like to share with you all (especially if you felt the same sentiment I did). Blair explains the difference as this: lobbyists have to disclose the activities they do to change political processes versus with public relations you don't. However, the confusion comes because the themes of both professions play into each other because they both are meant to shape the publics opinions on the goals of their client. Public relations tends to work ahead of lobbying though because it focuses more on changing the "political landscape", while lobbyists work with various agencies that seek to influence specific legislation on Capitol Hill. Understanding this difference helped me make better sense of the articles this week.

The first article for this week, 'A Public Relations Tour of Embassy Row; The Latin Diplomatic Experience' was written by Zahrana and Villalobos. The authors argue that the lines between public relations and diplomacy have blurred so much so that ambassadors are now forced to take on a role more similar to that of a PR practitioner. The authors state, "diplomats compete with pressing domestic issues and a host of international issues to gain the attention of America's policy-makers, media, and public." This has caused many embassies to seek the help of American PR agencies and firms to communicate key issues affecting their countries. The article explores various strategies used in Latin-American embassies in Mexico, Cuba, Columbia, and Argentina to promote their key messaging.

I thought it was interesting to explore the way the media misrepresents Columbia due to the war on drugs. I found a blog article on The Borgen Project's website that speaks to why Columbia gets such a bad rep in the media. As most of us already know, Pablo Escobar was a prominent drug lord in the 1980s and because of his heavy influence in Columbia and prominently as a drug trafficker, the media correlates Columbia with drugs. The article states that the Netflix show ‘Narcos’ exploits this representation and glorifies drug trafficking and Pablo Escobar, which has caused many Columbians to endure the same feelings and emotions that they did when he was still a drug lord. I thought this was very interesting and I began to consider how heavy a role that media plays in portraying other countries or ethnic groups and what effect that has on them politically, economically, and emotionally.

The second article of the week was 'Government Public Relations' by Michael Turney. This article demonstrates how public relations is involved in government activities and how its position changed over time due to the public concern of applying PR to change the publics opinions. The article states that "By 1913, several special interest groups and political activists were beginning to express public concerns about the appropriateness of government agencies being involved in public relations, and particularly their attempts to influence legislative decisions. So, they began lobbying Congress in an attempt to have strict limits placed on government spending for public relations." This resulted in the Gillett Amendment created by the Interstate Commerce Commission which states that government funds cannot be used to pay "publicity experts" unless appropriated for that purpose. This also ties into last week's readings about PR in wartime, once WWI came about PR was propagated through propaganda. This changed the outlook the government had on public relations. Although PR is still used in government today, it is called something different to resonate better with the people. Public relations in government are commonly referred to as public information. 

According to the Bureau of Global Public Affairs, public information officers' mission is to serve the "American people" by communicating foreign policy goals and the significance of diplomacy. Public information officers also build and maintain relationships with foreign publics.

The other article "Public Relations Theory and Practice in Nation Building" by Taylor and Kent talks about nation building and the importance of public relations in that process. Nation building is explained as "a strategic process that involves different resources and policies, and communication is an integral process." Two foundations of nation-building are creating a national identity and unity. National identity is the conscious identification of a group of people with shared national goals, while national unity is the cultural orientation of events and entities that bring people together and help them work to achieve national goals. Taylor and Kent argue that through relationship-building strategies if public relations can rebuild communities in the U.S., then it can create and recreate communities throughout the world. The authors also state that all nation-building campaigns have similar functions to that of PR campaigns. Therefore, essentially the authors argue that PR plays a part in nation-building.

The last assigned article includes various chapters that explain the importance of media relations, governmental websites, and public information campaigns in government PR. I found these chapters to be very fundamental and common in public relations practices so I don't feel the need to harp over them.

Hope this wasn't too long, thank you for reading. See you next week!