Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization to the public in order to influence their perception. Public relations and publicity differ in that PR is controlled internally, whereas publicity is not controlled and contributed by external parties. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The exposure is mostly media-based, and this differentiates it from advertising as a form of marketing communications. Public relations aims to create or obtain coverage for clients for free, also known as earned media, rather than paying for marketing or advertising also known as paid media. But in the early 21st century, advertising is also a part of broader PR activities.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to public affairs:
American Water Works Association (AWWA) is an international non-profit, scientific and educational association founded to improve water quality and supply. Established in 1881, it is a lobbying organization representing a membership of around 50,000 members worldwide.
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is a nonprofit trade association for public relations professionals. It was founded in 1947 by combining the American Council on Public Relations and the National Association of Public Relations Councils. That year, it had its first annual conference and award ceremony.
The Lincoln Group is a defunct Washington, D.C.-based defense contractor. The firm was hired by the United States military to perform public relations (PR) in Iraq during the Iraq War. In 2005, the Los Angeles Times revealed the company had been paying for news stories in Iraqi newspapers.
The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is a global network of communications professionals.
Burson Cohn & Wolfe is a multinational public relations and communications firm, headquartered in New York City. In February 2018, parent WPP Group PLC announced that it had merged its subsidiaries Cohn & Wolfe with Burson-Marsteller into Burson Cohn & Wolfe.
J.R. O'Dwyer Company is an online and print news and information publisher covering the public relations and marketing communications fields in New York City, established in 1968.
A student-run advertising agency acts like a real advertising agency, but is operated by students.
Christopher Bravacos is an American communications consultant and lobbyist in Pennsylvania. He is the President and CEO of Bravo Group, a communications and lobbying firm.
Public relations is a term that refers to the management of communications between an entity such as an organization or a celebrity, and stakeholders, internal or external, such as investors, employees, communities, customers or clients. It is concerned with reputation building, and is often considered to be a subset to marketing, advertising, or corporate communications.
The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication is a UK-based global trade association for companies which provide social media measurement and traditional media measurement,evaluation and communication research.
The Glover Park Group was an American communications consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 2001 by former White House and Democratic campaign officials Carter Eskew, Michael Feldman, Joe Lockhart and Chip Smith. In January 2021, the firm merged with Finsbury and Hering Schuppener to form Finsbury Glover Hering, which itself later merged in December 2021 with New York City-based Sard Verbinnen & Co to form FGS Global.
MikeWorldWide is a public relations firm. The company works in public relations and marketing, technology, digital and social media marketing, public affairs and government relations, corporate communications, healthcare, sustainability, and visual branding. Michael W. Kempner is the company’s founder and CEO. The firm's corporate headquarters is in East Rutherford, New Jersey; the firm's operating headquarters is in New York City.
Makovsky is an integrated communications firm based in New York City, with an additional office operating out of Washington D.C. The agency ranked 23rd among independent PR firms, and employs 30 people.
Bob Gold & Associates is an independent Southern California-based publication relations agency founded by Bob Gold in 1997. The company has offices in New York City, Chicago and Southern California. Bob Gold & Associates is also a co-founder of the Whiteoaks International Network, serving organizations around the world with 15 partnering agencies in 5 continents.
FGS Global is a public relations company formed in 2021 by the merger of Finsbury Glover Hering and Sard Verbinnen & Co. It is a subsidiary of British advertising and media conglomerate WPP plc.
Truth Initiative is a nonprofit tobacco control organization "dedicated to achieving a culture where all youth and young adults reject tobacco". It was established in March 1999 as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement between the attorneys general of 46 states, the District of Columbia and five United States territories, and the tobacco industry. Truth Initiative is best known for its youth smoking prevention campaign. Its other primary aims include conducting tobacco control research and policy studies, organizing community and youth engagement programs and developing digital cessation and prevention products, including through revenue-generating models. The organization changed its name from the American Legacy Foundation to Truth Initiative on September 8, 2015, to align its name with that of its Truth campaign. As of 2016, the organization had more than $957 million in assets and a staff of 133 based primarily in its Washington, D.C., office.
Berk Communications is an American public relations firm that works in consumer lifestyle, food and beverage, travel, sports and entertainment. Ron Berkowitz is the company's founder and CEO. The firm's corporate headquarters is in New York City, New York, with an office in Los Angeles, California.
Takashi Inoue is a public relations practitioner, scholar, and theorist. His theories include the "three forces of hyper-globalization", the "Self-Correction Model of Public Relations", and the "Japan model". He was the first to teach public relations courses at a major university in post-war Japan and is the Chairman and CEO of Inoue Public Relations, which he founded in 1970. He is a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University and at Kobe Institute of Computing. He was quoted in foreign press reports on the East Japan Earthquake and the 2018 arrest in Japan of Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn. He has written about modern Japan's lack of PR skills and has described the resulting "Deficiency of Japanese diplomacy", and in 2010 he wrote that corporate Japan's scandals have created "A culture of apologies: Communicating crises in Japan"