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Public Relations in Society pdf

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Added on  2020-05-16

Public Relations in Society pdf

   Added on 2020-05-16

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Running head: PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SOCIETY PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SOCIETYName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor note:
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1PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SOCIETY United Kingdom has been one of the forerunners in the field of innovation in bothtechnological and creative fields. The industrial revolution begun in Europe and UnitedKingdom was one of the leaders in taking part in it. In fact, the industrial revolution was rootedin United Kingdom where it begun (Hartwell, 2017). The British people gave birth to a numberof innovations and technologies and were pioneer in starting overseas trade. Industrialrevolution begun in the later part of the 18th century (Mokyr, 2015). The advent of printingpress by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany rolled the wheels of public relations in its mostprimitive form in the mid 15th century. Newspapers started to be printed in Germany for thefirst time and were adopted by England after 1695, which flourished rapidly since (Clarke,2017). Basil Clarke who established “Editorial Services” in 1924 started the first trend ofpublic relations as an official profession. The thesis statement of the essay is:“UnitedKingdom has been one of the leader and pioneer in the field of Public Relations, and thepublic relations has been used by the country very effectively in nation building and socialtransformation of the nation.”The history of United Kingdom has been characterised by a number of highs and lows.The country has been however way ahead of time in a number of aspects including technology,innovation, creativity and governance. The country has been one of the very first to establish itsimperial colonies in a number of Asian and African countries (Cain & Hopkins, 2016). Thecountry had colonies all over the world. Therefore, especially it was necessary for UnitedKingdom to make its public relation system strong and effective, so that it can communicatewith such a vast area and population it was dealing with. In the mid 17th Century when theEnglish Civil War happened there was a direct clash between Charles I and the Parliament,neither of the sides were willing to blink, Charles was defeated and executed later (Woolrych,2017). This was the first time when both the parties of the war started propaganda bydistributing pamphlets to establish their opinions and gain majority support from the
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2PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SOCIETY population. Therefore, it is noteworthy how from the very beginning the efforts of nationbuilding and governance have been featured with public relations and propaganda inEngland.The first newspaper in England started publishing in the year 1665 and was called theLondon Gazette, which was published twice a week (Clarke, 2017). Many more newspapersfollowed suit. The newspapers in England often became a tool for the monarchy to influencethe general public within the country and also in its colonies beyond the borders (Jowett &O'donnell, 2014). A very interesting incident of using the public relations and culture in the 17thCentury England by the monarchy happened due to Charles II the son of the executed monarchCharles I about whom mention has been done above. Execution of Charles I by the Britishparliament had tarnished the image of the monarchy, now it was on his son Charles II toreclaim the position. Charles II used culture as a tool to reclaim his prestige and filled his courtroom with collecting startling and luxurious art works from the world around which became atalking point all over the nation. The use of propaganda was so much noticeable in his artworks(Joffe, 2017). There was a huge larger than life size portrait of Charles by the painter JohnMichael Wright, in which the king is seen to be sitting with lustrous and luxurious dressesholding the ruling sceptre with engraved “an enduring image of monarchy restored.” The useof culture as a PR tool by the monarch to spread propaganda about the supremacy of themonarchy was very evident from these artwork installations. In the painting called “TheSea Triumph of Charles II”, it is seen that Charles is riding through the waters by Neptunewhile Venus looks down from the skies. Noteworthy here is that it highlighted Charles’proactive role in bringing an end to the third Anglo Dutch War with the “Treaty ofWestminster”. The British monarchy has seen a number of tumultuous times through which it hassuccessfully got through and survives till today. The role of propaganda and successful use of
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3PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SOCIETY public relations in the survival of the British media is worth studying. The social transformationthat has been happening in Britain through the times is much influenced by the Britishmonarchy. The Monarchy has been the earliest form of government is the United Kingdom.There has been a history of more than thousands years of how the monarchy has shaped andtransformed British society (Royal.uk, 2018). In the beginning it was the absolute authority of the monarch on the country. Socialtransformation by various means led to the supremacy of parliament over time, which is arepresentative body of the people. The starting point was the devolution of power by King Johnwho promulgated the Magna Carta in 1215 and stated that the king is under the same lawswhich govern the public. This was followed by Edward I who created the first assembly ofrepresentatives of the cities in 1295 which was the first initiative towards establishment of theBritish parliament (Holt, Garnett & Hudson, 2015). These summoning of nobles andrepresentatives became regular and parliament became a phenomenon of governance. Post thisthe above mentioned incident of the clash between the Parliament and Charles I happenedfollowing which Charles was executed. The victory of the Parliament gave a direct hit to theprestige of the monarchy which ruled on divine right. Oliver Cromwell led the parliament andestablished it as a strong and stable institution (Horspool, 2017). Therefore, it is clearly visiblehow the British Monarchy played an outstanding role in social transformation of Britain.They basically ushered in the system of parliament and helped in empowerment of the people.It is worthy of noting how both the British monarchy and the parliamentarygovernment has been using the media and PR tools in their respective propaganda. The Britishmedia is always historically seen as a tool of propaganda by the royal family. The members ofthe royal family have been always portrayed in a very positive light. In the recent days most ofthe coverages of the royal family by British newspapers include beautiful and perfectly dressedpictures of the family members doing some social work or something positive. The royal
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