My understandings of Public Relations

One of the most confusing questions I have had to answer in my college career is the one that comes after telling someone my concentration is public relations. If I do not receive that glazed over and confused look, I get asked "what will you do with that?" It has even been a joke between me and some of my aspiring PR friends. We have been confused about the exact responsibilities we will have once we make it to "the real world" and the role of a public relations professional. I have been torn between some semesters thinking that my job will be to strictly write press releases, and deal with the media and other times thinking my job is to plan and execute events. With the sudden boom in social media, my new belief is that my job will be to control the online presence of whatever company I am working for. As you can see these are 3 different roles that could lead to very different jobs.

After many semesters, and graduation right before me, I have finally come to the decision that Public Relations is going to be what the business you are working for wants it to be. I might be an event planner one week, a liaison between the CEO and his employees, or the business and it's consumers another week, I might just sit in front of a computer and update social media all day. Whatever the job, I am beginning to prepare for all the possibilities.

Edward Burns defines Public Relations as "the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest, and plans, executes and evaluates a program of action to earn public understanding and exceptance."

Even with that definition, I still do not know how exactly to explain what my role will be when I become a professional...maybe I will just tell people "to rule the world" it's ambitious, but someone has to do it.