Political PR
Political PR is the process through which political protagonists seek to affect, establish and maintain good relations and reputations with the target audience by using effective communication strategies and activities to ensure support and gain political goals.
What is political PR?
Political PR is interconnected with political communication, political marketing, and political relations. Political PR is a tool for the development of communication for both the internal and external public. Political PR holds its origin in American Politics. The American theorist and political consultant Edward Louis Bernays is considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda and is referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations."
A person who runs political PR campaigns faces as many challenges as a PR pro will experience: getting media attention, managing public perceptions, searching for receptive journalists, and more.
Activities of political public relations
In order to successfully accomplish the goal of political communication – the persuasion of the public, political institutions have to perform four types of activities of political public relations: media management, information management, image management, and internal communication of the organizations.
- Media management consists of producing suitable media events that will draw the media's attention. The three most important techniques that are being used in media management are soundbite, pseudo-events, and spin.
- Information management is the control of the information that political protagonists deliver to the voters. It is often done by selective dissemination, limiting, and/or distortion of information.
- Image management can be seen as the personal image of an individual politician and ways to shape him so that he is suitable for the organizational aims.
- Internal communication management of the organization should open channels for the internal information flow and the coordination of the activities.