In today's media-saturated culture, effective PR is a crucial part of any public undertaking. Image and public opinion mean everything, especially in the increasingly influential realm of social media. The individual or group who wins the media race will win the ultimate goal: the trust of the people.

Public relations, better known as PR, is the art and science of making people, governments and organizations look good. PR professionals work behind the scenes -- sending press releases, courting journalists, researching public opinion -- to position their clients as positive role models, ethical businessmen, concerned public officials, or at the very least, not criminals.

public relations
© iStockPhoto/Vladimir Jovanovic
Public relations professionals place articles in newspapers.

It can be difficult to tell public relations apart from advertising. Advertisers strive to sell a product or service, and public relations focuses on shaping an image. PR and marketing are even more related. Marketing uses research and targeted communications to achieve a desired action while public relations professionals strive to gain unpaid publicity from newspaper articles or TV news segments.

In this article, we'll start by defining exactly what public relations is, followed by what PR professionals do and the different areas in which they work.

Brief History of PR

Public relations arrived with the development of mass media. At the turn of the 20th century, "muckraking" journalists were stirring up public dissent against the powerful monopolies and wealthy industrialists who ruled the day. Early public relations firms combated the bad press by placing positive stories about their clients in newspapers.

Former journalists, such as Ivy Lee, used the first press releases to feed newspapers "the facts" about his misunderstood clients, namely the railroad and tobacco industries, and J.D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

Lee and company became so good at whitewashing even the darkest corporate sins that PR professionals earned a reputation as "spin doctors."

Much time has passed since the days of Ivy Lee, and to label today's PR professionals as dishonest would be to ignore how pervasive and important their work has become to people and organizations of all shapes and sizes -- small businesses, authors, activists, universities, and non-profit organizations -- not just big business and big government.