Content area
Full Text
Book Title Public Relations The Profession and the Practice Author Dan Lattimore, Otis Baskin, Suzette T. Heiman, and Elizabeth L. Toth Edition Third ISBN 13 978-1-25-902569-3 ISBN 10 1-12-902569-1 Pages 393 Publisher Tata McGraw-Hill Education Private Limited, New Delhi.
The potential power and scope of good public relations practice is enormous. It has not yet been fully realised or utilized by many business managements in India, not to speak of the governments in power. In essence, good public relations is synonymous with good management. It is the good behaviour of an organization or an individual. It is the most powerful tool available to us for building favourable public opinion. And, public opinion is the most powerful force known to us in this present day world. Wherever public opinion is in favour we gain acceptance, authority and power. So, whoever wants to gain power and remain in authority will benefit by learning good public relations practices.
There are many instances of established organizations resorting of all sorts of methods in the name of public relations in order to manipulate favourable public opinion. And, they miserably fail in their attempt because of lack of expertise in good public relations.
The damage due to the Bhopal gas tragedy, referred to as one of the world's worst industrial disasters, could have been minimised if the public relations department of Union Carbide had bothered to intimate their employees and the local community in time on the simple safety measure of putting a wet cloth on their face to avoid inhalation of the lethal gas. It was a failure of public relations of the Union Carbide management.
Despite the fact that Coca-Cola is the world leader in beverages with professional expertise to manage a giant multinational corporation, their management had miserably failed and had to close down their operations in Plachimada, a village in Kerala, because of their poor public relations. They never could understand the feelings and expectations of the local community and respond to it appropriately to build up rapport with them.
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India who set up the Koodankulam Atomic Power Plant in Tamil Nadu with an expected cost of nearly ?16,000 crore...