PRSA Announces New Definition of Public Relations

In an effort to modernize the 1982 definition of public relations (the last one was developed on 1982), PRSA created an interesting crowdsourcing process using social media. Professionals were invited to submit comments to the “Public Relations Defined” blog. PRSA then created a word cloud to see which key words appeared most often. From that, three definitions were developed for professionals to vote on, again through social media.

So here’s the winning definition:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

See the announcement, “A Modern Definition of Public Relations,” to see the other two finalists and related discussions. There is also some reflection about why the word ethics doesn’t appear in the definition.

The whole initiative is not PRSA’s alone, by the way. It was developed out of a collaboration among several PR related organizations. 

So what do you think? Will this definition stand for decades to come?