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WHEN DID PUBLIC RELATIONS BEGIN?

Contents

1 Introduction

2 Roman Society in the last years of the Republic

3 Julius Caesar's PR Strategy & Tactics
4 Conclusion
5 Bibliography

1 Introduction

When did Public Relations' begin? One could argue that it has existed ever since the Neanderthal era or that rock paintings dating to prehistory were a form of engineering consent' , intended to preserve the identity of the peoples who painted them .

Despite this, the accepted view is that the real birth of public relations dates to the Twentieth Century. Industrialisation, urbanisation and new technology meant news travelled faster and further than ever before. Rising education and living standards also gave people the ability and the time to access the media. The increasingly national, and even international, scale of business and, in particular, The Great War of 1914 1918 increasingly meant that events or decisions impacted individuals over hundreds of miles. Following the upheaval of the War the public was also less willing to accept outmoded standards of deference that history, for millennia, had demanded of them' . The Wall Street Crash of 1929 exacerbated the sense of social

crisis in which an increasing need was felt for professionals who could help organisations communicate and manage their reputations effectively.

The above may be true. It assumes, however, that human society is one of continuous progress and that complex urbanised societies facing sometimes traumatic social changes are something new. This is not necessarily the case. Furthermore, one can also argue that these ancient societies also produced individuals who carried out planned and sustained' campaigns to manage reputations' and engineer consent' from the public in order to succeed. Ancient Rome and the rise of Julius Caesar clearly demonstrate this.

2 Roman Society in the last years of the Republic

In 100BC, when Julius Caesar was born, the Republican Constitution of Rome had been in place for some 300 years . Though unwritten, it was a carefully constructed tool based on tradition and precedent, which aimed to ensure that no individual or group could control power.

By this time, however, the structures of Roman society were being revolutionised in a way not too dissimilar from the Western world in the Twentieth Century. These changes not only altered the way people thought about, and interacted with, each other. Their effect was so profound that the entire system of Government was in question.

These changes

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