The Press Agentry Model Media Essay
The earliest PR model to appear was press agentry or publicity. It emerged in the late 19th century and was characterized as one-way, source-to-receiver communication where the flow of information is only from the sender to the receiver. The sender is not much concerned about the second partys feedback, reviews and so on. Press agentry attempts to change the behavior of publics without changing the behavior of the organization. Under the press agentry, public relations strive for publicity in the media in almost any way possible. Grunig Hunt confirm that the model involves a propaganda function (Grunig Hunt, 1984 pp. 21) and academics such as Butterick (2009), Theaker (2004), and Johnston Zawawi (2004) agree that accuracy and credibility are somewhat compromised as the goal of the model is to influence the audience by manufacturing news, be that by way of stunts or explicit publicity seeking.
