Bhubaneswar: Students from across the state learnt about the role of public relations (PR) during a national-level PR conclave held in the city on Saturday.
Experts spoke on how PR influences public opinion which has a great role to play in strengthening democracy to a significant extent.
"It helps in building mutual understanding and developing a trustworthy relation-ship between an institution and public," said information and public relations minister Pratap Jena.
The Institute of Media Studies and the information and public relations department and Utkal University jointly organised the event titled "Strengthening Democracy: Role of PR".
"It is encouraging that a growing number of PR practitioners are becoming aware of the social and political ethos of their profession. Adapting to professionalism, they have remained the agents of change and development," Jena said.
Speaking on the occasion, chairman of Press Council of India (PCI) Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad discussed the positive contributions of public relations.
He also pointed out its negative role in the society. He talked about paid journalism through which false information or half-truth is spread by PR agencies through media. He urged journalists not to canalise their entire energy on negative aspects of governance alone as doing so might tend to undermine hundreds of positive aspects and hard work of people in governance and demoralise them.
"The government aims to be proponents of freedom of press. We are committed to safeguard the interests of journalists," he said referring to free media.
Vice-chancellor of Central University of Orissa Sachidananda Mohanty stressed on the code of conduct for the profession. The event had also two plenary sessions on "Transparency in public administration and good governance" and "PR in mobilising public opinion and CSR activities" where eminent academicians from across the country shared their views.
