PR and Journalism convergence: introduction

What is journalism? What is public relations? How do they work: individually or collectively? What is the relationship between journalism and public relations?

Those questions look simple and clear when we read them only once without deeper consideration, but I would not say like that. Why?

Firstly, all communication offshoots are unlike and very similar at the same time. In this blog I would like to share my thoughts and understanding about what journalism and public relations is, furthermore, how do they work together or do they work collectively at all.

Both journalism and public relations are the offshoots of communication and they both are closely related to each other when we start talking about media. For example, does every media inhabitant can differ journalistic product (article, video, audio report, etc.) from public relations products made or initiated by public relations practitioners (article, video, audio report, etc.) In my opinion, no, because here the context and special knowledge are necessary.

From my point of view, particularly nowadays we should start pondering more about journalism and public relations convergence. The main reason, in my opinion, is widespread social media that irresistibly creates more and more new possibilities for all forms and offshoots of communication including journalism and public relations, too. As a result, convergence of journalism and public relations is getting stronger and stronger.

Why have I chosen this topic? I am an exchange student from Lithuania, University of Vilnius. At my home I study journalism, here, in Jyväskylä, my course is communication science. Certainly, my field of interests is media and all those processes taking into account journalism and public relations, too. I have been always wondering how I could draw a strong and clear line between journalism and public relations, because sometimes observing media and even knowing the context I get lost: is this article journalistic or initiated by public relations. I hope that the attempts looking for answer to the question ‘what is the relationship between journalism and public relations?’ will not be worthless.