Secretary General of the International Public Relations Conference in Iran

Iran's Public Relations is in Transition

"Public relations is capturing the hearts, conciliating the public or treating them with discretion, which today is called customer orientation. Public relations is achieving a balance between public and private interest and organizations' interests and public interests are the same." Says Mehdi Bagherian, Secretary General of International PR Conference in Iran and Chief Editor of Kargozar Quarterly who has been working in the scientific and executive field of public relations for 15 years but called himself a trainee of public relations.

There is only one week to the 3rd International PR Conference in Iran. We take this opportunity to have a friendly conversation with him.

· Considering the two previous International PR Conferences in Iran, how did you find the impact of such conferences on improving the scientific, specialist and applied knowledge?

· From my point of view, public relations has been improved considerably on every aspects during the past decade so that reinforcing scientific events has led to enrichment of public relations in all dimensions. Holding conferences is one of these events which have changed the opinion of some of managers who used to see public relations as an advertisement and formality tool. In addition, we succeeded to be present in the global society of public relations and have an active participation in some global processes of public relations. At present, we play an active role in many scientific and professional sectors and all of these could not have been achieved without such scientific events.

·  Did holding such conferences help us with affecting the other countries view on Iran?

· Our achievements have been great. Part of our responsibility is projecting a real image of Iran. The speakers of the Conference are representatives of public opinion. Therefore, I believe that what is happening in the world today is the war of public opinion. Thus we need to invest in media capabilities to show the real image of Iran because establishing communications with public opinion could propel minds towards the realities of our country. Therefore , it could be said that public relations is the secret of success or cause of failure of an individual, organization or a country but this importance has not been seen by the State planners yet.

· Do the foreign guests have the same opinion on the improvement of public relations in Iran?

· Of course we could not expect them to have enough information about Iran's public relations because we could have not yet introduced ourselves in international areas properly!

· You mean that we couldn't make our presence felt?

· No, we couldn't say that. Because we have serious problems for practicing in certain areas and this problem is not limited to public relations. Though I can say that considering our presence in scientific societies in recent years, we are not far behind the world.

· What are the causes of deficiencies in Iran's public relations?

· This problem at national level is resulting from the administrative- social system of our country. A closed system blocks the free flow of information. Most of governmental agencies have closed systems and therefore public relations has no status in them. Because it is not supposed to inform the public transparently. Public relations is supposed to practice in advertising and ceremonies areas and disclaims organizations' negative actions.

· How do you see the process of Iran's public relations progression?

· It depends on the efforts and operations in this area. Iran's public relations is in transition and period of transition is usually dangerous. We shouldn't let the practitioners to take advantage of this situation to use public relations as a tool for obtaining their personal interests. On the contrary, they should establish good communications with managers of organizations and the government. But considering the status quo, I think we will pass through this period safely and reach a well-deserved status.

· What is our status in the world of public relations?

· We have some contact with foreign public relations associations and organizations but I don't believe in these contacts very much because many of these associations have become a tool for misuse and they are also underdeveloped. But some of them could not be denied. I think ICCO (International Communications Consultancy Organization) is the only professional public relations organization which its members are full of good intentions and at present, it is the most professional and powerful public relations association in the world. In addition, we have started to publish specialist article in some public relations international journals and if we expand our activities, we will reach good communications in national and international level.