The purpose of public relations: from persuasion to mutual influence Authors Andrea Oliveira Universitat de Girona Paul Capriotti Universitat Rovira i Virgili Keywords: public relations, mutual influence, persuasion, publics, activity, passivity. Abstract The main objective of this paper is to examine the overall purpose of public relations, linking it to the degree of passivity or activity attributed to the respective publics in this field. Based on an extensive review of the main academic literature on public relations, the results reveal that “mutual influence” is the purpose most often used to determine the general objective of communication management between an organization and its publics. In addition, the results indicate that “mutual influence” as a purpose involves the consideration of the publics as active groups that create their own strategies based on their interests, with the intention of influencing organizations (and with the ability to influence them).Keywords: public relations, mutual influence, persuasion, publics, activity, passivity. Downloads Download data is not yet available. Author Biographies Andrea Oliveira, Universitat de Girona Investigadora i docent del Departament de Filologia i Comunicació, Facultat de Turisme, Universitat de Girona, Girona. Paul Capriotti, Universitat Rovira i Virgili Professor titular del Departament d’Estudisde Comunicació, Facultat de Lletres,Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona. Downloads PDF (Català) How to Cite Oliveira, A., & Capriotti, P. (2019). The purpose of public relations: from persuasion to mutual influence. Comunicació. Revista De Recerca I d’Ànàlisi, 36(2), 53–70. Retrieved from https://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/TC/article/view/146067 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 36 No. 2: novembre 2019 Section Articles