The scope of public relations work today clearly is nothing like it was in early times or even during the jump-start period following World War I. Even so, the pattern of development can be seen in the four orienting traditions: the rhetorician and press agent tradition, the journalistic publicity tradition, the persuasive communication campaign tradition, and finally, a relationship-building and two-way communication tradition. We close with a quote from veteran public relations educator and historian Scott M. Cutlip who wrote in The Unseen Power, "The essentiality of public relations as a management function that Ivy Lee envisaged in the early 1900s becomes clearer each passing day as our global society becomes even more dependent on effective communication and on an interdependent, competitive world."²⁹

To learn more about the public relations history watch the interview with Harold Burson, Clip #5, on the book's CD-ROM.

²⁹ Scott M. Cutlip, The Unseen Power: Public Relations. A History (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1994), p. 761.