Lobbying in the United Kingdom
Formal procedures enable individual members of the public to lobby their Member of Parliament but most lobbying activity centres on corporate, charity and trade association lobbying, where organisations seek to amend government policy through advocacy. Companies and individuals who operate in this sector commonly use the terms "public relations", "public affairs", "political consultancy" or "corporate affairs" to describe their activities (though this was also a reaction to the negative publicity surrounding the word "lobbyists" following the 1994 Cash-for-questions affair). Professional public affairs agencies, representing multiple clients, undertake a significant proportion of lobbying activity in addition to individual organisations conducting lobbying on an in-house basis.
History of public relations
Although the term "public relations" was not yet developed, academics like James E. Grunig and Scott Cutlip identified early forms of public influence and communications management in ancient civilizations. According to Edward Bernays, one of the pioneers of PR, "The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people." Scott Cutlip said historic events have been defined as PR retrospectively, "a decision with which many may quarrel."