The social functions of the public relations service of the regional executive branch

Abstract

This article studies the social functions of a public relations service of a regional executive authority on the example of the information and publishing department of the labor and employment agency of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The Public Relations Service is regarded as a social institution, wherein this institute is interpreted as an approved and stable set of statuses and roles. This set acts in society, and its goal is to form an environment for effective public communications between social actors. The authors consider the main approaches to the analysis of the service responsible for public relations as a social institution; in addition, they define the specifics of the social functions of the service implementing public relations — the executive authority of the region. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that the public relations service, which operates in the structure of the authority, determines, among other things, a positive idea about all public authorities in general. The purpose of the study is to analyze the social function of the public relations service of the regional executive authorities. The authors have employed the following methods: expert survey, content analysis of media materials, secondary analysis of data from sociological analysis of the image of the state employment service of the population of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Based on the results of theoretical, methodological, and empirical studies, the authors conclude that in addition to the obvious social function of information, the public relations service performs a managerial social function through the creation of an information and communication environment in which an effective dialogue between social actors unfolds. The public relations service of the executive branch of the region, in turn, has its own specifics of these social functions. This is one of the social institutions that creates the conditions not only for the gradual and growing development of the image of the executive branch, but also for the development of a favorable perception of the population about public services provided by the government.