PUBLIC RELATION AND COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT IN ITALY.

The development of Public relation as a discipline has qualitative and quantitative aspects. The quantitative growth is reflected in clear numbers: 70 thousand practitioners in all sectors of the marketplace, and some 40 thousand students enrolled in undergraduate courses in public relations as well as communication sciences (the latter are the large majority). The qualitative aspects are related to a truly new awareness of the pervasinevenss of the profession in every walk of Italian society. Public relations is progressively less confused with propaganda, persuasion and manipulation. Italy is showing a peculiar trend towards the development of quality in relationship management. Despite the term pr is still associated with devalued and denigrated images, the intentional underlining and strengthening of the “public relations” label induces a progressive reduction of negative stereotypes and introduces an innovative cultural statement of pr theories and techniques.