ultimate goal, but it is in the prince best interest to serve his community in order to get what he wants. Thus, to a certain extent this concept applies to Public Relations since as practitioners we cannot dissociate our work from the publics best interest. The emphasis on the interdependent relationship is one of the key elements of PR and Machiavelli sees it as a key to power. Hence, this perspective leads to the question: to what extent are PRs goals and methods different from those of ancient monarchs? Indeed, considering that some public relation practitioners work in the power sphere as politicians counselors, for example, and that they create an image to help them acquire power, shows their knowledge about its mechanisms. The fact remains, that the definition of power evolved since The Prince was first published, but if we consider it from the perspective above, we can infer that PR is in itself a form of power, and therefore follows some of Machiavellis principles. More precisely, PR practitioners are behind the ones in power. They create and represent the image and the philosophy of a company, for instance. They have the choice in exerting their power to deceive the public or to be ethical. A PR campaign that built trust for instance, was the Tylenol case as handled by Johnson & Johnson. Their approach to the crisis was directed towards the publics best interest and as a result the company did not suffer from bad consequences on the long run. On the other hand, the Exxon-Valdez oil-spill case is an example of deceptive PR. Indeed, not much was done for the Alaskan community and the corporation ended up being perceived in a very negative way by the general public. These two crisis communication cases show that people and mechanisms of power have things in common with Machiavellis times, but society has become less tolerant of evil strategies. Rulers or corporations still have the means to deceive, but people are no...
