Recruiting The Public Relations Officer During British Colonial Malaysia

This is a study on the growth of public relations in Malaysia based on the advertisements placed in the newspapers during the colonial period. Tracing the historical development serves to make a better understanding about the nature of public relations practice. This paper therefore aims at exploring the development of the public relations profession by studying the advertisements placed in the nationwide newspapers, the Straits Times and the Singapore Free Press & Mercantile Advertiser from 1939 which included the early advertisement that contained the phrase “public relations” to 1956 a year before the independence of the Federation of Malaysia. An analysis of the advertisements was made to fully understand the historical development of public relations in Malaya or then Malaysia. The very first advertisement that was identified was on 31 January 1948, which was placed by the Department of Public Relations of the federal government. The British colonial government had placed another four advertisements in 1949 and 1950. A British mining Co. was the first corporation to hire an information & public relations officer in 1956. The results showed some differences and similarities through the analyses of advertisements in the job specification, which included qualification, duties, and salaries. The results revealed that those who had higher education and experience obtained a higher salary. The results also showed that some advertisers companies/organizations had substituted academic qualifications for working experience) when advertising for their public relations personnel.


INTRODUCTION
The father and pioneer of American public relations, Edward Bernays (1928) mentioned of new activities that called for a new designation of the practitioners. To him, the specialist propagandist in interpreting ideas and enterprises, and in interpreting the public of new ideas and enterprises to the public, has come to be known by the title of "public relations counsel".
The growth of a new profession of public relations was because of an increasingly complex nature of modern life thus resulting to make the actions of one part of the public to understand other sectors of the public. The public relations counsel has many duties and responsibilities. He makes his ides known to the general public by working with the media and with groups in society. In the development of the practice, the expert public relations may be known as public relations counsel or director or in big companies he is called director or vice-president or even secretary. Sometimes he is known as commissioner or cabinet officer. However, regardless the title he may be called, the functions performed are clear and the advice given has specific bearing on the conduct of the individuals or groups with whom he is working.
The developments and changes have made the world smaller: changes such as globalization, communication technology, information technology, and other phenomena guarantee that people will be influenced almost everywhere by events anywhere in this world. These developments have created great opportunities and several challenges for public relations practitioners. The current role of public relations with the social crises and present issues was never expected years ago. The role of "public relations practitioners" is complex and sensitive. It is no longer primarily a communicator. The practitioners must know the functions and activities of their organizations, know the happenings inside and outside their organizations, must behave as relationship builder who tries to handle and prevent expected problems, and expected to bring usable facts, objectivity, and awareness into the decisionmaking process. Practitioners must also have good skills in public speaking and writing; having the necessary experience to play a significant role in the development of their organizations (Ahmad, 2010).
The question uppermost is how public relations has developed over the years. Each country has its own history to record the growth of public relations. some countries have seen public relations developing after the second world war (Bentele & Wehmeier, 2009) while other countries have shown evidence of public relations being practiced as a profession and as an occupation before the war (L'Etang, 2007).
There are many possibilities to study the historical growth of public relations. One is to have an interview with veteran practitioners and asking them to narrate the events of the past. The second course is to peruse the documents in the library or in the archives to have an idea of the practice in the past. One is not been able to discern the growth of public relations skills and expertise unless a historical approach is conducted to understand such a phenomenon.
One way, which is seldom done, is to study advertisements placed in the media by organisations that want public relations officers. Public relations practitioners are employed by organisations. And organisations placed advertisements to recruit their public relations practitioners. This study is therefore a study on the advertisements placed by organisations in the newspapers through the years before independence, the first being placed in 1939. By studying various advertisements over the years, one can then be able to have an idea how public relations have developed over the years. The objective of this paper undertakes a study on the historical development of public relations practice by studying advertisements placed in the newspapers over the years before independence.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Scholars have postulated on the consequences that the economic and political systems have on the development of public relations in own countries (Bentele & Wehmeier, 2009).
Malaysia is no exception, except that the remark made by Bentele and Wehmeier (2009)  Other scholars hold a different view by suggesting that public relations was being practiced in early time. The oldest Malay kingdom has included the northern Malaya greater coalition of kingdoms and Kedah. Thus, the earliest practice of public relations in Malaysia could have originated in these early Malay kingdoms or even from earlier kingdoms that are not been discovered yet (Adnan, 1999). So public relations could have started during the days of the Malacca sultanate given this argument.  (Idid, 1992).
A yet different perspective is being taken by other scholars who trace the development of public relations through a historiographical approach. Bentele (2013Bentele ( , 2015, postulated a historical growth of public relations by using a theoretical model, rather than a descriptive narration based on a fact-event public relations historiography. This was in contrast to Hoy (2002) who added periodization as another type but Bentele (2013) disagreed saying that periodizaton can be subsumed under the fact-event historiography. Using this stratification model, Bentele is of the opinion that the first type of PR as a social system and a later type of PR as an occupational field and as a profession, can be better understood. Given this stratification one could then make a study on the advertisements as a study on the early growth of the second public relations layer with public relations developing as a main occupation and the emergence of specialized departments (Bentele, 2013: pg 255). This 583 | P a g e argument can then be applied as part of the growth of public relations in Malaysia in consonance with the media system in Malaysia.
The emergence of PR both as a regular vocation and later as a profession, was decisively influenced by the development of mass communication. It can generally be assumed that the expanded activities of the media and their expanded influence had some influence for institutions (e.g. through negative reporting). It has also been shown in the public relations history of U.S that the activities of the muckracking journalism led to the formation of corporate PR and to the establishment of independent PR consultants and PR agencies (Grunig & Hunt, 1984;Hiebert, 1966). (Bentele, 2015: 39). It was Idid (1992) who said that modern public relations ought to be seen with the development of the mass media system. Did the media through its reports lead to the growth of public relations or were there other factors besides the media that lead to the growth of the Malaysian public relations?
It is through the media, then the newspapers, that corporations and government agencies, can address the general public. And through the advertisements companies and government agencies will be able to specify what personnel are part of their organisational requirement.
Hence newspapers and advertisements become integral to the growth of public relations in the public sphere. Department was in charge of several campaigns and managing several duties as part of its mission to restore the confidence of the people toward the British Government that was reestablishing itself after the Japanese occupation (Idid, 1992). To carry out its duties the Public Relations Department had placed advertisements in the Straits Times.
A total of six advertisements on public relations were found in The Straits Times and the Singapore Free Press and Merantile from 1939 to 1957. These six advertisements were divided in two main categories, the first category was the public sector which included 5 585 | P a g e governmental advertisements that were presented by the Department of Public Relations, and the second category was the private sector that included 1 advertisement by the British Mining Co. It can be seen that the dominance of these advertisements was on public sectors advertisements.
It is to be noted that the first advertisement was placed in the Straits Times two years after the The results showed also, that three of these advertisements did not indicate any "duties and responsibilities" for the practitioners. These advertisements contained two from Department  Studying advertisements on public relations has given an insight into the organisations that had placed such requirements. They gave an indication of the salary structure, some job specifications and suggested a career path for the practitioners who occupied the positions.
Public relations was emerged as an occupation way back in 1939 but was really acknowledged in 1946.