The stage offers an avenue of approach to the public which must be regarded both from the standpoint of the numbers of individuals it reaches as well as from the circles of influence it creates by word of mouth and otherwise. To the public relations counsel therefore it offers a wide field.
Through coöperation with playwrights or managers, ideas can be given currency on the stage. When they can be translated to the action that takes place upon a stage, they are given emphasis by the visual and auditory presentation.
The motion picture falls into two fields for the purposes of the public relations counsel. There is the field of the feature film. Here any direct utilization of the public relations counsel’s ideas must come indirectly and be taken by the producer of the film from some of the other organs of thought communication. The producer may adopt for the subject of a film some idea which the public relations counsel has agitated. The film, for instance, dealing with the drug traffic came very definitely as a result of the work carried on to help relieve the drug evil.
The second field is one the public relations counsel can employ more directly. Educational films are made to order to-day to illustrate specific points for public consumption, from showing how a product is made to showing the necessity for subway relief in a big city. These films are usually shown before a special group audience arranged for by the public relations counsel or before some other group interested in the idea the particular film stands for. Thus a Chamber of Commerce can further a film having to do with the need for better port facilities.
One phase of this kind of film is the news reel which, controlled by a private organization, films events and occasions which may have been created by the public relations counsel, but which carries because of its value in the competitive market of events.