Maintaining a critical, questioning perspective is essential to strategic public relations. Explain how the Socratic Method of the ancient Greeks, with its emphasis on analytics and critical thinking can be applied to the practice of strategic public relations today

What will be an ideal response?

• Socrates taught by questioning his listeners, encouraging them to
find deeper truths and understanding.
• His famous students, Aristotle and Plato, emphasized the need for
a trained mind that reasons and looks beneath the surface.
• This method of the Ancient Greeks became the foundation for
building critical thought in the Western World.
• As communicators and persuaders, we must never assume or
make judgments about our target audiences based on "scanning"
or prejudice. Rather we must question and challenge our own
assumptions and consider multiple perspectives in addition to
simply our own.
• We must conduct thorough research on the substance of issues
and audiences so that we can indeed think critically about them.
• Critical thinking based upon research and relevant information will
help us to formulate the best PR strategy for our organization and
provide insights that lead to better decision-making.