Public relations activities in public administration: The example of Turkish Armed Forces

Public relations activities has a vital importance for public administrations and establishments in the 21th century. Public wants to know what the people who rule them do and how, for what purpose and when they do the things. With this knowledge the public will learn, they will confirm or won't confirm the things they do. Turkish Armed Forces fulfills the missions given to him regarding to constitution of Turkish Republic by using very important part of governments budget. The most important mission of Turkish Armed Forces is certainly protecting his country against the threats from inside and outside. While fulfilling this important mission, Turkish Armed Forces is using very important part of governments budget and also is rulling a huge manpower. Considering their families, Turkish Armed Forces is influencing many people such as officers, sergeants, government officials, specialist sergeants and soldiers serving for himself with his internal and external administirations. In this point of view, such as the other public administrations and establishments, Turkish Armed Forces also has to inform public and all public administrations and establishments about the activities he prosecutes. Turkish Armed Forces uses public relations activities effectively which are face to face with public. Surveys which are done by different administrations, on different times and different places with different test subjects verifies this situation. It will only be possible fulfilling the necessity of informing public and continuing the specialty of being the most reliable administiration by carrying on effective and conscious public relations policy. Turkish Armed Forces uses public relations methods which are face to face with public. Also he uses some public relations methods which are not used directly to the public such as press. Although some of these activities are succesful, they have some negative ways such as security, intelligence precautions and not making enough explanations. It will only be possible to eleminate this negative things by using more the principle of clearness and by clarifying clearly which knowledges are secrets or not. American army is seen as the most powerful and the biggest army of the world every year by the surveys which are done by various surveying companies. Amerikan army which operates all over the world is using public relations activities effectivly. As essential to this thesis, American army's public relations activites are searched in detailed and compared with Turkish army. As a result of this comparison, it is seen that American army is more succesful than Turkish Army in some methods. There hasn't been such a comparison before so this situaiton makes this thesis more important. As a result, Turkish armed forces has to use public relations activities effectivly such as other public administrations and establishments for providing public support, maintaining the reliable administration position on the eye of public and telling himself to the public. In the last part of the thesis, there offered suggestions for resolving the negations.