With the looming presidential election in the United States, issues related to political and public relations are emerging, and indeed they have become hot trends. Some scholars believe that since the second half of the 20th century, image, issues, and media have increasingly become important nodes in the political process in the West；their social-economic formation has gradually presented a changing process of politics from electoral-based to more public relations-oriented. Such a conclusion is not trivial; on the contrary, it basically subverted the domestic politics in the West. In other words, current electoral politics have turned into a war of public relations. Election is now a battle of skills and power in public relations; whoever wins the battle will hold the power.

The scholars who are critical towards public relations politics in the West believe that the rise of public politics will make the public sphere collapse and revise the environment of democratic politics in the West. The profound value of democracy will be concealed and diluted; the free and fair elections people are proud of will become a kind of showmanship and beneath the political pageantry is low efficiency. It appears that words cannot express how much the academic circles are disappointed with public relations politics.

Nevertheless, it is a reality that there is a close relationship between modern politics and public relations, and this relationship is becoming a trend in every country. The separation of decision-making function in politics and administration has gradually caused the politicians to be involved in endless visits and interviews. As a result, the level of media exposure and public opinion polls have increasingly become the main axis of a politician’s life. The general public has little chance to get close to real politicians and cannot participate in real political decision-making; their only token of political participation is voting. Over the time, what the public has received is mere politics created on the media platform and that is not the real politics. The public, in general, are unwilling or unable to tell the differences between the two, and often believe and accept what is presented to them.

Once this kind of public relations politics penetrated into the internet and mobile phone users, it will produce two different effects. Firstly, politics becomes a fictional performance, and even the public is willing to participate in this performance. This kind of fictional political performance is what is known as “political public relations”. Secondly, politics is increasingly interacting and leaning towards to public sentiment and social consensus. This development is structural and difficult to be reversed or ignored.

This kind of political reality will of course affect the social elite. The irrationality in mass psychology can lead to the lost of the direction of political elite leaders. In the past, only a few elites, especially public relations personnel, could effectively guide or even control the mood of the public and stimulate their instincts. Italian scholar Vilfredo Pareto remarked that "Historically, except for occasional interruptions, ethnic groups have always been dominated by the elite... Elite refers to the most powerful, vigorous and capable person, regardless of whether he is good or bad. Likewise, American scholar Joseph Schumpeter also believes that voters in political life are usually weak and incompetent, vulnerable to external interference and unable to make independent decisions, so they can be exploited by political parties, interest groups, and politicians. But the reality has obviously changed the social status of the elites, who have become less important in public relations politics than they used to be.

Many scholars try to prove that public relations politics and political public relations are two different fields. They think that political public relations are a sub-discipline of public relations, similar to corporate public relations, organizational public relations, and individual public relations. They all take public relations as the main body and the principle is almost the same, but the methods are different. Public relations politics belongs to the subject of politics, which carry out political marketing based on the means of public relations to gain political power. Its specific operation mechanism includes the three nodes of image, issue, and media. However, from the point of view of the actual social operation, it is now more and more difficult to distinguish these two disciplines from each other; the boundaries of these disciplines have become blurred.

In reality, if public relations politics wants to control public opinion, it has to achieve visual, issue and media manipulations. These three aspects are based on the three nodes of image, issue, and media. Governance performance is closely related to the operational nodes and trajectories of public relations politics, especially when it can be coordinated with public relations politics, there will be the maximization of political performance. Even if governance has low performance, good public relations politics can mitigate or restrain negative impacts. This is because public relation politics is to some extent equal to the management of social emotions. Good public relations politics will not only influence social emotions and make them a constructive force, but also prevent social emotions from getting out of control and becoming social problems.

It is worth noting that global politics is partly a transaction and sometimes it is interests that are being transacted. However, in some special moments or nodes, the overall interest pattern and order may be placed in a secondary position. At this time, public sentiment will be the transactions in such politics.

Final analysis conclusion:

The recent fluctuations occurred in Hong Kong are the representative of the issue discussed here. In the internet era, society needs more than politics. Politics is often related to interests. However, once the pattern and order of interests are cracked, the interests of politics will be unstable. At this time, it would be more effective to adopt the correct public relations strategy, instead of continuing to be constrained by the conventional political format and blindly proceeding along the unchanged path. Therefore, the high-level, targeted and large-scale public relations strategy implemented by Chinese leaders is an optional and effective policy path for the present and future of Hong Kong.