ABSTRACT
Public relations have been considered to have been introduced to Japan after WWII as a part of the democratization policy by the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP). However, it is now known that public relations were introduced through several routes. In 1947, the SCAP suggested the active use of public relations to both central and local governments, which led to the establishment of PR departments in every prefecture within the next two years. However, while the leading advertising agency, Dentsu, translated American PR textbooks into Japanese and actively incorporated public relations, the fact that the company made use of public relations as a part of marketing support functions became one of the reasons why public relations is often misunderstood in Japan. In the securities industry, public relations were introduced to support the sale of stocks that became available after the dismantling of zaibatsu, or financial and industrial conglomerates. The financial sector introduced internal communication as it responded to the rising labor movement resulting from the democratization policy.
