Many definitions of publicity exist. For example, the Publicity Handbook (Yale, 1991), states that "publicity involves supplying information that is factual, interesting, and newsworthy to media not controlled by you, such as radio, television, magazines, newspapers, and trade journals" (p. 2). According to Effective Public Relations (Broom et al., 2000), "publicity is information from an outside source that is used by the media because the information has news value. It is an uncontrolled method of placing messages in the media because the source does not pay the media for placement"(p. 10). Finally, The Random House Handbook of Business Terms (Nisberg, 1988) defines publicity as "information designed to appear in any medium of communication for the purpose of keeping the name of a person or company before the public or of creating public interest in their activities" (p. 229).

Publicity is typically generated from an organization's public relations department and its goal is to...