Theory development in the public relations research domain

Rethinking public relations Political strategists, market research firms, think tanks, lobbyists, media advisors, third party mobilizers and 'grassroots' organizers, social media gurus, and other communication specialists have flourished in size and influence and transformed the role of communication in social, political, and economic life. Critics decry the expansion of professionalized communication, impugning the public relations (PR), polling, advertising, and marketing industries for overpowering the media with a torrent of sound-byte journalism, spin control, and 24-hour campaigning, and thus undermining the political process and civic discourse (e.g., . In his research note, featured in this issue, Matt Soar uses war terminology ("commercial carpet bombing") to characterize the impact of the ad industry, in particular, on the civic landscape: "[a] city skyline awash in prominent logos," he writes, "is indicative of a profound imbalance between the wants of marketers and the needs of citizens." Others are less discouraged by the rise and intensification of promotion and publicity in the public sphere and see potential for expanding, rather than restricting, the democratic process. One recent book argues that we have entered a period of "public relations democracy" in which more news sources operating outside the traditional institutions and arenas of power are exercising influence over how media report on political, cultural, and economic affairs . Such "pluralist optimism" brings to mind Ray Hiebert's famous statement that "without public relations, democracy could not succeed in a mass society" (1966, p. 7). 1 The growth in PR, and the professionalization of promotional communication generally, can be attributed to myriad cultural, political, and economic forces: the broader changes associated with globalization, including the development of new information and communication technologies; the emergence, expansion, and contestation of market capitalism (in its neo-liberal and other guises); the increasing importance of symbolic and promotional labour; and the revitalization of the public sphere, where new, emerging forms of grievance and risk are defined, contested, and amplified (e.g., . The articles, research notes, commentaries, and reviews that appear in this special issue address continuities and changes in public relations and professional communication practice. We argue that against the backdrop of these changes, communication (especially persuasive and instrumental forms of communication) has become a more salient feature of the cultural landscape of late modern society. In different ways, the issue takes up the challenge of rethinking public relations.

Psyccritiques, 2007

Public Relations Review, 2007

Public relations is often studied from a managerial, instrumental perspective or a psychological, behavioral perspective. To understand the role of public relations in building trust or mistrust and to develop--or destroy--a license to operate, it needs also to be studied as a social phenomenon.

Public Relations Inquiry, 2012

In this article I consider the importance of paradigmatic variety in the scholarly field of public relations. I reflect on the role that both conflict and cooperation between different paradigms play in the development of academic fields, and review definitions of public relations to examine the extent to which both are present in public relations scholarship. Based on this discussion, I consider the assumptions that underpin existing approaches to public relations in order to reveal the ways in which they are connected, as well as differentiated, along a series of continua. I conclude by proposing a new definition of public relations, as flow rather than organizational function, that can accommodate the range of research encompassed by these continua, thereby facilitating greater unity, inclusivity and, I would hope, dialogue in the field.

Public Relations Review, 2011

In a 2003 content analysis of scholarly public relations journal articles, Sallot, Lyon, Acosta-Alzura and Jones stated that, although no dominant paradigms had yet emerged, scholarship and theory building in public relations was well on its way. Entering into this project, the authors expected to see public relations at a stage where the majority of public relations research and scholarly journal articles were focusing on a centralized body of theory as the field entered the first decade of the 21st century. The results of the study presented in this article, however, suggest that this expectation was unduly optimistic. The evidence demonstrates that, after more than three decades of scholarly efforts, it is still not the case that public relations has enough of a central focus in its research and theory building to be deemed a mature discipline.

Public relations and social theory: Key figures and concepts, 2009

At least five conclusions can be drawn from the collective output of the essays in this book: public relations can be studied as a social activity in its own right; it must be understood in relation to its societal context; the crucial concepts of public relations are trust, legitimacy, understanding, and reflection; issues of power, behavior, and language are at the forefront of public relations study; and social theory is necessary to understand the practice of public relations and to raise important empirical questions about it. This chapter elaborates on these points, while at the same time acknowledging the richness and diversity of the theories discussed by the contributors, which do not lend themselves easily to the tasks of summarizing and drawing parallels.

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences , 2025

This paper examines the evolution of public relations theory and practice from modernist to post-modernist perspectives. It argues that public relations (PR) has undergone a paradigm shift in response to the changing social, cultural and technological contexts of the 21st century. The paper traces the historical development of PR as a modernist discipline that aimed to establish legitimacy, credibility and trust for organizations through strategic communication. It then explores the challenges and opportunities that post-modernism poses for PR, such as the fragmentation of audiences, the emergence of new media platforms, the rise of activism and the demand for transparency and accountability. The paper proposes a post-modernist approach to PR that embraces complexity, diversity and dialogue and that recognizes the co-creation of meaning and value between organizations and their stakeholders. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications and directions for future research and practice in post-modernist PR.

Public Relations Inquiry, 2019

This article examines the development of the public as a foundational concept in public relations theory. It provides an overview of the way in which public relations has understood the term as referring to two distinct phenomena of a public and the public. The article approaches public relations theory as unfolding of a narrative identity of public relations. The discussion subsequently reaches to the work of Michael Warner and Judith Butler to consider the limitations and implications of the situational theory of publics and the deliberativist approach to the public derived from the work of John Dewey and Jürgen Habermas. In its final sections, the article redefines the public as a family of three distinct, but at times, overlapping terms: an audience as a public of shared spaces, a self-organized public of shared attention, and the public as a political and social imaginary. This article argues for the need to adopt the performative approach to the public in order to tackle some ...

Public relations is one of the fastest growing -and fastest changing -professional practices, with jobs expanding in many countries. For example, on the corporate side in the United States, » employment of public relations specialists (non-managers) is expected to grow 24 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011). Corporate public relations trends in most of the EU have followed the same course as in the U. S. over the last few decades.

This article traces the origins and continuing development of a research tradition that conceptualizes public relations as a strategic management function rather than as a messaging, publicity, and media relations function. The tradition began serendipitously with the development of the situational theory of publics in the late 1960s, followed by the application of organization theory to public relations, the symmetrical model of public relations, and evaluation of communication programs. The Excellence study, which began in 1985, brought these middle-level theories together and produced a general theory, a theoretical edifice, focused on the role of public relations in strategic management and the value of relationships with strategic publics to an organization. Since the completion of the Excellence study, scholars in this research tradition have continued to improve and furnish the edifice by conducting research to help public relations professionals participate in strategic decision processes. This research has been on environmental scanning and publics, scenario building, empowerment of public relelations, ethics, relationships, return on investment (ROI), evaluation, relationship cultivation strategies, specialized areas of public relations, and global strategy. I conclude that the greatest challenge for scholars now is to learn how to institutionalize strategic public relations as an ongoing, accepted practice in most organizations. Throughout the 40 years of my academic career, I have used the literature of philosophy of science and of cognitive psychology to inform my attempts to build public relations theory. Early in my career, I rejected logical positivism— the idea that theories are " true " because they reflect an underlying order in the