Reframing public relations: The evolution of a reflective paradigm for organizational legitimization

This article endeavors to understand the emergence, diffusion and dynamics of the social processes that activate and constitute public relations. By applying Niklas Luhmann's epistemological sociology, it identifies central problems of late modern society and shows how society deals with these problems through evolutionary learning processes and the development of a reflective paradigm. It concludes that the role of public relations can be seen as organizational legitimization in interrelation to different and changing forms of societal coordination.     

Communicating for the good of the state: A post-symmetrical polemic on persuasion in ethical public relations

As inarguably one of the most influential theories in public relations scholarship, the symmetrical theory devalues the most common public relations objective, persuasion. This article deconstructs Grunig's work and re-constructs classic rhetoric to provide a post-symmetrical direction for public relations scholarship devoted to influencing behavior. By viewing the practice of persuasion from the perspectives of Aristotle, Plato, Isocrates, Burke, Nietzsche and others, this paper provides ethical and procedural guidelines on how today's public relations scholars can refocus the public relations agenda to focus more on real-world issues.     

Social Harmony Paradigms and Natural Selection: Darwin,Kropotkin, and the Metatheory of Mutual Aid

This article proposes the mutual aid theory of Charles Darwin and Peter Kropotkin as an engendering metatheory for social harmony paradigms within public relations, including communitarianism, excellence theory, and fully functioning society theory. It extends current research in public relations beyond Darwin's Origin of Species to include that author's later Descent of Man as well as the neglected works of Russian evolutionary biologist Peter Kropotkin. Drawing upon the research of those authors, the article presents evidence that the evolutionary processes of natural selection created the social instinct that provides both positive and normative status for the social harmony paradigms within public relations.     

When giving means taking: Public relations,sponsorship, and morally marginal donors

It is generally considered a positive social action to form relationships of support between organizations and publics. In public relations terms, such connections can lead to beneficial outcomes for both the organization, in terms of reputation and attributions of social responsibility, and publics, in terms of the ability to meet their own goals through financial contributions. It is less easy to understand what happens when these relationships detract from society holistically. In this paper the Tattersall's organization, Australia's “largest” privately owned company, is used as an example. Tattersall's has a history of community involvement, sponsorship, and benevolence. However, its sole business is gambling, and hence vulnerable gamblers fund its charitable donations. This article uses the writings of Pierre Bourdieu to discuss ethical practice and professionalism as well as the dynamics of sponsorship dependence of vulnerable groups. It suggests that although an underused theorist on the edges of mainstream public relations theory, Bourdieu's ideas have much to contribute to our understanding of professional practice.     

Newspaper Editors' Perceptions of Public Relations: How Business,News, and Sports Editors Differ

In this study, I develop a feminist theory of public relations by explaining discrimination against female practitioners and positing an agenda for change. Thirty-seven "long" interviews and three focus groups conducted with female practitioners revealed that major obstacles for women are marginalization of public relations, problems stemming from male dominance at work, women's "balancing" act between career and family, and gender stereotypes. Solutions for overcoming barriers are proposed for society, organizations, public relations, and women.     

From communist control to glasnost and back?: Media freedom and control in the former Soviet Union

The last decade has seen dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: the end of the Cold War with the West; the loosening of the Soviet Union's hold on part of Germany; movements for independence by regions in the USSR; and the public rejection of Communism by Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, as well as by key leaders within the Soviet Union. Radical changes in political philosophy have been accompanied by transformations in mass media communication.These changes are inextricably linked to how public relations is practiced in these nations, many of which are attempting, to varying degrees, to adopt a democratic system of government. This article frames the role of public relations in a self-governing society; discusses three environmental factors that affect the practice of socially responsible public relations, reviews the historical media philosophy of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; and examines examples of media practice that have occurred during the region's transformation and their implications for media freedom and independence, and for the practice of public relations.     

What we value: A Delphi study to identify key values that guide ethical decision-making in public relations

This study recommends that the Public Relations Society of America expand its professional values list to include respect and trustworthiness. This addition also shows the value this study's public relations participants place on mutually beneficial relationships with their clients/employers, customers, communities, and society as a whole. The findings contribute to the growing attention to and value of relationship management theory for effective public relations.     

The “creative confrontation” of Herbert Schmertz: Public relations sense making and the corporate persona

Beginning in the early 1970s, Mobil Oil's public relations, under the direction of Herbert Schmertz, attempted to demonstrate to Americans that the company acted like a person who worked to benefit society. With an approach he called “creative confrontation,” Schmertz offered an adversarial stance toward the news media, coupled with inventive methods of supporting the arts. Creative confrontation sought the public's support by revealing that the corporation was an entity that understood the needs of the public and worked to uphold American values like free expression and progress. This work, in examining a distinctive and sustained effort to communicate the corporate personality, offers lingering implications for how public relations, through the conveyance of the corporate persona, can more widely conceptualize and execute its sense-making role in society.     

Public Relations in a Democratic Society: Value and Values

Each of the articles in this special issue merit attention based solely on the authors' contributions to alternative ways of doing and understanding public relations. More important, as a body of work, the authors expand on Schudson's (1997) provocative article about the role of conversation in a democratic society. In this review, I summarize the strengths of each article, discuss the focus on activist publics, highlight concepts new to the study of public relations, and suggest avenues for further thought based on the ideas presented in this issue. I conclude with the proposal that in a democratic society, public relations should facilitate making profoundly uncomfortable conversations more comfortable.     

What does learning by listening bring to citizen engagement? Lessons from a government program

In public relations research, the concept of engagement is often theorized but seldom observed in practice. This research focuses on what public leaders learn when they undertake actions centered on learning by listening to society to implement governmental citizen engagement programs. Taking an inductive grounded approach to data analysis which draws on tools and methods of grounded theory as well as including a review of key concepts from public relations literature, a reflexive analysis of an action learning intervention involving the members of a provincial government was conducted. Results show that, when reflecting on interaction with stakeholders of the program, government members: increase their knowledge about both sides of the public organization-society relationship; become more sensitive to what listening is and implies, and, hence, more supportive of two-way communication; are challenged about the authenticity of the motivations behind their listening; become more aware of ways in which they work to build social capital; and, subsequently, increase their willingness to act together with society. This paper shows that reflection on the real implementation of engagement programs gives policy makers a better understanding of normative assumptions, and hence it instantiates public relations theories and concepts about engagement. By identifying acting-by-listening as integral to citizen engagement, it presents implications for the study and practice of public relations in public sector organizations.     

In search of message design best practices: The Silver Anvil Award winners archive

We investigated specific award-winning public relations efforts to derive best practices that bridge industry practices with academic research and pedagogy. The data for this project were the winning entries for the annual Public Relations Society of America's (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award, which is considered the top award recognizing excellence in public relations. We found, however, that the archive of award winners does not provide sufficiently definitive information about what defines any public relations discourse genre or why any genre as used is “excellent.” This archival research provides us with a key rationale for employing rhetorical, narrative, and linguistic theories prospectively to guide public relations message design and planning, theories which hitherto have been used to judge campaigns post hoc or retrospectively.     

'The State': A Comment on Abrams, Denis and Sayer

Abstract This paper answers the question,‘what is the state?’as posed in Abrams (1988) and Denis (1989), by examining Sayer's (1987) realist reconception of ‘relations of production’ and their ‘ideal superstructures’. It suggests that Sayer's alternative to ‘traditional’ marxism warrants a reappraisal of the relationship between Marx and Foucault. It concludes that ‘civil society’ and ‘the state’ are Janus-faces of production relations, generated by Foucault's ‘disciplinary practices’.     

Women’s activism as public relations in a patriarchal society: The case of Kuwait

This paper addresses an important era of women’s activism in Kuwait. In the 1950s, when the government recognized women’s rights for education, the wave to obtain other civil rights clashed with culture, tradition and religion which became serious obstacles facing women in their struggle for basic rights. This historical study focuses on the establishment of two women’s organizations -- the Arab Women’s Development Society in December 1962 and the Kuwait Women's Cultural and Social Society in February 1963. To sway the negative image of women in a patriarchal society, women used activism as a public relations tool to achieve their social, civil and political rights. The study uses cultural-economic model (CEM) to illustrate how activism and public relations were articulated as synonymous to foster women’s rights in Kuwait. Archived documents and content analysis of media content published in the 1960s reveal that activism played a vital role as a public relations strategy and that social activism was more effective than political activism. The study highlights the implications of culture within the context of both public relations and activism.     

Public perceptions of public relations

Public relations has been portrayed in the media in a consistently negative manner over several decades, providing images that may become part of public perceptions. Perceptions about public relations affect the perceived credibility of the profession and influence whether people see public relations as valuable to society. Second-level agenda setting and cultivation theories purport that mass media contribute to beliefs about social reality by creating a cumulative, general consciousness upon which assumptions and judgments are based, suggesting that public perceptions about public relations would match media portrayal. Results of a telephone survey found public relations is perceived more positively than media portrayal would suggest. Respondents viewed public relations as an important activity that benefits society by providing information and disagree that it is damage control, an attempt to hide or disguise something, or a non-substantive activity. However, public relations is associated with publicity, media relations, and the attempt of an organization to advance its own agenda.     

Citizenship,Pluralism, and Modern Public Space

The article begins with the realist assumption in political science that posits that political violence and chaos occurs in the absence of the state, and that the international system is congenitally anarchic. Using the Y2K problem and the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York as two instances of violent political phenomena within global modernity, this article examines notions of citizenship, pluralism, and their relationships with modern public space through the lens of 'public disaster' scenarios in which the breakdown of centralized systems of power tends to lead to chaos. However, public disasters also appear to create the opposite effect of bonding communities together in the face of adversity that leads to greater social cohesion rather than the breakdown of social institutions. The article tries to resolve this apparent enigma through several theories of public space, democracy, and civil society.     

多维理论视域中的能源政治与安全观

关于国际能源政治及其安全的各派理论观点虽视角各异,但其相互间实际上是互为交叉和影响,并日益呈现出共同特征.随着冷战后世界经济全球化进程的加速,各国在能源领域的相互依存日渐加强,既竞争又协调成为国际能源政治的主流.由此各方越来越重视能源领域的国际合作及其国际机制的建设,主张通过国际合作与协调来实现能源安全,将维护能源安全与实现经济和社会的可持续发展、与国家的对外政治和经济关系紧密联系起来.     

Woman,man, lady,horse: Jane Stewart,public relations executive

Public relations scholars know very little about the women who participated in formal public relations before the 1970s, not even about such women as Jane Stewart, who served as vice president and then president of Group Attitudes Corporation, an independent consulting firm that became a subsidiary of Hill and Knowlton of New York in 1956. Because she was virtually alone among women at the top consulting firms, Stewart was forced to perform a delicate balancing act.Jane Stewart prospered in the man's world of a Manhattan agency by accepting the conservative values of the field and the era. But she also developed a collaborative management style and maintained a female, if not feminist, perspective that at times gave her clients a different outlook on public relations problems. This article describes Stewart's career in the context of women's participation in formal public relations.The author is an assistant professor in the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.     

The definition,dimensions, and domain of public relations

By not developing a widely accepted definition and a central organizing principle or paradigm, the field of public relations has left itself vulnerable (1) to other fields that are making inroads into public relations' traditional domain, and (2) to critics who are filling in their own definitions of public relations. While opportunities abound, public relations is unlikely to fulfill its promise until it is willing and able to identify its fundamental nature and scope. This article proposes a definition (“managing strategic relationships”), along with a three-dimensional framework, with which to compare competing philosophies of public relations and from which to build a paradigm for the field.Dr. James G. Hutton teaches marketing and public relations at Fairleigh Dickinson University in northern New Jersey, just outside New York City.     

Employment, individualization and insecurity: rethinking the risk society perspective

German sociologist Ulrich Beck maintains that economic, technological and environmental transitions have radically reshaped employment relations in Western Europe. Whilst theories of employment transformation are historically ubiquitous, Beck's contribution is rather unique. Utilising risk as a lens through which subterranean shifts in employment, the economy and society can be visualised, Beck's work has been heralded as a significant theoretical landmark. The risk society perspective emphasizes the diffusion of two interlinked macro‐social processes. Firstly, Beck identifies a sweeping process of individualization which recursively generates personal insecurity and reflexive decision‐making. Secondly, changes in the relationship between capital and labour are said to have facilitated an underlying shift in the pattern of social distribution. This paper scrutinises Beck's understanding of these two processes, as a means of developing a broader critique of the risk society perspective. Theoretically, it will be argued that Beck deploys unsophisticated and artificial categories, amalgamates disparate forms of risk and compacts together diverse employment experiences. Empirically, the paper demonstrates that – far from being directed by a universal axis of risk – labour market inequalities follow the grooves etched by traditional forms of stratification.