Public Relations

Concepts, Practice and Critique

Jacquie L′Etang

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781446234877
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Public Relations
• Index: Business

"An excellent text for encouraging students to think critically about key public relations issues. Not only does it help students to develop a deeper appreciation of public relations, it also helps them to develop valuable learning skills."
- Amanda Coady, The Hague University

"A typically excellent piece of work from Jacquie L?Etang. Critical of every basic concept and provocative to all students. Ideal for second and final year undergraduates, plus MA students."
- Chris Rushton, Sunderland University

"Extending beyond the usual bounds of insularity, this text is designed to encourage critical thought in students and improve practice in workplaces. A refreshing read that is consistently inventive enough to attain both aims."
- David McKie, Waikato Management School " A t long last fills a void in the landscape of text books on public relations theory and practice... it develops critical thinking skills while exposing interdisciplinary approaches and providing a very solid foundation for lively debate and further study
- Julia Jahansoozi, University of Central Lancashire This book introduces students to the key concepts in Public Relations, with 12 chapters providing clear and careful explanations of concepts such as:

• Reputation
• Risk
• Impression management
• Celebrity
• Ethics
• Persuasion and propaganda
• Emotional and spiritual dimensions of management
• Promotional culture and globalization

Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary sources, Jacquie L?Etang also encourages students to think critically about public relations as an occupation. Student exercises, ?critical reflections?, vignettes and ?discipline boxes? help students to widen their intellectual perspective on the subject, and to really engage the thinking that has shaped both the discipline and practice of public relations.

Introduction: Critical Thinking and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

1

BEFORE YOU READ A SINGLE WORD…

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Take a pen and write down your response to the following:

• What should a public relations text do and why?
• What do you want to learn?
• How do you want to change?
• What would you like to change about the world?
• Why are you interested in public relations?

Keep your answers somewhere safe. (You could set them up as a blog.) Do not change them. But do add to them or record any changes in perspective as this happens. This is a form of research diary in which you keep reflections and personal observations and record change. Here you are researching and observing yourself!

Key concepts

Assumptions	Functionalism
Critical theory	Interdisciplinary
Critical thinking	Paradigm
Dominant paradigm	Reflexivity

What’s this book about and where is it coming from?

This is a textbook with a twist! It aims to achieve two objectives: to introduce key concepts in public relations using a wide range of interdisciplinary sources and to stimulate reflexive and critical thinking which can inform academic and professional work in the field.

The book was inspired by the desire to share some alternative perspectives with student readers and by the ambition to write a text which not only challenged assumptions, but showed how and why it is important for public relations practitioners to do so. Challenging received truths has long been seen as important to public relations practitioners in the workplace. See Box 1.1 for examples.

Box 1.1 Practitioners’ perspectives on challenging norms

‘Resourceful, direct and prepared to challenge the status quo.’ (Peter Brooker, PRWeek, 30 June 2006)

‘A driving force, not afraid to challenge change.’ (James Lundie, PRWeek, 30 June 2006)

‘Energy, presence, sensibility, a broad orientation, and, most of all, ‘guts’ is what a practitioner needs to succeed’. (Top head-hunter from the Netherlands) (van Ruler, 2005: 159–173)

‘What I look for [when I’m recruiting] is: have they got critical abilities? Have they got a critical mind? Are they persuasive in writing and oral communication? Can they bring people along with them? Thirdly, integrity, and here I look for evidence that they’re likely to have personal courage – that is to take their hat off the peg and to stand up and talk for themselves, or get the hell out of it – have they got real courage?’ (Interview, senior practitioner, 1998)

‘Part of my job here is if there are problems of morale or if people, however senior, are not doing their jobs particularly well, for example if a board director doesn’t seem to be communicating and inspiring, then it’s up to me to tell the very senior management that I’m not actively happy with this. That’s often quite difficult but someone has to do it because organizations are constantly changing organisms and if they don’t understand what’s driving change, whether it’s good or bad – they won’t go forward.’ (Interview, senior practitioner, 1998)

A key ideal for public relations consultants is that if asked to work on an account of which they did not approve, they should act according to their ethical principles and leave. Why is this so important for public relations? One might suggest that precisely because PR as an occupation has been critiqued by the British media since the 1950s, and apparently has a poor reputation in the UK, it is all the more important for individual practitioners publicly to espouse integrity and appear as authentic and truthful as possible in order to establish trust.

Book aims

By the end of this book readers should be able to:

• describe, discuss and critique theoretical and applied (practical) approaches to public relations at campaign, societal and global levels
• apply the key theoretical concepts that are required to construct and deconstruct public relations practice
• understand the reasons for the emergence and growth of public relations in a variety of cultural contexts
• understand how public relations has emerged as a discipline, its conceptual roots and main paradigms
• apply critical thinking to concepts and cases

Does this book have an agenda?

Yes, this book is written to encourage you to explore diverse perspectives and to reflect critically on your own opinions. This book is also written from a particular point of view: it is critical, and written within the European context from the periphery of Great Britain (Scotland). As with my other articles and books, it has been written partly in response to those from the dominant paradigm. In this book I explain something of that debate and how academics in public relations approach the subject from different perspectives. I write within the critical tradition and this approach is explained later in this opening chapter. As you encounter the various arguments and read other books alongside this one, you should start to develop a sense of your own opinions, where you sit in relation to debates and why.

CHAPTER AIMS

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On completion of this chapter you will be able to:

• understand the benefits of ‘critical thinking’ and be able to apply the concept to texts and case studies
• define critical theory
• understand and explain the concept of ‘paradigm’
• notice assumptions that exist in writing and arguments in texts or broadcast media
• explain why critical thinking is important in public relations

Chapter contents

The chapter begins by defining critical thinking and critical theory before explaining how to develop critical thinking skills. This is followed by a short reflection on the nature of public relations as an academic subject and questions that are raised as to its status. The notion of ‘paradigm’ is then introduced in the context of public relations concepts and research, and subsequently linked to the notion of assumptions that underpin arguments and the ways in which we can uncover these so as to better determine the motivation that lies behind a piece of communication, whether academic, professional or journalistic.

Critical thinking

There are at least two rather different ways of conceiving critical thinking. The first is to define such work as emanating from critical theory, which emerged in the 1920s from Western Marxism which highlighted mal-distribution of power and sought to change society. Work in this tradition:

• challenges existing assumptions
• analyzes and critiques policy or practice
• alters boundaries of or between fields and thus changes the agenda by introducing new topics or approaches or ways of thinking about a field

Critical theory (CT) particularly focuses on power, its distribution and elucidating the structures and processes which limit human potential. Critical theorists tend to write with a view to highlighting unfair practices in order to change society (L’Etang, 2005).

Another way of thinking about critical approaches is in terms of developing intellectual skills to tackle such work. Critical work assesses ideas and arguments, working through the pros and cons. It is critical, but not necessarily negative – better to think of it as the surgeon’s rather than the assassin’s knife.

But how should one start? Where to begin? In fact a good start is to question our own beliefs and motivations and being clear about our own assumptions and biases. Only then are we in a position to ask:

• Does this author present their view as one of several options, as factual information or as morally right?
• Is the author fair or do they reveal a bias? If they reveal a bias, are they open about this and do they explain their reasoning for this position? (Ruggiero, 1996b: 6)
• How does this relate to my own views – how can I or should I accommodate this new information? (Paul and Elder, 2004: 1)

Developing critical thinking skills for reading and writing

Drawing on Paul and Elder (2004) and Cottrell (2005), it is useful to ask:

• Is the purpose clear?
• What is the scope of the main and subsidiary questions (aim and objectives)?
• What assumptions are made – are they implicit or explicit?
• What sorts of arguments are used and how much evidence is presented with them?
• Are alternative views presented or is a reason stated for their exclusion? (Cottrell, 2005)

Critical thinking analyzes arguments and ‘unpicks’ concepts. It often looks at ‘the other side of the coin’ or plays ‘devil’s advocate’ to test an argument. Sometimes it will take a minority or unpopular view, criticizing those in power or exposing unfair practice.

In short, as Cottrell (2005) pointed out, critical thinking demands:

• a healthy scepticism
• patience to work through someone else’s argument
• being open-minded
• being cautious with personal emotional responses such as anger, frustration and anxiety
• juggling a range of ideas for purposes of comparison
• supporting arguments with evidence and experiences from ‘the real world’.

Interdisciplinary perspectives

You, as a PR student, may have been asked by family or friends: ‘How can you study that? It’s not a proper subject – why don’t you study psychology or sociology?’

Such questions challenge the notion of public relations as a legitimate subject to study. Yet subjects such as psychology and sociology started in the same way, borrowing concepts from other areas to build new disciplines. For example, psychology evolved in the nineteenth century from the disciplines of ethology, physics, statistics and philosophy. And sociology emerged as a ‘scientific study of collective human behaviour’, the consequence of nineteenth-century philosophers, faced with the massive upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, asking questions about how society evolved (Ruggiero, 1996: 1). Key ideas which emerged to explain developments included: natural progression; survival of the fittest; conflict; and consensus. These assumptions also influence the way that different historians explain the emergence of public relations in various cultures. So in a way, public relations can be seen as a form of sociology even though sociology of public relations is a term barely heard. (Pieczka, 2006c: 328–329)

In the 1960s, sociology was seen as a trendy, radical and a rather subversive discipline that suggested particular political allegiances. Now it is established as part of the academic elite and has spawned other sub-disciplines and fields such as media studies and sociology of the professions (something to which I’ll return later). So disciplines emerge and develop and atrophy and die over time according to the current zeitgeist and fashions of the day. These processes may be influenced by funding and resources, so it is not just a question of the best ideas lasting, but of national policy and educational politics in funding councils and universities. Those in established disciplines do not want to see resources draining away into newer areas. Academic disciplines operate as a system of hierarchies (a class system in effect). They distinguish themselves partly through the efforts of individual academics who may develop ‘guru’ status either as ‘media dons’ or as behind-the-scenes experts, called upon to advise outside bodies such as think tanks or governmental committees. For such work they are rewarded by membership of renowned societies such as the Royal Society of Arts. Academic disciplines are also judged by the production and quality of journals in relation to those in more traditional fields (and there is a distinct pecking order!) and internally to each discipline. There is nothing particularly ‘natural’ about current relationships between disciplines: they are arbitrary and based on power. Therefore, the relationship between disciplines is both intellectual and political. In inter-disciplinary work, concepts are borrowed and shared between related disciplines to broaden understanding and to develop theory. Disciplines may be seen as families sharing gene pools. Inter-disciplinary work draws on a mixture of sources, for example PR has drawn on psychological concepts (persuasion) and methods, ethical concepts (from moral philosophy), and sociological concepts (power and gender). It is also possible to draw together different disciplines (tourism, religious studies, sports studies) in a creative way to bring about new understandings on all sides. Inter-disciplinary thinking draws upon a wide range of subjects to try to understand a problem. It is central to public relations education and to its practitioners who need to engage with multiple interested parties, perspectives and relationships.

Box 1.2 Academic journals publishing articles on public relations

Specialist journals

Journal of Public Relations Research (www.erlbaum.com/)

International Journal of Strategic Communication (www.erlbaum.com/)

Public Relations Review (www.elsevier.com/)

Corporate Communications: An International Journal (www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/ccji/ccij.jsp)

Journal of Communication Management (www.emer...