Public Relations History

Theory, Practice, and Profession

Cayce Myers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351033008
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Public Relations
• Index: Business

This book presents a unique overview of public relations history, tracing the development of the profession and its practices in a variety of sectors, ranging from politics, education, social movements, andcorporate communication to entertainment.

Author Cayce Myers examines the institutional pressures, including financial, legal, and ethical considerations, that have shaped public relations and have led to the parameters in which the practice is executed today, exploring the role that underrepresented groups and sectors (both in the U.S. and internationally) played in its formation. The book presents the diversity and nuance of public relations practice while also providing a cohesive narrative that engages readers in the complex development of this influential profession.

Public Relations History is an excellent resource for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses covering public relations theory, management, and administration; mass communication history; and media history.

1

Definitions of Public Relations

What is public relations? That’s a question that has as many different answers as there are practitioners in the field.¹ Public relations historically depends largely on what one considers the core tenets of the field. For instance, Harold Burson, a luminary figure in twentieth-century public relations and co-founder of New York-based PR firm Burson-Marstellar, considered public relations a form of persuasion.² If persuasion is PR, then arguably the field of public relations history goes way back to ancient times of Aristotle’s Rhetoric that said there were core foundations of persuasion: logical reasoning, understanding “human character,” and emotional appeals.³ Others view public relations as a profession that is identifiable and self-regulated with ethical demands that must be adhered to.⁴ Under that definition, public relations emerges in the early twentieth century when corporate structure became more solidified and industry recognition of the PR practitioner first came into being. Still others look at public relations as a practice that requires deliberate communication with specific publics that can be reached.⁵ This definition roots public relations as a practice that grew in tandem with human agency and the ability of individuals to discuss their opinions freely and share information. It assumes that human agency must be present, and without it public relations cannot exist.⁶ Scholars also point out that public relations is a practice that can only exist within the context of the PR function, with multiple elements at work beyond just mere PR tactics.⁷

One thing that histories have in common is they typically imply a start date. Whether it be ancient times or modern corporate structure, PR histories provide for a beginning of PR development. Also, many public relations history narratives provide (some more than others) an inherent narrative of PR history that assumes the profession has progressed in an evolutionary way.⁸ Sometimes referred to as the Whig History, or Whig fallacy, the idea that there is evolutionary growth of public relations as a field assumes some realities such as public relations practice got better with age over time, public relations can be linearly traced as a coherent field, and that public relations practice is something that changed with key watershed moments that transformed the field.⁹ All of these assumptions have been challenged in public relations historiography for nearly three decades. However, inherent in this critique is a certain fallacy. If public relations cannot be defined, and it cannot be linearly traced, can there be a public relations history? More importantly, can there even be a field called public relations?

This chapter explores these issues of definition of public relations by examining three important definitional issues in public relations. First, the chapter examines whether PR should be defined by practice or by the act of doing public relations work. Next, the chapter examines how public relations definitions of professional practice affect the narrative of PR history. Finally, it discusses the issue surrounding the impact of individuals on the field, and how PR history coalesces around the personal narratives of the so-called great men and women of PR.

Public Relations: A Practice or Profession?

One of the biggest issues about public relations’ definition is deciding what factors make something public relations. Modern-day public relations is a multifaceted communication practice that uses paid, earned, shared, and owned media to effectively communicate with publics, and has a management function within an organization.¹⁰ Public relations is also a field that is recognized as a standalone profession that has professional societies, such as the Public Relations Society of American (PRSA), the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), and the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), that provide ethical standards for practice and professionalism.¹¹ All of these components, a recognized industry role, managerial function, professional societies, and ethical standards, are the hallmarks of a standalone, recognized profession. However, if you go back far enough in public relations history, those components did not exist. In those cases, scholars have to ask, when is something public relations and when is it something else? That challenge of deciding when something is public relations and when it is not is a matter of perspective. Specifically, it depends on whether a person defines public relations as a practice (a broader definition of PR) or as a profession (a narrower definition of PR).

Viewing public relations as a practice embraces the idea that PR is not something done by specific people, but is a form of communication that has certain characteristics.¹² Inherent in this view is the idea that public relations can be practiced by many people in many different contexts across history.¹³ One of the cornerstones of this type of belief is that public relations exists when an organization or person communicates to publics to affect attitudinal or behavioral change. That type of broad approach to public relations’ definition allows for PR history to be a much longer and more inclusive of history. Under this type of definition communications such as the Epistles of Paul,¹⁴ medieval saints proselytizing Christ,¹⁵ public notices recruiting settlement in the New World,¹⁶ and political writings during the American Revolution are forms of PR.¹⁷ The benefit of this type of view is that it encompasses all types of PR practice, and does not rely on the communicator’s own self-identification as a PR practitioner. Even today, many people practice public relations without identifying themselves, or their work, as PR. Using a definition of public relations as practice seems to be particularly appropriate, given that reality.

Public relations as a practice is a view that public relations history can be divided roughly into two eras. The first is the era before the public relations profession began. This era, frequently referred to as public relations antecedents or proto PR, is the time in which the ancestor of public relations existed.¹⁸ These communication practices may have aspects of public relations to them, and these communications or activities may have informed professional public relations. However, advocates for the antecedent and professional PR divide argue that professions have certain hallmarks, such as professional organizations, ethical codes, workers who self-identify as the profession, and standardized practices within the industry. For public relations this did not occur until the early twentieth century, and some would argue not until after World War I. Historical literature has embraced this antecedent concept of public relations. Scott Cutlip’s two volumes on public relations history, which are one of the best-known chronicles of American PR history, are divided in this manner between public relations practice, found in his book The Unseen Power, and antecedents, found in the appropriately entitled Public Relations History: From the 17th to the 20th Century: The Antecedents.¹⁹

These two approaches to public relations definitions exist on two extremes of inclusivity. Public relations as practice taken to its extreme can be an overly inclusive definition in which almost everything can be categorized as public relations. Conversely, public relations as profession can be exclusive to the point where important histories of public relations are not included, or diminished, simply because the people involved did not identify as PR practitioners or because the era in which they lived did not have the hallmarks of professional practice as defined by the twentieth century. The issue with having such an expansive definition of public relations raises issues of definitional specificity and ethical issues of PR practice. If PR is a practice, then conceivably anything that is communication from one person or organization to another that has any sort of motivation to influence, persuade, or even dialogue with could potentially be public relations. Historically this means that public relations’ origins go back perhaps as far as communication itself, which presents a host of historiographic issues for periodization. In effect, this history of public relations becomes the history of communication, which some scholars would argue is too unwieldy a topic to examine.

Most work in public relations is not as restrictive as saying there is a clear-cut delineation between public relations practice and antecedents. Rather, some literature in public relations acknowledges that PR is practiced in many forms and under many names.²⁰ Just as with any profession, the work of the professional changes over time because the tools available change over time.²¹ Historical accounts of public relations professional and antecedent practice are, in fact, public relations. This does not mean that all forms of communication could (potentially) be PR. Instead public relations historians, Karen Russell and Margot Lamme argued that public relations exists when two conditions are present—“strategic intent” and “human agency.”²² First, there must be a deliberate need for communication to elicit attitudinal or behavioral change, which is the strategic intent. This strategy is motivated by a variety of things such as “profit, recruitment, legitimacy, advocacy, agitation,” and fear.²³ Russell and Lamme note that strategic intent is not merely enough to define public relations, because communication practices like propaganda, have a degree of strategic intent. Because of that there is a second element: human agency. Human agency is the willingness by the public to be receptive to these messages sent on behalf of individuals and organizations. Inherent in that definition is the idea that public relations is a deliberate practice, and that public relations requires some type of communication mechanism to achieve the intended result.²⁴ However, the receivers of messages must, in fact, receive them, and not dismiss or ignore them. For Russell and Lamme, the coupling of strategic intent with human agency is essential because no strategic intent merely identifies a PR tactic, where high strategic intent with little or nonexistent agency is propaganda.²⁵ This definition of public relations is significant to the antecedent and proto-PR debate. In this view, public relations is not about practice or hallmarks of professionalism. It is about practice and the public, which creates an expansive, yet manageable, definition of the field.

What’s in a Name? Press Agent to PR Practitioner

Another major issue in public relations history is the meaning of professional names. In public relations history the name ascribed to the PR practitioner’s role have many implications. For instance, in much of the public relations literature, the press agent is different from a publicist, who is different from a public relations practitioner.²⁶ The name “public relations counsel” has historically significant meaning because it is frequently said to be the first standalone i...