Public relations—my chosen field for many years—continues to face an identity crisis. Even many practitioners today can’t agree on what public relations people do or what to call the function.

The debate has been background noise in my work since I entered the field in the late 1970s. A Google search will yield thousands of online items about what public relations is and how it differs from advertising and marketing. Other items—especially those about integrated marketing communication (IMC)—will blend public relations into a company’s marketing mix. More searches will identify multiple academic studies and commentaries in trade publications about other disciplines, such as legal, marketing, and human resources, encroaching on traditional public relations areas of responsibility.

Unfortunately, we—public relations practitioners—can’t expect organizational leaders to get the most out of our century-old management function if we:

• Can’t agree on what roles we should play in an organization.
• Disagree on the scope of responsibilities under the public relations umbrella.
• Must constantly explain to top organization leaders what value our discipline brings to strategic planning and execution.

5 differing perspectives

I can offer no easy ways in this essay to sharpen public relations’ fuzzy image. I’ve been in many discussions over the years about the situation. Those talks were engaging but led to few changes. Five recent online encounters got me thinking again about the ongoing confusion that plagues public relations as a discipline:

• A Sept. 5 online PR News item said that public relations and marketing were essentially the same. People in both functions were “all communicators with a shared interest in storytelling.” Therefore, the article called for “more cross-pollination between marketing and PR—and not just to protect their jobs, but to create truly comprehensive and powerful communications functions that drive business results.”
• A communication executive from Greensboro, North Carolina, told members of the Commission on Public Relations Education in a Sept. 18 Zoom session that college students needed to learn that public relations people were business strategists first and communicators second. Others in the meeting—a mix of practitioners and educators—concurred. They reiterated that public relations practitioners should help organizational leaders develop policies and actions to accomplish business objectives. Public relations people should not just craft messages (tell stories) to support policy decisions that others have already made.
• A Sept. 19 email message from the Center for Public Relations at the University of Southern California reminded me of its April 2023 Global Communication Report. It said: “In 2023, PR professionals are devoting an increasing amount of time and energy to building and protecting the reputations of their companies and their clients. That job has never been more important or more challenging … .”
• Another Sept. 19 email message—this one from Corporate Excellence—Centre for Reputation Leadership in Madrid—included updates on its July report: Approaching the Future—Trends in Reputation and Intangible Assets. For eight years, the organization has tracked international trends in public relations and corporate reputation management. In collaboration with the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, the center has developed a model to help executives understand key pillars of reputation and trust.
• A Sept. 20 online PR News story said that artificial intelligence was erasing the lines between public relations and marketing. “The era of intuition-driven PR is over,” the story said. Public relations people can now tap into the same data as marketers to track return on investment for both marketing and public relations campaigns. “Embracing AI means breaking down long-standing barriers and stepping into a future where your brand’s storytelling is not just compelling but extraordinarily effective,” the story said.

Do public relations people focus more on telling stories or guiding business actions that influence reputation? Does public relations work simply support marketing efforts, or does it contribute to broader business objectives?

Choice is “both-and”

In many organizations, the choices are “both-and,” not “either-or.” Seminal research reported in 1992 by James Grunig (Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management) said that public relations executives in the best-run organizations worked as both managers and communication technicians (storytellers). “Excellent” companies empowered their public relations functions to help guide actions to accomplish strategic corporate outcomes, not simply support marketing or human resources. Public relations executives managed interactions with key groups in the marketplace. How these key publics perceived the organization determined its reputation. A good reputation, in turn, contributed to organizational success.

Grunig’s “Excellence” theory has influenced how many practitioners and educators think about public relations for three decades.

But so has Tom Harris’s 1991 book, The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations. It was one of the first popular references to distinguish marketing public relations (support for sales of products and services) from corporate public relations (reputation management). The book helped promote the development of IMC, a popular concept in many companies that deliver products or services and in many advertising/public relations agencies. IMC coordinates advertising, public relations campaigns, and sales efforts so customers see consistent messages about products or services.

Fuzzy definition

I contend that public relations has never had a clearly understood definition like other business functions—accounting, advertising, personnel, legal, etc. As a result, chief executives haven’t always understood all the ways public relations could advance an organization’s success.

I blame Edward L. Bernays, an early public relations pioneer, for part of the problem. He coined the term “counsel on public relations” in his 1923 book, Crystallizing Public Opinion. But he didn’t provide a concise definition of public relations. Instead, he described a counsel on public relations as a “special pleader” in the court of public opinion. Counsels contributed to business success by applying knowledge of sociology, psychology, and economics to business strategies that could influence public opinion and guide mass human behavior.

Later in his life, Bernays lamented that anyone—including door-to-door salespeople—could call what they did “public relations.” He said that sinister actors in business and government had tarnished the discipline’s reputation. They used public relations techniques to accomplish questionable outcomes—not engineer the public consent necessary to promote progress in a democratic society. As a result, Bernays said, many organizations found alternative names for the public relations management function.

In response, Bernays advocated licensing public relations practitioners so a government body could define the practice and control who could do “public relations.”

Alternative references grow

After Bernays died in 1995, calls for licensing declined, and confusion—at least from my perspective—about what “public relations” involved appeared to increase. Organizations continued to adopt alternative titles for the function and to move traditional responsibilities of the discipline to other parts of the organization.

Paul Agenti says in Corporate Communication (7^th edition) that “corporate communication” has become the most common term for in-house public relations departments in the United States.

Among international agencies today, only Golan and Weber Shadwick appear to label themselves solely as public relations specialists. Hill+Knowlton Strategies calls itself a “global public relations and integrated communications agency.” FleishmanHillard is a global PR & digital marketing agency.

Edelman, the largest standalone agency, says it does “global communications.” Ketchem is a global communication consultancy. Burson Cohn & Wolfe does “integrated communication.”

In 1999, members of the Religious Public Relations Council changed the organization’s name to Religion Communicators Council. Advocates said that “communication” was a broader term than “public relations.”

In the USC 2018 Global Communication Report, 41% of in-house corporate communicators and 33% of agency practitioners said we would need to stop using “public relations” by 2023. The term would not accurately describe what they did.

Responsibilities disbursed

Along with fewer businesses referring to “public relations,” many organizations have moved traditional public relations responsibilities to other business functions.

Investor relations, for example, long a part of the public relations discipline, is now a distinct function in many publicly traded corporations. The National Investor Relations Institute, founded in 1969, defines investor relations as “a strategic management responsibility that integrates finance, communication, marketing, and securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies, which ultimately contributes to a company’s securities achieving fair valuation.” Where investor relations is a separate function, the investment relations officer generally reports to the chief executive officer or chief financial officer.

Government relations (or public affairs), another traditional part of the public relations discipline, is now found under the chief executive or corporate legal counsel in many organizations. Since 2017, this public relations subspeciality has had its own professional organization: the Government Relations Association.

Human relations departments in many organizations are now in charge of internal (employee) communication, yet another traditional part of the public relations discipline.

Puerto Rico defines public relations practice

Puerto Rico is the only American jurisdiction to eventually do what Bernays wanted. The commonwealth requires a license to practice public relations and be called a “Relationist.” The 2008 law that established the Regulatory Board of Relationists said licensed practitioners did four primary tasks:

1. Anticipate, analyze, and interpret public opinion, attitudes, and controversies that could impact, positively or negatively, the operations and plans of an organization or individual.
2. Advise all management levels of the organization, in relation to established policy decisions, courses of action, and communication, and take into consideration its different audiences and the social organization or the responsibilities of citizenship.
3. Research, plan, implement, and evaluate action and communication programs to achieve public acceptance and successfully achieve the goals of the organization or individual.
4. Plan and implement the organization’s efforts to propose or modify public policy.

These tasks reflect what most American universities teach in both undergraduate and graduate programs as “public relations” and help define the discipline. In fact, “public relations” is what future practitioners usually study in college—no matter what subspecialty they eventually work in. Two-thirds (67%) of 109 undergraduate programs responding to a 2018 survey—done by John Forde for the Commission on Public Relations Education—said they taught “public relations.” Another 14% called their programs “strategic communication.” Seven percent combined the public relations major with advertising. Two schools (2%) called their programs “integrated marketing communication,” and one program included public relations under “marketing.”

Puerto Rico requires licensed Relationists to have a master’s degree in “public relations” or an undergraduate degree in “public relations” with certified practical experience in the field.

Titles reflect roles

Now that I’m retired, I no longer have any vested interest in how the debate about “public relations” is decided. I’ve always told people that public relations is a management function that deals with interactions between organizations and groups in society. That function is responsible for enhancing corporate goodwill (the value of intangible assets) and fostering a good reputation with social groups that are important to the organization’s success. I won’t change my mind.

That perspective is one reason I helped launch a Reputation Management major in 2020 in Virginia Tech’s M.A. in Communication curriculum. I wanted our program to prepare mid-level managers for more than “storyteller” roles at companies, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Both the 2023 Global Communication Report and the 2023 Approach the Future Report appear to support our move. Those reports indicate that top executives are becoming more interested in capitalizing on good organizational reputations to enhance business success.

But my view may be in the minority among public relations educators. I’ve talked to many who think “strategic communication” more accurately describes what universities should be teaching. I disagree. I think that term indicates a focus on messaging and content production, not business strategy or management.

What an organization calls its public relations function usually indicates how it understands the role of practitioners—primarily managers who help guide corporate actions or communication technicians who tell about what executives have decided to do. The title often signals whether the public relations function contributes directly to business outcomes or simply supports functions like marketing or human resources.

The way practitioners describe themselves and what they do is another factor in how people outside the field see “public relations.” Are practitioners business strategists or content producers? Can storytellers contribute to business outcomes or manage reputation?

I’ll keep watching to see how the public relations discipline evolves and whether the term survives in both business and higher education.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon