Exploring Alternative Views of PR Theory
[This is another reply to Benita Steyn that I wrote in the ongoing discussion regarding PR theory at PR Conversations]
My “approach” first and foremost is to avoid being explanatory or provide overarching definitions for topics under research. I see a much better approach in attacking a challenge through interrogation, exploration, and speculation. Too often, I think, scholars try too hard to give an answer or explain everything.
My criticism of Dr. Grunig’s reliance on symmetry and the larger so-called Excellence Theory includes:
– Attempting to define PR through Excellence actually made the field more self-reflective and insular. As a result, public relations is further alienated from inter-related disciplines and the broader academic community. PR scholars thus spend a lot of time spinning their wheels redefining PR and why it should be part of management, rather than tackling issues that impact practitioners.
– Public relations can be ethical, effective, and important to an organization without the emphasis on “management” or where the top communicator sits in an organizational hierarchy.
– All communications efforts (marketing, PR, and advertising) should be aligned to the organization’s overall strategic goals, as one would see in Hoshin planning.
– Two-way symmetrical communications does not take into account the power relationships involved in the relationship between an organization and all its “publics.” Furthermore, the technological age makes it nearly impossible to talk about “publics” in any uniform manner. For true symmetrical communications to occur, one would have to have countless communicators constantly negotiating with various individuals and groups.
– While communicators may have a deep knowledge of the environments inside and outside their organizations and facilitate discussions between audiences and the organization, their work is conducted to further the organization’s goals and objectives. Communicators are not society’s ombudsmen.
– Communications research should be practical and applied.
So, Benita, these are some of the ideas I have about communicators, but I’m not attempting to come up with an overriding “theory” of PR. You asked, so I jotted down some thoughts.
I do not think it is advantageous to use a single theory to explain one’s worldview. We attempt to teach our students to be critical thinkers, then watch as scholars use postmodernism, Marxism, realism, etc. as the lens through which they see their world. Dr. Grunig and his followers have been so diligent in building the work into an “ism” that its muted work on other important areas or forced others to use it as their own lens.
I don’t think that our basic ideas regarding PR are all that different, we’re just approaching some things from different vantage points. And, the differences are healthy and necessary.
[And a follow-up post]
While it seems I’m the lone dissenting voice in this discussion, there are others in the field (both professionals and academics) who share similar feelings.
In Public Relations Theory II, edited by Carl Botan and Vincent Hazleton, the editors write, “Most scholars would agree that Symmetrical/Excellence Theory is, at least potentially, a paradigmatic theory. Most would also agree that it is the only such paradigmatic theory yet developed in public relations. This speaks well for the Symmetrical/Excellence folks, and ill for the rest of the field” (9).
And, “According to Kuhn (1970), theoretic paradigms frame and guide research in a field. However, they may also stifle and prevent the consideration of innovative ideas and theories. Regular and frequent public examinations of theories by scholars not directly tied to those theories may help a naturally polyparadigmatic field like public relations avoid the unhealthy condition of a lack of paradigmatic struggle.”