Unscientific PR
Guest commentary Public relations does not yet have what it takes to become an academic canon, says Stephan Russ-Mohl after studying two field studies.
Guest commentary Public relations does not yet have what it takes to become an academic canon, says Stephan Russ-Mohl after the
Study of two field studies.
Is the PR industry professionalizing? How influential are heads of communication really? Is there even a PR science? Answers are provided by two studies that examine the art of PR in Switzerland and Germany in almost unprecedented detail.* There is clearly a considerable gap between day-to-day business and the claim of many PR experts to play a strategic role in shaping communication: Many PR executives simply do not have secure access to decision-making bodies. In Switzerland, the first broad-based survey of PR experts revealed that those who are involved in strategy development at the top level and at the same time in communication tasks tend to perform their PR duties on the side and with little professionalism. On the other hand, those who work full-time in communications management are usually not present when the course is set.
The German study states that many PR departments do not even have the necessary "information monopoly" vis-à-vis the media to be able to shape their external self-presentation. It also dispels the myth that corporate PR is something completely different from the public relations work of public authorities and non-profit organizations. Furthermore, despite recognizable tendencies towards professionalization, PR cannot develop into "a profession in the classic sense". This would require, among other things, access rules to the profession, a secure knowledge base, self-monitoring bodies and professional autonomy.
Klaus Kocks, former head of PR at Volkswagen, contributes a nice punchline in the foreword to the study. He asks whether there can be a "PR science" and compares his (flighty?) guild colleagues to butterflies. The researcher who collects them "assigns the colorful creatures a place that allows him to treat the entire insect world discursively; he knows that his identification book is not reality itself, but he also knows that he cannot leave the intellectual order to the butterflies themselves."
Kocks mocks the fact that the public relations workers assumed an important subject of their own in a "professionally notorious emphasis", which may interest the scientist "as a phenomenon", but does not justify an academic discipline of its own.how right he is - and how nice that PR research seems to be gradually freeing itself from those PR experts who only wanted to instrumentalize it for the purpose of PR for PR.
* Public Relations in Switzerland. An empirical
Study of two field studies.
Is the PR industry professionalizing? How influential are heads of communication really? Is there even a PR science? Answers are provided by two studies that examine the art of PR in Switzerland and Germany in almost unprecedented detail.* There is clearly a considerable gap between day-to-day business and the claim of many PR experts to play a strategic role in shaping communication: Many PR executives simply do not have secure access to decision-making bodies. In Switzerland, the first broad-based survey of PR experts revealed that those who are involved in strategy development at the top level and at the same time in communication tasks tend to perform their PR duties on the side and with little professionalism. On the other hand, those who work full-time in communications management are usually not present when the course is set.
The German study states that many PR departments do not even have the necessary "information monopoly" vis-à-vis the media to be able to shape their external self-presentation. It also dispels the myth that corporate PR is something completely different from the public relations work of public authorities and non-profit organizations. Furthermore, despite recognizable tendencies towards professionalization, PR cannot develop into "a profession in the classic sense". This would require, among other things, access rules to the profession, a secure knowledge base, self-monitoring bodies and professional autonomy.
Klaus Kocks, former head of PR at Volkswagen, contributes a nice punchline in the foreword to the study. He asks whether there can be a "PR science" and compares his (flighty?) guild colleagues to butterflies. The researcher who collects them "assigns the colorful creatures a place that allows him to treat the entire insect world discursively; he knows that his identification book is not reality itself, but he also knows that he cannot leave the intellectual order to the butterflies themselves."
Kocks mocks the fact that the public relations workers assumed an important subject of their own in a "professionally notorious emphasis", which may interest the scientist "as a phenomenon", but does not justify an academic discipline of its own.how right he is - and how nice that PR research seems to be gradually freeing itself from those PR experts who only wanted to instrumentalize it for the purpose of PR for PR.
* Public Relations in Switzerland. An empirical
Study on the professional field of public relations by U. Röttger/J. Hofmann/O. Jarren. UVK Verlag, Constance 2003.
Public relations as a profession. Critical analysis of a
emerging communications profession from Edith
Wienand. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003.
> Stephan Russ-Mohl is an author and professor of communication science at the University of Lugano.
