From these metaphors, it can be seen that scholars and practitioners have very inconsistent understandings of public relations. The concept of public relations has always been unclear, often contradictory in its definition and functions.
To further clarify the definition of public relations, the following analysis examines five aspects: the interpretation of the connotations of "Public Relations," communication-based public relations definitions, relationship-based public relations definitions, ecological public relations definitions, and public relations definitions for the new era.
I. Interpretation of the Connotations of "Public Relations"
The term Public Relations contains three layers of meaning: Public Communication, Public Relationships, and Ecological Network. These three keywords can provide purely theoretical explanations and arguments for the rationality of the public relations concept and the issues it covers, helping to establish a clear, complete, accurate, and systematic conceptual framework and knowledge map for public relations.
The three dimensions of public relations: communication, relationships, and ecological networks
"Public Communication" is the means dimension of public relations, with emphasis on "how organizations should communicate."
In English, the word Public has four main meanings: first, public-oriented (Public); second, publicity (Publicity); third, public interest (Public Interest); fourth, public opinion (Public Opinion). These four meanings together indicate an open-system concept of public communication. Public relations is a public communication activity between organizations and publics that possesses the characteristics of being public-oriented, open, serving the public interest, and relating to public opinion. Public relations is a form of public social interaction. All PR practices of an organization must be conducted under public scrutiny, operate in public spaces, attend to public interests, and be capable of shaping a public sphere where organizations and publics can engage in rational dialogue. Therefore, public relations is a form of public communication that differs from interpersonal communication, news communication, and advertising communication.
"Public Relationships" is the object dimension of public relations, with emphasis on how organizations establish relationships with stakeholders. In English, Relationships and Relations are quite different. Relations mainly refers to an objective relational fact, a static relational state, while Relationships refers to a subjective quality of relationship, a dynamic and changing relationship, and an emotional quality of relationship. Public relations is a form of public social interaction, representing organization-public relationship management and responsible action toward stakeholders, with the purpose of building harmonious relationships based on mutual understanding and trust.
"Ecological Network" is the purpose dimension of public relations. It emphasizes the network nature and ecological worldview of public relations. The concept of ecological network expresses the meaning of the plural "-s" in Relations and the harmonious nature of Relationships. The term "ecology" not only encompasses the meaning of the public environment but also implies the dynamic changes where various public environmental factors ebb and flow. As a macro perspective of public relations, ecological network addresses the questions of "how is the organization's ecological network shaped by public relations strategies" and "how does public relations affect the ecological network composed of organization-public-environment." In other words, public relations is not merely a means of public communication and management strategy, but rather a form of relational ecology management for the organization-public-environment system. Through strategic communication practices of "weaving networks," "creating flows," and "positioning," it continuously expands the organization's self-identity boundaries within the ecological network, realizing the truth, goodness, and beauty of the organization-public-environment system.
Historically, these three keywords did not appear simultaneously but underwent a connotation shift from communication-based PR to relationship-based PR and ecological PR. The proposal of ecological public relations in particular has compensated for the neglect and deficiencies of mainstream PR theory regarding "organization-environment relationships," making the public relations discipline more macro-oriented, strategic, and humanistic.
Overall, these three keywords constitute the three dimensions of the essential connotations of public relations, representing the means dimension, object dimension, and purpose dimension of the public relations concept respectively. They also represent a complete understanding of the public relations concept. Missing any one dimension would lead to the situation of "blind men feeling an elephant"—seeing only the trees, not the forest—resulting in one-sided cognition of public relations and limitations in public relations practice.
II. Communication-Based Public Relations Definitions
Communication-based public relations mainly includes Miller's persuasion theory, Jefkins' communication theory, Grunig's communication management theory, Caywood's communication strategy theory, Daft's organizational image theory, and Dr. Harlow's management function theory.
Communication-based approaches emphasize strategic messaging and persuasion
R. Miller defined public relations as "the process of trying with all one's might to control certain environments through symbols," and "the process of trying with all one's might to control the assessment of attitudes and images through symbols, as well as related publics and customers." He believed that public relations is a persuasive communication activity, and that communication and persuasion, if not synonymous, are an inseparable pair. Communication is a way humans try hard to control the symbolic environment: from birth to death, people seek warmth rather than cold, abundance rather than scarcity, respect, liking, and love rather than contempt, social isolation, and hatred. Therefore, seeking environmental control is as natural and universal as the human need to breathe. More broadly, the function of seeking control is unrelated to morality, or is supra-moral, just as interaction and eating are supra-moral—it is an inevitable aspect of people's lives.
The persuasion theory takes self-interested utilitarianism and functional outcomes as its basic assumptions, emphasizing that public relations is a means to achieve organizational goals. Organizations need not change their behavior or compromise; it reflects an instrumental rationality and asymmetric worldview.
British PR expert Frank Jefkins stated: "Public relations consists of various planned communication contacts conducted to achieve specific goals related to mutual understanding. This communication takes place between organizations and publics, both inwardly and outwardly."
This view emphasizes, from the operational characteristics of public relations, that public relations is a form of communication between social organizations and publics.
Grunig and Hunt proposed in their book "Managing Public Relations" (1984 edition): Public relations is the management of communication between an organization and its publics. This definition centers on "communication" and uses "management" as the principle to define public relations. Organization, publics, management, and communication are the four important elements of PR. The communication management theory has long been the dominant mainstream public relations theory.
Grunig equated public relations with communication management or organizational communication. He believed that communication management is a broader concept than communication technology, and broader than specialized public relations activities such as media relations and publicity. Public relations and communication management encompass all the planning, execution, and evaluation of communication with internal and external publics of an organization. At the same time, communication management includes both internal and external organizational management, making it richer than organizational communication, because organizational communication is largely used to describe individual communication within organizations. That is, organizational communication describes communication within organizations among senior executives, middle managers, subordinates, and other employees. Although organizations also pay attention to external communication, internal publicity, and communication systems between groups within organizations, their main interest is internal communication among individual organizational members. Equating public relations with organizational communication indicates that organizational communication can be both internal and external. Therefore, communication management mainly includes public information management, public opinion management, public relations management, and public image management.
Caywood, centering on "strategy," emphasized how people use public relations strategies in organizational communication to achieve satisfactory organizational outcomes: Public relations is the effective integration of an organization's existing and ongoing social relationships. Through various communication channels, it integrates social managers including the general public to create and maintain the organization's brand awareness and reputation.
Organizational theorist Daft, centering on "image," believed that public relations is a means of controlling environmental resources through inter-organizational connections. The development of public relations should attempt to create a good corporate image in the minds of customers, suppliers, and government officials. Chinese scholars believe that "public relations is the science and art by which social organizations influence publics through communication and interaction means in order to shape organizational image."
American PR scholar Dr. Rex F. Harlow proposed the following PR definition: Public relations is a distinctive management function. It helps establish and maintain communication, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between an organization and its publics; it participates in handling various problems and issues; it helps management understand public opinion and respond to it; it defines and emphasizes the responsibility of the enterprise to serve the public interest; it serves as a monitor of social trends to help the enterprise keep pace with social changes; it uses effective communication skills and research methods as basic tools.
This definition indicates that the nature of public relations is "a distinctive management function," serving as the organization's "early warning system"; the goal of public relations is to establish and maintain "communication, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation" between organizations and publics; the function of public relations is to "handle various public issues," grasp public opinion and respond promptly, and adapt to and anticipate environmental changes; the subject of public relations is the organization, and the object is the public; the principle of public relations is "conforming to ethics"; and the means of public relations are research and communication.
III. Relationship-Based Public Relations Definitions
This category of definitions mainly includes the social relations theory, relationship strategy theory, and relationship management theory.
Relationship-based approaches focus on building trust and mutual understanding
In 1930, Princeton University Professor Harwood L. Childs (also said to be a Yale University professor and founder of "Public Opinion Quarterly") believed that public relations is a general term for the various activities we engage in and the various relationships that occur. These activities and relationships are all public in nature and have social significance. He believed that public relations is not an articulation and interpretation of viewpoints, not the art of harmonizing people's attitudes, nor the development of honesty and interest relationships, but the coordination and adjustment of the socially significant behavior of individuals or organizations in our society in terms of public interest.
This definition emphasizes that the essential attributes of public relations are "public interest and social nature," and the behavioral characteristic of public relations is "two-way."
American public relations scholar Hutton focused on "relationship strategy," proposing that "public relations is a strategic relationship management discipline." He proposed six situational roles for public relations: persuader, advocate, educator, reformer, information provider, and brand manager. The main responsibilities performed include: investigation, image building, consultation, management, diagnosis, interpretation, communication, and negotiation. The strategic tools commonly used in public relations mainly include publicity, product sales, news releases, public speaking, interpersonal communication, websites, publications, trade shows, regular corporate activities, and corporate advertising campaigns.
This definition emphasizes the "strategic and tactical nature" of relationship management and integrated strategic communication, but it still remains at the communication technology level, lacking philosophical perspective.
Renowned American public relations scholars Scott Cutlip and Allen Center proposed in their book "Effective Public Relations": "Public relations is a management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends."
Other representative figures of the relationship management theory mainly include: Mary A. Ferguson, advocate of relationship management; Glen M. Broom, promoter of relationship management; James E. Grunig, respondent to relationship management; and John Ledingham, the main leader of relationship management.
This definition emphasizes returning relationships to public relations—relationships are the core concept of public relations. The essence of public relations is "relationship management" rather than "communication management," and the quality of organization-public relationships is the key to measuring the success or failure of public relations. The emergence of the relationship management theory led to a major shift in public relations theoretical paradigms.
However, the relationship management theory also has its limitations. It is mostly based on interpersonal communication theory, focusing on researching the dimensional elements, development processes, and functional effects of organization-public relationships. It is basically limited to a relatively micro level of relationship research, neglecting the macro perspective of relational ecology.
IV. Ecological Public Relations Definitions
Ecological PR definitions mainly include the community sense building theory, network ecology theory, and relational ecology theory.
Ecological approaches view organizations within complex environmental networks
Kruckeberg and Starck defined public relations as "an active effort to restore and maintain a sense of community." In their book "Public Relations and Community: A Reconstructed Theory," they pointed out that social upheaval stems from the disappearance of community sense, which is largely attributable to new technology—just as it has changed the methods of communication and transportation, it has changed human relationships. Public relations emerged to fill the social vacuum caused by the disappearance of community. Public relations should address fundamental social problems according to changes in the social environment, mending the relationships between their clients and various social factors, rather than merely using persuasive communication means to achieve predetermined goals on behalf of commissioned clients.
The "community sense building theory" provides us with a socially-oriented definition of public relations. It emphasizes that public relations should have a sense of historical transcendence and social responsibility, emphasizing public relations' attention to and contribution to community public life. This definition differs significantly from activity-oriented and organization-oriented public relations definitions, possessing deeper philosophical thinking and a grander vision.
Maureen Taylor, editor-in-chief of Public Relations Review, combined social network analysis with "the relationships of public relations" to conduct macro-level relationship research. Using a network ecology approach, she positioned organizations as ordinary members of complex ecologies with various relationships. Network public relations research does not explore the details of relationships at the micro level but views all organizations as networks embedded within other networks. These networks together constitute a network ecology in which all organizations and publics live equally. Therefore, the network ecology perspective does not assign publics a secondary role but promises to elevate publics to an equal communication status with organizations.
Public relations is the relational ecology management of the organization-public-environment system. Specifically, it means that social organizations use research and dialogic communication to create a relational ecology characterized by public-orientedness, openness, public interest, and public opinion, to ensure harmony among organizational interests, public interests, and common interests.
Public relations encompasses three major categories: relational resource networks, relational communication flows, and relational ecological niches. The purpose of public relations is to create a harmonious and lasting relational ecology through "weaving networks," "creating flows," and "positioning."
The relational ecology theory is a macro public relations definition from an ecological perspective. It emphasizes that public relations deals not only with the relationship between one organization and one type of public, but with the relationships between an organization and numerous stakeholders. Public relations handles not only the communicative dialogue relationship between an organization and its related publics, but also the research and monitoring relationship between an organization and its environment. In this compound relationship of organization-public-environment, public relations plays the role of "boundary scanner" and "relationship intermediary." The essential attribute of public relations is "publicness," or in plain terms, the "third-party stance."
The purpose of public relations is to enable organizations to "embrace the world rather than conquer it," to allow organizations to continuously expand the scope of self-identification, gradually transforming from individual self to social self, and ultimately becoming "ecological self," thereby maximizing (long-term and universal) self-realization and achieving the truth, goodness, and beauty of organization-public-environment relationships.
Based on this, we can also define public relations more colloquially: Public relations is the science and art of telling the truth, doing good deeds, and creating beautiful images.
V. Public Relations Definitions for the New Era
Humanity has entered a new era of mobile internet. As a disruptive innovative technology, big data is profoundly influencing and changing the real ecology of the public relations field, shaking the foundations of the traditional public relations industry. Big data technology has not only prompted dynamic changes of "PR-ization" and "de-PR-ization" in the professional practice field of public relations, but has also caused tremendous changes in the fields of public relations education and academic research. Therefore, it is necessary for us to rethink public relations.
Big data and digital transformation are reshaping public relations practice
Public relations in the big data era has three major characteristics: pan-PR-ization, de-PR-ization, and integration.
In the big data era, we must answer what the "reason for existence" of public relations is. This is a "Coasean Floor" problem. As is well known, Coase posed a famous self-answered economics question: if a company's expansion crosses a certain point, it will lead to its own collapse. In terms of public relations, on one hand, we have entered an era of "pan-PR," where the subjects of public relations have moved beyond the limitations of "organizations and institutions," expanding to include holographic subjects from nations and supranational entities (such as the EU) at the top to grassroots self-media at the bottom, and permeating all aspects of human life including politics, economy, culture, society, and military affairs. On the other hand, we have also simultaneously entered an era of "de-PR-ization," where intelligent technologies such as big data and cloud computing are showing development trends of "computation replacing thinking" and "cloud brains replacing human brains," greatly reducing the intermediary costs of the public relations industry. That is to say, although some PR activities can create value, they are not worth forming an intermediary organization to engage in value creation—perhaps public relations has already fallen below the "Coasean Floor." However, we need not be overly pessimistic about this technology-level "de-PR-ization," because big data technology's elimination of all sharing barriers and establishment of sharing models still requires personalized intelligent intervention. The strategic thinking and tactics of public relations are precisely at a great opportunity to show their capabilities.
From a public relations perspective, the concepts of strategy and tactics have long been deeply embedded in public relations practice and academic research. In the 2020s, strategic communication is increasingly becoming a hot term in public relations education, mainly applied in communication programs at national government and military levels. Now it has become an umbrella concept encompassing various goal-oriented communication activities, covering public relations, marketing and financial communication, health communication, public diplomacy, and social movements. In the United States, many universities have integrated initially distinctly different PR and advertising programs into strategic communication curricula; in Europe, strategic communication is often treated as a symbolic management method, applied to integrated communication fields of various organizations; in the Asia-Pacific region, the term strategic communication is also used in professional fields, educational fields, and other academic fields.
Internationally, strategic communication and public relations are often viewed as the same term in many contexts. The essence of strategic communication is the purposeful use of communication means to achieve organizational missions. These organizations hold interdisciplinary perspectives on communication, tending to integrate public relations with other functions such as public diplomacy, viewing it as a strategic communication effort. In developing, executing, and evaluating organizational communication, six disciplinary fields are involved: management, marketing, public relations, technology, political communication, and information or social marketing campaigns. American strategic communication scholar Carl Botan believes that the largest application areas of strategic communication are mainly public relations, marketing, and health communication—these are the main practice areas of strategic communication and the core branches of strategic communication.