Writing PR history: issues, methods and politics
The Authors
Jacquie L'Etang, Stirling Media Research Institute, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that public relations (PR) history-writing has profoundly shaped the discipline and that its US bias may have limited theoretical developments. The author aims to explore the challenges in writing PR history and to consider some of the strategic philosophical issues and challenges that face historians.
Design/methodology/approach – Historical interpretations are shaped by authors' social constructions and thus the paper is written reflexively. The author discusses the way in which histories are structured and patterned by their authors' assumptions and values about the nature of time; human civilisation, progressivism, situationalism, inevitability, human agency, cultural change, flux and transformation.
Findings – Existing (largely US) PR historical writing is analysed in terms of its theoretical impact through the “four models” and it is argued that this typology is not appropriately applied to other cultures with different paths of historical evolution. As a way of demonstrating this point, key aspects of British developments in the twentieth century are drawn out to reveal a dozen “models” of PR practice that could potentially form the basis of theoretical research.
Originality/value – Overall, the paper contributes a discussion of historical methodology in relation to PR; shows the connection between history and theory-building in PR; and demonstrates that history from other cultures can reveal alternative models for theoretical development.
Article Type:
Research paper
Keyword(s):
History; Politics; Philosophy; Research methods; Public relations.
Journal:
Journal of Communication Management
Volume:
12
Number:
4
Year:
2008
pp:
319-335
Copyright ©
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN:
1363-254X
Introduction
In this article I draw on my experiences as a public relations (PR) historian to share some of the theoretical and methodological challenges that emerge in trying to write PR history. In response to the editor's call, I have endeavoured to reflect upon the challenges in recovering histories (and indeed her-stories) of public relations. As the call makes plain, public relations histories may be national, regional, cultural, governmental, institutional, organizational, professional, biographical, and autobiographical. They may also be intellectual, engaging with histories of ideas that shape concepts, theories, and thought about public relations. Nevertheless, there are other approaches to PR history, for example, its role in broader historical contexts (linked to causes and impacts) in political, economic, social, diplomatic and international histories. In this issue the strong and understandable focus on PR practice appears to downplay histories of corporate, industrial or institutional PR, histories of stakeholder perspectives or those of “activists”, and concepts and theories which, for whatever reason, have not been taken up in the literature.
The imaginative scope this editor's call requires authors to engage both with the strategies of history-writing, and the praxis of its data-gathering. In this article I aim to tackle both of these elements, incorporating reflexive comments from my own historical writing as appropriate. I start by sketching out some key strategic considerations in writing PR history. In so doing I consider briefly the nature of history and historical methodology in order to contextualise previously published histories (including my own), and other articles published in this Special Issue. This preparatory discussion provides some theoretical and literary background before I launch into the main discussion of the issues, which may arise in writing PR history. Methodological issues are foregrounded because an understanding of the nature and limitations of historical paradigms and methods, and the way in which historical data may be utilised, such as extrapolation to theory, is rather important in defining the scope and role of public relations history. My discussion develops into an argument about the politics and history of ideas about public relations as a discipline.
This article falls into three main sections: a discussion of the philosophical issues that arise in writing history; a reflexive account of some historical techniques useful in tackling PR history; the discipline politics of PR histories; a manifesto for an alternative theoretical framework for the field in the UK and a more diverse research agenda.
History, philosophy and historiography: methodological strategies and tactics
Any historical work requires reflection upon the nature of history and its use. Theorising about history falls within the remit of philosophers, particularly those specialising in metaphysics and logic. Philosophers of history have explored the historical process, historians' assumptions, choices and strategies (meta-theory – historiography), and historical methods. As Gardiner pointed out:
Those who embarked on this enterprise often conceived of the past in strikingly different divergent terms … [for] some … it was seen as exhibiting unilinear progression towards a prospective and intrinsically desirable future state, by others as taking a cyclical course that involved the continual recurrence of identifiable patterns of growth and decay; some considered it to be governed by causal or mechanistic principles analogous to those elicited by the physical sciences, while others … invoked rational or purposive notions and professed to discern in history the unfolding of a pervasive “logic” or the shapes of a unitary design; to some the sequence of events appeared to conform to a necessary or deterministic order, while others understood it as allowing for the play of an element of irreducible contingency or freedom (Gardiner, 1974, p. 1).
In other words, historians have different opinions about the past and the progress and meaning of time, for example, seeing human civilisation as progressive or cyclical; as determined by principles or historical “laws”; as part of an holistic pattern or system; or as a chapter of situational events or accidents or coincidences. Such reflections show that historical writing goes beyond the telling of a story, because the historian may suggest strategic developments or turning points that position the particular in the context of an overall human story.
The concept of time in history is partly a question of scale and relativity to which the French Annales school contributed the insight of historical events as “surface disturbances” in relation to larger cultural and economic shifts (Braudel, 1966, p. 27, cited in Hall, 1980, p. 115). For example, one can understand Nazi Germany as a consequence of Versailles, or of economic depression, or of Nazi propaganda, coercion and control. But we can also understand it as small-scale accommodations or inabilities to resist at the individual level that, cumulatively, led to the dominant culture of anti-Judaism. Historians have to handle multiple levels of data that relate to their particular research question. The scope of the historical research question will influence how the historian interprets data as sufficiently significant to justify the decision to specify an event as “a turning point” or a series of events or dominant cultural practices as “the x period”.
The social scientific nature of history (which includes both qualitative and quantitative techniques) means that history writing is necessarily also influenced by the individual history writer. There is no “universal” or “right” history, but a series of “interpretations of interpretations” (of records, key witnesses).
Change, causation and possibility are concerns that are shared by philosophers of time. As philosophers Le Poidevin and MacBeath explained:
Consider three fundamental beliefs we have about the world (so fundamental that we would rarely, if ever, articulate them): that change is going on constantly, that changes are caused, and that there are constraints on what changes are possible. If we then ask: but are these beliefs true? And: how is it possible for them to be true, if they are? [These are the] central concerns of metaphysics, the philosophical study of what there is … (Le Poidevin and MacBeath, 1993, p. 1).
PR historians therefore need to relate their research questions to the concept of time and the notion of change in relation to larger processes of transformation. Specifying the scale of time as the background to developments also needs to be explained.
The PR discipline and its theorisation of processes has been rather strongly moulded in terms of patterning, a process also described by historians as “colligation”. Other processes of simplification entail privileging certain aspects that are thought to be of prime importance, such as “class, or race, or civilization or social structure” (Berlin, 1974, p. 175) in historical sociology and sociological history, two very specific approaches to historical writing. PR history to date has been less sensitive to these structural developments. For example, in PR history the choice of biographical approaches (as in Hiebert, 1966; Cutlip, 1994; Cutlip, 1995; Tye, 1998) may over-emphasise the real influence of individual practitioners at the expense of broad social change (Ewen, 1996). The same is obviously true of autobiography (Hill, 1963; Bernays, 1948). The story of PR, however, encompasses social structure and function, economic and political arrangements, international relations, as well as PR consultancies (Miller, 1999), corporations (Olasky, 1987; Marchand, 1998) and PR's relationship with business (Tedlow, 1979). US PR historian Alan Raucher argued that:
The study of public relations, therefore, must be a history of ideas and a history of actual practices, an examination of the interrelationship between ideas and action (Cutlip, 1994, p. xvii).
However, I would argue that PR history needs to encompass individual, organizational and societal levels.
The technical data-gathering and story-writing that comprises historical work is based upon the historian's assumptions about the role, scope, nature and purpose of history as outlined above. If an historian believes, for example, in historical inevitability, or in progressivism, that will influence his or her handling of unexpected or “chance” events. For example, Fukuyama's ideologically informed analysis suggested “the need to look again at whether there is some deeper connecting thread” in his argument that liberal democracy marked an endpoint in humankind's evolution (Fukuyama, 1992). While there is no space here to examine Fukuyama's thesis, his controversial analysis might be usefully explored through a PR lens. For example, the role of PR in the history of ideologies adds a different dimension to the history of ideas. A belief in historical inevitability may lean on the notion of historical laws (a belief in natural laws that govern historical events is known as “historicism”) and arise from “infatuation with the natural sciences” (Berlin, 1974, p. 161) or functionalism (either religious or naturalistic) which seeks to explain the particular in terms of the holistic universe and natural systems. On this account, history writing may become a prescriptive pattern that makes alternative interpretation difficult and appears to deny free will. As Berlin suggested:
The pattern, and it alone, brings into being, and causes to pass away, and confers purpose, that is to say, value and meaning, on all there is. To understand is to perceive patterns. To offer historical explanations is not merely to describe a succession of events, but to make it intelligible; to make it intelligible is to reveal the basic pattern … the more inevitable an event or action or a character can be exhibited as being, the better it has been understood, the profounder the researcher's insight, the nearer we are to one embracing, ultimate truth … It enters, however, unconsciously, into the thought and language of those who speak of the “rise” and “fall” of states or movements or classes or individuals as if they obeyed some irresistible rhythm, a rising or falling wave of some cosmic river, an ebb or tide in human affairs, subject to natural or supernatural laws … (Berlin, 1974, pp. 162-163).
This quote highlights key controversial features in history writing: the imposition of patterns or “colligations” of history, which then become dominant explanations; and the ideas of historical inevitability and determinism. Historical determinism has had several forms, which include the notion that we may be caught in developments or movements which are the logical consequence of prior events (Nagel, 1974, p. 189) or seen as “a regulative principle which formulates the general objective of science as search for explanations – as a quest for ascertaining the conditions upon which the occurrence of events is contingent” (Nagel, 1974, p. 215). The suggestion of predictability was famously challenged by Karl Popper in his book The Poverty of Historicism in which he argued in favour of understanding history as a series of unique events (Hamilton, 1996, p. 17). On the other hand, there has been criticism of too much particularism in historical approaches, which interpret the past as a series of significant accidents rather than overwhelming trends. To make a PR analogy: in reviewing an organizational accident should we focus on the individual employees who were on site when the accident took place, or on the management team that instigated the safety procedures and influenced the organizational culture with regard to safety issues? (This of course is of central relevance in considering corporate liability and punishment, key aspects of corporate social responsibility.)
Historical evaluation and judgement is based upon the historian's assumptions and world-view as well as his or her orientation towards optimism or pessimism. Notions of historical objectivity have also been challenged by Marxism, feminism, post-colonialism and postmodernism (Southgate, 1996, pp. 86-108) as these demonstrate alternative readings of written histories and available data which challenge more conventional or traditional histories in terms of what counts as relevant as well as how data may be interpreted for different argumentative ends. Historical explanations are not neutral and include ideological or moral components. Authorial reflexivity is thus important. Reflexivity in historical work has been encouraged by historicism, “a critical movement insisting on the prime importance of historical context to the interpretation of texts of all kinds” (Hamilton, 1996, p. 2) which opposes determinist thinking. According to Hamilton:
Anti-enlightenment historicism … is concerned to situate any statement – philosophical, historical, aesthetic … in its historical context [and] … to explore the extent to which any historical enterprise inevitably reflects the interests and bias of the period in which it is written. On the one hand, therefore, historicism is suspicious of the stories the past tells about itself; on the other hand, it is equally suspicious of its own partisanship. It offers up both its past and its present for ideological scrutiny (Hamilton, 1996, p. 3).
Thus writing history is a complex task involving some philosophical reflection at the outset of the project. Capturing processes of transformation needs to be subtle, and not a caricature or a moral fable. As in other forms of research, research questions and focus need to be clear, and articulated in open exploratory terms: how did public relations emerge in context X and why? What role did public relations play in a particular historical event and how? What has been the relationship between public relations and power? Why did organization X set up a public relations function? How and why did this PR practitioner achieve public notoriety or iconic status and why? When did employee magazines and communications emerge, where and why?
Crafting history
The Historian's Craft is the title of a famous book that used to be required reading for first-year history undergraduates (Bloch, 1954). It has rather interesting connotations for those trying to write about the history of a practice that is also still rather craft-based. To me, ‘craft” connotes the patience and care required to make sense of multiple records and many stories, and to deliver an interpretation that goes beyond the recounting of “facts” to explain what happened and why. Of course, not all stories have a neat ending (or even a neat beginning) but then open-ended or alternate endings are a recognised literary device. The existing literature in public relations history could be interestingly subjected to an analysis of its storylines, myths and tropes. The tricky part, in historical story-telling, is supplying convincing evidence and authentication to support a particular view of the dominant story-line, and in making that process transparent.
The careful piecing-together of fragments of evidence, the process of patching them into a collage is part of the process. Delivering an overall picture, even though there are gaps, loose ends and uncertainties is a difficult challenge because it requires some imagination as well as the exercise of what used to be referred to as “historical judgement”, a sort of “gut instinct”, rather equivalent, I think, to the process carried out by thematizing or coding qualitative researchers when they have reached the “saturation” stage. “Historical judgement” was seen as the exercise of the experienced historian, and it used to be thought that historians, like good wine, took time to mature (in contrast to mathematicians who are supposed to peak early). The comparison with qualitative research is drawn, not least, because many historians regard themselves as social scientists rather than as part of the humanities. Many historians will, for example, use statistical data – cliometrics – as part of their multi-method approach (Jarausche and Hardy, 1991, pp. 4, 199). The historian as bricoleur sits neatly within the concept of history as a developing process delivering many alternate voices and perspectives in a post-modern process that decries one overall explanation. That philosophical position clearly challenges the notion of history employed in some public relations literature. The idea of history as a collage contributed to by multiple voices also raises issues over the structuring of historical writing. A narrative may be linear following a time-line, or thematic or indeed sociological, structured around topics such as class or gender, politics or economics, and driven by more critical concerns of power, exploitation and class conflict. Such sociological work has been slow to develop in PR (though see Edwards, 2006; Ihlen, 2005), in particular there is room for more class-analysis and ethnography.
Some might be uncomfortable with the notion of “historian's judgement” but it is only a problem if one views such judgement as irrefutable and “factual” or “objective”. Since the past is gone, historians can only pick over the remains, eye-witness accounts and oral history interviews which all provide authenticity – but only from the point of view of that particular actor. Historical analysis produces knowledge, insights and interpretations regarding causation, continuities, transformations and comparisons and, as Jenkins pointed out:
History always conflates, it changes and it exaggerates aspects of the past (Jenkins, 1991, p. 13).
Thus, history writing is also creative writing subject to the individual “reading” of data by the historical author. For the sake of transparency, author reflexivity is important.
Historical techniques: a reflexive account
Reflexivity in history writing
The position of the researcher is central to the nature of the story-telling and that requires more reflexivity than is common or conventional in much academic writing. Reflexivity is as important in historical research as in other forms of qualitative research. Transparency enables the historian to explain their assumptions as clearly as they are able, which may subsequently add to the defensibility of an analysis. Quite recently two media sociologists who have researched public relations history and practice considered that:
… official historians of PR like to argue that PR might have been a bit rough round the edges when it started, but that it is much better now (Miller and Dinan, 2007, p. 11).
Such a comment requires all those who have written PR history to reflect upon whether they are, indeed, “official” historians and if so, what that implies about their relationships with official occupational bodies and practitioners, and how those relationships affect the history that they write. PR academics might also wish to reflect upon whether they would agree with Miller and Dinan's judgement.
Oral history as a technique
The use of oral history may be an option for recent histories. Nevertheless, while strong on autobiographical and biographical contextual data, and journalistic “colour” they are often weak on precision regarding dates or the order of events – memories are fallible. I think there are particular issues in interviewing PR practitioners – after all, these people have been in practice and likely to be masters and mistresses of impression management and also keen to leave their mark on the historical records. This was a point noted by historians Stuart Ewen and Larry Tye, who both interviewed Edward Bernays. For example, Ewen remarked that:
I was thoroughly charmed … In retrospect, I had greatly underestimated the individual with whom I would be talking. I had presupposed that this keenly aware shaper of public perception, this trader in realities, was at the same time open to being candidly cross-examined. Yet in the days following our meeting, it became clear to me that my entire visit had been orchestrated by a virtuoso (Ewen, 1996, pp. 15-17).
Such problems are also noted by those who have discussed the particular challenges of conducting “elite” interviews. The point has been made that it is important for the researcher to establish with their informant, which identity is being researched. For example are they speaking for themselves as individuals, as some one who worked for a particular organization or organizations, as a member of a professional body? One might think that public relations practitioners are probably particularly likely to “do their best” to present their practice well.
Oral history, which is valued for its chance to engage with key witnesses and to produce authenticity, is subject to a number of weaknesses, not least the fact that those with good genes live longer and therefore have more chance to influence the story. There have been moments in my own research when there were opportunities to “ambulance-chase” dying men keen to leave their mark upon the record. I chose not to do so, but was unclear whether this was due to my own squeamish-ness, rather than ethical propriety, and whether in fact, I should have respected the wishes of the dying.
Archival research
Recovering PR histories is not always an easy task. Access is critical and an example of how access maybe denied is recorded in Cutlip's prologue where, in outlining the content of chapters 17 and 18, he remarked:
For the Carl Byoir chapters I again owe a tremendous debt indeed to a former graduate, Col. Robert J. Bennett, whose voluminous masters's thesis in effect saved the Byoir papers for scholars. Bennett, through my good offices, was given access to the Byoir Papers, which are no longer available to public access. Their disposition is a bit of a mystery (Cutlip, 1994, p. xx).
Furthermore, organizations often do not retain archives that would be useful to PR historians. In any case, archives in themselves are not infallible: at some point choices have been made to release and keep, or destroy, material. Archival work certainly requires obstinacy and the endurance to read through vast quantities of material that does not appear to add data or explanation.
Faced with piles of records, I have experienced the feeling that my task was more akin to triage than scholarship. The motives behind the retention or destruction of records may be innocent or pragmatic rather than sinister, but this does not alter the fact that the process of sedimentation is, as in geological formation, subject to variable influences that erode a source of knowledge. For example, when using the excellent History of Advertising Trust (HAT) archive in public relations, where IPR/CIPR has deposited its records, I found that minutes of the Professional Practices Committee (the disciplinary committee) were not available after some date in the 1970s, and that it was clear, that in comparison to the records of other IPR/CIPR committees, some rather substantial institutional “weeding” had taken place prior to the deposit. The reduction of data certainly impeded my analysis, and would be serious for a scholar wishing to make a Foucauldian analysis of discipline and punishment in the public relations occupational body.
In any case, one has to be wary of organizational minutes. In my own research, I sometimes gleaned more from letters or from public relations or from interview data, and I was fortunate that I was able to triangulate my study in this way. It is often said that the minute-taker holds the power and these unseen editors clearly wield influence. Likewise, promotional documents, such as annual reports, have many hidden contributors and glossy production can be a veil that obscures organizational politics and the real role that public relations practitioners may have had, or the fact that PR decisions or recommendations may have been ignored or over-ruled.
The politics of public relations history
The noted US PR historian and educator, Scott M. Cutlip, remarked pertinently in his prologue to his substantial volume Public Relations: The Unseen Power – A History (Cutlip, 1994) that:
Initially… I set out to trace the evolution of public relations practice from the Colonial period to the mid-20th century. The first 10 chapters brought me to only the turn of the 20th century. A historian friend suggested that I was trying to write a history of the United States. In writing about the history of public relations it is a difficult task to keep the focus on the practice and not get mired in substantive content of the problem or project with which the practitioner is trying to deal … I decided to narrow my focus by profiling the pioneering public relations agencies and their founders. I did this in order to keep the book within tolerable limits … The persons profiled in this book were chosen for their enduring contributions and by the availability of documentation (Cutlip, 1994, p. x).
This quote is instructive in a number of ways. It elegantly makes the point that public relations activity is central to political, economic, technological and socio-cultural change. Public relations does not take place in a vacuum, and it is not restricted to the commercial domain. Thus, anyone finding themselves researching or writing about PR history will soon find themselves bogged down in extensive wider reading in order to understand the context in which public relations emerged or took place. It also shows that history is, to some extent, written around available data, and the reader is thus reliant upon the historian to be open about the limitations of sources and access, as well as their authorial interpretive processes.
Cutlip's insight could also be read as implying that public relations originated in American culture and society, an assumption that is indeed present in much public relations literature, although I am not personally sure that this is what Cutlip intended. Nevertheless, it does show clearly how history writing relates to the politics of the field. Since early histories about PR were largely American (Hiebert, 1966; Tedlow, 1979; Cutlip, 1994, 1995; Pearson, 1992; Olasky, 1987; Marchand, 1998; Ewen, 1996; Tye, 1998; Miller, 1999), and since Cutlip's work in particular was extremely detailed and extensive (he employed many research students to gather data), for many years it has been assumed in much literature that the shape and developments of US history explains developments elsewhere. Indeed, for many it is assumed that the US is actually the birthplace of PR and its early practitioners “the fathers” (several of these but no identified “mothers” yet!).
Pearson's analysis is particularly useful because he highlighted several different early histories of American PR which he argued fitted the predominant frameworks of US history:
- progressivism – Hiebert's biography of Ivy Lee, “often called the father of public relations” (Pearson, 1992, p. 113);
- counter-progressivism – Tedlow's business history;
- new left history – Smythe's Marxist history; and
- new right history – Olasky's conservative history and the British academic, Ben Pimlott's history of US PR in relation to democracy, which tended to take a functional approach (Pearson, 1992, pp. 113-29).
Pimlott received a research grant to travel to the US; nevertheless, it is interesting that he chose to study PR in the US and not in the UK. His study, based on many interviews, appears the forerunner of media sociologist, Jeremy Tunstall's study, even though that was largely focused on the British advertising scene (Tunstall, 1964). Commenting of the historiography of PR in the early 1990s, Pearson commented that:
One can identify what might be called a broad management paradigm that favors structural-functional explanation … that stresses public relations' contribution to organizational management … a rhetoric of legitimation for what otherwise is clearly an explanation positing organizational needs, that is organizational self-interests, as the driving force in the genesis of public relations (Pearson, 1992, p. 129).
This means that much PR history is based on organizational (usually corporate) developments, especially in the USA. Less focus has been given to NGOs, citizen or activist activities. The history of government PR is sometimes sidelined as propaganda. Yet it might be argued that PR history ought to take a strategic and much broader view and to include within its ambit advertising and marketing campaigns.
US history's footprint on PR theory development
Given the discussion so far, which has tried to show the complexities and variabilities involved in history-writing, it is interesting to note how one historical colligation from one culture, has come to dominate the field. The “four models” have been proselytised in an enthusiastically evangelical way, to the detriment of the field as a whole.
In their iconic textbook, Grunig and Hunt declared:
We believe the history of public relations can be described in terms of four models of public relations and by the stage in which communicators who did not consider themselves to be public relations practitioners practiced “public relations-like activities” … Our analysis of the four models should also help us understand the diversity of public relations practice today. We can compare the development of the public relations profession to the development of adult human beings. Children pass through different stages as they grow into adults. Not all adults behave like adults, however. Some do not make it through all of the developmental stages of a human being and remain in one of the stages of childhood (Grunig and Hunt, 1984, p. 25).
In particular, the legacy of the four models has been their impact as a typology. It is therefore worth reflecting on where the models came from. They were originally drawn from historical work in the US context. In writing overviews of large periods of time, historians often “colligate” into thematic timelines, which appear to characterize the most important elements of shorter periods of time, such as “The Renaissance”. The four models are an example of such a process, which give one characterization of US PR history (there could be other interpretations, as Pearson pointed out (Pearson, 1992). However, an attempt to understand apparent changes in US PR practice has been used rather differently, as a typology by which to evaluate PR practice on a global scale. In my view these assumptions are questionable. In short, if we ask ourselves where the “four models” came from, and discover that they are entirely based on a dominant interpretation of US PR history (we are still waiting for some revisionist accounts), is it not reasonable to question the validity of such models when applied to other cultures? Yet for years, this is precisely what has happened, all based on the assumptions that the USA is the fount of all knowledge in relation to promotional strategies. Oddly, however, even basic US textbooks still trot out a quick obeisance to a few ancients, apparently unaware of the oddity of excluding anything that might have happened between the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the colonisation of North America
Public relations is a twentieth century phenomenon whose roots extend deep into history; in a sense it is as old as human communication itself. In succeeding civilizations, such as those of Babylonia, Greece and Rome, people were persuaded to accept the authority of government and religion through techniques that are still used; intrapersonal communication, speeches, art, literature, staged events, publicity and other such devices (Wilcox et al., 1986, p. 32).
Even more oddly, some will claim the American revolution as an example of public relations activity, even though earlier events in other cultures, if treated the same way, could be cited as evidence of far earlier PR activity.
US scholars have always tended to assume that activities referred to as PR have been invented by Americans and then exported elsewhere. However, I think that one should distinguish between the history of the term and the history of the activity. To demonstrate evidence of this assumption I cite the following four quote(s):
We somewhat arbitrarily place the beginnings of the public relations vocation with the establishment of The Publicity Bureau in Boston in mid-1900 (Cutlip, 1994, p. xiv).
[Public relations] history opens in the 17th century with the efforts of land promoters and colonists to lure settlers from Europe – mainly England – to this primitive land along the Atlantic coast … (Cutlip, 1995, p. ix).
The modern era of public relations dates back to the early 1900s, when America's business leaders realized that persuasion rather than coercion was the best method of getting their way with the public and with the government (Tye, 1998, p. 245).
Corporate public relations … activity began in America and from there spread to bureaucracies of all kinds both here and in every nation with a relatively free press … I would like to provide … some thoughts on why America should have been the leader in this field (Tedlow, 1979, p. xiv).
The heavy dominance of US interpretations of public relations history is to my mind, too simplistic, and somewhat ill-advised given that we do not yet appear to have the histories of most other nations exploring this aspect of their pasts (though see Toledano, 2005). Even from the literary point of view, the interpretation may be challenged. For example, one British historian wrote a highly praised article on “Elizabethan public relations” in an article on the sixteenth century as early as 1961 (Conyers Read, 1961, pp. 21-55), which is a useful example of a non-PR scholar applying the concept of PR to historical periods that pre-dated the American colonial period, and, indeed, to a period in which such a term was unknown.
I would suggest that we need a strong manifesto to research PR activities in cultures other than the USA in culturally specific and grounded ways to correct the current scholarly imbalance.
A key issue is that of nomenclature: is it appropriate to describe an activity as “public relations” prior to the existence of the term? US authors have often engaged with this issue, as the following example demonstrates:
Monuments and other art forms of the ancient world reflect early efforts at persuasion. Pyramids, statues, temples, tombs, paintings and early forms of writing announce the divinity of rulers, whose power derived from the religious convictions of the public … Speeches by the powerful or power-seeking used institutionalised rhetoric (artificial or inflated language) as a principal device for persuasion (Newsome et al., 1996, p. 33).
Some might argue that in any case it is not rigorous to define an activity using a term or concept that did not exist at the time in a post hoc rationalization. On balance, however, I think it is a useful and enlightening strategy to explore, for example, Aristotle's Rhetoric or Plato's Gorgias (L'Etang and Pieczka, 1996, 2006), to read about “Elizabethan public relations” conducted by William Cecil and in particular to examine the history of propaganda (state, corporate, religious, activist, wartime, peace-time) in order to contextualise the concept and locate it as a human communication practice. These broader sweeps are useful beyond the historical because they connect PR to more richly textured understandings of the discipline in relation to international relations, diplomacy and globalization. Such work takes us beyond the mundane and technical technic towards a better understanding of its praxis (Hall, 1969).
US PR history is essentially “Whig history”, that is, it is progressivist. Public relations in the USA, according to the “dominant paradigm” (a term first used by Magda Pieczka in 1994), is supposed to have “improved” and “developed”, not only in terms of intellectual and technical ability, but also morally. The story told, could be seen as a comforting fable or even a religious tract, in which public relations progresses towards a nirvana or towards enlightenment. As Olasky pointed out, when justifying the importance and role of history in PR education:
A common fault today is that public relations workers who want to be honest and productive (and that, in my experience, includes the majority) often have no background in the actual history of their occupation. A little exposure to the standard onwards-and-upwards history of public relations can be a dangerous thing because it leads to excuses such as “Give us time”, or “We're a young profession”. Public relations, however, is actually a venerable occupation … If little improvement has emerged over the years, the reasons for stagnation should be investigated (Olasky, 1987, p. 2).
Furthermore, the dominant historical model is linked to prescriptive concepts about how public relations ought to be practised (from a moral perspective). The discipline has subsequently merged a particular moral discourse with one particular historical interpretation; based large amounts of deductive research upon this foundation; and incorporated an element of prediction (“PR is getting better and better, morally and professionally”); and then go on to judge other cultures by this “standard”.
Historical frameworks and cultural imperialism in PR
Rigid frameworks, which apparently inhibit alternative explanations, are dangerous in any field, especially since they might lead researchers into seeing data through that framework. And indeed, that is exactly what has happened with public relations research in other countries, in that US accounts and interpretations have had a strong impact on the way in which other cultures have interpreted their own histories.
Research focus and the level of analysis produce different types of history. The national or cultural tour d'horizon is going to be different to the story of a particular agency (an outstanding example of the latter is Karen Miller's excellent book on Hill and Knowlton). PR history can be explored in particular contexts (government, military, international finance, fashion, sport, art, religion); used to reinterpret national or cultural histories (how PR has contributed to nationhood and cultural identity); identify the impact of individuals through biography (following the Scottish/English historian Thomas Carlyle's dictum that “history is the biography of great men”) – and of course, her-stories; construct cross-cultural comparisons through comparative studies; or indeed any of the themes and strands identified by the editor of this special issue.
A (very) brief history of British PR: an alternative reflexive view
There is evidence to suggest that PR in the UK did not follow the same pattern as the USA. For a start, the UK's history as a colonial power meant that those in the colonial service had to combine diplomacy with community relations in many international contexts. The connection between colonialism, globalisation and public relations was also forged by other colonial powers, although styles of colonial rules and accompanying institutions and their relationships with those of colonised countries varied between the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal. The colonial class were trained in languages and cultures so that they could manage relations in the countries to which they were posted. Many of this group also became expert ethnographers and had a deep understanding of the cultures into which they became embedded. These insights could underpin their practical application of British policy. De-colonisation also required extensive public relations work alongside counter-insurgency.
The term “public relations” was used in local government in Britain from the 1920s. Nineteenth century social and political reform led to rapid democratisation in the early twentieth century. The burden of communicating change and new citizen rights and responsibilities fell on local government officers who imbued their work with strong notions of public service and communication that was both accurate and educational.
Central and local government information of the 1930s was quite strategic, and utilised concepts of internal and external intelligence gathering (issues analysis and research) (L'Etang, 2004, pp. 25-6). Furthermore, a key British researcher, based at LSE and connected with the PR occupation in the UK was developing the statistical tools for PR research and evaluation. Yet the published evidence suggests that PR practitioners would not engage with the intellectual skills required to do the job at the level to which they aspired. For example, early public relations textbooks that included topics on “public opinion” or “research” were not written by PR practitioners but by marketing specialists. That historic weakness remains today, with a marked lack of engagement with the necessary intellectual tools and a consequent delegation either to marketers or to those who sell “media analysis” or “media measurement” computer packages. The occupation would progress much more quickly if every practitioner had been taught how to do content analysis and market research in the context of a research methods course taught by qualified academics.
International conflict led to government communication control and propaganda. Intelligence services behind enemy lines developed communication networks of “réseaux”. During peacetime, the British government developed their practices of public diplomacy for the strategic purposes of fostering good relations with “inter-mestic” (Hill and Beshoff, 1994, p. 223) audiences (domestic, but international audiences) and this approach was embedded in the formation of The British Council in 1934.
Post-war the strategic approach appears to have been diluted, first by the post-war intake, later during consumer growth in the 1960s. Many of the post-war intake were from the services and had backgrounds in internal communications (in-house magazines) and also had networking skills. A handful had experience in wartime propaganda and intelligence. Some were poorly regarded by the pre-war generation. Because they were seen as less strategic, possessed less “gravitas”, and, in some cases, were thought to be more inclined to publicity stunts and advertising than PR.
The 1950s generation was still dominated by central and local government, which had been essential during and after the war for communicating with the general public, providing citizens' advice about a vast range of issues from rationing (which only ended in 1954) to temporary housing and utilities, safety information and post-war reconstruction of basic services. This functional communication was the bedrock of communication wartime and post-war utility eras (Britain ended the second world war as the world's largest debtor nation).
The post-war generation were very idealistic about their occupation. They saw themselves as organisational experts who could help outsiders understand their organisation, akin to the librarian, the fount of “a cornucopia of knowledge”; and also as evangelists and advocates for their organizational causes, and for the role of PR in the world. Some saw PR as vital socially responsible role, active in community building, as the following three quotes demonstrate:
Independent from religious and ethical movements, public relations follows its own path which also leads to better humanity (letters page, Public Relations 12(2)).
The philosophy of public relations is a policy of social responsibility (Galitzine, 1960, p. 51).
There was an inspiring story of public relations which was done voluntarily in the flooded area of Zeeland by members of the Dutch Public Relations Society (Editorial, 1954, Public Relations 6(4), p. 4).
The economic growth of the 1960s, which followed the retrenchment of the 1950s, produced other influences. Wartime technological developments were transformed into consumer products. Consumerism and marketing resulted in much more emphasis in media publicity, and the entrance of women in ever-increasing quantity (because it was rather quaintly believed that only women would be able to market the new domestic products to other women – obviously men did not need to know about washing machines!).
As the media relations and marketing functions began to dominate the practice the emphasis on discourse management and story telling (spin) increased, which led to an increasingly tense relationship between PR and the media.
These synoptic examples demonstrate how specific historical contexts are capable of producing different historical meanings and interpretations. And they certainly amply illustrate the point that the US historical context was inevitably unique, and often influenced by US isolationism.
An alternative view: “models” from British PR history
Historical data can be used to support the view that there are many different metaphors of practice that have emerged from the UK cultural context in the twentieth century alone. For example, the following models:
- PR as public service.
- PR as the truth.
- PR as an instrument of power.
- PR as public diplomacy.
- PR as research and intelligence.
- PR as networking.
- PR as propaganda.
- PR as librarianship.
- PR as evangelism.
- PR as advocacy (legal model).
- PR as story-telling (spin).
- PR as CSR.
The models derive from the influence of local government; the emergence of concepts of environmental scanning and internal and external intelligence gathering in the 1920s and 1930s; social reform and democratisation from the mid-ninteenth century; citizen education movements; corporate leagues; two long world wars that for the British lasted much longer than for the Americans (1914-1918; 1939-1945); wartime and peacetime propaganda and spying; post-war idealism. The ease with which these examples can be extrapolated from just one history (L'Etang, 2004) suggests that the PR discipline's dependence on the four models is both unfortunate and misplaced. Those for whom operationalization is a priority could possibly explore these models empirically.
Reflections and the way forward
My own historical project led to my absorption in the ideologies and ideals of public relations practitioners engaged in the professional project. Ultimately, much of my analysis was contextualised by the theme of the occupation's historical obsession with “the public relations of public relations”. As Olasky remarked:
All of us who practice or teach in the field are familiar with the common view that American public relations practice has improved sharply since the “press agent” era … we have all listened to numerous sermonettes about how corporations have better served “the public interest” spending more time relating to their public … ”boundary spanning” … [but the] problem faced by apologists … is that the reputation of public relations seems to be getting worse rather than getting better (Olasky, 1987, p. 1).
I believe that there is room for further exploration of this theme. The history of PR ideals can be read as justification and defence; it can be read as competitive territorialism with journalism in relation to social role and legitimacy; it can also be read as the peddling of images, not reality; as myth, not truth; as propaganda, not (ideal) public relations. Retrospectives by retired practitioners are rather like retrospectives from retired world leaders: full of platitudes and idealism. As Karen Miller noted:
Hill wrote that he had come to believe that PR “is a never-ending and often frustrating endeavour to build a two-way bridge of understanding between people”. Hill and Knowlton, however, had never practiced that model of public relations, nor did it after Hill's death (Miller, 1999, p. 191).
A history of PR ideals and ideologies that encompassed PR practitioner and PR academic writing could perhaps determine whether the symmetrical notions (in their various formulations) are any more than a mantra and myth for practitioners and academics alike – a way of justifying to themselves the ethics of their practice and educational legitimacy?
Conclusion
In this essay I have highlighted challenges that face the PR historian: indicated some of the limitations of existing histories; and suggested some ways forward that might contribute to a more diverse research agenda. I have suggested that the dominance of the US cultural experience may have done more damage than previously thought, not only because its unilateralism and promulgation has mitigated against the emergence of alternative histories, but because it has limited theoretical concepts and restricted the research agenda. The poverty of the four models embarrasses the PR field as much as “the 4Ps” (or 7) embarrass marketing. How can such disciplines be treated seriously? PR practice in the UK is not particularly good at remembering and celebrating its innovators, and is certainly institutionally weak on engagement with academia. It would be good to think that the many excellent students who have studied the subject at undergraduate and postgraduate levels since 1988 will be the first generation of practitioners to have more of a sense of their own occupational past. It would be even better to see more doctoral and post-doctoral historical work being conducted internationally, and I hope the editor's vision is realised in this way.
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About the author
Jacquie L'Etang studied American and English History (BAHons) at the University of East Anglia in the early 1970s and took an MA in Commonwealth History at the University of London. After working in PR, design project management and administration at The British Council for a decade she moved to Scotland to study public relations (MSc, PhD) and social justice (M.Phil). She is author of Public Relations in Britain: A History of Professional Practice in the 20th Century (L'Etang, 2004) and Public Relations: Concepts, Practice and Critique (L'Etang, 2008) and co-editor of (with Magda Pieczka), and contributing author to, Critical Perspectives in Public Relations (L'Etang and Pieczka, 1996) and Public Relations: Critical Debates and Contemporary Practice (L'Etang and Pieczka, 2006). She has published book chapters and articles on a range of topics including ethics, corporate social responsibility, public diplomacy and propaganda. Her current research interests are in sports, tourism and religion. Jacquie L'Etang can be contacted at: jyl1@stir.ac.uk