Abstract
This essay offers an overview of public relations history and historiography, using a review of a recently published book series as a starting point. In offering sometimes previously undocumented national histories and regional and non-US perspectives, National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices opens up the field. However, the series also raises philosophical and methodological issues regarding the role of history, the positioning of public relations, tensions within the field and public relations’ relationship to societal communication and powerful strategic interests. Scholars have not always grounded their histories within wider historical literature that contextualises the public relations occupation and its role in a particular societal context. We argue that a renewed focus on historiography is needed to better address the influence of US progressivist accounts, the scientisation of western public relations and the narrow confines of the public relations discipline.
Other voices? The state of public relations history and historiography: Questions, challenges and limitations of ‘national’ histories and historiographies.
Watson T (ed.) National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices. Houndmills: Palgrave Pivot.
Asian Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices (2014)
Eastern European Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices (2014)
Middle Eastern and African Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices (2014)
Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices (2014)
Western European Perspectives On The Development of Public Relations: Other Voices (2015)
Perspectives on Public Relations Historiography and Historical Theorization: Other Voices (2015)
Introduction
The starting point for this essay is the recent publication of six edited books on public relations (PR) history, which comprise the National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations series. Although US PR history has received scholarly attention since the 1950s (see Cutlip, 1994, 1995; Hiebert, 1966; Olasky, 1987; Pimlott, 1951; Tedlow, 1979), until recently there has been little attention to non-US PR history. In many ways, this collection represents the growing interest in history in the discipline alongside recognition of the constraining dominance of American progressivist histories that have been tightly coupled to the ideals of Excellence, promoted by mostly US scholars and led by J. Grunig, in the 1990s. These ideas, in undiluted and unproblematised forms, have populated and re-populated numerous PR textbooks both in English and in other languages until they have been accepted by some as incontrovertible fact. As Tom Watson, the Series Editor, makes plain in his Introduction, the series under review is not only about ‘other voices’ (and, one assumes, ‘othered voices’) but has also opened the way to laying out alternative ways of conceiving PR histories and trajectories. This stance in itself raises a series of philosophical and methodological issues and questions regarding the role of history, the positioning of PR and the tensions within the field and its politics. We acknowledge that a seventh volume in this series is due to be published in the second half of 2016, but it is beyond the scope of this review. That volume focuses on North American perspectives and aims to offer alternative histories of PR in Canada and the United States (USA).
Our essay assesses the contributions in these volumes in relation to the way in which they scope the PR historical field and relationships to societal communication and a range of powerful strategic interests. PR histories are largely understood in these diverse histories as external communication, and there is little reference to internal communication. As L’Etang (2015a, 2016) points out, there are a number of ontological issues in writing histories of PR, particularly regarding the tension between PR as an occupational practice striving for professional recognition and the broader activity that includes the full and diverse range of public communication. For example, the chapter on France specifically narrows PR to the concept of ‘professional field’ (Chaudet et al., 2015: 32). The ideological connections between managerialism and PR as ‘strategic’ management challenge notions of PR as ‘dialogue’ as opposed to propaganda or advocacy. Historical literature has generally concentrated on recovering basic evidence of key people, organisations and professional bodies, and this is the main focus of most chapters in this collection. However, there is scope for historical analysis of ideas and assumptions about PR practice. Instrumental assumptions may emerge through language choices; for example, the chapter on Germany refers to ‘positive experiences’ and the chapter on Finland claims ‘propaganda organizations … produced results’ without specifying definitions (and their assumptions) or either effects or evidence for these claims.
The aim of this essay is to investigate the state of PR historical scholarship through a review of the first significant book series focusing on national histories of PR. We are particularly interested in the significance of these histories for a range of contemporary understandings and debates, their implications for theorisation within the discipline and for future research. Furthermore, we attempt to articulate the significance of stronger historical understandings and historiography for the discipline more widely, as it is our view that historical work in PR seems often to be marginalised in various ways. We argue that historical work goes beyond the collection of historical ‘facts’ (a highly contentious claim) or interpretations, and that it is fundamental to theoretical understandings of communicative actions, change and development in society. We believe that although historical accounts are intrinsically interesting, they have a much wider significance in terms of sociological interpretations of the occupation, practitioners and their own self-understanding. Therefore, we argue that histories are profoundly important to theorisation about PR not only from a functional, empirical perspective but in terms of the role of history, history-making and historiographies in the theorisation of PR in cultures and societies, and we suggest that this crucial aspect has remained largely overlooked. Our response to this book series is, therefore, shaped by our particular perspective outlined above and our interest in understanding further how multiple contested constructions of historical understandings and knowledges of PR continue to shape ongoing relational dynamics between the current practice, its stakeholders and detractors.
This essay is structured in five sections. The first section, ‘State of PR history’, considers the recent interest in PR history and the significance of this book series. It discusses ‘other voices’ and the challenges of writing ‘national’ histories. The second section, ‘National perspectives’, identifies the prominence of political and economic perspectives on PR and the links between nationhood, national identity and PR. The third section, ‘Common ground, ambiguities and contradictions’, introduces overarching themes, which include US models and influences, transnational activity and colonial power and the significance of othering that emerged from our reading of the series. The fourth section, ‘Historiography, historical theory and methodological issues’, articulates broad concerns and challenges in relation to PR history and historiography. We are aware of a number of constraining factors: first, many of the histories presented are the first attempt to examine practices of organised communication and consequently are necessarily not able to reflect diverse interpretations or varied perspectives from different points of view; second, the discipline of PR arguably remains heavily influenced by US authors and perspectives, including the still dominant perspective that PR as a concept and practice only emerged in the US context and was subsequently exported elsewhere (L’Etang, 2004); and third, historiographical and methodological influences have so far remained slight in the field, leading to a lack of introspective self-criticism among historical authors regarding the challenges of historical writing. While our concluding section, ‘Other histories: Challenges, limitations and exclusions’, explores gaps and challenges we have identified in the construction of PR histories along national lines, we hope our comments will be understood as constructive in helping to tease out discontinuities and tensions for future analysis – in principle, we would not see the presentation of overly smooth accounts as achievable, realistic or desirable. Building on our understanding of PR history as an ongoing and infinite project, we consider the significance of this series for the discipline and the implications for the development of new histories in the field.
State of PR history
Until recent years, there has been limited interest among PR scholars in the history of their discipline. Of the available histories, many rely on practitioner perspectives and are often written for textbooks; they tend to offer widely accepted but uncritical accounts focused on professional achievements. In some cases, this is a consequence of the occupational background of authors. For example, those with a practice background may be less comfortable with public communication approaches that link PR to propaganda practices or activism in particular contexts. One gap that becomes quickly apparent in reading some PR histories is their tendency to privilege some agents above others and tell the story from a particular point of view. In some chapters, there is evidence of the reification of a woolly version of ‘strategic’ PR assumed to be the ultimate goal of practitioners, whereas the reality of practice is frequently media relations, event management and information dissemination. The problem here in terms of historical writing is that authors can be somewhat judgemental and overly polemical about past practices. Therefore, critical approaches to the review of historical writing in PR require assessment of author biographies. In addition, the history of social networks within PR academia and the way in which academic political structures and cultures may contribute to the shape of the discipline and education remain largely unwritten.
As referenced in our opening remarks, the few early scholarly histories tend to focus on North America with more recent research emerging primarily from Western Europe. US textbooks by Grunig and Hunt (1984) and Cutlip and Center (1952) (later Cutlip, Center and Broom that appeared in multiple editions) have proved influential in the conceptualisation of the development of PR across the globe and the development of a common historical discourse rationalising the emergence of the field (L’Etang, 2015a). It is worth noting in particular the work of Hoy et al. who have logged from quantitative as well as qualitative perspective practices within PR and PR histories in relation to historical research in the field, an approach that helps to build up patterns of influence within the PR historical subfield (see, for example, Hoy et al., 2007; Wehmeier et al., 2009). Their work has aimed to take a comparative analytical approach to uncover discursive constructions of historical evidence. 1
Historical ideas in PR have frequently emerged from practitioner perspectives that contribute to shaping occupational cultures around the origins, practice and purpose of PR. In addition to the globalisation of the Excellence project, Anglophone influences have been important in the dissemination of dominant discourses, notably the practical, yet influential, guides written by British practitioners, Frank Jefkins and Sam Black (the latter an admirer of Bernays). Their books were sold overseas and often promoted through workshops and training courses. Jefkins formed his own training school and taught in more than 22 countries. The most important aspect of Black’s influence was not actually his PR work, which was predominantly for trade bodies (such as London Chamber of Commerce) and associated exhibitions (in which his brother Misha Black was a prominent expert as one of Britain’s top industrial designers), but his proselytising role for the concept of ‘professional’ PR as a representative of the Institute of Public Relations, in which he played a major role. Black’s name crops up in many chapters, for example, in those on Hungary, Russia and Ukraine (Black is incorrectly described in this last chapter as an academic). Once again, the importance of individual biographies comes to the fore, because while Black’s influence might be interpreted as part of globalisation of the British concept of professional PR, it is rather less well known that Black migrated as a young child to the United Kingdom (UK) from Baku, Azerbaijan (the family name was Tcherny (L’Etang, personal archive). Whether this background influenced Black (who self-published some of his work) in terms of translations and marketing is an intriguing biographical question. This particular example perhaps illustrates how important it is to understand the experience and perspective of individual authors and how these shape their writing and historical judgements.
The efforts of Tom Watson, first editing a special issue on history titled ‘History of public relations’ in Journal of Communication Management in 2008, and then initiating the now annual International History of Public Relations Conference at Bournemouth University in 2010 (Fitch, 2010), have enabled PR academics with a shared interest in the history of their discipline to come together. Watson also created various publication opportunities in special issues in Public Relations Review and Journal of Public Relations Research, which he guest-edited in 2013, 2014 and 2015. As editor of this book series, Tom Watson has become central to the historical canon, not simply through his initiation and orchestration of this ambitious editorial project but as the person who began the process of institutionalising this part of the PR discipline, which may also come to be seen as the beginning of the professionalisation of PR historical work. This in itself raises interesting questions about competencies in historical research and the extent to which such work is recognised by professional historians. Although there is significant interest in media and communication history, PR history is generally excluded from scholarly interest outside the PR field. Indeed, scholars in adjacent disciplines remain somewhat dismissive of PR historical efforts judging by our anecdotal experiences at some international conferences. That said there are some positive signs of change in this regard, as recently Pathways to Public Relations: Histories of Practice and Profession (St John et al., 2014) became the first PR text to be nominated for the Tankard Book Award, which recognises journalism and mass communication books, in the USA.
To sum up, historical research and its audiences should be (1) sensitive to patterns of thought that shape assumptions, language, storytelling and explanatory discourses; (2) critically aware of the personal biographies and careers of authors; and (3) demanding in the requirement for historical evidence to support claims or overall interpretations. Taken together these requirements will ensure that methodological standards of historical work meet those of ‘professional’ historians outwith PR.
National perspectives
The publication of this series is, therefore, timely and represents an ambitious attempt to garner new perspectives in PR history writing. Watson (2014–2015) writes in the foreword to each volume that he hoped to achieve the following aims:
Introduce national perspectives on the formation of public relations practices and structures in countries outside Western Europe and North America;
Challenge existing US-centric modelling of public relations;
Aid the formation of new knowledge and theory on the formation of new practices and structures by offering accessible publications of high quality.
Watson reiterates the point made by others regarding the dominance of US scholarship in PR and the continuing influence of the ‘Grunigian’ paradigm on conceptualisations of PR activity in other countries. 2 This series is designed to address these concerns in that the books contribute original historical scholarship about the development of PR in ‘other’ countries. The first five books are organised around large and diverse geographical regions. This structure poses some challenges for the reader with several countries covered in relatively short merger chapters (e.g. Australia and New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados share single chapters in the Asian and Latin American volumes, respectively; Netherlands and Belgium share a chapter, as do Sweden, Norway and Denmark in the Western European volume). In some cases, material in these merger chapters is really too brief and cries out for fuller treatment. It is also immediately apparent that some volumes barely scratch the surface and, therefore, struggle to capture the diversity of the countries in each region; for example, there are frustrating gaps in the Asian volume with the failure to include chapters on Hong Kong, South Korea, Cambodia, Macau, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Similarly, although Badran’s (2014) overview of the Arab States of the Gulf encompassing Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman provides a general introduction to public communication practices and societal rhetoric in the context of Arabic cultures, pre- and post-independence, before and after the discovery of oil and gas, it cannot do justice to the various countries within that region. From the reader’s perspective, the logic is somewhat disrupted by the alphabetical arrangement of chapters, in that Middle Eastern countries are dispersed among African nations in another volume. There are other discomforts; for example, the Finnish chapter makes numerous references to Russia, which is explored in a different volume. The fact that Europe has two volumes reflecting available producers of historical knowledge suggests that this series produces a new bias in PR history.
This collection of national histories – and there has been nothing on this scale previously – nevertheless allows the development of unique insights into writing PR history. As L’Etang argues in her chapter in the final book in the series, historiography, the construction of histories focusing on methodological conventions around ‘methods of acquiring evidence and processes of interpretation’ is absent from much PR history; indeed, L’Etang (2015a) refers to historiography as the ‘poor relation’ (p. 73). The danger is that PR history is confined to largely descriptive or highly subjective accounts of the field’s development, lacking reflexivity around source analysis or the subjectivity of the researcher. Regardless of authorial intentions, each historical contribution not only contributes some empirical evidence or interpretation at the granular level but simultaneously links to broader level historiographical and PR meta-theoretical narratives such as instrumentalism, progressivism and idealism. The authors need to consider how their historical projects link to prior interpretations not only in terms of specific colligatory interpretations regarding periodisation but in terms of the legitimacy of those grand narratives and their underlying epistemological, ontological and ethical values. Furthermore, there are questions about those who write PR histories, their training and levels of expertise in historical methods and understanding of social theory and socio-historical theoretical perspectives that should shape historical inquiry. In the last couple of years, there has been greater interest in historiography within the PR historical community and that is reflected in Watson’s inclusion of a historiographical volume. We suggest that much historical work has room for further self-analysis and theoretical critique in terms of orientation and methodological transparency with regard to paradigmatic positioning within the PR discipline.
On the one hand, this series is valuable in that it foregrounds history and its significance for understanding contemporary PR. Given that less historical work has been undertaken by PR scholars in some geographical regions, for some countries, the chapter contribution breaks entirely new ground. This achievement is important and deserves recognition. On the other hand, there is a lack of consistency in approaches – which we discuss in more detail below – which means that there is considerable variance in both the conceptual understandings underpinning PR and in the methodologies employed. Watson justified the lack of a prescribed format in order to allow authors the flexibility to develop historical narratives and interpretations relevant to each country. This decision not to go down the editorial path of straitjacketed prescribed structures does facilitate individuality and authenticity.
Political and economic perspectives
There is a strong economic focus in many of the chapters, where PR are firmly linked to economic development and in particular the free market. For example, the chapter on China highlights four phases of economic development to explain the development of PR; the chapter on Argentina describes modern PR as linked firmly to industrialisation, and corporations in many countries such as Bata (Czech Republic), Ford (Argentina) and the Canadian owned Sao Paulo Tramway Light, and Power Company Ltd and General Motors (Brazil) are seen as pivotal in developing the modern PR industry in those countries. Curiously, economy and political economy are not tackled in the historiographical volume. A number of chapters highlight the significance of car companies (such as Ford in Argentina) and airlines (such as Pan Am in Mexico in 1930) and the travel industry (by the 1950s, all airlines had PR sections). In Trinidad and Tobago, the development of PR is linked with the oil industry, and in Costa Rica, with the creation of export markets for bananas. In the volume on Eastern Europe, Lawniczak (2014), who pioneered an econocentric approach to PR more widely and introduced the concept of ‘transitional public relations’, tracks the shift from planned to market economies in his discussion on PR in Poland. The chapter includes the fascinating story of Western corporate and political subsidies that paid for Western PR agencies to promote the new capitalist socio-economic and political system seemingly unbeknown to the Polish general public, raising interesting questions about definitions of international propaganda. While the chapters on Poland, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Russia and Croatia take the view that PR did not exist prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, in contrast, the chapter on Romania records commercial communication going back to the 18th century, the chapter on Hungary tracks documentary evidence of commercial PR to the 1950s and in the Czech Republic to the early 20th century.
A commercial emphasis in many chapters downplays in some cases important influences from governmental PR or public information and propaganda possibly because this is uncomfortable ideologically and ethically for the authors. There is a striking assumption in many chapters that PR is firmly linked to the growth of modern democracies. In fact, several authors point to the use of PR activity by military dictatorships, noting too how former authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, such as in Brazil, led to a taint associated with PR. In other countries, PR, in its modern sense, is only perceived to have emerged following the end of military or authoritarian rule and in conjunction with more democratic governments (see for example, the chapters on Nicaragua, Panama and Indonesia). There are widespread assumptions that political instability works against the development of modern/professional PR (see, for example, the chapter on Peru). Although international political changes have offered opportunities for PR growth (see chapters on former Eastern Europe), the chapter on Brazil argues that since the end of military rule in 1985, PR has opened up, thanks to economic transformation and the establishment of democracy. Such narratives not only present progressivist accounts of the field’s development but position PR practice itself as a positive asset of value to the wider society. It is notable that PR has been a licensed profession – enshrined in state law – in Brazil since 1967 (incidentally, this was also the year of the first tertiary course); the legislation was introduced during a military dictatorship and aimed to ensure social control and limit freedom of expression. However, licensing has not achieved professional recognition and is not a requirement for practice and failed to improve the reputation of the field. The chapter authors maintain that PR remains tainted in Brazil because of its use by military rulers to ‘spin’ and the complicity of their PR office in hiding the imprisonment and torture of pro-democracy citizens. Panama, like Brazil, regulates the profession through legislation introduced in 1980 and 2005 (Fallas, 2014), although the authors argue that PR only ‘emerged’ after the end of military dictatorship.
Generally, within the series, there is little if any evidence presented that shows PR practice as a negative influence within society or even playing any role in social change. The authors in the two European volumes tend to avoid reference to pre–World War II communication practices in their country preferring to start afresh after World War II rather than mire themselves in political or propaganda connections. Examples include chapters on Austria, Greece and Denmark. In contrast, the chapter on the Czech Republic charts the communication practices of the Bata shoe company in the early 20th century, the rise of propaganda under Nazi and Communist regimes and then more international practices associated with Western agencies entering the market in 1989/1990. More broadly, the failure to deal with uncomfortable political regimes and their communication practices speaks to a dubious tendency among PR scholars to contribute to a rewriting or sanitising of PR history. PR history continues to be somewhat siloed in its approach and, therefore, fails to engage more broadly with media and other historical writing. For example, the chapter on Indonesia links the emergence of PR to the fledgling nationalist and independence movement but ignores other, non-PR scholarship examining the use of propaganda by the Dutch colonial regime (see, for example, Kuitenbrouwer, 2014). Neither is there any detailed handling of alternated othered perspectives within the national narratives nor in the historiographical pieces, such as those by Burton (2007), Chomsky (1995), Dinan and Miller (2008) and Miller and Dinan (2007). There is thus a lack of criticality which detracts from the enterprise as a whole. Indeed, we argue the uncritical focus on economic and political contexts highlights ideological values such as neoliberalism that underpin the progressivist narrative of PR development and is enshrined in the Excellence project.
Sociocultural perspectives
To some extent, the privileging of the free market/economic and political contexts marginalises sociocultural perspectives. We have already noted the use of US scholars such as Grunig and Hunt (or their unreferenced dominant discourses). We also point to the now-criticised Hofstede who failed to recognise that culture is dynamic and cannot be reduced to stable national characteristics (see Courtright et al., 2011; L’Etang, 2010). In our view, historical research into PR cannot be tackled without interrogation of broader scale cultural dynamics, flows and tensions. Furthermore, a sociocultural perspective potentially offers a counterbalance to dominant, organising narratives.
A number of chapters are indeed anthropologically inflected and highlight unique aspects of cultural practice which are seen as influencing PR technique and practice. This can be seen in articulations of the influence of personal networks and social capital as central to the processes and implementation of PR work; such influence is acknowledged in many regions using a variety of terms, including guanxi (in the Asian region) and wasta (in the Arab world). The chapter on Vietnam, for example, argues that personal networks are the central focus of PR. In the Egyptian chapter, PR is understood as persuasion based on personal influence. However, networking and personal influence also have had an historical role in other contexts, such as the British ‘old boy network’.
Issues of gender and race rarely feature, even in multi-racial societies such as Singapore and where the significance for PR is not made. The chapter on the Caribbean claims that PR in Jamaica in the 1950s was primarily female in that it was practised by ‘fair-skinned, attractive young women who smoked, then a sign of elegance, and were engaged mainly in the organization of cocktail parties (event planning)’ (Edwards, 2014: 35), but little analysis is made of the significance of such gendering or of the embedded colour awareness that is historically linked in many colonial contexts to the more fluid social opportunities available to those with lighter skins from mixed-racial backgrounds who might ‘pass’ (historically evident in a range of cultures where skin colour was influential in determining social class). We develop the significance of gender for PR history, or rather the absence of ‘herstory’, in the ‘Other voices’ section.
National and regional identities
First of all, we must comment on the fact that Europe dominates the series with two volumes all to itself. There has been a burgeoning of interest in historical work within Europe, at least partly due to the post-Cold War re-arrangements on the Continent that triggered a new wave of nationalism, expanded consumerism in new Eastern European markets and a concurrent expansion of Western European and American consultancies eager to capitalise on those new market opportunities. Thus, PR history to some extent became part of the national identity processes in which PR played a role. At the same time, the keenness of some authors to pull the curtain down on centrally run controlled economic practices and communication practices that accompanied them has led to a rather simplistic story emerging in some places that favours the idea that PR practice did not exist in some countries until after 1989. The chapter on Romania is one refreshing example of effort being made to explore antecedents (Rogojinaru, 2014).
The nations in this volume assume relatively stable national identities and conform to ideal notions of stable nationhood, sometimes despite extended periods of colonisation, occupation and political unrest. Yet many countries featured in these chapters have experienced – at times – violent occupations, periods of political unrest and shifting borders. Given, the modern nation is a socially constructed and deeply symbolic idea that is inherently unstable and concerned with national progress (Anderson, 1991; Bhabha, 1990), there are significant implications in linking the historical development of PR activity with national identity. There is also no consistent position on the emergence of PR, in that some authors point to early propaganda and public information activity by colonisers, which may exclude the perspectives of those colonised and stories of resistance to discourses promoted by PR practitioners in those contexts; in other words, a governmental or state perspective may dominate (see, for example, the chapter on Singapore), while other authors identify PR emerging from resistance to colonising powers and firmly linked to a growing national identity (see, for example, the chapter on Indonesia). The basis of these interpretations needs careful historical evidencing with sources and citation, and this is sometimes lacking.
There are no histories in this series that address stateless nations such as Catalonia or Kurds, countries grappling with national identity, the prospect of nationhood for indigenous peoples, and those with recovered national identities bearing in mind that in areas of relatively concentrated populations, such as Europe, borders between various nations have been both mobile and reversible. Historical work may be seen as onion rings, the gradual unpeeling of which reveals further sets of dynamics and rhetorical perspectives on issues, events, social change and the notion of the state. For example as L’Etang (2015a) points out, there remain considerable gaps within the UK context with regard to the emergence of communication practices outwith London and, in particular, gaps with regard to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The history of PR is often linked firmly with national developments and nation-building campaigns, and without doubt, there is potential for further historical work to uncover the role of planned communications in such contexts (Szondi, 2009, 2014). The process of discovering previously unknown or uncovered histories is also linked in some cases to claims of novel or unique approaches, such as the ‘Latin American School of Public Relations’ (Molleda, 2001).
A drawback of structuring histories of PR along national lines is the failure to consider transnational or regional activity (Bardhan and Weaver, 2011). Although the first five books in the series are organised into regions, the focus on ‘the nation’ does tend to exclude important international actors such as the European Union (EU). The EU is central to a range of political and economic changes in a number of countries that sought membership after 1989. Consequently, there is also a tendency to explain the emergence of PR as a trend ‘from the west’ as in the chapter on the Czech Republic. In many ways, this perspective is simply a variation on the theme that the PR concept emerged in one political and economic context and was then exported, an unimaginative approach that effectively excludes the history of diverse communication practices in very different cultures and societal contexts prior to the most recent technologically driven phase of globalisation. In places, there are assumptions of unified approaches within geographic areas that may be overstated. For example, the chapter on Greece refers to the ‘European school of thought’, but it is not clear what this was.
The chapter on Italian PR notes that the ‘Bled Manifesto’ (Van Ruler and Verčič, 2002) promoted an Anglo-American model of practice and knowledge from which Italian practice was distinct. Although the chapter authors state that ‘the 2002 Bled Manifesto also accelerated the international quest for generic principles and specific applications’ (Falconi and Ventoruzzo, 2015: 86), it was presumably driven by the desire of some scholars to establish PR as a more respectable discipline and failed to be representative of a region.
Common ground, ambiguities and contradictions
US models and influences
Not all the chapters successfully meet the stated aim of challenging US-centric models of PR. Some accounts use such models as the benchmark to measure PR in other countries; indeed, several chapters draw uncritically on Grunig and Hunt (1984), to discuss how PR in the countries of study are not yet professional or are only para-professional. Explicit references to Grunig and Hunt are made in the chapters on India, Vietnam, Peru, the Arab States, Saudi Arabia and Russia, but perhaps their more lasting influence has been that of a methodological bias towards progressivist accounts. In the chapter on Vietnam, it is claimed that practitioners practise the symmetrical model developed by Grunig and Hunt but with a greater focus on relationships with journalists. In the same chapter, it is suggested that ‘trust’ has a different meaning in Vietnam to the West, but this claim is based on a very idealistic notion of practices outwith Vietnam. There are other tensions because although it is claimed that Vietnamese PR has managed to resist Western methodology in part due to local characteristics and relational networks founded on face and favour, effort is made to synthesise the Vietnamese practice with the US dominant paradigm. Similarly, in the chapter on India, the debt Sriramesh – who is one of the first scholars to write about PR practice in India – owed to his PhD supervisor, James Grunig, is acknowledged. But the bigger concern is the influence of Grunigian-inspired conceptualisations of PR, particularly where this influence is unacknowledged in that there is little critical engagement with the categorisation of PR or the use of US PR as a benchmark for professionalism. For example, the chapter on Singapore by Lwin and Pang (2014) points to the evolution of PR in Singapore from a British colony yet maintains that the industry remains ‘pre-professional’ given the poor image of PR, the difficulty in evaluating its impact, and the ongoing technical focus of the industry on media relations, promotion and event planning rather than more strategic work.
It is interesting to track across various chapters and volumes the ways in which US PR activity has influenced the development of PR outside the USA, through textbooks and research, global mobility in higher education and employment, the activities of multinational corporations (MNCs) or visits from individual practitioners and academics and even professional conferences. Such influences were not limited to the USA – Spain, as the former coloniser, for instance, has arguably influenced values and practices in Latin American countries. But even then, one of the earliest books on PR in Peru, Issues of Public Communication in Peru, was written by a visiting American academic in 1959; the book cited no local sources and relied entirely on American references and ‘knowhow’ (Sánchez de Walther, 2014: 87). The chapter on Taiwan notes the significance of US influences on the development of tertiary education courses, with scholars who studied in the USA returning to teach, the widespread use of American textbooks and trade publications, and the use of Western concepts by the Foundation for Public Relations Research and Education, established in 1990, to ‘make public relations a beneficent, progressive force in Taiwan’ (Wu and Lai, 2014: 120). Across the volumes, it is difficult to know in which ways and to what extent that US practitioner activity influenced local industries. In Guatemala, for example, the banana industry enabled opportunities for the institutionalisation of PR from the mid-20th century; Edward Bernays advised the United Fruit Company in the 1940s and 1950s and is ‘recognized as the first PR advisor in Guatemala to apply research-led planning processes’ (Fallas, 2014: 49). Bernays’ activities included issues management in relation to the allegations of the exploitation of workers, analysis of public opinion philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, press tours and maintaining files on journalists and key influencers.
Many accounts of the modern PR industry are attributed to the actions of the US government or – often US-based – MNCs, reinforcing the persistent idea that PR is an US invention. Examples include Argentina, where the chapter authors acknowledge a strong debt to Ford, who established a sales office in Buenos Aires in 1914 and a car assembly plant in 1916; Central America, where the authors identify the first documented PR plan as the US government’s media campaign to support the construction of the Panama Canal; Vietnam, where PR allegedly began only ‘as the American armed forces and organizations that supported them appeared in South Vietnam’ in 1954 (Van, 2014: 146); and the Philippines, where the liberation from Japanese occupation by General Douglas MacArthur – an act that itself was a significant PR exercise – and post-war ‘independence’ are perceived to have led to the birth of professional PR. In contrast, some chapters, such as the Australian section by Mark Sheehan, set out to challenge the widely held notion that Australian PR emerged from the contributions of MacArthur during the World War II and demonstrate a longer and sustained trajectory of PR activity from the British colonial era and Federation in 1901.
Transnational PR and colonial power
As indicated earlier, there are many gaps and uneven patterns within the collection, particularly around regional and transnational PR activity. Only a few chapter authors recognise the significance of global mobility. For example, in Columbia, PR practice developed through incoming MNCs and through US education for journalists and PR specialists, as well as national and international conferences and events. Editorially, greater contextual background could have usefully highlighted these, not least as a way of indicating the research gaps more cleanly. For example, developments in Africa need to be foregrounded by an understanding of the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by a number of European powers (including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and the UK) which had multiple implications for international and intercultural communications initiatives by political, governmental and economic institutions. The diversity of conflicting interests in Africa and Asia as Western powers sought spheres of global influence has been highly significant as a channel through which communication practices support political, economic and trade interests as well as communication technologies themselves (ownership of transnational telegraph cables for example). Most chapters (perhaps through space limitations) do not address the broader historical background. Some of the histories of former colonial powers do not acknowledge that heritage. This is where the unevenness of the volumes becomes apparent since the various colonial powers and the significance of the international ventures and interventions of many countries are not given equal attention. The unevenness is not sufficiently smoothed editorially so that the reader is much more aware of some colonial powers and influences than others, and the effect of this is a potential contribution to a stereotypical and over-simplistic grand history. PR history is far more than a record of professional bodies as the emergence of PR practices is embedded in socio-political culture. Therefore, it requires an historical understanding of a country and region’s international, strategic, political and diplomatic relations.
Global flows must address the impact of colonisation and the significance of the British Empire, the Spanish occupation in Central and Latin America, the French and Portuguese colonisation of countries in Africa and so on. The Philippines chapter is one of the few that uses a postcolonial lens to examine PR; other chapters may acknowledge their colonial history, but few chapters consider the significance of a colonial legacy for the history of PR in those countries. In the introduction to the Asian volume, Watson (2014) notes the significance of colonialism, particularly in terms of ‘independence struggles and post-colonial adjustment’ (p. 2) in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam. Australia and New Zealand were also colonies but the significance of this heritage is not acknowledged in the same way and thus othered through a taken-for-granted-ness of semi-familiar culture and language. However, as Sheehan (2014) points out, the (relatively short-lived) UK-based Empire Marketing Board played a significant PR role in promoting British Commonwealth, including Australian, products. The impact of British and/or Dutch colonial heritage is prominent in some chapters and is constructed as significant in terms of the development of local PR industries in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria. Early PR was, therefore, understood in these countries as primarily government information and/or propaganda that emerged in association with colonial power from early in the 20th century. In contrast, modern PR in Nigeria and Uganda is perceived to emerge in response to periods of dictatorship and/or civil unrest. In the foreword to the Latin American book, Watson argues that Latin America, in contrast to the other regionally based collections was unusually united due to a common Spanish language (with the obvious exception of Brazil). It is worth noting that the Caribbean nations as former British colonies are also included in this volume. We would argue that the structuring experience of a range of colonial experiences is not sufficiently highlighted or nuanced as an overall driver for PR practices, given critical race and postcolonial scholars argue PR is institutionally racist due to its historical roots in colonial structures and capitalism (Edwards, 2013; Munshi and Edwards, 2011).
Other voices
The organisation around established states is, as we have argued, understandable but problematic in some respects and so we here reflect further on the varied nature of the ‘other’ theme that has shaped these volumes and start to consider some of the historiographical and methodological implications and tensions between nationalism and globalisation. Many of the histories usefully introduce national histories to an English-speaking audience, and there had previously been little or no scholarship easily available on the trajectories of PR in some countries. Some chapters, therefore, tend to be descriptive and lack strong source evidence in that they rely on the ‘memory’ of senior practitioners and widely held accounts of the ‘first’ campaign and the ‘first’ practitioners. Methodologically, there are also problems in some of these accounts because the sampling, collection and analysis of data are not justified, and the dates of interview evidence are not given. Although useful in that they offer insights into the constructed narratives and values of industries in those countries, and into perceptions of what is important in the recounting of those histories (significant given either the lack of such histories or the lack of availability to Anglo audiences), many of these histories readily accept an evolutionary model of development towards professional status, fail to consider sociocultural perspectives and lack criticality. For example, there is little reflexivity around the lack of recognition of women’s roles in societal debates or their contributions to the development of PR in most chapters.
The diversity of voices in this collection, therefore, exposes a number of contradictory tensions in the attempts to write histories of PR: national/global, masculine/feminine, colonial/postcolonial and white/non-white. We endeavour to explore how some of these themes play out. Although the notion of ‘othering’ is suitably privileged, it could also do with some unpacking, alongside some acknowledgement of voices still not heard, for example, those from lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or intersex (LGBTI) perspectives, stateless nations or those from marginalised communities such as travelling peoples, diasporic and migrant communities. Existing histories tend to show, but not to comment on, the centralising tendencies to sources of power and an urban bias. The emphasis on unchallenged concepts such as ‘professional’ PR means that examples of activism understood as part of PR history arise in only a few chapters, notably that on Norway, which includes a review of social activism in the 18th-century and 19th-century human rights. Activism is also discussed in chapters on Belgium, Jamaica, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, South Africa, Uganda and Turkey, although it is notable that in some of these cases, activism is positioned as being in opposition to corporate PR rather than being intrinsically part of the history of PR practices and thus contributes to a longstanding but flawed binary. Many chapters do not mention activism at all. The inclusion of such material is significant as it highlights the tension between positioning PR history as a narrow occupational record of a particular form of information worker or alternately as societal communication practices that include representative advocacy that are more revealing about the nature of discursive patterns and influences in that particular society (L’Etang, 2008).
Gender is a major missing concept in the series, so evidence of female participation in PR or specialised sectors is not recorded, and, therefore, neither is historical or ongoing discrimination, stereotyping and prejudice. When gender is included, it is generally a fleeting mention of the number of women employed; for example, three in four practitioners and almost one in two managers in Sweden are women. The absence of any real discussion around gender could possibly be attributable to narrow definitions of PR that may exclude important social campaigns such as enfranchisement, equal rights, prohibition and other forms of activism such as workers’ rights, environmentalism and animal rights. The chapter on Saudi Arabia includes a section on women, acknowledging that women mostly work in government or charity sectors as though this imbalance was unproblematic and identifying some female pioneers without further analysis, contextualisation or explanation. Other chapters identify a feminisation of PR, without acknowledging the tension between feminisation and professionalisation (Fitch and Third, 2014). For example, the chapter on Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe acknowledges that in the early years of Zimbabwean PR, ‘Gender bias at the time dictated that it was considered to be largely a female position and appointments were mainly based on organizing ability and appearance. Often these appointments were a reward for competent and pleasant secretaries’ (Mawerera, 2014: 28). An exception is the chapter on Russia, which acknowledges the significant role played by women in the early modern development of the industry and attributes their role to ‘the initial inferiority of PR as a professional field’ (Tsetsura et al., 2014: 84). Similarly, the chapter on the Caribbean notes the devaluing of PR when the work is conducted primarily by women. That said, few chapters take an explicitly critical approach to gender or the experiences of women in PR in facing stereotyping and/or discrimination (see L’Etang, 2015b).
The voices of educators and academics are also largely silent in this collection including the tensions that have existed between practice and academia in some cultural contexts. Their presence tends to be limited to the important professional project, legitimising and promoting practice as societally relevant and beneficial while developing ideas that can assist industry effectiveness and productivity. Doubtless many stories remain untold, for example: histories of ideas and concepts in particular cultural contexts, research developments and the extent of publication in differing cultural contexts including patterns of publication, tensions between identities of ‘educator’ and ‘academic’, challenges of moving into academia from practice and gaining respect in universities hosting traditional established disciplines, challenges from related disciplines such as media studies and marketing and struggles for acceptance, shifting positions held by academics in relation to paradigmatic structures and developments, the politics of the discipline, gender dynamics and career progression.
Historiography, historical theory and methodological issues
The editor made the bold choice to commission a volume on historiography. Few PR scholars have written on this topic, and most historians do not engage with such philosophical challenges. Contributors to the historiographical volume take differing standpoints. Some authors are keen to seek overall patterns and trends in the origins and developments of PR practices and in some cases to draw comparisons, while others seek to deal directly with methodological empirical practices and challenges or conceptualise models. There might be a strong argument for making it the first volume in the series, rather than the sixth, since it could reasonably be argued that those tackling national narratives should ground their empirical work within relevant historical theory and methodology. Even the very basic structures deployed commonly in historical writing, that of colligation or periodisation, are not unproblematic and must be grounded in broader historical evidence relevant to the state(s) being analysed.
The methodology employed in the writing of each national history varies widely, and this exposes to some extent the challenges in PR historiography. Many of the chapters in the national/regional collection suspend scholarly conventions with regard to the normal academic requirements to define and justify the object of study, explain assumptions, theoretical perspectives and the consequential strategic and technical methodological choices that have been made. Furthermore, many chapters rely on the personal narratives constructed by senior practitioners, which can be problematic given their often uncritical perspectives. Lamme (2015) writes of the need for historians to be alert to the ‘omission, suggestion, disproportion and fabrication in these subjects’ own carefully curated legacies’ (p. 61) in her thought-provoking chapter on biography in the final book. Indeed, much PR history relies on the personal experiences or uncritical accounts offered by practitioners, and there is a lack of evidence-based history (Fitch, 2015). Lamme is rightly critical of PR scholars relying on textbook histories, although it should be noted that these do have considerable value in highlighting both dominant historical discourses, which to some extent these volumes seek to mitigate, and peer reviewers who fail to challenge poorly sourced historical writing.
Many chapters rely on interviews, letters or memoirs provided by senior practitioners rather than institutional archival sources. The use of such sources would be fine if authors attended properly to conventional methodological standards in relation to explanations regarding sampling, procedures and process. In some cases, referencing and citation are problematic. All too commonly, historical material presented in textbooks and overviews is unsourced, which is problematic (1) because it gives the impression that historical ‘facts’ have been established beyond dispute rather than understanding history as a continual process of interpretation and (2) insufficient citation of sources based on original scholarship clearly infringes conventions of scholarship with unfortunate implications for judgements that might be made about academic standards in PR histories. There is a linked further point about the standing of historical work within PR literature more generally. It is noticeable that in some cases, the authors, who would not dream of mentioning this or that theory without naming one or two academic sources, treat historical data winkled out of archives or careful interviews with historical witnesses as though it was free of such conventions or some kind of ‘public knowledge’ that does not need proper attribution. This approach raises some serious questions about the extent to which historical scholarship is actually regarded or valued in the wider field of PR and also the extent to which PR history is regarded in the wider field of history, including media history.
The fundamental definitional issue regarding what counts as PR history is considered by some authors and ignored by others. For some authors, public information and propaganda are part of the story and may encompass centuries; for others, PR history is limited to the emergence of a commercial occupation and ‘professional’ bodies. However, too often, chapters offer essentially a history of professional associations, which generally started in the 1950s or later. Nearly, all chapters recount the ‘professional achievements’ in terms of the formation of professional associations, the PR of PR (such as developing codes of ethics), the introduction of university education, the publication of books and the identification of heroes/pioneer practitioners/leading figures. These cognitive, normative and symbolic mechanisms of professionalisation, to draw on Noordegraaf (2011), serve to define and demarcate PR work and legitimise the claim for professional status. For example, the authors of the Singapore chapter – who incidentally are academics employed by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) – maintain that the ‘first full-fledged degree-awarding communication school at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) remains far-reaching’ in that the development of PR degrees ‘signalled to industry that PR is a bona fide profession’ (Lwin and Pang, 2014: 110). The institutionalisation of PR education in various regions has not been addressed historically as part of the history of professionally directed or ambitious practices. Other authors detail engagement with global associations and networks such as International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), Global Alliance and International Public Relations Association (IPRA). Neither has it been made entirely clear that divides between scholars, for example, in Europe, between critical and functional were not only concerned with the identity of the discipline but with its curriculum, teaching and teachers. Political correctness in terms of approved definitions of PR and the status of some parts of the curriculum (PR as strategic management and crisis management) over others was globalised, effectively shackling the discipline to a technocratic practice and idealised notions of societal role and ethics. In many contexts, the privileging of practice over education was problematic, and this aspect of PR histories remains largely unaddressed. In considering the challenges of historiography and historical methodology, we would argue that there is further scope for much more reflexivity in historical writing within PR. In addition to noting the global footprint of US influence, there has been a pattern of travelling US academics writing or co-authoring analysis about PR practices in non-US settings. In some sense, such work can be seen akin to those of anthropologists coming from an external perspective into a different culture. The interesting thing from our point of view is whether those writing about PR in contexts other than their own are sufficiently in tune with theoretical and methodological anthropological challenges and can avoid the ‘othering’ processes we alluded to earlier. We would argue that historical scholarship of one’s own or other cultures throws up a range of methodological issues, and PR historians need to engage with, and be transparent about, the way in which they have dealt with these in their research and writing.
Other histories: Challenges, limitations and exclusions
The book series under review has taken a giant leap forward in PR’s own thinking about its origins and antecedents as well as patterns of development, ruptures and conceptual and historical links to propaganda. However, we suggest that much PR historical work has room for further self-analysis and theoretical critique in terms of orientation and methodological transparency with regard to paradigmatic positioning within the PR discipline. While it might seem ungenerous to offer a general critique of such a mammoth undertaking as this important multi-volume series, we offer some comments, which we hope will be taken on board by future historians.
The issue of bibliographic sourcing for PR histories is extremely challenging, not least because most authors struggle to some extent in defining the scope of PR history. It is highly likely that relevant material is contained in public records to be extrapolated from granular political, socio-economic data. Specialised data may be held in the archives of professional bodies (though these are subject to censorship or culling) or even more random private archives. An unusual and commendable exception appears to be the archives of the Information Men Association established in Finland in 1947 which has been placed in the National Archives in Helsinki. Literary sources are cited by a number of authors, but due to word-length constraints, these are generally catalogues rather than a critical review. In some cases, this means that early interpretations and, therefore, the historiography of particular countries are lostThere are many chapters in the collection which report unsourced data which threatens the quality of historical scholarship and its potential standing outside the discipline. The lack of historical sourcing is not new to PR history as Cutlip’s (1994) famous volume is also problematic in this regard, lacking proper referencing for some archives.
An important point that arises from the effects of a careless approach to historical sourcing relates to the notion of historical ‘fact’. It seems that a practice has arisen in PR in which as more historical background is recovered, it is gradually incorporated into general texts as basic commonsense knowledge and ‘fact’ rather than as a series of interpretations or arguments about the past. General texts are often less good at sourcing historical material (which typically will be presented in an opening or introductory chapter) than theoretical concepts. This practice becomes clear when one studies different editions of texts in which historical material is often added over time but sources and historiographical inflection are not. Perhaps, this is not so surprising given that PR is situated either in communications, media, journalism or business marketing contexts. However, it is not good academic practice, and it raises some interesting questions over curriculum and pedagogy, to which we now turn.
One of the gaps that becomes quickly apparent in reading some PR histories is their tendency to privilege some agents above others and tell the story from a particular point of view – as we noted earlier, the would-be ‘professional’ practitioner. Such chapters (focusing on professional achievements) leave unanswered the bigger questions of why here, why now? In short, any history claiming an apparently abrupt dated start needs considerably more context to make for a satisfactory history as opposed to a mere chronology. PR history is often sanitised in a system of apartheid that separates it relatively cleanly from propaganda and political communication, and it may be this which leads to it being discredited among media and communications scholars. In other words, it is safe and uncontroversial to focus on professional bodies, but it may be more important to tackle the messy and problematic. After all, what is the point of recording when a professional code of ethics came into being without acknowledgement of historical use and abuse of strategic communications? A better triangulated approach would be to tackle key critical incidents in societal dynamics and to consider a range of actors in the debate and the ways in which they endeavoured to promote a particular set of discourses in competition with other views within a particular political, economic sociocultural context. Such approaches would necessitate more in-depth historical contextualisation and source handling as well as challenging ontologies about what counts as PR history. This might lead to more catholic and inclusive interpretations that ultimately allow more nuanced views of historical developments.
Educators now need to respond to this wealth of sociocultural and global insights, to consider how this research becomes embedded into the curriculum. In particular, this multi-volume series renders untenable any teaching approach that promotes a universal story of development or an idea that PR as a concept emerged in one part of the world and translated elsewhere. It also raises challenges of how and why to teach PR history to students, many of whom will be predisposed towards functional, skills-based education and training that they see as being most useful in a vocationally oriented qualification. Perhaps re-orientating PR history towards stories of societal change and conflict might be a useful way to introduce the notion of contested definitions of PR as well as PR history? Typically, PR history is limited to a quick overview of some key names (usually men) and a crude synthesis covering decades in a human breath. Such a treatment is not only a travesty in educational process, selling students short in terms of critical engagement, but also a lost opportunity to engage students with the problematics of time and space and of PR places and people. Challenging students to think historically about the past and sources of evidence provides an early basis for research methods and ethics. Aside from such pragmatic educational considerations, PR history offers students a great deal more as it provides the opportunity to engage with the humanities and a range of philosophical questions about PR practices and people in the past and how we may come to know and understand them. Given the testing range of questions that history offers, and the insights it can generate about the reasons for current states of play and behaviour, it seems remiss that the discipline tends to position its history as a backwater of less significance than exciting technical topics such as crisis management (in which ironically a sense of history would probably be very useful). Perhaps, it is also significant that for many of those contributing to the history of PR, it is a second, third or even fourth string in their bow rather than a primary and specialist passion. This observation also speaks to the continuing marginalisation of history within the discipline that will take time to correct.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.