The Conflation of Activism and Public Relations: Questionable Trajectories in Critical Public Relations Theorising

• In Event: Public Relations Theory Interventions

Abstract

This paper examines some of the evolution of the conceptualising of activism in public relations scholarship and the directions and theoretical underpinnings of that work. It considers the claims that public relations practitioners can play the role as activists in organisations; that activists are public relations practitioners; and that activist communication tactics are forms of public relations. It also focuses on how activism and public relations are defined in these discussions. Identifying activists as extremely reluctant to define their own communication work as public relations work, it asks why public relations scholars think it appropriate to deem that activity to be public relations, and what the political implications of this are?

Author

• Celia Kay Weaver, U of Waikato