What is public relations?
Johanna Fawkes

Chapter aims

This chapter aims to cover the issues of definition and distinction of PR from related activities, but a word of warning. These will not solve the dilemma of trying to ‘explain’ public relations in a phrase. The fact remains that it is a complex and hybrid subject; it draws on theories and practices from many different fields, such as management, media, communication and psychology. These links will be explored more fully in this book. Readers are more likely to have an understanding of the subject and an ability to evolve their own definitions when they have reached the end of the book, rather than the end of this chapter.
L’Etang (1996b: 16) described the attempts to define public relations as largely ‘constructed in an attempt to be all things to all people simultaneously’.
Since then, however, there have been many more attempts to capture the essence of public relations.
The 1978 World Assembly of Public Relations Associations in Mexico agreed that: Public relations is the art and social science of analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organization leaders and implementing planned programs of action which will serve both the organization’s and the public interest. (Wilcox et al. 2003: 6)
The words ‘art’ and ‘social science’ are helpful in explaining the continuing tension between understanding PR as a measurable, science-based application of communication tools and the affection of many practitioners for the looser,