Interview Series: Strategic Communication Perspectives in Global Media | Interviewer: Gökhan Çolak
Identity & Representation
How do you navigate and balance the different layers of your professional identity—as a CEO, a crisis communication expert, and a public figure? What key dynamics determine which aspect of your identity comes to the forefront in different contexts?
Balancing the different layers of my professional identity is less about choosing one over the other and more about consciously integrating them while staying anchored in purpose. At the core, my role as a CEO defines my responsibilities: I lead, make strategic decisions, and ensure short and long term impact. This perspective is always present, especially when navigating high stakes situations where business continuity is on the line. My identity as a crisis communication expert comes to the forefront in moments of uncertainty or reputational risk. In those contexts, precision, clarity, and timing become critical. I shift into a mode that prioritizes rapid assessment, stakeholder mapping, and message discipline, ensuring that every word and action supports stability and credibility.
As a public figure, I operate with an awareness that visibility amplifies both influence and accountability. Here, authenticity and consistency are key. It’s not just what I communicate, but how I embody values over time that shapes trust with broader audiences. The dynamic that determines which aspect leads is context: Urgency and risk level activate the crisis expert mindset, strategic direction and leadership decisions call forward the CEO mindset. Visibility and public engagement highlight the public figure and opinion. What ties them all together is a clear internal compass of my values, knowledge, experience, and a deep understanding of responsibility. Rather than seeing these roles as separate, I view them as complementary lenses that allow me to respond with both agility and integrity. Ultimately, the balance comes from being intentional: knowing when to support and empower, when to guide, and when to represent—and ensuring that all three are aligned in service of trust and the most professional service in our industry.
Image & Institutional Authority
How would you theorize the relationship between personal image and institutional authority? In high-visibility roles, how do individual representation and organizational credibility interact?
This relationship is not neutral, it’s a power exchange. In high visibility roles, your personal image doesn’t just reflect the institution, you actively compete with it for trust. The audience is constantly asking: Do I believe the system, or do I believe the person standing in front of me? And in many cases, they decide faster about the person than they ever will about the institution. Institutions don’t speak, people do. And when they do, they compress complexity into something emotionally legible. A single appearance, a single sentence, can either reinforce years of institutional credibility—or unravel it. So the interaction is not passive. It’s volatile.
When alignment is strong, personal image becomes an amplifier. It accelerates trust, humanizes authority, and makes the institution feel coherent and real. But when there’s even a slight gap (between what the institution claims and how the individual behaves) that gap becomes a fracture line. And in today’s environment, fracture lines don’t stay small. They scale instantly.
There’s also a strategic tension most leaders underestimate: the more visible and trusted the individual becomes, the more fragile the institution can become behind them. You can unintentionally centralize credibility in yourself, and that is a hidden risk. Because the moment you step back, the question becomes: Was the authority ever institutional, or was it always personal?
So the task is not to “balance” the two it’s to actively manage the transfer of trust. Sometimes you step forward and embody the institution, especially in moments of crisis, when people need clarity, not structure. But in moments of stability, you have to deliberately step back and let the institution carry the weight. That’s how you build resilience beyond personality. Because ultimately, if your presence is the only thing holding credibility together, you don’t have authority, you have dependency. And dependency is not leadership. It’s a liability.
Crisis Communication Theory
Do you approach crisis communication primarily as a process of perception management, or as the construction and reframing of reality? How can these two dimensions be balanced in practice?
Crisis communication is often framed as a choice: perception management or the construction of reality. I think this is dangerous. Because in a real crisis, perception is reality, at least in its immediate consequences. Markets react to it. Stakeholders make decisions based on it. Reputations rise or collapse because of it. So if you treat perception as something secondary, you’ve already lost control of the situation.
Crisis communication is not just about managing how reality is seen. It is about actively shaping what reality becomes next. Every statement, every silence, every framing choice sets direction. You are not just describing events, you are defining meaning, assigning responsibility, and opening or closing pathways for what happens after. In that sense, crisis communication is an act of leadership, not just messaging.
So the real challenge is how you operate in both dimensions at once, without losing credibility. If you focus only on perception management, you risk manipulation. You might stabilize the surface, but the underlying reality will eventually break through, and when it does, the trust deficit is far worse. If you focus only on “objective reality,” you risk irrelevance. Because »reality« that is not translated, framed, and understood might as well not exist in the public space.
The balance comes from discipline: You align narrative with facts, but you also recognize that facts don’t speak for themselves. You move fast on perception, but you anchor it in verifiable truth. You simplify, but you don’t distort. And most importantly, you understand timing. Early in a crisis, perception leads. People need clarity before they have complete information. Later, reality must catch up, and it must confirm what you signaled at the start. That’s where credibility is either built or destroyed. Because ultimately, crisis communication is not about choosing between perception and reality. It’s about closing the gap between them, fast enough to lead, and honestly enough to be believed.
Transparency & Strategic Boundaries
In moments of crisis, where should the boundary be drawn between transparency and strategic communication? How can organizations balance full disclosure with controlled messaging from both an ethical and operational standpoint?
Transparency is often treated as an absolute virtue in a crisis. It isn’t. Because the real question is not how much you disclose, but whether what you disclose is meaningful, responsible, and timely. Total transparency sounds principled, but in practice, it can be reckless. Incomplete data, unverified details, or prematurely shared information can escalate harm, create confusion, or even compromise legal and operational outcomes. On the other hand, overly controlled messaging, what people instinctively label as “spin”, erodes trust just as quickly. So the boundary is not fixed. It’s strategic, and it’s ethical. Transparency is about truthfulness. Strategic communication is about timing, framing, and impact.
You owe stakeholders the truth. Always. But you do not owe them chaos. In the early stages of a crisis, clarity matters more than completeness. People need to understand what is happening, what it means for them, and what is being done about it. That requires discipline, choosing what to say now, what to confirm later, and what must remain temporarily undisclosed for valid reasons, whether legal, security related, or operational.
The mistake organizations make is thinking that withholding information is the primary risk. It’s not. The real risk is misalignment, when what you say, what you know, and what eventually becomes public don’t match. That’s where trust collapses. Ethically, the line is crossed the moment communication becomes deceptive, when omission turns into manipulation, or when framing distorts responsibility. Strategically, the line is crossed when speed overrides accuracy, or when control overrides credibility. You should communicate early, but you signal uncertainty where it exists. You disclose facts, but you contextualize them so they are not misinterpreted. You protect sensitive information, but you explain why it cannot yet be shared. And most importantly, you treat communication as a sequence, not a single act. Transparency is not a dump of information, it’s a commitment to progressively reveal the truth as it becomes reliable. Because in a crisis, people don’t expect you to know everything immediately. But they do expect that whatever you say is true, and that tomorrow, it won’t contradict what you said today. That consistency, that integrity over time, is where transparency and strategy stop being in tension and start reinforcing each other.
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
In environments defined by uncertainty and time pressure, what methodological or cognitive framework guides your decision-making process? How do you weigh data, intuition, and experience?
In a crisis, you are never choosing between a good option and a bad one. You are choosing between incomplete versions of risk, with limited time, imperfect data, and very real consequences. So the idea that decisions are purely datadriven is at least partialy a myth. Data is critical, but in a crisis, it is usualy late, partial, or contested. If you wait for full clarity, you are no longer leading, you are reacting.
You must first structure the unknown: You rapidly define what you know, what you don’t know, and what would change your decision if you knew it. That prevents paralysis and sharpens focus. Then anchor in principles, not just information, cause when data is unstable, principles become your decision making infrastructure. What do we protect first: people, reputation, continuity? If that hierarchy is clear, decisions become faster and more consistent. And integrate intuition. Intuition is compressed experience. It’s pattern recognition built over time. But it only works if it’s been trained in real environments, and if you are disciplined enough to question and use it under pressure.
Experience, in that sense, is what allows you to sense signal in noise. It tells you when something is escalating, even before the data fully confirms it. But here’s the critical tension: Data gives you justification, experience gives you orientation and intuition gives you speed. And in a crisis, speed matters, because delay is also a decision, just an unspoken one. So the balance is not equal weighting. It’s dynamic. Early in a crisis, intuition and experience often lead, because you don’t have the luxury of time. As the situation stabilizes, data must take a stronger and primary role, because decisions need to scale, align, and hold up under scrutiny.
But there’s one more layer that is often overlooked: decision visibility. In high stakes environments, it’s not enough to make the right decision, you have to make it understandable. Because if stakeholders cannot follow your reasoning, they won’t trust the outcome. So ultimately: Act before you are fully ready. Ground decisions in principles, not pressure. Continuously update your position as reality becomes clearer. Because in uncertainty, the goal is not perfect decisions. It’s decisions that remain defensible as the truth unfolds.
Rationality vs Intuition in Leadership
How do you position the relationship between rationality and intuition in leadership? Particularly in crisis situations, how should leaders balance analytical thinking with rapid, instinctive decision-making?
We often talk about rationality and intuition as if they are opposites. They’re not. They are two different speeds of thinking, and in leadership, especially in crisis, you need both operating at once. Rationality is structured. It’s analytical, deliberate, evidence based. It gives you defensibility. It allows your decisions to hold under scrutiny, internally, externally, and over time. Intuition, on the other hand, is fast. It’s immediate. It cuts through complexity before it’s fully articulated. And in high pressure situations, that speed is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Because in a crisis, if you rely only on rationality, you will be too slow. And if you rely only on intuition, you will/could eventually be wrong. So the question is which one leads and when?
Early in a crisis, intuition often moves first. It signals that something is off before the data is complete. It allows you to act while others are still analyzing. But intuition without discipline is dangerous. It needs to be interrogated and pressure tested against facts, challenged by diverse perspectives, and translated into a decision that can be explained, not just felt. That’s where rationality comes in. Rational thinking doesn’t replace intuition, it stabilizes it. It turns instinct into strategy. It ensures that what feels right can also stand up to reality. But here’s the deeper point: intuition is not irrational.
It is pattern recognition built through experience. It is what allows leaders to recognize escalation, reputational risk, or stakeholder reaction before it fully materializes. And that means not all intuition is equal. Untrained intuition is bias. Trained intuition is expertise. So the real responsibility of leadership is to develop intuition that deserves to be trusted, and to build systems that prevent it from going unchecked. Because in the end, the balance is not static. You move fast, but you validate. You trust your instinct, but you make it explainable. You analyze, but you don’t hide behind analysis. And most importantly: you don’t confuse confidence with correctness. Because in crisis leadership, the goal is not to eliminate uncertainty. It’s to make decisions that are fast enough to matter and grounded enough to last.
Power: Structural vs Relational
Do you conceptualize power primarily as a structural position, or as a relational and contextual phenomenon? How does this perspective shape your leadership and communication strategies?
We tend to think of power as something you have. A title. A position. Authority defined by structure. But in practice, especially in crisis, that version of power is often the least reliable. Because structural power gives you permission to decide. It does not guarantee that others will follow. Real power is relational. It exists in how people respond to you, how much they trust you, and whether they are willing to act on your words, especially when the situation is unclear, uncomfortable, or high-risk. And that makes power inherently unstable. You can hold the highest position in an organization, and still lose influence in a moment if credibility fractures. At the same time, someone without formal authority can become highly influential if they are trusted, consistent, reliable and clear when it matters most.
So the challenge is how consciously you manage the gap between the two. Because leadership happens in that gap. Structural power sets the stage, it gives you access, visibility, and formal responsibility. But relational power determines whether your leadership actually works. And communication is the bridge between them. Every message you deliver either strengthens or weakens that bridge. It either reinforces trust, or introduces doubt.
Power is contextual. In a crisis, power shifts quickly. Stakeholders, employees, media, regulators, the publics, can all redefine the landscape in real time. Authority becomes negotiated, not assumed. So leadership is no longer about holding power. It’s about earning it continuously, in every interaction, under pressure, in full visibility.Because in the end, structural power may give you a voice. But relational power determines whether that voice is believed and whether it results in action.
Gender, Perception & Legitimacy
In the context of female leadership, how do you analyze the impact of physical appearance on professional legitimacy? What strategies have you developed to navigate or counter such perceptual biases?
When we talk about leadership, we like to believe it’s evaluated on competence. But it’s filtered (constantly) through perception. And for women in leadership, physical appearance remains one of the most persistent and least acknowledged filters of all. It shapes first impressions. It influences perceived authority. And, whether we like it or not, it still affects how legitimacy is granted, or withheld. The paradox is sharp: If you align too closely with traditional expectations of appearance, you risk being underestimated. If you deviate from them, you risk being judged as less credible, less “appropriate,” or less authoritative. So the margin for interpretation is narrower. And the scrutiny is higher. But here’s where I take a very clear position. The goal is not to escape perception. That’s impossible.
The goal is to strategically control what perception is anchored to. For me, it comes down to:
consistency of presence Over time, people recalibrate what they focus on. If your communication is precise, your decisions are coherent, and your behavior is aligned, attention shifts, from how you look to how you lead and operate.
clarity of voice Ambiguity invites projection. The clearer and more structured your communication, the less space there is for bias to fill in the gaps.
ownership, not avoidance Trying to minimize visibility rarely works, it often reinforces the very bias you’re trying to escape. Instead, I treat visibility as an asset. If you are seen, then be seen on your terms, with intention, coherence, and control over the narrative you project. So the objective is not just to succeed within existing perceptions. It’s to shift them. To expand what (moral) authority and profesionalism looks like. To normalize different expressions of leadership. And to make competence (not conformity) the dominant signal.
Because legitimacy should not be something women have to negotiate through appearance. But until that changes, the reality is this: You don’t ignore perception. You don’t submit to it. You outgrow it by making it irrelevant to the value you deliver.
Digital Media, Truth & Disinformation
How do you assess the erosion of the concept of ‘truth’ in the context of the rapid development of digital media and increasing disinformation, and how is this transformation reshaping the way the tension between ethics and pragmatism is managed in crisis communication?
We often say that truth is under pressure. I think that’s an understatement. What we are actually witnessing is not just the erosion of truth, but its fragmentation. Digital media hasn’t simply accelerated information. It has multiplied realities. Today, the question is no longer “What is true?”It’s “Which version of the truth gains traction and why?” Because in a hyper connected environment, visibility is no longer tied to accuracy. It’s tied to speed, emotion, and amplification. And that changes the rules fundamentally. Disinformation doesn’t win because it’s credible. It wins because it’s fast, simple, and emotionally compelling, which puts crisis communication in a very uncomfortable position. Because traditionally, ethics and pragmatism were seen as complementary: You tell the truth and you communicate it effectively. Today, that alignment is under strain. If you move too slowly in the name of accuracy, you lose the narrative. If you move too fast in the name of control, you risk compromising truth. So the tension is no longer theoretical. It’s operational: minute by minute, decision by decision.
The critical shift is that crisis communication is no longer just about delivering truth. It’s about making truth competitive. That means understanding the mechanics of attention, amplification, and belief, without surrendering to them. It means framing facts not only correctly but also resonantly. Because facts that don’t travel might as well not exist in the public space, but this is where the ethical line becomes sharper, not weaker. Because the temptation is real, to simplify too much, to over frame, to push narratives that win attention but stretch reality. And the moment you do that, you enter the same logic as disinformation, just with better intentions. That’s the trap. So the question becomes: how do you remain effective without becoming compromised? The answer is high discipline: Competing on clarity, not distortion. Competing on speed, but not at the expense of truth. Competing on relevance by connecting facts to what people actually care about.
And you must accept something difficult: You will not win every narrative battle. But if you lose credibility, you lose everything. Because in an environment where truth is contested, credibility becomes the last stable currency. And credibility is not built in the moment of crisis. It is built before and tested during. So this transformation is not just technological. It is deeply ethical. It forces leaders to decide, under pressure and in full visibility: Do you optimize for attention? Or do you anchor in integrity and find ways to make it visible? Because in the end, crisis communication is no longer just about protecting reputation. It’s about defending the conditions under which truth can still matter. And that is no longer just a professional responsibility. It’s a leadership one.
Future of Crisis Communication
How would you conceptualize the interplay between power, communication, and trust within a unified theoretical framework? From this perspective, what structural directions do you see for the future evolution of crisis communication, and what fundamental principle could be formulated to contribute to the academic literature?
From an analytical perspective, the interplay between power, communication, and trust can be conceptualized as a triadic, co/constitutive system, in which each element is conditioned by the others. Power, in this framework, is not treated solely as a structural attribute (position, hierarchy, institutional authority), but as a relational capacity to shape meaning and coordinate action under conditions of uncertainty. Communication functions as the operational mechanism through which this capacity is exercised, it is the medium that translates authority into influence. Trust, in turn, operates as the legitimizing currency of the system: it determines whether communicated meaning is accepted, contested, or rejected by relevant stakeholders.
Crucially, this relationship is dynamic rather than linear. Communication does not simply transmit power; it actively produces and redistributes it, while trust serves both as an outcome of prior interactions and as a precondition for future effectiveness. In this sense, trust can be understood as a form of deferred validation, a temporally extended evaluation of consistency between communicated claims and observable reality. Within crisis contexts, this triadic relationship becomes particularly visible and accelerated. Crises function as stress tests of systemic coherence, exposing misalignments between institutional claims (power), communicative practices, and stakeholder expectations (trust). When communication fails to align with either the realities of the situation or the perceived legitimacy of authority, trust deteriorates, and with it, the effective capacity to exercise power.
Building on this, we can conceptualize crisis communication as a process of dynamic alignment across three dimensions:
Epistemic alignment: the degree to which communication corresponds to verifiable reality (truth conditions).
Relational alignment: the degree to which communication resonates with stakeholder expectations, values, and perceptions (trust conditions).
Institutional alignment: the degree to which communication reflects and reinforces legitimate authority structures (power conditions).
Effective crisis communication occurs at the intersection of these three axes. Misalignment in any one dimension (factually correct but socially tone deaf communication, or strategically persuasive but factually weak messaging) produces instability in the overall system. From this theoretical standpoint, several structural shifts are likely to shape the future evolution of crisis communication:
From centralized authority to distributed credibility Digital media environments decentralize the production and validation of information. Authority is no longer monopolized by institutions but is continuously negotiated across networks. This implies a shift from control based to coordination based communication models.
From information asymmetry to transparency ecosystems The declining feasibility of information control necessitates a move toward structured transparency. where organizations design communication as an ongoing, staged process rather than episodic disclosure.
From message delivery to meaning competition Crisis communication increasingly operates within environments of competing narratives. The task is not only to provide accurate information but to ensure that it achieves interpretive dominance without compromising epistemic integrity.
From reactive to anticipatory communication systems The integration of data analytics, real-time monitoring, and scenario planning will shift crisis communication toward pre-emptive framing, where potential crises are partially shaped before they fully materialize.
The effectiveness of crisis communication is determined by the continuous alignment between communicated representations of reality, the relational expectations of stakeholders, and the perceived legitimacy of authority. Sustainable influence emerges not from the control of information, but from the capacity to maintain coherence across these dimensions over time. This principle emphasizes that credibility is neither static nor unidimensional. It is dynamically produced through the interaction of truth, perception, and authority, and can only be sustained through their ongoing alignment.
In this sense, the future of crisis communication lies not in refining isolated techniques, but in developing integrated systems of meaning management, where power, communication, and trust are understood as mutually constitutive elements of a single, evolving “structure”.
Interview Series: The Transformation of Public Relations in the Digital Age | Interviewer: Gökhan Çolak
The Academic Development of Public Relations
Public relations was long perceived primarily as a practice-oriented profession. However, your work played a significant role in establishing it as a theoretical and academic field. In your view, what were the most critical turning points in the academic development of public relations?
This is a fascinating question, but it also would require the writing of a book or, at least, a journal article to answer it adequately. Fortunately, I coauthored an article in 2023 that addressed this question in detail.1 1 I must point out, however, that the article exclusively addressed the academic development of public relations in the United States. Other regions and countries may have experienced a different academic development of the discipline. The United States generally has been credited with leading the public relations discipline, but some scholars in other countries have challenged that assumption.
The article to which I am referring was published as part of a special issue of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly that celebrated 100 years of publication of the journal. JMCQ is the premier journal of the (U.S) Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. In the United States, public relations was taught first in schools of journalism and mass communication, although it now is taught equally in departments of communication and, occasionally, in other academic departments. My program at the University of Maryland, for example, was housed in the College of Journalism until it was moved to the Department of Communication in 2005. The special issue contained 22 articles reviewing articles published in JMCQ over its first 100 years for specialized areas such as journalism, mass communication, advertising, and (in my case) public relations. I am proud to say that the first author of the article was my grandson, James Hollenczer, who at the time was a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma.
I will quote directly from this article, but first I would like to provide a general overview of the history of public relations education in the United States. The first courses in public relations generally were offered at the time of World War I in schools of journalism and generally were taught by the public information officers of the university or by local practitioners. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that schools of journalism (and sometimes) mass communication employed full-time public relations educators. Most were former practitioners who did not hold an advanced degree. Exceptions were Scott Cutlip of the University of Wisconsin and Otto Lerbinger and Edward J. Robinson of Boston University. They used research from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, mass communication, and political science in textbooks that they authored. Theories of persuasion and public opinion were prominent, and the emphasis was on messaging and persuasion to influence public opinion and behavior. In the 1960s, I was among a few young scholars who developed specialized theories of public relations. Glen Broom and I, who were in that group, were both Ph.D. students at the University of Wisconsin at the time—where we were influenced by Cutlip. My first theory was the situational theory of publics, which focused on the public side of public relations rather than the organization side. Broom originally focused on coorientation theory, which was a forerunner of current theories of organization-public relationships. Later, in collaboration with David Dozier, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University, Broom developed a theory of managerial and technical roles. At about the same time, I introduced the models of public relations, and both roles and models became components of Excellence theory. Robert Heath, who was educated at the University of Illinois and was another prominent scholar at the time, applied principles of rhetoric to public relations.
In the late 1990s and the turn of the century, rhetorical and critical scholars (often in Europe and outside the United States), challenged our approach, which I believe used theory and research to professionalize the practice of public relations. They argued that public relations was mostly a means for organizations to exercise their power over publics. Recently, many have insisted that public relations theory and research should turn away from organizations and focus on empowering publics. I generally disagree with the critical argument that my theories and similar ones are exclusively means to benefit organizations. I began my research career by focusing on publics with my situational theory. The purpose of both the symmetrical model and the Excellence theory was on developing the profession of public relations in a way that would benefit both organizations and publics.
The article in JMCQ used Thomas Kuhn’s historical theory of the stages of development of a scientific discipline to describe the 100 years of public relations scholarship. The following quote provides a conclusion to my answer to this question:
This article discusses the evolution of public relations from its pre-science period to the present day, according to Kuhn’s classic model. In the early days, public relations was focused on systematic efforts to influence public opinion, but scholars began to doubt the accuracy of this approach by the 1950s. In the 1960s, the field faced conceptual challenges and was stagnant in its pre-theoretical formula, but in the 1970s, researchers began to conceptualize people as active communicators with motives and interests. The 1980s and 1990s saw a focus on understanding the different models of public relations, and in the 21st century, the field shifted toward a multifunctional definition of public relations, with a focus on relationship theories, ethics, public behavior, and technology. . .
At a qualitative level, the fundamentals of the discipline have undergone a “revolutionary” development that can be traced over a century, leading public relations scholars and professionals to rethink themselves and revise their disciplinary culture. In the pre-theoretical stage, public relations was mostly reduced to the mechanistic dimension of “influence” and “propaganda.” This produced an asymmetrical search for visibility and persuasion in which organizations sought to impose themselves and their own private scopes over an abstract idea of “public opinion.” Then, in the second half of the 20th century and along with the development of the mass media system, some decisive challenges enlarged the traditional vision of public relations: the reconceptualization of “receivers” in terms of “active communicators” and the segmentation of an undifferentiated “environment” into specific categories of stakeholders and strategic “publics.”
Indeed, the historical evolution of the discipline in the context of JMCQ suggests that, in a hyper-mediated and post-pandemic world, public relations is reaching a mature stage of development. A model shift at the theoretical level, as the one mentioned, encourages the idea that public relations is a resource not only for corporate leaders and organizations generally, but also anyone interested in the study of group behavior. (pp. 948-949)
The Four Models of Public Relations
Your four models of public relations remain among the most influential conceptual frameworks in the discipline. Considering the current digital media environment, do you believe these models still retain their explanatory power?
My first research in the 1960s was on the behavior of publics, which I believed had been ignored in public relations research. I began this research in my Ph.D. dissertation, which was on communication and agricultural development in Colombia. In the dissertation, I studied large landowners (latifundistas), and I followed this with a similar study of peasant farmers (minifundistas). I returned to the United States after two years in Colombia believing that organizations were more often responsible for a lack of economic development than were publics. Thus, I began a period of about 15 years of research on the public relations (communication) behavior of organizations, while also continuing my research on publics.
To explain my development of the models, it is helpful to understand that researchers generally look for two sets of characteristics (variables) to explain something they are interested in: independent and dependent variables. The dependent variables are the characteristics we want to explain (such as public relations behavior), and the independent variables are the characteristics that explain or sometimes predict when the dependent variables occur. I tried several dependent variables to describe public relations behavior and eventually settled on the four models as a good description of how public relations professionals behave. I also tried several independent variables to explain why PR departments practice different models—such as the nature of an organization’s environment, the type of technology used in an organization, the hierarchical structure of the organization, and the power of the public relations department. Eventually, I found that the education and knowledge of PR people and the beliefs of organizational leaders of what public relations is and does best explained which model was practiced. In addition, our research showed that organizations that practiced the two-way symmetrical model were more successful, socially responsible, and ethical than those who practiced other models.
After many studies of these models, my colleagues and I concluded that they were useful descriptions of different types of public relations behavior, although they probably were overly simple. In addition, we found that organizations often use more than one of the models at the same time and use different models for different communication programs (such as media relations, community relations, or marketing communication.) In the Excellence study, we identified four dimensions that lie beneath the models: symmetrical vs. asymmetrical, one way vs. two-way, mediated vs. interpersonal, and ethical vs. unethical.
For example, the press agentry model is asymmetrical, one-way, mediated, and unethical. Ideal public relations behavior, therefore, is two-way, symmetrical, either mediated or interpersonal, and ethical. These four dimensions, therefore, provide better descriptions of how public relations is practiced and of a normative ideal practice than the four models alone. However, although simple, the four models are still useful to explain public relations to students, organizational leaders who choose a type of PR practice, journalists, and people in general who don’t understand public relations. In addition, I don’t believe the current digital environment has reduced the explanatory power of the models or their underlying dimensions. Instead, digital methods have simply provided new ways of implementing the models.
Two-Way Symmetrical Communication
The two-way symmetrical model is often described as the ideal form of public relations. Yet, in practice, many organizations continue to rely on one-way communication strategies. Do you see symmetrical communication as a realistically achievable model, or primarily as a normative ideal?
The four models of public relations, and the underlying dimensions I just described, have proven to be good descriptions of the different ways that public relations is practiced by different kinds of organizations. Such theoretical descriptions of public relations practice are variables in what is called a positive (or descriptive) theory. The two-way symmetrical model is a positive theory, and it was found to be practiced in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the Excellence study. Other researchers have found that the model is practiced in many other countries, although it is not used everywhere.
The symmetrical model also is a normative theoretical concept. Many critics of the model seem to misunderstand the nature of a normative theory. They seem to believe that a normative concept only exists as an ideal and not as a reality. However, a theory would not be a good normative theory if it could not be found in real life. A normative theory must exist in real life and do what it is theoretically supposed to do, such as improve relationships between organizations and publics. I believe symmetrical theory meets this standard and that our research has identified organizations that practice it. As a result, it provides a benchmark for effective and ethical public relations.
At the same time, we know that it is difficult to practice the symmetrical model in some organizations, countries, and cultures. Organizations that believe public relations is a way to dominate their publics aren’t interested in symmetrical communication. Many organizational executives have never heard of public relations being practiced in that way. Public relations practitioners who come from other disciplines such as marketing, advertising, or journalism practice what they know. Marketing and advertising people usually practice the press agentry or two-way asymmetrical models. Journalists typically practice the public information model. Many practitioners, also, cannot practice the symmetrical model because they lack the knowledge or experience to do so.
The question, therefore, is whether all the different ways of understanding, practicing, and teaching public relations are equally good. Would we recommend them to organizational executives or clients or teach them to students: Is every model or every dimension of the models an ideal or normative model? My answer is no. I recommend and teach the two-way symmetrical model. I think it produces relationships that have greater value for publics, organizations, and society. Nevertheless, I know that the model is more difficult to practice in some cultures and political and economic systems than in others. If the model can’t be practiced, I believe the problem is with the culture and political and economic system—not with the public relations profession. In some systems, public relations strives to keep the powerful in power, and it deserves all the criticism it typically receives. However, I believe there is a gradual way to get around this problem. If we as scholars and practitioners can subtly introduce the symmetrical model in practice, it might gradually change the system in which it is practiced. That is not easy, but I could not practice public relations in any other way regardless of the situation in which I work.
Excellence Theory
Excellence Theory positioned public relations as a strategic management function within organizations. Today, do you believe communication professionals are truly integrated into organizational decision-making processes?
As this question states, the major finding of the Excellence study was that participation in the strategic management of an organization was the most important characteristic of excellent public relations. It was even more important than the symmetrical model. Excellent public relations departments were most likely to practice that model, but they also practiced one or more of the other models. Most commonly they practiced both the two-way symmetrical and two-way asymmetrical models. The common element of those models is two-way communication, and the best way to practice two-way communication is to conduct research as a form of organizational listening. In subsequent research, four colleagues and I found that conducting or using research was the major indicator of public relations’ participation in strategic management.2 If a public relations department does not use research, it seldom has anything to contribute to strategic management and is generally not integrated into organizational decision-making processes.
The other reason many practitioners are not included is because of what I call institutionalization. This means that traditions, beliefs, and customs reinforce the idea that public relations is a one-way, asymmetrical, and unethical practice used to reinforce the interests of the powerful. Institutionalization occurs among organizational executives, clients of PR firms, journalists, PR practitioners themselves, and people in general. It is extremely difficult to break free from an institutionalized set of ideas; and, as a result, public relations often continues to be practiced as it always has been. I have done everything I can to break out of this institutionalized means of practicing public relations, and I have encouraged other scholars and professionals to do the same.
The answer to this question, then, is yes and no. Research on and observation of public relations people have identified examples of practitioners in many countries who are integrated into strategic management. Integration is most common in multinational corporations, but it also can be found in small organizations that are less institutionalized and where public relations can be changed more easily. Most practitioners, however, still are not part of strategic management; and much work is needed to change the practice to make it possible for them to be included.
Public Relations and Democratic Society
Your work frequently highlights the constructive role that public relations can play in democratic societies. However, critics often associate public relations with manipulation. To what extent do you think these criticisms are justified?
As I said in response to your previous questions, many, if not most, public relations practitioners and their client organizations still believe that public relations is a way to manipulate the media, government, employees, customers, stockholders, and other stakeholders to think and behave as the organization wants. This manipulation wouldn’t be so bad if these practitioners truly understood and had the interests of publics in mind. A good example is health communication, where communicators with good intentions try to persuade their publics to engage in healthy behaviors. Often, however, health communicators don’t understand why publics engage in seemingly unhealthy behaviors; and their messages are ignored. If they researched—listened to—their publics before preparing messages, these communicators generally would be more effective. Unfortunately, communicators and their clients typically believe that an organization’s interests are the same as public interests. Sometimes they are right; more often they are wrong.
I recently wrote an essay on the role of public relations in facilitating social inclusion in a democratic society.3 At this point in my life, social inclusion seems to be the thread that has run through my work, beginning with my research on ways to include Colombian peasant farmers in the decision making of the organizations with which they need relationships and with society in general. Publics typically have different identities, as defined, for example, by race, wealth, poverty, sexual orientation, location, culture, occupation, gender, education, or political philosophy. Organizations typically include the problems of some of these publics in their strategic decision making and exclude others. Publics that are excluded, however, often have problems they would like organizations to help solve. Others encounter problems created by the consequences of organizational decisions. Public relations, I believe, can provide a means of organizational listening that includes these otherwise socially excluded publics. To serve as a means of social inclusion, however, public relations usually must be practiced as a strategic, symmetrical, research-based profession—i.e., following the principles of the Excellence theories.
Digital Platforms and Symmetrical Communication
Digital platforms and social media theoretically enable more interactive communication between organizations and their publics. Do you think these developments have strengthened the model of symmetrical communication, or have they produced new forms of asymmetrical communication?
When digital platforms for communication were first introduced, I was optimistic that they would encourage symmetrical communication and make organization-centric asymmetrical communication difficult. Public relations practitioners once believed that they could control the information going to their publics. However, now that many sources of information are available on the internet and social media, it is almost impossible to control the information going to publics. Search engines, and now artificial intelligence, make it easy for actively communicating members of publics to get information about organizations—their decisions, behaviors, products, ethics, social responsibility, and competitors. At the same time, these platforms make it easy for organizations to research and listen to their publics, understand their problems, and give them a voice in strategic decision making. Thus, symmetrical communication should have become institutionalized by now.
However, a new phenomenon has emerged that I called de facto social exclusion in the article I described in my last answer. Individuals, organizations, and publics typically communicate with others who share the same identities and problems and exclude themselves from communicating with those who are different. De facto social exclusion has been encouraged by narrow-minded media and digital platforms. It also makes people susceptible to misinformation. The phenomenon is particularly evident in political communication in the United States, in which organizations and publics have organized themselves into warring ideological factions. Therefore, I believe you are correct in suggesting that digital platforms have encouraged new forms of asymmetrical communication.
I don’t yet have a firm solution to this problem of de facto social exclusion. I believe the eventual solution will be to educate young people about different forms of thinking and communicating so that they don’t fall into the trap of close-mindedness and confirmation bias when they communicate with others. Cognitive scientists and communication scientists know a lot about these processes, and we need to teach people about them at early ages. It’s also important to include these theories in the education of public relations professionals.
Algorithms and Organizational Communication
Communication environments today are increasingly shaped by algorithms. How do you think algorithmic media environments are transforming the relationship between organizations and their publics?
On the one hand, algorithms can be helpful to both organizations and publics by channeling relevant information to and from publics and minimizing the onslaught of irrelevant information that most of us typically receive in traditional and digital media. Identifying what information is relevant to information seekers has been the primary focus of my situational theory of publics, and that theory is relevant to this question. The theory explains that people are most likely to actively seek or passively acquire information that is relevant to problems they recognize, that involve them, and that they can do something about. I call these variables problem recognition, involvement recognition, and constraint recognition. These variables explain when, why, and about what people communicate.4 In doing so, they explain what information members of publics are most likely to use. Algorithms can filter such relevant information from irrelevant information—thus increasing the probability of successful messaging. The same principles can be used to explain the information coming from publics that public relations practitioners are likely to pay attention to.
However, both active and passive communication behaviors can lead to de facto social inclusion. The result is a dilemma: How can publics and organizations seek information from each other that is relevant to problems they face without falling into the trap of de facto exclusion of sources with different identities and solutions to problems? Algorithms can filter information into categories that either include others or exclude them. Algorithms derived from our previous communication behaviors, therefore, could be inclusive or exclusive. A solution to this dilemma is to expand our communication behaviors to include relevant information from sources we might usually avoid—thus expanding the algorithm and eventually organization-public relationships.
Ethics and Public Responsibility in Public Relations
There is often a tension between organizational interests and the broader public interest. In your view, how should public relations professionals navigate this balance?
Public relations scholars and professionals have debated whether the public relationsfunction should be the ethical conscience of an organization or of organized publics. Critics of the profession, however, believe that public relations is inherently unethical and could never serve this role. Those of us who have an expansive view of public relations believe its role should include monitoring and supporting ethics and public responsibility in strategic management. The question, therefore, is what is required for public relations people to serve in this role. I have addressed this question in detail in another article.5
In that article, I described seven ethical problems that public relations people typically encounter. These included personal ethical decisions; relationships with clients and other practitioners; loyalty to organizations, publics, and society; choice of a client or organization; advocate and counselor roles; secrecy and openness; and digital media.
In that article, I also constructed a theory of public relations ethics and social responsibility. I believe that public relations professionals need a theory of ethics before they can advise others on what behaviors are ethical or unethical. Ethical scholars have developed two types of theories: consequentialist (teleological or utilitarian) and rules-based (deontological). A consequentialist theory maintains that the morality of a decision or behavior depends on the consequences it has on others, such as whether an organization’s behavior has positive or negative consequences on its publics. The same theory would apply to the consequences that a public has on an organization or requests from that organization. Consequentialist ethics becomes complicated, however, when a decision or behavior has positive consequences for the organization but not its publics, or vice versa. Or, when the decision or behavior has positive consequences for some publics but not others or for society at large. This is why the term utilitarian also is used for the consequentialist approach. The proposed solution is “the greatest good for the greater number.” With that rule, however, some participants generally experience positive consequences and others negative consequences. As a result, minorities usually are disadvantaged.
Rules-based or deontological ethicists, on the other hand, solve this problem by proposing moral rules for judging the ethics of a decision or behavior. Shannon Bowen, of the University of South Carolina, developed such a set of rules for public relations in her doctoral dissertation at the University of Maryland, and I recommend reading her research. She developed these rules mostly from the work of Immanuel Kant. Her dissertation and several other articles on ethics can be found on the research website ResearchGate.net (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shannon-Bowen), including an article on the ethics of artificial intelligence.
Two rules that I think are especially important for public relations are disclosure and symmetrical communication. With these rules, I have constructed an uncomplicated ethical theory for public relations that contains both consequences and rules:
Teleology: Ethical public relations professionals should monitor the consequences that potential organizational decisions or behaviors might have on publics.
Deontology: Ethical public relations professionals then have the moral obligation to disclose these consequences to publics that are affected and to engage in symmetrical communication with them about resolving the consequences.
The same rule applies to publics, such as activist groups, that request or even demand consequences from organizations and to organizations that affect each other, such as governments and corporations. In addition, the disclosure rule can be used to make asymmetrical communication activities morally acceptable. That is, the rule states that organizations using asymmetrical communication methods have the moral obligation to disclose the source of their communications. This rule, for example, would rule out such activities as forming front groups with fake name, news releases that don’t disclose the source of the alleged “news story,” or activist groups that don’t reveal their funding sources.
I also believe that the concept of consequences helps to understand the nature of social or public responsibility. Socially responsible organizations should attempt to eliminate or manage the negative consequences of their behaviors on publics, such as pollution, discrimination, or overpricing of products. In addition, publics or other organizations, such as regulators, that request consequences from organizations need to acknowledge and manage those consequences. When consequences conflict, these different groups again have the moral obligation to engage in symmetrical communication to acknowledge the competing consequences and attempt to negotiate their differences.
Organizations can also judge the value of proactive social responsibility programs, such as charitable contributions, sponsorships, or special events, by assessing the potential positive consequences of these programs on publics with which they have a relationship or need to have a relationship—rather than developing such programs only for publicity or “image making.”
The Future of Public Relations Education
Public relations education has expanded significantly around the world. Yet there are ongoing debates about the gap between academic education and professional practice. Do you believe such a gap still exists today?
Ideally, education for professional public relations should work like education in other professions, such as medicine. The most important contribution of educators is research. They develop theories to improve practice and then do research to determine if these theories have worked or could work in practice. They consult with practitioners to learn about problems they experience that research could help to solve and advise them on new approaches suggested by research. The research is published in academic journals for peer review. The theories and examples of the theories being used in practice then form the substance taught in university classrooms and for continuing education of practitioners through professional organizations, short courses, and occasional lectures. In the Excellence study, for example, we learned that excellent public relations practitioners have relevant knowledge gained in one of four ways: undergraduate or graduate education in public relations, continuing education, reading academic and professional journals, and consulting with academics or other practitioners with similar advanced knowledge.
This approach to professional education is becoming more common in public relations, but it is not found universally. There are several reasons. Academics often conduct research that has little relevance to practice, and professionals ignore it. Many practitioners have little formal knowledge of public relations, make little attempt to gain it, and badmouth it to others. Other practitioners learn outmoded ideas from each other and pass them on to client organizations. That explains why the press agentry model, which is the least effective and ethical, is still probably the model most practiced around the world. For these reasons, there often is a gap between academic education and professional practice. I have seen notable progress in my 65 years of public relations practice and education. Nevertheless, we still have work to do.
The Future of Public Relations
Finally, in an era marked by rapid technological transformation, how do you envision the future of public relations? Which research areas should the next generation of scholars focus on?
I think there is little question that digital and social media along with artificial intelligence will dominate the future of public relations. Scholars already are devoting a great deal of attention to these new forms of communication. At the same time, I don’t think these new technologies make our best current public relations theories outmoded.
Unfortunately, these technologies can be used for ineffective and unethical public relations, just like old technologies. They also can be used to implement theories such as the Excellence theory. I have become excited about artificial intelligence, for example, just from my personal use. It is a wonderful way to explore several sources to learn what publics are experiencing and the problems they face. Thus, AI can be used for research. It also can be used to monitor the ethics and social responsibility of organizations. At the same time, we have seen that the new technologies can be used for similar purposes as old technologies were used in ineffective, unethical, and irresponsible public relations practice. Therefore, we need ethics scholars and critical scholars to continue to shine light on these practices.
I hope that research will continue to be done to learn how to implement the strategic, symmetrical, and ethical principles of Excellence theory in different settings around the world. At the same time, theories should never be static and should grow and be improved by continuing research. For example, my colleagues and I proposed several years ago that the Excellence principles are generic principles that can be used in different cultures and political and economic systems, if they are adapted to specific conditions in different settings. We call this theory generic principles and specific applications. I have seen a great deal of research in different countries that has done just that. The same is true for other theories such as principles of crisis communication, ethics, and dialogue. I urge scholars not to throw out older theories just so they can contribute something new. I believe we should merge the old and the new so that the profession grows and scholars avoid reinventing the wheel.
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