ABSTRACT
Teaching and researching public relations leaves us with the feeling of a wavering balance between acceptance and rejection. PR cannot be un-invented. But it ought to be better guarded by its industry bodies and by all of us as citizens and consumers. PR’s dignified façade of mutual understanding, strategic communication, dialogue, relationship and reputation management cannot be allowed to blind us to its efficient reality of persuasive communication for competitive advantage. PR is the rhetorical expression of a private self-interest, but it takes place in public life and so should operate within boundaries set for it rather than by it. We conclude by suggesting a number of reforms. The industry itself must develop a more realistic self-identity so that it can begin to regain public trust and genuinely earned third-party endorsement. At a societal level, there should be a threshold minimum of PR capacity to produce a greater extent of communicative equality in public debate; and individually we all need to develop more vigilant radar to detect and critically engage with PR messages.
