ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the implications of public relations’ interest in systems theory as a meta-theoretical perspective or paradigm. Having shown that systems theory is beginning to play an important role in public relations, it raises central questions suggested by this phenomenon. The language emphasizes process and uses terms like input, throughput, and output that can all be given specific public relations content. It recognizes the strategic and sometimes ethical importance of being attentive to interdependencies. Scientific-technical civilization has confronted all nations, races and cultures, regardless of their group-specific, culturally relative morals traditions, with a common ethical problem”. Emphasizing strategic necessity justifies administering publics to achieve system survival objectives; emphasizing practical or ethical necessity justifies the raising of moral questions and involving publics in discussions of them. The concern can be expressed another way as a tension between strategic and practical or ethical necessity.
