ABSTRACT
Professionals and scholars have struggled for a long time to secure the strategic value of public relations and communication management within organizations. This chapter offers the case of a global public relations agency – Bell Pottinger – whose questionable work in South Africa paradoxically provided evidence of the immense power that public relations practice can have in society. This case study leaves scholars and practitioners with some existential questions: has public relations – after this exceptional validation of how strategic its operations can be – caused its own reputational disgrace? Will this lead to its eventual ruin? And where does the practice now move from this abuse of power to restore its ethos? In his analogy of communication as a nation state (Peters, 1986), avowed that communication’s legitimacy rests in its power rather than its academic value. The Bell Pottinger case elucidated that while public relations retains immense power, when ill-used and manipulated, that power can lead to contrivance in future kakistocracies.
