ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the boundaries of public and private, and policy clash, and examines the ideal of collaborative dialogue. The future of public relations and collaborative public policy decision-making is like a train coming downhill with a tentative person at the brakes. The future is approaching, and may have just passed. The old notion of mass-mediated communicators affecting the agenda and content of issue discussions and gatekeepers has become reshaped. Public relations theory and practice today are moving away from a linear media relations paradigm of collaboration to determine whether social media are the Holy Grail of collaborative decision-making. Within that line of analysis, substantial amounts of discussion have addressed the connection between public relations and dialogue, and the accompanying role of social media in dialogue, or vice versa. The key to collaborative decision-making is the ways that the players engaged in public policy deliberations and enactments play together, authentically and collaboratively.
