ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explain the problems that arise in trying to define public relations and propaganda as separate concepts. In other words: if they are the same, how are they different? This challenging task is made more so because for many public relations theorists and practitioners, the concepts arouse strong emotions. For contemporary public relations practitioners, the charge of propaganda is a threat to their self-image as aspiring professionals; for some journalists and media sociologists, the terms are interchangeable and public relations simply an outgrowth of capitalism, an instrument of domination, and a threat to the public sphere. Thus, we have a definitional issue that is already clouded to some degree by parties who have a clear self-interest in the debate: practitioners who seek legitimacy for their occupation; journalists, whose power to define news has been challenged and eroded by the emergence of organisational advocates; and media sociologists, some of whom may be inclined to lean towards conspiracy theories and demonisation. Finally, there is the response of public relations academics which has been largely to ignore the whole issue (many books on public relations do not even reference propaganda) or to position it solely as part of the occupation's history or as confined to political communication. This is largely a consequence of managerialist, functionalist, and technocratic thinking which has necessarily dominated a (predominantly American) scholarship largely subservient to the emergent semi-profession. In short, it appears that there is a contest over the meaning of "public relations" and "propaganda" between various actors, some of whom could be seen as ideologues. The purpose of this chapter is to try and understand that contest, the intentions and reasons for its existence, and to consider whether there are alternative routes to analysing the concepts.
