ABSTRACT
Persuasion, advocacy, dialogue in public relations (PR) are means to the end of Choice. Choices are junctions in the circuitry between organizations and individuals. A preferred choice must be communicated and advocated by an organization, and the sum of individual choices must be interpreted and folded into the organization's activities and identity. Choice is often explained 'as the maximization of value', which includes the practical utility of a decision. Such technocratic, reason-centred interpretations play a small part in what PR does with choice, strategically and morally. PR exploits perceptions that decisions are most valuable if they are shared by many individual decisions, mixing a collective morality into a choice which is hollow as pressure to conform overpowers the data behind the choice itself. Choice in PR is an encounter between the individual and the mass, adjusting the autonomies each possesses.
