Everywhere and nowhere: Theorising and researching public affairs and lobbying within public relations scholarship

Abstract

Public affairs and lobbying is a high status and strategically vital public relations specialism. It is a field of PR practice that generates high levels of both scholarly and public concern in regard to its perceived role in supporting corporate power and the associated impact on the functional legitimacy of democratic institutions. For this paper a content analysis was conducted of academic journals (between 2000-2013) to provide insights into how public affairs and lobbying have been theorised and researched within public relations scholarship and to ascertain to what degree wider public concerns have been addressed. Findings include an empirical confirmation of the low level of research activity on public affairs; that stakeholder and rhetorical theories have been the most widely used theories, but are far from constituting dominant paradigms; that scholarship has privileged functional objectives over civic concerns; and that published work originates almost entirely from institutions in Europe and the US with the Global South invisible. The paper also discusses future directions for research in public affairs and advocates the placing of discourse into definitions of public affairs, and that academic public relations should assert responsibility for this field, but in a manner that more equitably balances organisational and societal concerns. BackgroundThe centrality of the public affairs function within public relations in combination with the ongoing concerns regarding impacts on democratic decision-making, as well as popular assumptions of routinely low ethical standards present a strong normative case for this field to be a priority for theorising and research. While definitions of public affairs may still be in a state of flux, scholars who have explored this function have tended to agree on its significance as a specialism. Zetter mischievously nominated public affairs as constituting "PR for grown-ups" because of the "huge rewards for getting it right -and major consequences for getting it wrong" (2008: p. :xiii). Public affairs has been observed as higher status strategic work (L'Etang, 2008), and that specialists are more than "mere technicians" but professionals who wield influence in Part of the difficulty in defining and conceptualising public affairs as a specialism of public relations is that a considerable proportion of public affairs practice is indistinguishable from public relations activity (Somerville and Ramsey, 2012). By way of example, in written evidence to a committee of the UK parliament that was investigating the regulation of lobbying, Ed Williams then CEO of Edelman UK argued that for large agencies such as his "…public affairs is just one of many public relations services we provide to clients. The boundaries between, for example, activity which influences the political environment and activity which influences a broader media and stakeholder environment is increasingly blurred." (Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, 2012: p. 67).In most definitions public a...

Emerging from the shadows? Perceptions, problems and potential consensus on the functional and civic roles of public affairs practice

“…Davidson has extended Harris and Moss' (2001) conceptualisation so that it incorporates the discursive dimension by defining public affairs as "the management of relationships and the building of discursive communities across a broad range of stakeholder networks in order to create, re-create, or replace shared interpretations of reality on any issue that may have policy implications." (Davidson 2014) Some scholars have defined public affairs as an essentially corporate function. This is evidenced by Windsor's definition of the function as an interface between corporations and their non-market environments (2005) or through Hillman's (2002) insistence that firm performance should be a central concern for research in this field.…”

Public relations theory: An agonistic critique of the turns to dialogue and symmetry

“…The dominance of this paradigm has meant that peer reviewed publications have rarely privileged civic-democratic concerns (Davidson 2015). When researchers have sought to build models for public relations' constructive contribution to civic society both functionalist and more critical scholars have tended to converge on advocating forms of dialogic communication.…”

Processes and competences in Dutch subnational public affairs

“…Groenendijk (1997) stated that Public Relations (PR), which was usually sufficient for maintaining (also political) relations and a common instrument to work with (Botan & Hazleton, 2006), did not help any longer when relations got disturbed. More was necessary: PA was born, nevertheless in a complementary relationship with PR, because PA operations that are not supported by a PR policy of the home organization will be problematic (Davidson, 2015).…”

“…Because of the many ongoing developments in the national and the European political arena, PA is permanently in development as well and therefore a subject of academic debate (Derksen, 2015;Davidson, 2015;McGrath, Moss, & Harris, 2010;Van Schendelen, 2013). Toth (as cited in Botan, 2006) describes how definitions of PA are pointing to "the building of relationships in the public policy arena" (p. 500), while referring to Grunig and Repper (1992), who stated that "Public Affairs applies to communication with government officials and other actors in the public policy arena" (p. 117-157).…”

“…Fleisher continued with the observation that while grassroots approaches may be common in PA, the use of new media, particularly in new grassroots channels penetrating the smallest corners of society, is insufficiently implemented in corporate PA. He stated that as a result of new media, intervening in PA operations at any point in the process and exploiting the multi-disciplined character of PA (because of the varied PA toolkit and close relationship with PR (Davidson, 2015)) will be more necessary than during the previous decade. Furthermore, he sees a growing internationalization of corporate PA, demanding competences that can operate in multi-cultural circumstances.…”