Evaluating Public Relations from a Socio-Cultural Perspective: Public Relations as a Cultural Interm

Evaluating Public Relations from a Socio-Cultural Perspective: Public Relations as a Cultural Intermediary Profession

There is no consensus on where the field boundaries of the concept of public relations begin and end. The importance of academic discussions on its definition still continues. The fact that it wants to position itself as a profession and area of ​​authority by definition reinforces the abundance of these discussions. While public relations wants to differentiate itself from advertising and public relations, it wants to put itself in an important position for organizations. There are hundreds of definitions of public relations. Definitions appear to change over time and with opinions. The initial definition of public relations was to create and maintain goodwill by using good communication. In the 1940s, definitions such as guiding, motivating and persuasive were added to these definitions for social guidance. In the 1960s, definitions such as pilot, catalyst, interpreter and devil's advocate were added to the definitions. Although it has hundreds of different definitions, the most important reasons why public relations is considered a concept belonging to the field of management are the US hegemony in the field of public relations and the fact that early researchers had already determined the research agenda for new public relations researchers. The dominant paradigm in public relations argues that the field is a progressive, ethically developing profession and that it always develops by increasing its sphere of influence. This understanding has influenced the view of public relations for many years.

Criticisms of the Management Paradigm

After the 21st century, new approaches to definitions have developed a new perspective and focused on different problems. The common feature of these new approaches is to criticize the definition that is stuck within the concept of management. They stated that the reason for their criticism on this issue is that due to the commitment to the concept of management, they have moved away from their roots, other fields have produced new definitions and moved away from the field of public relations, therefore public relations should work on new definitions and areas.
At the end of the criticism, the desired definition was that the concept of public relations should be intertwined with all fields and blended with them, and that it should not be under the pressure of certain concepts. This has been deemed necessary for the concept of public relations to have a wide impact and guide the way in the developing world order in the 21st century.

Cultural Transformation in Public Relations

Although the relationship between public relations and culture is fundamental, culture and public relations did not receive the central value they had until the 21st century. Culture has a significant impact on both public relations practices and the positioning of the field. Public relations practitioners communicate with publics belonging to certain cultural groups and are also involved in the production of culture as cultural intermediaries. The organizations that public relations practitioners work with have cultural identities that express broader social structures and ideologies.
There needs to be a movement of thought in the field of public relations that transcends boundaries, creates new paths and proposes new questions to be answered. It should encourage discussion of new ideas and in-depth exploration of the philosophical assumptions that shape discourse. The most important reason why cultural transformation is considered a transformation is that this approach changes the ontological and epistemological focus of the field. In this approach, the social constructionist nature of public relations practices, processes and outputs is focused on. Therefore, it creates new ways of seeing the field of public relations and enables new questions to be asked, such as whether the field has a cultural impact, whether it is affected by culture, whether it has a cultural intermediary function. By challenging basic assumptions in the field, it creates new ways of seeing and paves the way for new research. It would be appropriate to define the new studies emerging in this direction as a transformation.

Public Relations as a Cultural Tool

The concept of cultural intermediary was first used by Pierre Bourdieu to describe the new petty bourgeoisie class that emerged in France in the 20th century. This concept is of great importance for those who argue that there is a cultural transformation in public relations. A new middle class emerged in the 20th century. This new generation of middle class is sometimes called the new cultural intermediaries, service class or knowledge class. The new middle class is sometimes called the new petty bourgeoisie. This class, which makes symbolic production, generally benefits from the field of advertising and public relations. The technical manipulations and changes made by this class for their own advantage allow the emergence of new concepts in the field of public relations. Some academic circles refer to this class as cultural agents. By transferring culture, they wanted to instill foreign culture into another culture in order to market their symbolic productions. It has been seen that this class affects cultures and causes changes. The concept of culture and public relations have gained a lot of meaning and method thanks to this class.

Conclusion

The field of public relations contains many controversies. There are different opinions on issues such as where the boundaries of the field begin and end, the purpose of its emergence, who it serves, whether it is only an administrative function, whether it has a connection with culture, and how effective it is. These different views and perspectives lead to the formation of different paradigms about the field. Until the 2000s, the dominant paradigm was the management paradigm that defined and limited public relations within the framework of the organizational field and evaluated public relations with a functional perspective. It is seen that after the 2000s, alternative approaches to the field began to increase and gain weight. This situation has paved the way for an abundance of paradigms in the field of public relations.
Defining public relations as a cultural tool creates a new way to look at the field from different perspectives. When these two perspectives are evaluated together, it is concluded that public relations is a cultural tool that both affects and is shaped by the culture in which society builds its material reality. Therefore, when examining the cultural mediation role of public relations, it is of great importance to reveal implicit power and power relations.
Within the scope of the article, it is discussed that management paradigm and socio-cultural approach, which are two different approaches, can be evaluated together and create a new perspective on public relations and different research agendas. As a result, it is important not to be stuck in a single paradigm when evaluating and discussing the field of public relations and the discourses produced by public relations, but to benefit from different paradigms and thus create the most appropriate and useful perspective for evaluation.

Writer: M.Y.