Institute for Public Relations

Does the profession of public relations contribute more than $200 billion in economic impact worldwide, and does that matter? Toni Muzi Falconi thinks it does. He also thinks that there some 3 million public relators operating in the world today, but less than 10% are members of professional associations. Falconi – who teaches at Lumsa University in Rome as well as New York University, founded a highly successful PR agency in the late 1970s that Weber Shandwick acquired in 1999, and serves on the Institute for Public Relations’ Commission on International PR – recently published a paper on our website. ...

Dr. James E. Grunig, University of Maryland professor emeritus, keynoted the 50th anniversary celebration of the Institute for Public Relations this month. His speech, “After 50 Years: The Value and Values of Public Relations,” is available on the Institute’s website. Grunig takes issue with those who say that PR tacticians operate without a general theory compared to the elite counselors of our profession. “I believe there have been, and still are, two major competing theories of public relations both in practice and in the academic world,” says Grunig. “I call these approaches the symbolic, interpretive paradigm and the strategic management, ...

A few months ago, I authored a column for PR News entitled “Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations.” The article was based on work by Dr. Brad Rawlins of Brigham Young University to synthesize a new model for prioritizing stakeholders in a way that is especially relevant for communications managers: by communication strategy. According to Rawlins, advocate stakeholders should be approached with action-oriented messages and engaged in third-party endorsements, letter-writing campaigns, donations, investments, attendance at functions, etc. Dormant stakeholders aren’t ready to be involved, but messages to them should focus on creating awareness and understanding of issues, or on reducing barriers ...