An Analysis of Critical Theories in Public Relations

This essay delves into the critical theories that underpin the field of public relations, examining their influence on communication strategies and organizational reputation. It begins by defining public relations and its role in building mutually beneficial relationships between companies and their stakeholders. The essay then explores normative theories, including authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and Soviet media theories, detailing how each impacts the relationship between the press, government, and the public. It further discusses the sociocultural model and the diverse roles within public relations, such as communication management, crisis management, issue management, and relationship management. The essay highlights the importance of strategic and risk management, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach that considers public views and manages the company's image. Finally, it examines various types of public relations, including media relations, community relations, corporate social responsibility, and crisis management, illustrating how each contributes to a company's overall success. The essay concludes by emphasizing the critical role public relations plays in shaping a positive corporate image and the potential consequences of ineffective practices.

Running Head: CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 0
Critical Theories in Public
Relations
December 9
2018

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 1
A public relation (PR) is a planned communication process that helps in building the
mutually valuable relationships in between the companies and their folks. Public relations
experts help the business or an individual to develop a positive reputation within the public
through several unpaid communications involved custom media, social media, and in-person
activities. They also help their clients in defending for their reputation at the time of crisis that
threatens their credibility (Ferguson, 2018).
A normative theory defines an ideal way for a media system to be organized and
functioned by the government, expert, leader and the public. This includes four theories such as,
authoritarian theory, libertarian theory, social responsibility theory, and the Social media theory
in it which is basically different from the other communication theories as it does not give any
scientific explanations or the predictions for the business. These theories have come from many
different sources rather than one single source. Also, academics, media practitioners, and the
social critics also included in developing these normative theories. The main focus of the
normative theories is on the relationship between the press and the government, and then press
and the audiences. These theories include the focus on the ownership of the media and the one
who controls the media in the country (Grunig, 2013).
Press is one the biggest source of public relations and the normative theories include the four
theories of press in the normative theory:
Authoritarian Theory, this includes the communication under the governor of authorities or
the effective bureaucrats. This controls the media to protect and inhibit the folks from the
national pressures via any practice of communication (figures and facts with the information or
the news). The press is a device to improve the control of the leader in the nation rather than any

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 2
extortions. As the authorities and the experts have all the privileges to authorize any media, and
control by giving the license to the media and making it convinced restriction. If any media
interrupt in the government policies against the license then authorities are available with all the
rights to revoke or cancel their license. For maintaining peace and safety in the nation the
government is permitted to restrict any complex or sensitive situations or issues from press or
media (Diga & Kelleher, 2009).
Libertarian Theory, this includes the people who are sufficient to find good ideas from the
bad ones. According to this theory, folks are rational and their thoughts help them to find good
out of bad. This theory is opposed to the authoritarian theory which says that government
controls the all form of communication or the communication forms are working under the
control of government (Osborne, 2010).
Social Responsibility Theory, this theory lies in between the both authoritarian and the
libertarian theories as it give freedom to the media from one hand but external control it from the
other hand. This theory moves outside the simple “goals or objective” reporting that includes the
facts reporting to the “Explanatory” reporting that includes the examination reporting. This
theory helps in developing the effectiveness in the media by setting up a top level of precision,
fact and the evidences (Diga & Kelleher, 2009).
Soviet Media Theory, this theory is based on the derivative of Leninist ideology. The
government has controlled the media and communication to assist operational classes and their
concerns. According to this theory, the state has all the power to undertake any media for the
people’s benefit. For creating a tough socialized community and for providing the information,

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 3
entertainment, mobilization, and the education the government media delivers an encouraging
thought (Ferguson, 2018).
According to all above given theories the authoritarian involves that the ministry has
controlled the media in the country while the libertarian is free without any involvements of the
government authorities and the social responsibility, the media has freedom from the one hand
while it is controlled by its external hands for raising any questions and the final social media
theory, where the national leaders are controlling the whole media (Osborne, 2010).
The sociocultural model includes the offer of an alternate perception of communication
practiced in an organizational setting for the specialists, instructors, and researcher. It is a broad
outlook that includes the role views of communication practice into a cultural and the social
context (Ristino, 2008).
Public relation makes an important contribution by helping an organization’s ideas and
setting up its objectives in order to make it clear about public’s expectations from it (Agility,
2018).
Communication Management, the public relation roles include the developing
communication objectives that help an organization with its overall objectives. It works as a two-
way communicator the experts of the public relations are directly interacted with the key publics
and conveying the resulting figures along with the recommendations to the management team
members (Agility, 2018).

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 4
Crisis Management, this included forming the approaches and strategies to be used when a
company’s operations become complicated in a disaster affecting the people. This includes the
procedures and the policies for the information distribution of the company to the employees,
stakeholders, media, government, and the other key publics (Agility, 2018).
Issue Management, this includes the recognizing issues, problems, and the trends related to
an organization and then finding a developing and execution program to deal with those
problems (Agility, 2018).
Relationship Management, this includes the identifying the key publics an implementing
strategies for structuring and maintaining the mutual beneficial relationships with the identified
public (Agility, 2018).
Reputation and the image management, the strategies and the implementing policies,
processes and the planning which determine a company’s obligations to the social responsibility,
ethical activities, identity of corporate, and its reputation with the key people (Agility, 2018).
Resource management, public relation’s management of HR and financial resources rotates
around setting the company’s objectives, designing, accounting, and the hiring public relation
people and managing those resources (Agility, 2018).
Risk Management, this role includes the a preventive public relation, that helps an
organization to recognize the area that is potentially dangerous and recommend them to make
changes before the potential dangers developed into the crises (Agility, 2018).
Strategic Management, this involves the role as a counselor where the public relations serve
an organization to manage their team by developing the sound policies for increasing the public

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 5
interest as well as the organization. They integrate a considerate of the concerns and approaches
of the key public into the company’s decision-making management process (Agility, 2018).
The public relations describes that it is more expansive than answering the desperate media
calls and writing concise press release. It is a strategic or planned communication procedure that
helps in building the mutually helpful relations in between the company and its stakeholders and
the public (Agility, 2018).
The holistic view of the public relations role for the management functions involves the
following:
“Forestalling, examining and understanding public views, attitudes and the issues that could
affect a business”. Preserving reputation of the business and all the things that are involved in it
with or without the crises at hand, and managing the content that helps in forming the business’s
“face” to the folks who increases demands for the company’s products and the services
(Osborne, 2010).
Counseling managers in the public relations help in communicating with various
stakeholders of the company. While the training and the recruiting department help in achieving
the business objectives by advising and influencing the laws and the public policies (Pearson,
2017).
Writing and issuing the press publications, speech writings, scheduling and performing to the
distinctive public outreach and to the media relations occasions. Writing matters for the web
pages including internal and the external websites. Help in increasing the crisis public relations
strategies and managing the brand responses and public reviews on the social media websites
(Pearson, 2017).

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 6
Counseling company’s employees with regards to the policies, progress of action, public
relations responsibility and the responsibility of the organization. Dealing or communicating
with the government and the governmental agencies for the legal work done and communicating
with the public groups and the other companies for the social and the other organization policies,
on behalf of the company. Also, managing and handling relations with the investors (Pearson,
2017).
There are various types of public relations such as media dealings, public relation, corporate
relation, community responsibility, public affair, crisis controlling, social media, employee
relations, and integrated marketing and the communications. The company and the corporation,
everyone has a different viewpoint such as customers, shareholders, government and the public
and they each one suits the different type of expertise (Osborne, 2010).
Media Relations, this include handling or dealing with media such as writing press release,
providing press conferences, scheduling interviews for achieving positive coverage for the
company’s product and for getting a good response from the public (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig,
2013).
Community relations, this works for developing organization’s relationship with the local
community for getting the local support for completing the project (new manufacturing plant) for
getting a good responses and creating interest in company’s product (Ferguson, 2018).
Corporate social responsibility, this includes the reputation of the company, responsibility of
change environment and the charity works and this requires networking skills, people skills and
the ability that endear a PR and the employees of the company to help in improving an
organization’s corporate practices (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 2013).

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 7
Public affairs, this includes making contacts within government and the other organization for
getting the government on company’s side (Osborne, 2010).
Crisis Management, this helps at the time of disaster strike such as, if a faulty product of the
company has been recalled, on the wrongdoing by the company an employee’s accuses, and
because of public offensiveness the CEO has been arrested that could easily ruin the reputation
of the company. The PR for such type of issues helps with their quick behavior and manages
things and deals with the teams, media channels and public quickly (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig,
2013).
Social media, nowadays, social media campaigns have become a trend for most of the
companies and social media has a huge PR potential. There are many companies where their
greatest PR successes and the disaster happen on the social media. This is the place where the
interaction with a single client is observable or visible to the whole world. For handling such
issues the PR has to be intuitive and having a great sense of humor (Grunig, 2017).
Employee Relations, this helps in the business for giving a positive view to the employees in
a company. For keeping employee satisfied, loyal and motivated towards the company. This
includes the organizing events, resolving disputes, creating internal newsletters and the other
communication and helping managers for developing relations within the teams (Sriramesh,
2009).
Integrated marketing and the communication, this includes all the activities from the
advertising to the media and to the internal communication, and ensuring that providing
consistent messages covers all the strategies (Grunig, 2013).

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 8
In the conclusion of the above text, the public relations have a great responsibility to serve
the organization. They work hard for creating a positive image of the company, with the use of
their professional skills, in various departments and the fields. In addition, if the public relations
do not use the proper skills or do the proper activities then that could also result a theft of
damage or a bad reputation of the company.

CRITICAL THEORIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS 9
References
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https://www.agilitypr.com/resources/pr-glossary/public-relations-management-roles/
Diga, M., & Kelleher, T. (2009). Social medsia use, perceptions of decision-making power, and
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Ferguson, M. A. (2018). Building theory in public relations: Interorganizational relationships as
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