Should public relations be a buffer between organizations and the public? Or should PR serve to build bridges between them?

That question was posed by Dr. James Grunig, professor emeritus of the Department of Journalism at the University of Maryland, in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Institute for Public Relations. As printed in PRWeek, Grunig compared what he termed “the two major competing theories of PR”:

1. the symbolic, interpretive paradigm, which “strives to influence how publics interpret the organization.” Key concepts include image, reputation, brand, impressions and identity, all designed to help the company “buffer itself from its environment and behave as it wants.”

2. the strategic management, behavioral paradigm, which “focuses on the participation of publics in the organization’s strategic decision making and behavior” In this theory, PR bridges rather than buffers as it “builds relationships with stakeholders, rather than a set of messaging activities designed to buffer the organization from them.”

As noted management guru Peter Drucker said, "There is no public relations. There's publicity, promotion, advertising, but 'relations' by definition are a two-way street. To this day, most institutions still look upon public relations as their 'trumpet' and not their 'hearing aid.' It's got to be both…You want your public relations person to not tell you the things you expect to hear, because the world does not see itself the way you see it… [t]here is a need for an intermediary to tell the truth to management."

At Trylon SMR, we agree that PR should be a bridge, not a roadblock, between clients, the media, and the target audience. The SMR in our name, after all, stands for Strategic Media Relations. It’s through media relations, after all, that we build…you guessed it…those two-way relationships.