Priorities for Public Relations Leaders

Ángeles Moreno Preface

“Science does not advance if those who practice it do not have free time to think about it”

(Arriaga, 2023: 369)¹

The novel Extrañas, by the Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga, which confronts us with the beginnings of medicine, attributes this phrase to the controversial character Doctor Black, during his scientific debate with the wise men of Alexandria. The unprejudiced, globalized and intercultural vision that the character presents of science in the 18th century makes us think about everything we have advanced, but also about everything that remains as bad as it was, and what we are losing along the way.

In the current scientific field, it is not possible to ignore the wars between publishers, nationalisms and linguistic blocs, predatory journals, overproduction and the purchase of authorships or the no less innocuous dalliances between utopia and abuse of power of open science proposals.

In an excessive race to break the rankings, the different agents have turned the scientist into the pawn that can always be sacrificed first, in a game that we have stopped identifying, because it changes the rules and the board itself with each move.

These dynamics push researchers to run in search of an arbitrary recognition –also changing, unstable and evident according to the time and institutional fashion– that determines not only the dissemination of results, but what is more reductionist: the objects of research themselves, as well as the research questions. That is why, on many occasions, the brightest ideas in academic articles and chapters can now be found in the discussion sections.

Public relations have traditionally been focused on the profession as an object of study. The different functionalist, critical, rhetorical or sociological theoretical perspectives have directed attention towards various questions related to the profession and it has often been the evolution of the practice itself that, in some way, has raised these questions. However, the social scientist who studies public relations must have time for calm and critical thinking. You cannot allow yourself to be dazzled only by the fatuous brilliance of new developments, but rather pay attention to the multiple and complex factors of the environment that underlie them.

At this time, the profession is undergoing profound and dizzying changes. As part of the management staff and the board, professionals must participate and lead the decision-making of their organizations in the complex VUCA environment (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). In this context, soft management, which emerged decades ago, has become increasingly relevant. With this, the door was opened to communication aimed at stakeholders as another management function of organizations.

But in addition, today we find ourselves in a BANI environment (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear and Incomprehensible) due to fragility, anxiety, unpredictability and the difficulty of understanding the environment. This name represents a novelty, because the emotional states that our world arouses are recognized as the main protagonists. While this once again underlines the importance of communication, it also goes beyond that. On the one hand, it once again recovers the importance of the term relationships. The focus on the relationship and its measurable outcomes and outflows (the term intangibles is ceasing to make sense) underpins the long-term sustainability of organizations. On the other hand, it brings back to the table the debate between the concepts of stakeholder, public and audience. Stakeholders are predetermined groups, configured from the interest of the organization, whose conception may be too static for current situations. The concept of public, however, can be approached from a permanently dynamic perspective depending on the issues of each situation; it can be operationalized according to variables related to affective evaluation, which allows its measurement and, in addition, implies openness beyond the pre-typed interest groups. In the current transmedia situation, with paid, owned and earned media that coexist in an increasingly mediated society, where all people live in the media, where influence flows at multiple levels and where reality is complex and difficult to understand, the more rigid categories will be less able to faithfully reflect reality and successfully support organizational decision making.

The European Communication Monitor, a study organized by the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA), has studied the public relations sector over the last seventeen years. It has managed to consolidate itself as the reference study on an annual basis, a network of 28 universities, data from 50 countries on more than 40,000 communication professionals and the development of the Comparative Framework of Excellence statistical model. The study model was also extended to other continents with Global Communication Monitor, with a network currently of 60 academic institutions that include the Latin American Communication Monitor, the Asia Pacific Communication Monitor and the North American Communication Monitor. The four studies are organized by EUPRERA in collaboration with other professional organizations in the area of influence of each region, such as the European Communication Directors Association in Europe, the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations in North America or the Institute for Public Relations for Latin America and, in total, they cover more than 80 countries.

What the Communication Monitors bring to the table in the various continents is an unprecedented set of longitudinal empirical data with three peculiarities: quantity and solidity of data, international cooperation and transference.

The Communication Monitors offer comparable data between countries and continents. They are not limited to the same research questions and hypotheses, but introduce new objects of study each year. What fundamentally distinguishes these studies from other surveys carried out in the professional sector are also their solid empirical standards based on scientific demands in Social Sciences, and which are validated by articles published in top-level academic journals. Secondly, Communication Monitors have managed to bring together a global network of researchers with around sixty academic institutions involved. And thirdly, Communication Monitors have a clear transfer orientation. Its ultimate goal is to contribute to the recognition of the role of communication in the world and increase the level of discussion about the advancement of the profession.

The 2023 edition of the European Communication Monitor combines a look back at the most important strategic issues for the sector in the last seventeen years with a look forward that identifies five areas of action for communication leaders, and which are specified in fifteen trends that outline the future of communication. Communication professionals working in departments and agencies have to keep track of the rapid changes that occur in the social, economic and technological environment. Daily work, the topics covered, the tasks and results, as well as their position in general is very often influenced by larger situations, such as the financial crisis of 2007/8 or the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the fluctuations in public opinion and the media system also have a great impact on their work: for example, the fall in trust in institutions throughout Europe and the arrival of so-called news multipliers such as social media influencers or automated content technologies. Navigating this changing world requires a deep understanding and prioritization of the key issues that can bring threats and opportunities to manage communications. The European Communication Monitor has investigated many of these topics in detail, tracking the rise and fall of the most important topics over time. These unique longitudinal data reveal how professionals began to pay attention to new developments, how they then fade into the background, probably because they learn to deal with them, and how some of them take off again or maintain their position over the course of time. Based on findings from these seventeen years, the 2023 edition outlines several drivers that will guide the future success of the profession.

The topics addressed in the chapters of this book impact some of the drivers and strategic themes identified by the transnational study. This book first addresses a fundamental aspect for communication leadership: embracing DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) in the profession itself as a reflection of the reflectivity of organizations to social changes. The first part, “Communication of Diversity and Multiculturalism” is composed of two chapters. The first address this aspect of leadership from an international perspective of the profession. The second offers a look from the management of internal communication. The challenges and opportunities related to the intensification of the speed and volume of information flow in a digitalized and globalized world have been strategic issues for the profession of increasing importance in the last fifteen years. Issues that have become more complex with the emergence of ComTech, datatification and automation with Artificial Intelligence.

The second part of the book addresses “The Growing Role of Digital Public Relations” with three chapters that range from strategic perspectives of the evaluation of the effectiveness of organizations’ social media communication strategy to more operational aspects such as the use of TikTok as PR technique or the introduction of new formats as podcasts on the corporate sustainability communication.

This volume concludes with a third part that brings together empirical insights about two of the growing trends on public relations research: health communication and lobbying and public affairs.

Returning to the beginning of these pages, when we argued about the state of science, today, researchers often point out to us in the discussion and limitations sections the most ground-breaking research questions, which perhaps they had to give up. Let me invite you to read these works, taking the time to listen, disagree, and reformulate questions that matter.

The opportunity that fragility and unpredictability brings us is that we need to ask more questions, discuss the answers with greater acuity, and embrace the uncertainty of an always unfinished understanding of the environment.

Ángeles Moreno.

Prof. in PR and Communication Management.

Group of Advanced Studies in Communication. Department of Journalism and Corporate Communication. University Rey Juan Carlos.

1 Arriaga, G. (2023) Extrañas, Alfaguara.