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The five papers on this theme emerged from a plenary panel with the same title as the one above at the third Barcelona International PR Conference held on 2–3 July, 2013. They were stimulated by the then-forthcoming publication of the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Public Relations although they also address the first edition, the place of both in the public relations field, and links to issues surrounding encyclopedias in general. At the time of this submission, most of the authors had not seen the complete published copy that was released in late September, 2013. All five articles, albeit with some overlap as this was not a co-written project, are presented here as individual pieces with different titles and a variety of approaches.

Public relations’ identity in research sets parameters that can limit or illuminate the field. In this paper we consider how public relations have been developing a “relationship identity” in research. General public relations research, as opposed to sub-disciplines such as crisis communication, is dominated by a relationships approach. The focus on relationship was designed to enlighten public relations research and even improve the practice. But has the emphasis on relationships and focus on the organization–public relationship (OPR) as an outcome really enlightened public relations research? This paper explores four concerns about the application: (1) problems associated with applying a concept from interpersonal communication to public relations, (2) how identities affect the formation of close relationships, (3) the value of close relationships for publics, and (4) the parasocial nature of organization–public relationships. While of some heuristic value, the relationship focus should not be embraced uncritically. Public relations researchers should be cautious about concentrating on close relationships between organizations and publics and seek appropriate re-formulations and alternatives that more accurately depict organization–public connections. We should consider the value of weak relationships and parasocial relationships if we are to maximize the value of a relationship approach to public relations.

This case study examines student perceptions of a university's management of an alleged threat against their campus that was posted on Facebook. The timeline of events describes how the university's threat prevention response triggered a rumor crisis due to incomplete and poorly timed official information dissemination. A convenience sample of students completed questionnaires assessing perceptions of informal and formal communication about the alleged threat, satisfaction with threat prevention, and perceptions of the emergency text message system. Satisfaction with the university's response varied by students’ feelings of information adequacy. Some students resisted registering for the emergency notification system.

The 1908 Great Race from New York to Paris captured the imagination of the world as intrepid competitors endured the hardships of the around the world race. The New York Times, its co-sponsor and source of the publicity, was in a unique position to practice media relations. Framing research was used to examine how the New York Times used strategic communication to build interest in the race to sell more newspapers and to allow automobile manufactures to broaden their markets. Media frames used to generate interest provide insight into strategies for influencing behavior through a controlled form of media relations.

The dominance of Excellence Theory in public relations theory and research may be eroding as contemporary issues in corporations, including the concern with activist challenges to reputation management and corporate social responsibility, increase in visibility and demand explanation. We argue that Excellence Theory‘s seemingly reluctant evolution has provided unsatisfactory treatments of concepts like power and activism, even though it has attempted to address some limitations of the symmetrical model's efficacy in responding to activist challenges. Excellence Theory‘s acknowledgment of once-vilified concepts like persuasion and power sets the stage for critical public relations theory and research to emerge as significantly more capable of addressing activist advocacy and concomitant issues. The paper argues that critical theory, buoyed by acceptance of its key concepts, its increasing access to presentation venues and journals sympathetic to once-marginalized, alternative perspectives, is poised to infiltrate the public relations orthodoxy. This possibility offers hope that once marginalized pluralistic approaches, especially critical public relations, may disrupt the colonization of the orthodoxy and infiltrate mainstream public relations.

Social media is emerging as critical element of scanning for many crisis risks. When these crisis risks emerge online, people often confuse them with crises and that is why we have developed the term paracrisis. Para can mean “like” something. A paracrisis is like a crisis. It can “look like” a crisis and does require action from the organization. However, a paracrisis does not warrant convening the crisis team and operating in a crisis mode. This paper details the value of paracrises, how to evaluate their threat potential, and ways to respond to them and how to evaluate those responses.

This article elaborates on the argument that the history of U.S. public relations has been distorted by the emphasis on corporate functions of public relations. The dominant corporate-centric view of U.S. public relations history often claim that public relations developed as a response to activists who attempted to interfere with business operations. That myopic, corporate-centric view has perpetuated a negative view of public relations as merely a tool of “big business”. In the past as well as the present, corporations have been learning from and co-opting activists’ innovative public relations techniques. By alternatively grounding U.S. public relations history in the works of activists, we open possibilities for re-imagining the field and legitimizing activists’ works as a positive, central component in public relations theory and research. We end by providing resources educators can utilize to teach a more balanced view of public relations history in the U.S.

How news media and organizations use visual images in reports of crisis events remains relatively unexplored in spite of possible effects on perceptions of crisis responsibility and reputation. This study assessed the impact of visual condition (no visual, neutral visual, and victim visual) in two product harm crisis scenarios. Results revealed minimal effects for victim visuals. Implications for future research on visual elements and crisis communication are presented.

Crisis communication represents a rapidly growing body of research and is seeing an increased use of experimental methods. However, the experiments have relied exclusively on print stimuli resulting in little knowledge of channel effects on crisis communication. This study evaluates the effects of different response strategies and media channels on respondents exposed to a crisis. The study used a 2 (crisis response: sympathy and compassion) × 2 (media: print and video) design. We selected two similar response strategies that could differ in terms of the additional cues provided by video. Results revealed virtually no meaningful difference between the use of video versus print or sympathy versus compensation.

Crisis communication has begun to systematically examine how people perceive the crisis response strategies using experimental designs. This is an important step in the evolution of crisis communication research. One problem with this research has been the over promotion of apology as “the” response. Too often the value of an apology is established by comparing how people react to an apology and to other less victim-centered/accommodative responses. This “unfair” comparison results in apology appearing to be “the” best alternative. This study compares apology to more equivalent crisis response strategies to more fairly determine if apology is “the” best strategy. The results show that people react similarly to any victim-centered/accommodative strategy meaning apology is not “the” best strategy. The implications of the results for crisis managers are discussed.

The field of crisis communication is poised to take the next in its evolution. Now is the time to move beyond the limits of the case study methods that shape the field's development and shift to empirical methods. As the field matures, crisis managers need recommendations that are based on scientifically tested evidence rather than speculation. The argument for scientifically tested evidence for action is based on the evidence-based in management and medicine. This article discusses the role Attribution Theory has played and can continue to play in building scientifically tested evidence for crisis managers as well as providing an integrative mechanism for the diverse crisis research that spans a variety of disciplines.

A crisis can place an organization and its stakeholders at risk for significant losses. Crisis management has emerged as a means to reduce those losses. Crisis response strategies, what the organization says and does after a crisis, are critical resources in crisis management. It is not surprising that crisis response has emerged as a vibrant research area. The focus of crisis response research is on protecting and repairing the organizational reputational—how stakeholders perceive the organization [Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Hearit, K. M. (2001). Corporate apologia: When an organization speaks in defense of itself. In R. L. Heath (Ed.), Handbook of public relations (pp. 501–511). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). This article synthesizes information from various writings on crisis response to create the Crisis Communication Standards, a set of guidelines for crisis managers looking to protect their reputational assets. The first section briefly outlines the Crisis Communication standards and the second section illustrates its application using the West Pharmaceuticals explosion.

This essay considers the importance of considering the reputational and operational threats posed by an event when trying to assess the event. It is argued that a true crisis must have an operational component. The paper also explores the issue of when certain response strategies will worsen an operational threat and how that acts as a constraint for selecting crisis response strategies.

Crisis management is not a specific content area mentioned in A Port of Entry, The Report of the Commission on Public Relations Education issued in 1999. However, crisis management moves the public relations role to the managerial function and requires the development of many skills and knowledge points mentioned in the report. A course or unit in crisis management/communication is an excellent way of teaching public relations theory, management concepts, information management, problem solving, and communication management. Crisis management also reinforces the value of following current events as real-time crises can be integrated into teaching. Through a unit or a course, crisis management/communication provides an engaging mechanism for teaching management-oriented concepts that every organization needs.

The year 1998 was a significant time for public relations education. Data for the Public Relations Education Survey were collected and analyzed and public relations educators met in suburban Washington, D.C. for the National Communication Association's Summer Conference on Public Relations Education to discuss the survey and its implications for public relations education. Pedagogy was one of the four major discussion topics at the conference. This article synthesizes results from the survey and discussions of the Pedagogy Task Team at the conference. A hopeful picture of public relations pedagogy emerged from the data and discussions. Current pedagogy places an emphasis on active learning, an important strength in the delivery of course material. But the picture includes weaknesses, too. Public relations educators are rather slow to utilize new technology in the classroom. Moreover, public relations as a field has not given enough attention to pedagogy. Research of public relations pedagogy is sparse, pedagogical tools are weak and teacher training is minimal. Placing more emphasis on public relations pedagogy will help to overcome these weaknesses and build on its strengths.

Activists historically have been viewed as “powerless” groups. For instances, stakeholder theory consistently places activists in the less powerful categories of stakeholders. This lack of power is evidenced when activists attempt to change what they perceive to be irresponsible behavior by organizations. A powerless group is easy to ignore. Now activists have a new weapon which can change the organization-stakeholder dynamic—the Internet. This article uses recent developments in stakeholder theory to explain how the Internet, when used effectively, can allow activist groups to become more powerful and to command the attention of organizations. Two case analyses are used to illustrate the theoretical points presented in the article.

This article attempts to explore the pluralism paradigm which undergirds both the systems and rhetorical perspectives in public relations. The pluralism paradigm is explored in order to reveal how the pluralistic assumptions affect these two important theoretical approaches/perspectives to the study of organization-stakeholder relationships. More specifically, pluralism is used to show how defenders of the systems and rhetorical perspectives wrongly dismiss powerbased criticisms of these two perspectives. The call is for a more serious consideration of power's impact on the organization stakeholder relationship and a complication of theories to match the complexity reflected in power-based concerns.