Abstract
PurposeOver recent years, public relations (PR) research has diversified in themes and theories. As a result, PR presents itself today as a multi-paradigmatic discipline with competing ideas of progress that mainly circle around questions of ontology and epistemology, i.e. around defining appropriate object and knowledge in PR research.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual article highlights a third crucial question underlying the debate drawing on a narrative approach: The question of axiology, hence, the normative question how PR research shall develop to contribute to societal progress.FindingsThe article presents a model, which describes how normative visions of progress in different PR paradigms – functional, co-creational, social-reflective and critical-cultural – manifest in each distinct combinations of four narrative plots – tragedy, romance, comedy and satire.Originality/valueThese findings complement the current debate on disciplinary progress in PR research by fostering reflection and debate on paradigm development and cross-paradigmatic tensions and exchange from an explicit axiological perspective.
Highlights
Over recent years, public relations (PR) research has diversified in themes and theories
As normative convictions tend to remain implicit, we propose a narrative approach (Czarniawska, 2004; Fisher, 1994; White, 1980). This narrative approach helps to reconstruct and explicate specific narrative plots and tropes (White, 1975) that ground normative visions of progress constitutive for specific PR paradigms. The contribution of this conceptual article is threefold: First, we inform the current debate on disciplinary progress in PR research, which is largely focused on questions of ontology and epistemology, by highlighting the additional explanatory value of axiological convictions underlying this debate
This conceptual article complements the current debate on disciplinary progress in PR research, which is focused on ontological and epistemological questions
Summary
The field of public relations (PR) research has diversified in themes and theories (Ferguson, 2018 [1984]; Pasadeos et al, 2010; Sallot et al, 2003; Sisco et al, 2011) and today presents itself as a multi-paradigmatic discipline (Bardhan and Weaver, 2010; Curtin, 2012; Edwards, 2012) Interpretations of what this multi-paradigmatic state means for disciplinary progress, considerably vary and preliminarily circle around two analytic dimensions: On the one hand, scholars debate the ontological dimension, addressing the question how to progress from defining a proper object in PR research; on the other hand, scholars debate the epistemological dimension, addressing the question how to progress from acquiring rigorous and relevant knowledge in PR research. This papers forms a part of special section “EUPRERA Congress 2020 - Latest research on Public Relations and Communication”, guest edited by Einwiller Sabine
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