Knowledges, reflexivity and power

Abstract

The relationships between knowledge, discourse and power in historical and sociocultural contexts are foregrounded in this issue of Public Relations Inquiry. This issue begins with Macnamara’s critical review of evaluation in practice, highlighting the historical and continuing rupture between theory and praxis in relation to this concept. Macnamara notes the recent ‘flurry of industry activity’ that has resulted in a range of public declarations and standards such as the important sounding Barcelona Declaration of Measurement Principles and proceeds to analyse three key aspects: reach (dissemination based on advertising concepts and practice), tone/sentiment and engagement. His analysis throws up inconsistencies, lack of clarity, the conflation of concepts, methodological problems and exaggerated claims. Macnamara challenges a number of fundamental assumptions and practices, such as the application of return of investment (ROI) to public relations contexts, but arguably more importantly, he highlights the most important issue as the lack of engagement between academia and practice. In so doing, there is an implicit critique of hierarchical transmission models of knowledge exchange thus highlighting an apparent gap in understanding the thinking that underpins public relations work in practice (though see Pieczka on expertise, 2002, 2006, 2007, and L’Etang and Powell on knowledges, 2013). This suggests the need for basic research, but Macnamara also critiques critical scholars for their lack of attention to measurement and evaluation arguing that