Empowering publics: the potential and challenge for public relations practitioners in creative approaches to two-way symmetric public relations

摘要

As part of the on-going debate around the inclusion of the two-way symmetric model in the development of public relations theory, this paper reflects on an Australian case study from the property development industry. It illustrates some of the practical benefits of conducting this type of communication in the commercial sector, and suggests that a key to making this form of public relations work successfully is to approach communication with management as if they were a target public in their own right. Using Marston's (1979) RACE (Research, Action, Communication, and Evaluation) framework as a guide, the paper then suggests ideas that might be used in reaching, persuading and influencing publics generally to see how these could be made relevant to the conduct of 'balanced' communication with management. The paper concludes that such an approach might overcome many objections to the inclusion of symmetrical models in public relations theorising.