Public relations’ status as a profession in Canada and internationally is a heavily
contested and debated topic that speaks to a number of issues plaguing the field since the early
1920s. These issues include its fragmentation through sub-disciplines (e.g., corporate
communications, crisis communications, public affairs, media relations); negative reputation
with the public; lack of support for the accreditation process amongst practitioners and
employers; and public relations’ struggle to find a place within the executive role of
organizations. Despite these issues the public relations industry in Canada has experienced
significant growth in employment and university education during the past 20 years. That
growth, impressive though it is, does not assuage an industry that is still coming to terms with
these problems.
As a result public relations remains insecure and anxious in claiming its status as a
profession. This “anxiety” is a complex quality and defined here as something owing to multiple
and convergent factors. This anxiety is the product of a self-consciousness within the industry
and among practitioners about public relations’ professional identity; a certain scepticism within
the executive function of organizations, and in the public at large as to the value of public
relations; a reluctance to teach and study public relations as the university level during the 20th
century; and a yet-to-be realized standard for accrediting competent professionals or for
measuring the results of the work they do. This anxiety, a theme that preoccupied public
relations’ intellectual founders like Edward Bernays and Harold Lasswell at the field’s very
origins in the first decades of the 20th century, thus offers a productive point of entry into the
nature and development of public relations in the early 21st century. Through this theme of
anxiety that we can witness the field at its most introspective, as public relation’s best practitioners turn their traditional interests in reputation, messaging, and brand management on
the discipline itself.