A taxonomy of the connotative meanings of the term “public relations” was developed using 100 articles chosen from the popular press that yielded 254 uses of the term. Eight categories evolved: public relations used correctly, public relations as a corrupter of the channels of communication, public relations as a corrupter of the democratic process, public relations as sleight of hand, public relations and winners and losers, public relations misused as a synonym, and public relations used as an identifier. Less than 5 percent of the citings were judged to use the term correctly; 37 percent were negative, and only 17 percent were positive.
Henderson is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.