The Role of Public Relations in Deliberative Systems

This article reframes public relations’ contribution to democracy in light of the recent turn to deliberative systems in democratic theory. I consider the problematic that public relations poses to normative models of deliberative democracy, and how that problematic has been addressed in public relations theory thus far. I suggest that deliberative systems provides a more robust basis for theorising public relations’ role in deliberation and propose an analytical approach for understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory role of public relations in deliberative democracy. The framework provides a starting point for locating public relations’ engagement in deliberative systems and evaluating its effects.