“The modern practice of Public Relations (PR) has its roots in the early twentieth century, when the first PR firm, The Publicity Bureau, was established in Boston around 1900,” says Professor of Management Edward Vieira, Jr. “Back then, PR practitioners used press kits, staged events, and sometimes even controversial methods . . . to craft public perception.”
More than a century later, the digital age has unleashed expansive networks of communication that are global in scope. Accordingly, PR-related practices evolved, and ethics and empathy became more integral to the profession.
In their new textbook, entitled Public Relations Planning: A Practical Guide for Strategic Communication (Routledge, 2024), co-authors Vieira and Associate Professor of Management Yulong Li provide a comprehensive account of the PR industry, informed by best practices and scholarly research. (Vieira published an earlier edition of the book in 2018).
“This book is designed to aid undergraduate and graduate students who wish to understand PR and strategic communication, as well as professional PR tacticians moving more to managerial positions whose responsibilities include broader aspects of PR,” says Vieira.
A Comprehensive Textbook
“Based on my academic background and professional experience, I found that although there were highly effective tacticians in PR and communications, there was no single comprehensive resource that connected the pieces from strategy development to planning informed by clearly defined publics [e.g., audiences, stakeholders, communities, and customers],” explains Vieira. “Our book integrates these vital aspects of strategic communication.”
Vieira invited his Simmons School of Management colleague Yulong Li to co-author the second edition. “Ed and I have collaborated on and co-authored numerous other projects in the past, so this was a pretty organic process,” says Li. “We get along so well, professionally and personally, so I consider us friends who sometimes do research together.”
A common theme running throughout Public Relations Planning revolves around ethics. Here Vieira and Li underscore the difference between PR and propaganda. Unlike the questionable tactics of propagandists, PR professionals must adhere to ethical principles, including advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness.
A Psychological Approach
One of the textbook’s signature aspects is its foray into psychological research. According to Vieira, “In order to understand a particular public/audience, a communicator must define it in terms of demographics, culture, belief systems, and any other considerations deemed important by that public/audience, especially in light of the issue at hand. A basic understanding of psychology is a great place to start.”
Given his earlier training in educational psychology, Professor Li made fruitful contributions to this approach. “The psychology chapter [Understanding Applied Theory and the Psychology and Behavior of Public Relations Stakeholders],” Li reflects, “helps readers understand how the human mind, behaviors, information, and persuasion are interrelated. It was my personal favorite because it brought back so many memories of the theories that I have studied.”
The psychological underpinnings of PR highlight the importance of empathy. “Strategic communication is crucial to mobilize people to act,” says Vieira. “Being strategic involves engaging empathy. Understanding what publics need, what they know, what they value, and what their level of engagement is will determine how to reach, inform, and persuade them to behave in a manner consistent with an organization’s PR goal.”
For Li, the psychological element is foundational. “Ultimately, in the business world, you must understand the customer’s needs, drives, and motivations,” he says. “In this way, business, management, PR, and communications are interrelated, and you need to design your product or shape your organization with your stakeholders in mind.”
PR and AI: A Potentially Generative Partnership
Another novel aspect of Public Relations Planning is its discussion of Artificial Intelligence (AI). “When we were writing the book, ChatGPT was brand new and provoked much discussion and controversy,” explains Li, noting that the newness of AI technology creates many unknowns. “We can think of generative AI like the dawn of the internet in the 1990s — it’s another phase in our digital revolution.”
Adumbrating the future relationship between AI and PR, Vieira suspects that this new technology will become a ubiquitous factor in our society and marketplace. “Understanding how AI can make PR professionals more effective is critical in a competitive environment. For instance, anecdotally, I have heard that PR and marketing practitioners who deploy AI have reduced their workload times down to just 10% of what it was before the deployment of AI,” he says.
“We must begin theorizing the potentially helpful capabilities that AI may introduce to our workplaces,” Li adds. “Many jobs demand a tedious clerical component, and perhaps AI can help with increasing our productivity and minimizing these toilsome tasks.”
Valuing Diversity, Globally and Locally
“A diverse organization means more than meeting hiring quotas,” write Li and Vieira in Chapter 15 (“Culture, Diversity, and Inclusion”) of Public Relations Planning. Indeed, they emphasize the need for an intentional and integral commitment to diversity.
“We are living in a multiculturally rich realm. In addition to appreciating other cultures on a personal level, learning from other cultures is a necessary part of the way we work as PR professionals,” says Li.
“Beyond social justice, diversity has many pragmatic benefits. For example, requisite variety is the related construct associated with increased productivity related to diversity,” explains Vieira. “Put differently, in order to be successful, the diversity and complexity within an organization or system must be sufficient to cope with the diversity and complexity of the challenges or changes in its external environment.” This kind of professional atmosphere fosters innovative ideas and unique approaches to problem-solving. It also helps differentiate a particular business or organization from its competitors.
“Glocalization” constitutes a strategic concept within the co-authors’ broader DEI framework. They define glocalization as “a national strategy with a local focus,” that is, “accommodating the local culture . . . to appeal to local markets.”
According to Li, “Glocalization is another good example of understanding your customers and serving their needs, and I often invoke examples of glocalization when teaching Simmons students.” Moreover, Public Relations Planning also discusses how to communicate with other cultures on their terms, which today’s global economy demands.
“We all carry our cultural heritage, and I am proud of my Chinese heritage,” says Li. “To deliver a successful PR campaign, you have to know your audience and their values.”
A Competitive Edge at Simmons
With a newly recalibrated structure and the recent appointment of Dean Astrid Sheil, the Simmons School of Management (SOM) is well-positioned to offer students constructive avenues of professionalization. “The School of Management is invested in diversity, leadership, and serving specific social needs, all of which resonate with the mission of the University,” says Li.
SOM attracts students with diverse interests and career aspirations, imparting them with a competitive edge in the job market. While some Simmons students are motivated to become CEOs of large corporations, others gravitate toward the nonprofit sector, which may include leadership positions within a government entity, an arts institution, or a university’s internal DEI division.
“Accordingly, we made sure that our textbook includes strategies and campaign advice for big corporations as well as nonprofits,” says Li. “We want to show that people with larger or smaller budgets can both achieve their desired organizational goals.”
In addition to preparing Business and Management (BSBA) majors for future leadership roles in the public, nonprofit, and government sectors, students from other disciplines — notably Communications and Public Relations and Marketing Communications majors from The Gwen Ifill School of Media, Humanities, and Social Sciences — benefit from SOM’s relevant coursework. Vieira’s “Principles of Marketing” (BUS 250) and Li’s “Business Analytics” (BUS 270) are popular electives that give students a competitive edge in the job market.
“PR and PR-related hires increased by six times over recent years . . . [this increase] reflects the growing importance of strategic communication in a complex, fast-paced, and digitally connected world,” says Vieira. “Indeed, PR has expanded beyond traditional media relations to encompass a wide range of activities that are critical to the success and sustainability of modern organizations.”
Public Relations Planning and SOM coursework “stress that PR is a process,” says Li. “Regardless of your major, you must conduct a situational analysis, develop a strategy, and so forth, which applies to running any business and realizing any PR campaign.”