Silence and invisibility in public relations

Abstract

Public relations practitioners and academics are often silent on silence because the stigma on silence threatens to become a stigma on public relations. Journalists and communicators work in professional exchange and strive. The public relations practitioners are fully visible for the journalists; invisible are they only for the public. Silence has become a “code word” journalists use to pressure information sources not to shut up. This paper discusses public relations responses to that stigma, which include strategies of silence. I draw ideas from Aristotle's “apophatic” silence, Michel Foucault's “exhaustive representation”, Frances Sendbuehler's “profound communication silence” and John Cage's “sound of silence”. I suggest borrowing from those ideas and the development of silence and invisibility as central categories in public relations. Both are carriers of meaning. Both are ontological, neutral phenomena – neither good nor bad. I show possible applications in the areas of resistance, framing and change.