Recent Mediterranean literature on public relations: France, Italy, and Spain

Citation

Xifra, J. (2009), "Recent Mediterranean literature on public relations: France, Italy, and Spain", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 13 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcom.2009.30713bae.001

Recent Mediterranean literature on public relations: France, Italy, and Spain

Article Type: Comparative book reviews From: Journal of Communication Management, Volume 13, Issue 2

Les relations publiques,Lionel Chauchan and Jean-François Flahault,Presses Universitaires de France,Paris,ISBN: 978-2130549659

Communiquer dans un monde incertain,Thierry Libaert,Pearson,Paris,2008,ISBN: 978-2744063244

Manuale di relazioni pubbliche 1: Le tecniche e i servizi di base,Edited by Emanuele Invernizzi,McGraw-Hill,Milan,2005,ISBN: 88-386-6173-1

Manuale di relazioni pubbliche 2: Le competenze e i servizi specializzati,Edited by Emanuele Invernizzi,McGraw-Hill,Milan,2005,ISBN: 88-386-6266-5

Governare le relazioni: Obiettivi, strumenti e modelli delle relazioni pubbliche,Toni Muzi Falconi,Il Sole 24 ORE,Milan,2004,ISBN: 88-8363-689-9

Le relazioni pubbliche: Teorie, strumenti, figure professionali,Mauro Pecchenino,Carocci editore,Roma,2004,ISBN: 88-430-2926-6

Relazioni pubbliche: Valore che crea valore,Giampietro Vecchiato,Franco Angeli,Milan,2005,ISBN: 88-464-6485-0

90 técnicas de relaciones públicas: Manual de comunicación corporativa,Manuel Palencia,Bresca,Barcelona,2008,ISBN: 978-84-936084-4-6

Los modelos de la planificación estratégica en la teoría de las relaciones públicas,Kathy Matilla,Editorial UOC,Barcelona,2008,ISBN: 978-84-9788-517-1

Ja saben què fas? 10 històries per entendre millor la comunicació,Jordi Martínez,Mediterrània,Barcelona,2004,ISBN: 84-8334-612-5,

Not long ago, I expressed my doubts as to whether public relations were an American, Western or universal discipline (Xifra, 2007a). I opted for the American nature of the discipline, in view of the spectacular development in public relations in the USA since the end of the First World War. In fact, one might say that the vast majority of the contributions made in this field have been penned by North American authors. Only France (in the past) and the UK can be compared to the USA.

This supremacy is patent in quantitative and qualitative terms, since, until the end of the last century, practically all theoretical debates have taken place in the USA. This has meant that the public relations body of knowledge has been developed and perfected exclusively by Americans.

The UK’s participation, since the outset, in the development of the theory public relations – although at a much more limited level than the USA – and the fact that the existence of a common language in these two countries has permitted easy and fluent scientific communication between both countries and with other countries of the same language, affords public relations an Anglo-Saxon tinge. As Hazleton and Kruckeberg (1996) pointed out, the practice of public relations in the UnK has historically dominated Europe by dint of the close relations between the UK and the USA and the linguistic advantages of their native language, namely English. In fact, today nobody would deny the existence of a British-North American intellectual condominium with a clear hegemony of the USA. On the other hand, a scientific community of scholars participating in fluent and permanent communication only exists in the English-speaking area due to this single-language character that has made English the lingua franca with which public relations have been configured.

In any case, if we do not wish to accept this Anglo-Saxon supremacy, alleging that after the Second World War some of the most relevant contributions came from continental Europe (more specifically the French School led by Lucien Matrat), at the very most one might say that nowadays public relations are a western discipline (Xifra, 2007a) with North American predominance. But even admitting this, one could never talk about the existence of a western public relations scientific community. And all this due to the as yet scant intellectual production coming from continental Europe, particularly the Mediterranean arch countries: Italy, France and Spain. An output that, on the other hand, when it did exist, was practically ignored by the Anglo-Saxon community (the case of the French School is paradigmatic yet again).

However, in recent years, albeit irregularly, things seems to be changing in Italy, France and Spain; in some cases for better, and in others for worse. Thus, while the output of books on public relations has increased considerably in Spain, in France it has been practically minimal. Italy is not very prolific in publications, but it does maintain a certain regularity, particularly in updating the edition of textbooks.

1 France

The case of France is one of the most alarming in the last 40 years. After a few decades, the 1960s and 1970s, when the French authors led by Lucien Matrat – father of the code of Athens – published some of the most fascinating European texts in the field, the phenomenon has dwindled and is now on the verge of disappearance. In fact, at the moment, the only book that is published regularly is that of the famous Que sais-je? collection published by Gallimard.

This book, whose previous nine editions were authored by two eminent representative of the French School of Matrat, Chaumely and Huisman (1997), was updated for a new edition by Chouchan and Flahault (Public Relations). It is still a clear and concise compendium of what public relations is about, with a description straddling the different areas, from crisis communication to lobbying, closing with some food for thought on the outlook for public relations which, according to the authors, will become increasingly more international, more strategic and more specialised. It is an over-simplistic end for a discipline, which has been replaced by corporate communication in France, whose practitioners are known as dircoms (the acronym of directeur de communication, that is, communication manager). This edition contains little of the dialogue-fuelling spirit that inspired the leading authors of the French School.

This is the reason why the most interesting contributions by French literature are books on strategic communication (which make no mention of “public relations”). The most interesting one is the latest work by Libaert (Communicating in an Uncertain World). Libaert (1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001) is the only French author to address strategic communication from different standpoints and always focusing on the most up-to-date environment.

In this work, which is a kind of compendium of all the foregoing, and a gateway to new organizational communication challenges, Libaert talks about the mutations of communication in organisations: the disaffection for advertising to the benefit of public relations, the development of new technologies, the increasingly greater importance of legal procedures, the impact of social changes on public relations, the trivialisation of crisis communication and the development of financial communication. Libaert analyse these changes and their causes illustrating his viewpoints with the corresponding practical cases, going on to propose a reflection on what the function of the communicator is today since, in essence, everything has changed: messages, media and even the actual function. A new profession appears through these evolutions, more focused on internal communication, closer to management and its financial constraints.

2 Italy

Unlike France, Italy has periodically published books on public relations, most of which are textbooks. Since the popular book by Roggero (1968) until the ones addressed herein, Italian literature on public relations has focused more on publishing general works.

Although all the Italian books we review seek to offer a comprehensive vision of public relations, its sources, strategies and techniques, the ones that most resemble the Anglo-Saxon textbooks are the two volumes of the Public Relations Textbook by Invernizzi. It is undoubtedly a comprehensive textbook that lays greatest emphasis on public relations techniques and on the specialised sectors to which they may be applied (public affairs, environment, CSR, for instance). Nevertheless, his exploratory spirit leads him to repeat the title of one chapter in both volumes. Thus, the first chapter in both volumes is called “Introduction: Public Relations and corporate communication” and “Evolution of public relations”. While the former is an introduction to the contents of each volume, what is inexplicable is that the chapters on the history of the public relations deal with the same thing in a different way (Invernizzi is the author of both of them!)

Pecchenino’s textbook (Public Relations: Theories, Tools, Professional Figures) is also paradoxical, since despite the title, the theory of public relations is not addressed. It is a dense book that aims to offer a broad vision of the techniques, although it is rather terse in its treatment of the different targets (its fourth part, dedicated to targets, only analyses the mass media, employees and consumers). Particularly outstanding, with regard to techniques, is the chapter on social balance as a public relations technique and, by extension, the assessment and control of CSR.

The book by Vecchiato (Public Relations: Value that Creates Value) is a collective work featuring different academics and professionals. The author does not employ a classic manual structure, although he does approach most of the possible topics, only going into sufficient detail to afford the reader (mainly students) a sufficient and necessary overview. In this regard, Vecchiato and his collaborators touch on current public relations questions without overlooking didactics, particularly in Vecchiato’s own chapter on relational capital, a concept that is well addressed at the outset, although he ends up linking it to relational marketing and advertising.

For all these reasons, I consider that the most comprehensive of all the works analysed here is Muzi Falconi’s (Governing Relationships: Objectives, Tools and Models of Public Relations). As its title clearly states, it is a comprehensive (critical) approach to public relations from the standpoint of relationships management. Without losing sight of the student target, we are dealing with a textbook that is different to those published hitherto, not only in Italy, but also in the other Mediterranean countries. In fact, apart from addressing the objectives, instruments and models of public relations, the author introduces the new issues to be faced by the public relations professional of the 21st Century: CSR, the assessment and evaluation of relationships and the paradigm of diversity. These are questions which hitherto had seemed to be reserved for Anglo-Saxon authors, and which Muzi Falcone brings into Italian literature. The fact is that reading this book demonstrates, among other things, that the author is highly conversant with the Anglo-Saxon theory of public relations, which is endorsed by a broad and excellent glossary of the English terminology of this field that closes the book.

3 Spain

The situation in Spain is somewhat strange. Before the year 2000, there was practically no Spanish public relations literature. In 1998, the School of Public Relations of the University of Girona, with a view to filling the gap, sponsored the translation and publication of the classic textbooks and works by Bernays (1998), Grunig and Hunt (2000), Cutlip and Center (2001), Wilcox and Cameron (2006), Seitel (2001), and Pavlik (1999). In this regard, Spain is the non-English speaking country that publishes most foreign books on public relations.

At the same time, Spanish lecturers began to publish books, particularly Barquero (1992, 2000, 2001), and Xifra (2000, 2003, 2005, 2007b), with a view to offering a national take on public relations, which the translated works had or did not. After this initial phase of bibliographic consolidation, the main contributions come, once again, from Catalonia, by the academics Palencia and Matilla, and the practitioner Jordi Martínez.

The book by Palencia (90 Public Relations Techniques: Corporate Communication Textbook) is a fine complement to the textbooks on public relations techniques. In Spain, the instrumental vision of public relations has prevailed in the professional and academic settings (Xifra and Castillo, 2006). This marketing outlook has generated a disproportionate interest in public relations techniques. The book by Palencia is a good example. It is a very broad-ranging repertoire (90 techniques!), and constitutes a kind of vademecum for the public relations expert, although the book’s subtitle misleadingly indicates that it is a corporate communication textbook.

In the introduction, the actual author confirms that the figure of 90 is not cabalistic, and that there could have been more or less than 90 techniques. However, Palencia likes to quantify things and does so accordingly when he warns us that it is not a detailed work, as some 2,400 pages would have been required for it to be so. Having said that, the truth is that techniques and strategies are often confused (e.g. lobbying) and some of the actions presented as public relations techniques are rather sui generis (e.g., celebrity coalition; grants, opinion leaders convergence, or scientific/cultural/spots prescriptor).

The book by Matilla (Models of Strategic Planning in Public Relations Theory) also delivers a singular look at the European public relations scenario. It constitutes a description of the different strategic models of public relations and provides some theoretical food for thought on the latter’s strategic dimension. Matilla provides an extremely meticulous analysis (it is actually the publication of part of his PhD thesis) of the different authors that have studied public relations as a strategic function, and offers his own approach. The usefulness of the book is self-evident, particularly by virtue of the compilatory effort made, which sometimes goes beyond the limits of the study, particularly when it addresses corporate communication models.

If the books by Matilla and Palencia are different to what is normally published in Europe, then Martínez’s is even more exceptional (Do They Know What Are You Doing? 10 Stories to Understand Communication Better), a veritable rarity in international public relations literature. And not just because it is written in Catalan, as a Catalan bibliography on Public Relations already exists (Xifra, 1999, 2000, 2006). The author, one of the country’s most prestigious practitioners, explains, in ten fictional stories and 109 pages, the public relations profession with an efficacy that would be the envy of some textbooks. Martínez commits ten professional experiences to paper – from the failure of a politician’s media relations through to two crisis situations solved in opposite ways – with a prose that has captivated all the students, my own included, who have been fortunate enough to read this original and brilliant book of public relations stories.

Jordi XifraPompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain