There is nothing like a crisis to bring a subject into a sharp relief, as rightly “Communication’s Director “(4/2008) Editor in Chief have noticed. The present global economic crisis, affecting virtually the whole world, has suddenly brought to light the somewhat forgotten economic context in public relations.

Surprisingly enough, world literature on the subject includes only one book underlining the interactions between economics and public relations: it is a book by H.M.Culbertson, D.W.Feffers, D.Besser Stone, M.Terelli, (eds) “Social Political and Economic Context In Public Relations: Theory and Cases” published in 1993. This research, however, focuses mainly on the importance of economics and economic principles to practitioners.

The present global economic downturn has triggered off some new important questions of whether and to what extent the public relations industry has contributed and may feel partly responsible for the ENRON, Arthur Andersen, and other scandals by promoting economic theories and the neo-liberal ideology, encouraging deregulation and creating convenient environment for greedy managerial practices.

Anyone familiar with the early history of public relations finds it obvious that much of public relations history is woven into the unending struggle between corporate, purely economic interests and the need to apply public relations to combat public hostility and gaining public favor. Particularly the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression following virtually destroyed the Big Business’ credibility, as it recently reoccurred. It means that the economic context of public relations has existed from the very beginning of that profession. Particularly today “…it is vitally important that communicators have knowledge of finance, economics and general business administration, as well as expertise to implement this knowledge in strategic communication planning and management” (Les Potter, CW Bulletin, 2008)

Taking the above under consideration, three research questions may be asked:

1. Where has the economic context of public relations gone and disappeared from research on public relations? Perhaps it has been simply covered, renamed, or taken over by business economics, managerial economics, communication management or marketing?
2. Why has it happened?
3. In what respect has the economic context of public relations become suddenly relevant in the times of an economic downturn?

One may perhaps wonder why this issue has be raised in a public relations department in a post-socialist/communist country. The explanation is offered by the history of the Department of Economic Journalism and Public Relations, created on purpose at the Faculty of Economics of the Poznan University of Economics. The econo-centric approach to public relations is a result of a specific socio-economic and political environment of the Polish transition to market economy and a pluralistic political system. Public relations strategies and instruments (transitional public relations) have proven conducive for introducing and adopting market economy and democracy in the former socialist countries.

Prof. Ryszard Ławniczak