The Design Turn for the Management of Public Relations: Emerging Challenges for Communication Professionals using Design Practices

Abstract

Design as a profession differs from other communication practices in its sociopsychological and epistemological features. These features need to be considered to understand recent public relations strategies (Taylor & Botan, 2004). We analyze design practices and identify the five essential features which should be taken into account in the management of public relations: 1) the aspect of (necessarily) tolerated randomness; 2) the rejection of explicit methods and theory; 3) emotions as a constant, but implicit, background disposition of practices, and as a finality via the desirability paradigm; 4) a tendency towards auto-centered working perspectives; and 5) a large share of determined logics contrasting with creative sparks. We demonstrate that these features are implicit in the discourses and practices of designers, and we confront these features with our assumption that design practices are grounded in the Dasein (referring to Heidegger, 1963/1927) of designers. These features raise management challenges. The rationalization of design practices and the democratization of design tools make design more easily realizable by non-designers like communication professionals; consequently, other communication professionals are also pushed to consider these features of design practices. In the future, design and communication professionals will collaborate even further. The results of this research represent an ongoing challenge for socioeconomic actors to ensure the effective management of public relations.

Keywords

• public relations
• communication
• design
• emotion
• grounded cognition