Public relations and philosophy: Parsing paradigms

This philosophical article examines how public relations researchers have engaged with Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm and have used it to set a research agenda for the field. I argue that Kuhn believed the social sciences to be inherently multi-paradigmatic, making the quest for a single, overarching paradigm for public relations research misguided. Instead, I lay out a four-paradigm schematic for the field, examining issues of semantic and cultural incommensurability and consequences for language use and research method and values. The article questions the definition of a mature discipline as often found in public relations literature and proposes that we might be more mature than we think if we are willing to accept a diversity of perspectives and their concomitant research values.