Critical Theory

Critical theory concerns three main areas: the first is as the object of academic attention of certain traditions of thought, especially the Frankfurt School and their successors; the second is as a set of methods that vary over time but consistently draw from different disciplines to examine root assumptions about knowledge; and the third, which sometimes links directly to political action (e.g., Western Marxism), involves critical views of social power arrangements in society.

Critical theory originated in the European Enlightenment's raison d'être and is encapsulated in Immanuel Kant's famous dictum “dare to know.” It gathered momentum as proponents not only dared to know, but also dared to act on that knowledge to overthrow the status quo. The key 20th-century moment was the 1917 Russian Revolution that linked theory to action with an international impact. In dramatic form, it posed the question of whether to support the existence, economics, and philosophy of the USSR or to oppose it. Before that revolution, critical theorist Karl Marx was just another philosopher; after it, he was a global point of political reference. Critical theorists in particular were put on the spot and the resulting test of praxis—not just rethinking the world, but remaking it—remains a specter haunting their writings.

Although the internationally supported “Occupy Wall Street” movement has continuities with such radical behavior, direct activism in the West diminished as a major part of critical theory outside public relations. Within public relations, noncorporate and nongovernment activists continue to struggle for recognition. Nevertheless, critical theorists retain elements of European Enlightenment optimism in their belief that applied rationality, the ability to openly question authority, can influence human activities and social structures in a democratic and life-enhancing way. In different approaches, the impacts of the Arab Spring, beginning in 2011, and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which began in 2008, reactivated interest in radical interrogations of existing systems.

In the first of the three areas of critical theory, (the relatively narrow academic one), the leading representative in public relations is Jürgen Habermas. Apart from Geert Hofstede, whose functional culture and organizations research became a staple of mainstream management, Habermas features more widely in public relations than any other European theorist. His concept of communicative rationality, which is anchored in “the unconstrained, unifying, consensus-bringing force of argumentative speech” (Habermas, 1984, p. 10) predates the more limited idea of two-way symmetrical communication. His associated advocacy of the ideal speech situation where all stakeholders participate equally in dialogue and resolve in favor of the best argument has affinities with and [Page 230]usefully elaborates on the ideal goals for practice. This remains true despite the fact that communicative rationality and symmetry exist in theory rather than in practice.

For Habermas the aim of speech is to reach agreement on action and how to act. Additionally, all participants in conversation should accept a set of responsibilities as a result of taking part. These responsibilities include aspiring to agreement in a fair-minded way, encouraging open (e.g., independent of business, religious, or government interests) debate, listening as well as talking, and honoring any consensus reached. Participation in fair process and acceptance of the outcome becomes, in itself, a legitimating process, which Habermas extends beyond face-to-face talk into mediated communication. Public relations is influenced by Habermasian legitimation theory, which sets out and justifies normative guidelines for the consideration of public issues, and by his philosophy of the public sphere. The public sphere can be a physical place where citizens gather for a democratic exchange of ideas (e.g., a town square) or a media arena. The concept is anchored in, and partially restricted by, Habermas's imaginings of the political interchanges of middle-class men in early modern Europe's communal coffee houses. In what he saw as the subsequent denigration of communication from those conditions to an environment framed by consumerism, mass media, and state intrusions, Habermas positioned public relations, along with advertising and marketing, as powerful, if negative, agents in the decline.

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