Power/Knowledge and Public Relations

The term power/knowledge is associated with French philosopher Michel Foucault, who was interested in the sites of modern power, the forms it took, and the ways in which it was exercised. As Foucault peeled back layers of power, he came to define society by its multiplicity of fields of knowledge or expertise. Foucault maintained that knowledge is “both a creator of power and a creation of power,” and that power is “both a creator of knowledge and a creation of knowledge” (Motion & Leitch, 2007, 265). For Foucault, power and knowledge are joined together as “power/knowledge,” an inseparable, interrelated concept signifying the struggle and negotiation inherent in all human relationships.

According to Foucault, power/knowledge is joined together through discourse, a term he used to refer to everything written or spoken about a specialist practice/knowledge, “controlling” those who lack expertise in a specialist field. Experts make statements about their specialist area of practice, such as the biosciences, engineering, finance, law, media, medicine, policymaking, sports, or telecommunications. By first establishing and then regularly repeating these statements wherever possible, and by constantly measuring, analyzing, and defining aspects of their field, experts create regimes of truth governed by discursive rules of their field. Experts, for example, constructed “obesity” into a field of medical expertise. In so doing, these experts established rules that identify the obese, while regularly conducting research about obesity, thus establishing a modern regime of truth in which obesity is cast as a health problem, even a disease. This regime of truth now exerts power over policymakers, food manufacturers, parents, schools, and consumers, to name just a few.

So how does power/knowledge connect with public relations? Arguably, in two ways. First, it is a specialist field of expertise governed by discursive rules. These rules may vary across different regions and countries. For example, in certain countries it is expected that public relations practitioners have a university degree, are able to write well, and possibly even hold industry certification. Public relations practitioners may be expected to have a good network of media contacts. Increasingly, young practitioners entering public relations are expected to understand how to design, manage, and deliver social media campaigns. These are examples of discursive rules that govern public relations knowledge and expertise.

In larger markets, public relations developed into a set of specialist subfields, constructing further regimes of truth. These subspecialisms of public relations include these discourse contexts: consumer, fashion, financial, technology, travel, and public affairs. Intense market competition, together with the proliferation of specialist media, enabled these subspecialties to existence as public relations practitioners choose to differentiate themselves by establishing a unique set of discursive rules to govern evolving fields of expertise, thus asserting power/knowledge. In this way, technology public relations practitioners may need to have in-depth knowledge of the latest computer hardware or software, while financial practitioners may need to know various market rules, and/or possess skills like issuing company results via the stock exchange.

The second way in which power/knowledge is connected with public relations is potentially more important than the first. Sites of modern power increasingly involve specialist fields contesting other experts through discourse. Public relations operates within discourses privileging one set of messages over others, often translating expert terminology into messages that intended audiences can easily understand. In this way, public relations [Page 677]activity is the servant of global power relations, producing statements about expert practices that help to establish and maintain these regimes of truth and propagate power/knowledge.

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