Public relations and communication management in Europe: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

In most European countries, public relations is a flourishing industry, sometimes with a history of a least a century, and all over Europe young people like to become educated in the field. Nevertheless, little is known about crucial aspects of public relations in Europe and so far there is even lesser debate and knowledge exchange on these aspects. The research projects we have conducted so far show that public relations is a multi-dimensional concept. These different dimensions show that public relations is not just a professional function of managers and technicians. The question we want to raise in this article is what typifies European public relations in practice, education and research and what could be a unifying concept to develop practice, education and research.