Rhetorical theory of public relations: opening the door to semiotic and pragmatism approaches

The 2001 Handbook of Public Relations edited by Robert Heath contains a prominent article advocating the use of rhetorical theory or ‘rhetorical enactment rational’ as a fruitful way of advancing theoretical understandings of public relations. In 2004 Heath and Dan Millar edited: Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication. These are the latest excursions into a perspective on public relations reflecting the extensive study of rhetoric in North America. Other examples are Public Relations Inquiry as Rhetorical Criticism (Elwood, 1995); Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations (Toth and Heath, 1992); and a chapter Public Relations? No, Relations with Publics: A Rhetorical-Organisational Approach to Contemporary Corporate Communication (Cheney and Dionisopoulos, in Botan and Hazleton (Eds.) 1989).

The conventional notion of rhetoric is argumentation and persuasion stemming from the ancient Greek sophists, such as Aristotle, and from the Romans, particularly Cicero and Quintillion. Rhetoric became a fundamental plank of the trivium of ancient and medieval education: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Then in the 20th century Kenneth Burke, Stephen Toulmin and Chaim Perelman with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca extended Aristotle’s suggestion that: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic” Aristotle (trans. 1991). To use the rhetorical approach to argue that rational discourse cannot describe the world on its own. Instead living, enculturated human beings have to perceive ‘their’ truths. They take a perceptual ‘position’ on reason.

Public relations, is an industry for influencing perceptual ‘positions’. But the study of perception and attempts to influence perception cannot be claimed by rhetorical scholars alone. Semioticians and linguists who take the perspective of linguistic pragmatics also claim this field. This paper takes the example of ‘public relations’ as a focus for the confluence of rhetorical, semiotic and pragmatism approaches to the ‘problematic’ of understanding and truth.

The Assyrians

This chapter seeks to extend earlier works on Mesopotamian democracy to a civilisation that is not only typically excluded from such discussions of democracy in the ancient Near East, but generally considered to be among the region’s most bloodthirsty and bellicose: the Assyrians. On the one hand it cannot be denied that the Assyrians went through periods of aggressive expansion, that they were cruel to at least some of their enemies and that the more militant Assyrian kings struck fear into the hearts of men and women across the region (I:106-110, 113; II:1, 54-6 in: Grayson 1991: 201). On the other hand, however, it is peculiar that the intermittent war-mongering of the Assyrians is seen not only as ‘a modern myth exaggerated beyond all proportion’ (Parpola 2003: 1060), but also seen to exclude them from practicing any form of democracy. This is starkly inconsistent with the contemporary assessment of other societies of the ancient world, such as the Greeks or Romans who were both belligerent and at least nominally democratic. To give one example of this double standard, Jana Pecirkova argues that while the Greek polis enabled the birth of science, philosophy and the rule of law, the Assyrians were not able to distinguish ‘between the rational and the irrational, between reality and illusion’ (Pecirkova 1985: 155). The reason for this, according to Pecrikova, is simple: their ‘only alternative to monarchy … was anarchy … Political decisions were arbitrary in character and not governed by any laws or generally acknowledged and accepted rules’ and the ‘people were the passive subjects of political decision-making’ (Pecirkova 1985: 166-8). This chapter, while cautious not to over-state the democratic tendencies of the Assyrians, takes Pecirkova’s argument to task by examining the complex functioning of power and politics, the checks and balances on monarchical authority, the rule of law and the sophisticated intellectual scene of the three key epochs of ancient Assyrian civilisation.

The Assyrians

This chapter seeks to extend earlier works on Mesopotamian democracy to a civilisation that is not only typically excluded from such discussions of democracy in the ancient Near East, but generally considered to be among the region’s most bloodthirsty and bellicose: the Assyrians. On the one hand it cannot be denied that the Assyrians went through periods of aggressive expansion, that they were cruel to at least some of their enemies and that the more militant Assyrian kings struck fear into the hearts of men and women across the region (I:106-110, 113; II:1, 54-6 in: Grayson 1991: 201). On the other hand, however, it is peculiar that the intermittent war-mongering of the Assyrians is seen not only as ‘a modern myth exaggerated beyond all proportion’ (Parpola 2003: 1060), but also seen to exclude them from practicing any form of democracy. This is starkly inconsistent with the contemporary assessment of other societies of the ancient world, such as the Greeks or Romans who were both belligerent and at least nominally democratic. To give one example of this double standard, Jana Pecirkova argues that while the Greek polis enabled the birth of science, philosophy and the rule of law, the Assyrians were not able to distinguish ‘between the rational and the irrational, between reality and illusion’ (Pecirkova 1985: 155). The reason for this, according to Pecrikova, is simple: their ‘only alternative to monarchy … was anarchy … Political decisions were arbitrary in character and not governed by any laws or generally acknowledged and accepted rules’ and the ‘people were the passive subjects of political decision-making’ (Pecirkova 1985: 166-8). This chapter, while cautious not to over-state the democratic tendencies of the Assyrians, takes Pecirkova’s argument to task by examining the complex functioning of power and politics, the checks and balances on monarchical authority, the rule of law and the sophisticated intellectual scene of the three key epochs of ancient Assyrian civilisation.