The next steps in a public relations approach to engagement

The field of public relations continues to evolve as multiple conceptual frameworks have emerged to structure research and practice. We have seen a transition from functional approaches to public relations that treated publics as a means to an end (Botan & Taylor, 2004) to co creational approaches where organizations and publics jointly create and recreate meaning. The concept of engagement falls within the co creational framework and provides a conceptual roadmap for thinking about ethical and empowering outcomes for both publics and organizations in modern public relations. This paper delves into the conceptual area of engagement to suggest ways forward in how we teach and research communication engagement. Although the idea of engagement has been implicit in just about every framework used to build public relations theory and describe public relations practice, the conceptualization of engagement has been largely ignored. Recently, there have been initiatives to formalize engagement as a theoretical framework for public relations. Many articles in the public relations research area refer to engagement but very few actually conceptualize or operationalize it. For instance, Taylor and Kent (2014) noted that there are five main areas of engagement research: employee engagement, social media engagement, CSR engagement, civil society engagement and dialogic engagement. Taylor and Kent (2014) observed that it is through engagement, organizations and publics can make decisions that contribute to interpersonal, organizational, community, and civic social capital. Engagement is “both an orientation that influences interactions and the approach that guides the process of interactions among groups” (Taylor & Kent, 2014, p. 384). Engagement is defined as a dynamic multidimensional relational concept featuring psychological and behavioral attributes of connection, interaction, participation, and involvement, designed to achieve or elicit an outcome at individual, organization, or social levels (Johnston, 2018)..