'Presencing' and 'Absencing': A Deconstruction of US-based Public Relations Textbooks

This chapter describes how US-based public relations (PR) textbooks enter a pact with the devil. It outlines their failed aspiration to create the eternal moment of a utopic PR, while ignoring the ‘passing bell.’ The textbooks paint a picture of professional practitioners who contribute to the ‘effectiveness’ of organisations, while being truthful and engaged in symmetric communication. Research on social psychology and management textbooks point in a similar direction. M. Billig argues ‘that social psychology textbooks typically fulfil a conservative function by training students to accept the dominant assumptions of the discipline’. The theoretical interplay of differance and deconstruction facilitates the development of a research design that is sensitive to the constitutive and legitimizing power of textbook communication, while concurrently revealing its vulnerability. The analysis of presencing strategies confirms what critical studies have already established about one-sided and hegemonic reality constructions in textbooks.