1. Point of Departure: The 2008 Definition of Public Relations
In his book Public Relations: Theory and Practice, Professor Zoran Tomić defined public relations as “a process of communication between an organisation and its internal and external publics, aimed at achieving mutual understanding, fostering social responsibility, and advancing shared interests” (Tomić, 2008; 2016).
This definition emerged during a period in which the theoretical understanding of public relations was gradually moving away from its reduction to publicity, media intermediation, and message production. Public relations was defined as a process, thereby emphasising its enduring, dynamic, and relational nature. At the same time, it established mutual understanding, social responsibility, and shared interests as its fundamental professional and societal purposes.
The underlying philosophy of this definition remains relevant. Public relations is neither merely a collection of communication techniques nor simply an instrument through which an organisation exerts influence on its environment. It connects an organisation with its publics, contributes to mutual understanding, and enables the responsible alignment of organisational and societal interests.
Social, technological, and communication changes, however, require a broader theoretical definition. The development of digital media, social networks, algorithmic mediation, generative artificial intelligence, and the active participation of publics demonstrates that it is no longer sufficient to define public relations solely as a communication process. Communication does not automatically produce understanding. Between information and understanding lies interpretation—the process through which organisational messages, decisions, and actions acquire social meaning.
Building on his earlier definition and the concept of the manager of meaning (Tomić, 2008, 2016, 2025), Tomić proposes a new definition of public relations for the first time in this paper.
2. A New Definition of Public Relations
Public relations is a strategic and interpretative process in which an organisation and its publics, through communication and social action, participate in the creation, interpretation, and stabilisation of meaning in order to develop mutual understanding and relationships, shape reputation, build trust and social legitimacy, and responsibly align organisational and societal interests. The new definition preserves the underlying philosophy of the 2008 definition while expanding it through an interpretative perspective. The communication process becomes strategic and interpretative, while mutual understanding is no longer defined solely as an objective but as the outcome of creating, interpreting, and stabilising meaning.
3. Elaboration of the Definition’s Components
3.1. Public Relations as a Process
The concept of process, already present in the 2008 definition, remains its fundamental point of departure. Public relations is not an isolated communication activity, a one-off campaign, or a series of unrelated techniques. It is realised through interconnected organisational decisions, communication activities, relationships, and social interactions. Understanding public relations as a process demonstrates that mutual understanding, relationships, reputation, trust, and legitimacy cannot be produced through a single message or communication activity. They develop over time and depend on the alignment between organisational communication and actual conduct. The word “process” already implies duration, change, and development. It is therefore unnecessary to add the word “continuous” to the definition itself.
3.2. The Strategic Dimension of Public Relations
Defining public relations as a strategic process demonstrates that it is not confined to the operational implementation of communication decisions. Its role begins before messages are formulated and distributed—within organisational decision-making processes. The strategic dimension encompasses research into publics and the social environment, identifying the communication and reputational consequences of decisions, management counselling, and aligning organisational objectives with the expectations and values of publics. Public relations professionals should therefore do more than explain decisions already made. They should participate in shaping those decisions and highlight their potential social meanings. The strategic dimension alone, however, is insufficient to define contemporary public relations. Earlier theoretical approaches developed strategic communication, relationship management, and the incorporation of public relations into management structures. The novelty of the definition lies in connecting the strategic and interpretative dimensions.
3.3. The Interpretative Dimension of Public Relations
The concept of an interpretative process represents the most important new element of the definition. It demonstrates that public relations is concerned not only with what an organisation says, but also with how different publics understand its messages, decisions, actions, identity, values, and social role. Information and meaning are not the same. Information is content made available to publics, whereas meaning emerges when that content is connected with experiences, values, expectations, cultural patterns, and prior knowledge. The same information may therefore acquire different meanings among different publics. The interpretative dimension directs public relations towards the following question: What do an organisation's communication and actions mean to different publics? This question extends beyond the traditional focus on visibility, information distribution, and message production. It requires an understanding of the social processes through which an organisation is interpreted, evaluated, and situated within broader systems of values and expectations.
3.4. The Organisation and Its Publics
The definition does not refer to a single homogeneous public, but to publics in the plural. An organisation is simultaneously connected with different groups whose experiences, interests, values, expectations, and interpretative frameworks vary. The concept of publics encompasses internal and external groups that are connected with the organisation, affected by its activities, or capable of influencing it through their own actions. These include employees, users, consumers, citizens, the media, investors, local communities, regulatory bodies, political actors, activist groups, and other relevant stakeholders. Omitting the phrase "internal and external publics" from the definition itself does not imply abandoning this distinction. The term "publics" already encompasses both categories, thereby making the definition more concise and terminologically precise.
3.5. Communication and Social Action
An organisation's meaning does not arise solely from its messages. It also emerges from its decisions, actions, products, treatment of employees, conduct during crises, relationship with the community, and the manner in which it fulfils its commitments. The definition therefore connects communication and social action. Communication that is not supported by corresponding action can create a discrepancy between what an organisation says and what it does. Such a discrepancy undermines credibility, reputation, trust, and legitimacy. From an interpretative perspective, every significant organisational decision is also a communicative act because publics interpret it as reflecting the organisation's identity, values, and intentions. An organisation communicates not only through words but also through its behaviour.
3.6. Participation in the Creation of Meaning
The verb “participate” is one of the definition’s key elements. It indicates that neither the organisation nor its publics exercise complete control over the ultimate meaning of organisational action. An organisation can shape its identity, communication content, narratives, and symbolic resources. It can present facts, explain decisions, and articulate its values. Publics, however, interpret this content from their own social and cultural perspectives. They comment upon, accept, contest, reshape, and connect it with other available information. Meaning is therefore the result of interaction rather than one-way transmission. An organisation does not produce meaning that publics passively adopt. Instead, it participates in a social process through which meanings are created and transformed.
3.7. The Creation, Interpretation, and Stabilisation of Meaning
The definition distinguishes between three interconnected processes: The creation of meaning refers to the process through which organisational messages, decisions, actions, identity, and values acquire social relevance. The organisation participates in creating meaning through its communication and conduct, while publics participate through their experiences, responses, and social interactions. The interpretation of meaning refers to the process through which publics connect organisational messages and actions with their own knowledge, experience, values, and expectations. Interpretation explains why different publics may attribute different, and even opposing, meanings to the same event. The stabilisation of meaning refers to the process through which a particular understanding of an organisation, its identity, behaviour, or social role becomes sufficiently accepted and enduring to guide publics’ future evaluations and behaviour.
Stabilisation does not mean that meanings are permanent, final, or entirely immutable. Nor does it mean that an organisation can control the interpretations of its publics. A stabilised meaning may be confirmed, contested, or destabilised by new information, actions, crises, and social change. These theoretical qualifications should be explained in the elaboration of the definition, but they need not be incorporated into the definition itself through the word “relative”.
3.8. Mutual Understanding
Mutual understanding connects the earlier and the new definitions. It remains one of the fundamental objectives of public relations but is now provided with a new theoretical explanation. Understanding does not necessarily imply agreement. An organisation and its publics may understand the other party’s positions, interests, and reasoning without agreeing with them. Mutual understanding is therefore not an idealised assumption of complete consensus, but the capacity of participants in the communication process to understand the meanings, motives, expectations, and consequences of the other party’s actions. The new definition explains that understanding develops through the creation, interpretation, and stabilisation of meaning. A concept that represented a normative objective in the 2008 definition thus becomes a theoretically explicable communication and social outcome.
3.9. Relationships
Relationships remain an important category in contemporary public relations. PR 4.0 neither rejects relationship management nor diminishes the importance of dialogue, mutuality, satisfaction, commitment, and trust. Relationships, however, are not devoid of meaning. Publics understand their relationship with an organisation based on what its actions mean for their rights, interests, identity, and everyday experience. Meaning therefore precedes the evaluation of relationship quality and determines how that relationship is understood. PR 4.0 extends the relationship management paradigm by explaining the interpretative processes upon which relationships are based.
3.10. Reputation
The definition does not regard reputation as a message that an organisation can produce or as a direct consequence of its self-presentation. It emerges through accumulated interpretations of organisational conduct. Reputation can be understood as the stabilised social meaning of an organisation. When particular interpretations of its competence, credibility, responsibility, and social value are repeated and reinforced, they gradually shape its reputation. An organisation can help shape its reputation, but it cannot determine it unilaterally. Reputation belongs to the domain of social interpretation and evaluation.
3.11. Trust
Trust is more than a positive attitude towards an organisation. It represents publics’ expectation that the organisation will act credibly, responsibly, consistently, and predictably. Trust develops when publics recognise a stable meaning of reliability in an organisation’s messages and actions. It therefore cannot be built through communicative persuasion alone. It requires consistency between organisational words, decisions, and conduct. Meaning management does not produce trust directly; rather, it creates the conditions under which organisational credibility can be understood, verified, and socially validated.
3.12. Social Legitimacy
Legitimacy represents the socially accepted meaning of an organisation’s role and conduct. An organisation is legitimate when relevant publics understand its existence, decisions, and actions as appropriate, justified, and consistent with societal values and expectations. Legitimacy differs from popularity. An organisation may be well known or even popular without its conduct being socially legitimate. Likewise, legitimacy does not result from formal legality alone. Legally permissible conduct may be socially contested if publics consider it irresponsible, unjust, or inconsistent with accepted values. Legitimacy therefore becomes one of the most important outcomes of public relations within the PR 4.0 paradigm.
3.13. The Responsible Alignment of Organisational and Societal Interests
The new definition preserves the philosophy of shared interests contained in the 2008 definition but expresses it in a more contemporary form. Organisational and societal interests are not always identical, nor can they always be fully reconciled. Differences, tensions, and conflicts may exist between them. The role of public relations is neither to conceal these differences nor to impose the organisation’s interests unilaterally. It consists of identifying, explaining, and responsibly aligning them. The concept of responsibility introduces an ethical boundary to meaning management and distinguishes it from propaganda, manipulation, and the control of perception. The responsible alignment of interests presupposes truthfulness, transparency, openness to dialogue, consideration of the consequences of organisational conduct, and the possibility of adapting the organisation itself.
4. What the Definition Does Not Imply
To prevent misinterpretation, it is necessary to emphasise that the new definition does not imply:
• that an organisation can exercise complete control over social meanings;
• that meaning can simply be transmitted through a communication message;
• that publics are passive recipients of organisational interpretations;
• that the stabilisation of meaning implies its permanent and definitive immutability;
• that mutual understanding necessarily implies agreement or consensus;
• that reputation, trust, and legitimacy can be built without corresponding organisational conduct;
• that meaning management is another term for propaganda, manipulation, or perception management;
• that organisational interests automatically take precedence over the interests of publics and society.
The new definition does not relocate public relations from the domain of communication to the control of meaning. It moves public relations beyond the simple transmission of information towards responsible participation in social processes of interpretation.
5. Continuity and Change in Relation to the 2008 Definition
Element 2008 definition New definition
Nature of public relations communication process strategic and interpretative process Principal participants organisation and its internal and external publics organisation and its publics
Means communication communication and social action
Position of publics participants in communication active participants in the creation and interpretation of meaning
Central mechanism communication creation, interpretation, and stabilisation of meaning Fundamental objective mutual understanding development of mutual understanding and relationships
Broader outcomes social responsibility and shared interests reputation, trust, legitimacy, and the responsible alignment of interests
Theoretical logic communicative and relational strategic, relational, and interpretative
The new definition does not constitute a break with the 2008 definition. It represents its theoretical evolution. In the original definition, mutual understanding was established as the objective of the communication process. The new definition explains that understanding develops through the creation, interpretation, and stabilisation of meaning.
The most important conceptual development can be summarised as follows:
The original definition identified mutual understanding as the purpose of public relations. The new definition explains meaning as the mechanism through which such understanding develops.
6. From the New Definition of Public Relations to the Definition of PR 4.0
The new definition of public relations and the definition of PR 4.0 are interconnected, but they are not identical.
The new definition answers the question:
What is public relations in contemporary society?
The definition of PR 4.0 answers the question:
Which paradigm explains the interpretative nature of contemporary public relations, and why does meaning become its new dominant object of management?
On this basis, PR 4.0 may be defined as follows:
PR 4.0 is an interpretative paradigm of public relations that positions meaning as the dominant object of strategic management and explains how an organisation and its publics, through the creation, interpretation, contestation, and stabilisation of meaning, shape the understanding of organisational action, reputation, trust, and social legitimacy.
The general definition establishes the nature and social purpose of public relations. The definition of PR 4.0 identifies a new theoretical paradigm, its dominant object of management, and the interpretative mechanisms through which that purpose is realised.
7. Concise Theoretical Formulation
The overall logic of the new definition can be summarised in several interconnected propositions:
Public relations is not merely a communication process but a strategic and interpretative one.
Organisations communicate not only through messages but also through decisions, actions, and social conduct.
Publics are not passive recipients but active participants in creating and interpreting meaning.
Meaning is not transmitted in a predetermined form but emerges through interaction between an organisation and its publics.
Mutual understanding develops through the creation, interpretation, and stabilisation of meaning.
Relationships, reputation, trust, and legitimacy depend on the meanings that publics attribute to organisational conduct.
An organisation can help shape meaning, but it cannot fully control how it is interpreted.
Meaning management is legitimate only when grounded in truthfulness, responsibility, dialogue, and actual organisational conduct.
The ultimate purpose of public relations is not to control publics but to develop understanding and responsibly align organisational and societal interests.
The central proposition connecting the original definition, the new definition, and the PR 4.0 paradigm can be stated as follows:
Public relations rests on mutual understanding, but mutual understanding rests on meaning. Meaning management therefore becomes the new central dimension of contemporary public relations.