The Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), the UK-based organisation that operates in 48 countries around the world, has published a new definition of public relations following a consultation with its membership and industry leaders.
The consultation, undertaken in January 2026, was prompted by a recognition that many existing definitions no longer reflect the realities of modern practice. Too often, public relations is still understood primarily as media relations or publicity, rather than as a strategic discipline that supports organisational performance, decision-making and long-term trust.
Public relations is defined in brief by the PRCA as the strategic management discipline that builds trust, enhances reputation and helps leaders interpret complexity and manage volatility – delivering measurable outcomes including stakeholder confidence, long-term value creation and commercial growth.
The new definition reflects the role of today’s practitioners as strategic advisors, helping organisations navigate complexity, manage risk, build relationships with stakeholders and operate responsibly in a fast-changing environment.
At the end of 2025 I was asked by a UK-based client if we were to continue calling ourselves a Public Relations agency, in light of the fact that we offer additional services such as digital, website and marketing, and that many UK agencies are dropping the ‘PR’ in favour of broad spectrum terminology such as ‘change-makers’. Sir Martin Sorell, WPP Founder, stated on BBC Radio 4 in December, that “there’s no such thing as PR anymore” and I couldn’t disagree further. As I ranted to our overseas client, Public Relations has never been more important than it is right now.
As AI continues to takeover and replace traditional advertising practices, and the rise of disinformation, distrust and fake news, it’s the role of PR agencies to offer strategic counsel and leadership. We can advise our clients on how they behave responsibly, use their voices and brands to showcase best practice, encouraging others to follow suit. Our roles have evolved beyond traditional PR, beyond ‘fannying around with press releases’ as Bridget Jones once put it.
We have direct lines into the leaders, the real changemakers. We advise, we strategise and we shape. We offer honesty, transparency, insights, and no-frills advice. We are not the ‘yes people’, we’re the ‘why and why not’ people.
So, when we undertook our recent Harris PR rebrand, and looked at the name, the logo and the title, we made a very deliberate decision to put the PR in the very centre or our brand, to fully represent the work we do.
Our roles will continue to evolve. As shaky as the world is, one thing I know for sure, is that there is a future for Public Relations, and PR is the future.
Keep reading for the extended definition of Public Relations from the PRCA.
Public relations (PR) is the strategic management discipline which enhances reputation, improves brand value, builds culture and enables organisations and individuals to achieve and maintain legitimacy with stakeholders and the public.
Grounded in ethical practice, public relations builds the trust on which organisational and personal performance and lifetime customer and shareholder value depend.
Through board advisory related to futures and foresights work, data and insights, stakeholder mapping and engagement, public affairs, risk preparedness, crisis management and more, the function’s value lies in supporting leaders to reduce uncertainty, interpret complexity and manage volatility.
PR delivers credible two-way engagement that shapes perception, informs decision-making, supports behaviour change, builds commercial revenues and creates societal and economic impact. At its core, it works with organisations and individuals to create strong and healthy relationships with the people and groups affecting their ability to function, grow and succeed.
While this has been developed for and by the PRCA community, other PR practitioners and bodies are welcome to use our definition with appropriate attribution.
Principles Underpinning the PRCA’s New Definition
- Relationship-centred, not output-focused
The practice is fundamentally about cultivating meaningful relationships rather than producing discrete deliverables. Press releases, media coverage and content are means to an end – not the end itself. Success is measured by the strength, durability and mutual benefit of stakeholder relationships delivering tangible commercial, economic and societal impact.
- Earned credibility as the primary currency
In an environment where attention can be purchased but trust cannot, contemporary public relations prioritises earning credibility through consistent behaviour, authentic behaviour, third-party endorsement and editorial scrutiny. The discipline recognises that audiences process paid messages through a filter of scepticism, making earned trust the most valuable and defensible asset an organisation can possess. It counters misinformation and ensures content is factchecked, balanced and fair.
- Strategic counsel at the highest level
Modern public relations operates as a strategic function that informs individual and organisational decision-making at the board and executive level. Through ethical advice that can be trusted and constructive challenge, practitioners serve as reputation custodians who help leaders determine not only what to say and how to say it, but whether to speak at all – and who anticipate consequences across all stakeholder groups before actions are taken. Wider interests are factored into thinking, such as the environment, marginalised groups, future generations and more.
- Two-way engagement, not one-way broadcasting
Effective practice balances storytelling with listening. It involves deep engagement, consultation and the development of emergent strategy through genuine collaboration with stakeholders. Audiences are recognised as active participants with agency and voice, not passive recipients of messaging.
- Multi-stakeholder orientation
The discipline extends far beyond consumer marketing to encompass the full ecosystem of relationships essential for individual and organisational success: employee engagement, internal communication, investor relations, community relations, government affairs, regulatory engagement and broader societal licence to operate. It addresses the priorities of the entire leadership team – not merely the marketing function.
- Navigating complexity and managing risk
Contemporary practice equips individuals and organisations to operate in an environment characterised by geopolitical uncertainty, political polarisation, technological disruption and the rapid spread of misinformation. It encompasses crisis preparedness, issues management, scenario planning and the capacity to respond with agility when reputational threats emerge.
- Platform-agnostic storytelling
While rooted in traditional earned media, modern public relations creates and distributes credible content across owned, shared and earned channels – including websites, podcasts, social platforms, creator partnerships and direct community engagement. The discipline adapts storytelling to context while maintaining narrative coherence and authenticity.
- Shaping the information ecosystem
As artificial intelligence increasingly mediates how information is discovered and consumed, public relations plays a critical role in ensuring individuals and organisations are represented accurately and authoritatively in AI-generated outputs. This requires building a robust, trustworthy presence that algorithms recognise, cite and recommend.
- Long-term value over short-term noise
The practice rejects the notion that success comes from “flooding the internet with content.” Instead, it prioritises strategic, high-quality engagement that builds cumulative reputational equity over time. One credible, well-placed message delivered to the right audience at the right moment outweighs a volume of forgettable content.
- Grounded in insight and evidence
Contemporary practice is enhanced by data, research and continuous environmental scanning. Underpinned by good data literacy, it employs stakeholder mapping, sentiment analysis, media monitoring and performance measurement to guide strategy, demonstrate value and refine approaches based on evidence rather than intuition alone.
Sonia Harris Pope, Founder & MD, 12th February 2026
