symmetry, contingency, complexity: accommodating uncertainty in public relations theory

Priscilla Murphy

Symmetry,Contingency,Complexity:AccommodatingUncertainty in PublicRelations TheoryABSTRACT: This article explores the potential of complexitytheory as a unifying theory in public relations, where scholarshave recently raised problems involving flux, uncertainty, adap-tiveness, and loss of control. Complexity theory refers to thestudy of many individual actors who interact locally in an effort toadapt to their immediate situation, thereby forming large-scalepatterns that affect an entire society, often unpredictably anduncontrollably.

Five characteristics of complexity theory render it partic-ularly useful to explore central questions in public relations, suchas power and accommodation, shifting perceptions and images,and problems with public relations models’ predictiveness. Thesefive characteristics are adaptivity, nonlinearity, coevolution,punctuated equilibrium, and self-organization. The article de-scribes specific complexity-based methodologies and their poten-tial for public relations studies, focusing on data- and agent-basedmodeling.

Priscilla Murphy is associate dean for Research and Grad-uate Programs at the School of Communications and Theater,Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Public Relations Review, 26(4):447–462 Copyright © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc.ISSN: 0363-8111 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Common sense would dictate that the more we knowabout a subject, the more stable and certain our views of it would be. However,public relations has often defied this principle: the more we know about this field,the less decided its underlying precepts appear to be. The late 1990s in particularwitnessed a recrudescence of uncertainty, even as the field appeared to be stabiliz-ing around a generally agreed-on set of guidelines that govern strategic relation-ships between organizations and their publics. This article explores that new un-certainty in public relations theory and proposes, not a resolution, but some waysin which public relations theory and research methods might build on uncertainty,notably through complexity theory.

To one degree or another, all public relations theories concern themselveswith change and uncertainty, but the emphasis they give to instability varies alonga wide spectrum. Many scholars would consider J. Grunig’s symmetry theory to beparticularly oriented toward stability, if not permanence, because it seeks to createand maintain relationships that balance self-interest with the interests of others.Even so, symmetry involves not static consensus but a “moving equilibrium” thatengages “the more process-oriented experience of collaboration,”1 a mutable formof balance that is always subject to revision.

Still other approaches to public relations veer away from balance altogetherand toward the piecemeal, the nonrational, the argumentative, and the irresolv-able. Recent public relations theories often seem preoccupied by disorder, tran-sience, power shifts, and the interplay of multiple variables. For example, Williamsand Moffitt saw organizational image making as a shifting, recursive processwhereby “one image can emerge as strong at one moment in time, and another,contrasting image can emerge as dominant at a different moment in time becauseof the multiple and contradictory factors involved” in the audience’s processing oforganizational traits.2 These factors may include environmental, personal, social,and business considerations. More generally, Mickey placed public relations in thecontext of French postmodernism, as a variable construct of images devoid ofobjective reality, but functioning as “a cultural artifact with political or economicreality for the individual in the culture.”3

Both Vasquez4 and Botan and Soto5 also conceived of public relations as anunstable, recurrent process whereby an organization and its publics negotiatemeaning. They argued that an organization does not enjoy special powers toimpose its interpretation of the world because “the public is the locus of thesignification process,” and meaning “is not an attribute of the message or in thedomain of the message designer.”6 Rather, meaning is constituted through dy-namic exchange between sender and receiver, organization and public. Using asimilar metaphor of competing interpretations, Heath conceived of public rela-tions as an ongoing “wrangle in the marketplace,” an ongoing “democratic battlefor order on the part of corporate, nonprofit [including activist], and governmen-tal voices; each asserts a view of fact, value, policy, identification, and narrative thatcorrects and is corrected by other voices.”7

Taking the metaphor of competition even further, Berger asserted that“society may be organized not around consensus, which is pivotal in the symmet-

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rical approach, but rather around conflict and struggle.”8 He therefore definedpublic relations in terms of ideology, “as the intentional practices and processes ofrepresentation in complex sites to exchange information, construct and managemeaning, achieve consent, and win legitimation.”9 He pointed out that an ideo-logical world view is highly unstable and “always under construction” on a “terrainof struggle” that “indicates the competition and interplay for meaning betweendiffering world views, representation, and discourses in which ideologies and rep-resentations intersect our minds, social formations and cultures.”10

This same sense of transience and struggle undergirds Holtzhausen’s view ofpostmodern values in public relations, which insisted, “Public relations is aboutchange or resistance to change.”11 She envisioned postmodern society as a placewhere “people are continually transforming themselves,” and observed, “This willmake it very difficult for practitioners to set up permanent communication chan-nels and to build relationships that can lead to real understanding and mutualchange.”12 Instead, the postmodern public relations practitioner should “promoteand create situations in which new meaning is produced through difference andopposition.”13 In many ways, Holtzhausen’s view occupies the opposite side of thespectrum from Grunig’s, and yet in one way or another, all these theorists orientaround the notions of mutability, multifarious influences on image, and dynamicnegotiation over meaning that neither sender nor receiver can fully control.

Accompanying these concerns with control and mutability come concernsabout the haphazard. Variables that influence relationships do so intermittently,subject to chance and noise. Hence, under the rubric of contingency theory,Cameron and his associates argued that when public relations practitioners face achoice of how respond to audiences, “it depends.” That is, practitioners maybehave symmetrically in one situation and asymmetrically in another situationinvolving the same audience. Their choices may depend on ethical implications,what is at stake, beliefs about the audience’s credibility, and other variables. Cam-eron and his associates identified 80-some variables as “candidate factors that affectthe stance of an organization.”14

The idea of contingency, and the nomination of 80-plus possible variablesthat might determine strategic choice, lie at the more extreme end of theuncertainty-based theories that characterized the late 1990s. Above all, these newtheories depict public relations in terms of a universe of variables that interactsimultaneously and locally, eventually to overhaul relationships in global ways,ways that are often unpredictable. Testing these assumptions may require a shift inperspective, or at least an overhaul of our working models. What are we to do withsome seven dozen variables, a different subset of which may govern a decision ineach individual instance? Are models with a smaller and more manageable roster ofvariables valid? What role is played by traditional statistical analysis, in which thepart stands for the whole, when used to test a theory whose central features arenonlinearity, amplification, and open-endedness?

At its most extreme, the concept of flux presents public relations with thekind of inquiry that Lissack15 recently, and Churchman16 many years ago, calledwicked problems:

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“a class of social system problems which are ill formulated, where the informa-tion is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with con-flicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughlyconfusing.”17

In wicked problems (global warming is one example), the goal is not obvious, andthe way one formulates the problem is as significant as the way one answers it.

How, then, does one deal with “wicked problems,” with a shifting cast ofcharacters, a plethora of variables, some of which may be influential and some not,and a not-always-clear organizational objective? One way is to explore a theoreticalapproach that creates a central place for uncertainty and multiple variables. Theremainder of this article proposes an approach that sets uncertainty-based publicrelations theories within the larger framework of complexity theory. It then pro-poses using complexity-based methods to study precepts that govern communi-cation choices made by public relations strategists.

ORGANIZATIONAL/PUBLICRELATIONSHIPS AS COMPLEX ADAPTIVESYSTEMS

Because it is an emerging discipline, most writings aboutcomplexity begin with definitions and major precepts. Indeed, even the nomen-clature of the field is in flux. Complex systems are sometimes discussed in terms ofchaos theory, nonlinear dynamical systems theory, synergetics, or other terms, tohighlight different aspects of the systems.18 This article uses the term complexitytheory to emphasize the study of many individual actors who interact locally in aneffort to adapt to their immediate situation. These local adaptations, however,accumulate to form large-scale patterns that affect the greater society, often in waysthat could not have been anticipated.

Although some have seen stirrings of complexity theory in Aristotle’s works,most researchers view complexity as a very recent area of study. This is particularlytrue in communication, where few published articles have directly usedcomplexity-based concepts.19 These articles do a thorough job of explaining themajor precepts of chaos and complexity, along with their relevance to communi-cation. Therefore, rather than retrace others’ comprehensive discussions, this sec-tion will briefly highlight several factors about complexity theory that are especiallysuggestive in the context of public relations.

Complexity theory offers useful new perspectives on the field’s current pre-occupation with flux. But it is not a radical break with the theories just described.In fact, complexity theory uncovers common ground among these approaches toconflict and change. As the following five characteristics show, it is particularlyuseful in illuminating questions about power and accommodation and about thevagaries of reputation and image.


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Characteristic #1: Adaptivity Over Rationality

Complexity theory does not view the players as rational inthe sense that they do not make decisions based on a conscious strategy to maxi-mize their long-term gains. Rather, the players are adaptive, simply adjusting totheir immediate circumstances. They are essentially myopic pragmatists.20 Thisprecept counters our normative assumption, in public relations as in other strategicendeavors, that people make rational choices based on the long view. It mayexplain why people appear to behave symmetrically at some times and asymmetri-cally at other times: in other words, they adapt to situations as they find them. Toadopt a contingency theory term, public relations behavior and audience response“depend”—they depend on an ongoing series of decisions made to improve one’simmediate lot, which eventually evolve into larger patterns of social behavior.

Complexity theory’s observation that organizations behave adaptively iscompatible with the observation that organizations with excellent public relationsaccommodate their publics.21 What complexity theory also contributes is the ideathat both sides, organizations and publics, make decisions about how accommo-dative to be, based on a wide range of variables including trivial ones; they makethese decisions nonrationally and inconsistently, distracted by errors and noise; andthey make choices not once but repeatedly, working out a pattern of relationshipsover time, as much through instinct or guesswork as through strategy or self-consciousness. Eventually, from this complex process may emerge a stable state inwhich the demands of both sides achieve balance, comparable to the “movingequilibrium” of symmetrical public relations. However, complexity theory viewsthe emergence of a global equilibrium as a serendipitous, as well as temporary,phenomenon resulting from the local interactions of many separate agents, ratherthan realization of a conscious long-term strategy.

Characteristic #2: Nonlinearity

Outcomes are unpredictable because the effects of actionsleading to them are nonlinear, meaning that there is not necessarily a proportionalrelationship between an early decision and its consequent outcome. Indeed, com-plexity theory does not support the traditional linear concept of a public relationscampaign, with objectives, strategies, and tactics leading to planned changes.Public relations trade journals and management texts give ample evidence aboutthe limits of linearity, witnessed by case studies where the initial action yielded aminuscule or unanticipated outcome.

In hindsight, unpredictable outcomes make organizations look inept. How-ever, hindsight informed by complexity theory argues that outcomes involve vari-ables that organizations cannot necessarily control. For example, in 1992 theDepartment of Defense donated warm blankets to homeless shelters. This philan-thropic act elicited a media furor that focused on the nugatory lifetime cancer riskposed by the DDT-treated blankets rather than the much greater risk of freezing todeath overnight without the blankets.22 Possibly complexity governs types of crises


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identified by Coombs23 as “faux pas,” that is, crises that result from one public’staking offense at an organization’s well-intentioned actions. Complexity theorywould take some of the onus off the organization, viewing a “faux pas” crisis as anincidental interaction between variables whose result the organization could nothave anticipated.

Characteristic #3: Coevolution

Individual interactions coevolve: they are shaped by numer-ous variables such as norms, history, power, and resources. In fact, there are somany variables governing possible choices, along with a crucial element of chance,that potential interactions are almost limitlessly open-ended. Their componentagents are constantly adjusting to other individual agents, who in turn are adjust-ing to yet other agents, an unceasingly reflexive state. Factors in the externalenvironment further complicate these interactions. As a result, the decision contextchanges along with the decisions. Hence the history of a complex adaptive system“is characterized by cascades of events triggered by the disappearance of, or thebehavioral change in, one of the system’s entities.”24

To use a media relations analogy, we notice a coevolution effect in publicopinion and media coverage when events, unrelated by cause, occur close in time.The Coca Cola Company discovered this principle in mid-1999, when ill-tastingand foul-smelling chemicals were found in Coke coming out of two unrelatedbottling plants in Belgium and France. The resulting cascade of consumer alarm,media furor, and product recalls was amplified in part by the chance geographicaland temporal coincidence of the two rare, independent events. In addition, theCoke mishap followed close on the heels of a health scare in Belgium about animalfeed contaminated with the carcinogen dioxin, resulting in massive food recalls;and this furor may in turn have been amplified by scares about contracting madcow disease from British animal feed several years earlier.25 Coverage of the Cokemishap was thus deformed by coevolution in the public opinion environmentbecause of prior media coverage of mad cow disease and dioxin in Belgian animalfeed. As Rosenau, aided by complexity theory, pointed out, “we now know thathistory is not one damn thing after another so much as it is many damn thingssimultaneously.”26

Indeed, complex interactions may affect media coverage more than mostmanagements realize. For example, Glascock found that media coverage of thebreakup of AT&T in 1982 was not really swayed by the massive efforts of thecompany’s public relations staff. Instead, he found that

AT&T sources. . .played a fairly insignificant role in the perception of thestory. . . . A combination of factors besides the company’s public relationscampaign—the past history of consent decrees, the threat of competition withthe media, and positive analyses by market insiders, among them—may haveplayed a role in this.27

Traditionally, we might study this process under the rubric of media agenda settingand information subsidies, approaches that imply control. Complexity theory


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would take a slightly different twist, focusing on the serendipitous interactionamong variables that resulted in unintended consequences, whether they sup-ported the company’s desired image (AT&T) or harmed it (Coke in Europe).

Over all, coevolution models open one avenue for exploring the changeful-ness and uncertainty recently noted by public relations theorists. For example,Williams and Moffitt’s study of corporate image could equally well describe acomplexity study: “multi-directional. . .changeable and even potentially contra-dictory, made up of variables that can be strong or weak, positive or neutral ornegative, intended or unintended, and important or unimportant.”28 Berger’sstudy of public relations efforts surrounding the drug Halcion featured the samesense of shifting perceptions and situated it in the tradition of modern socialtheorists like Althusser, Gramsci, Habermas, and Hall.29 Holtzhausen’s study ofpublic relations values invoked the postmodernists Baudrillard, Foucault, andLyotard to argue for “the loss of a single truth” amid the diverse realities posed by“people with different ethnic, cultural, social, class, and economic frames of refer-ence.”30 Complexity theory similarly situates public relations in the context of alarger movement in the social sciences toward uncertainty studies. Complexity hasa coherent structure, but it depends on relentlessly shifting variables as essentialcomponents of an overall scheme.

The principles of nonlinearity and coevolution provide us, among otherthings, with a model for the tendency of issues to cascade out of control.31 Forexample, one notorious benchmark for poor crisis management is Intel’s 1994decision to handle the growing furor over its faulty Pentium chip by conceding aslittle as possible at each step. In fact, the crisis unfolded as a complex systemwhereby at each step Intel adapted locally, first to a math professor’s discovery ofthe chip flaws, then to each widening circle of media coverage and consumerconcern about flawed chips, right up to the rejection of Intel by its partner IBM.32

As the crisis spread, Intel’s myopic pragmatism interacted with other stakeholders’equally local tactics in ways that amplified the outcome out of all proportion to theoriginal intent. In Intel’s case, it took a far-from-linear combination of chip flaws,a math professor’s unusual research project, intersecting internet bulletin boards,a Web site visit by a reporter with the stature to spread the story among othermedia—all interlarded with elements of chance—to produce major marketingproblems, and culminate in an expensive recall accompanied by a plummetingcompany reputation.

Characteristic #4: Punctuated Equilibria

Intel’s problem illustrates a fourth important feature ofcomplex systems: they follow patterns of punctuated equilibrium. They tend toorganize into fairly stable periods that are ruptured, often unpredictably, by peri-ods of turmoil, which in turn subside into new stable periods where radicallydifferent values may prevail. In public relations terms, for example, a crisis mayinitiate a period of confusion in media coverage, followed by the emergence of anew reputation for the organization that underwent the crisis. Hence NASA,


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bastion of “the right stuff,” emerged after the confusion of the Challenger disasteras a bureaucracy that could do nothing right, plagued by launchpad explosions,off-trajectory spacecraft, and faulty space telescopes.33 For similar reasons, onecould not forecast that unprecedented media fallout from the mildly flawed Pen-tium chip would bring Intel to the brink of financial ruin. In fact, one could notanticipate the subsequent re-reversal of Intel’s damaged reputation, as withinseveral years it regained its reputation for technological wizardry.34

Characteristic #5: Self-Organization

Many complex systems have the ability to self-organize, toevolve a new order out of manifold interactions among their component individualactors. True self-organization is a process that the system carries out through itsown energy, rather than merely obeying perturbations from outside entities; itemerges from interactions among lower-level components; it emphasizes learningand adaptation.35 Often, interrelated sets of systems emerge from these interac-tions whereby increasingly complex groups arise from less-elaborate ones. Hence,Thomas Schelling, one of the first to examine complexity theory from a socialscience perspective, viewed the theory in terms of “micromotives,” or individualrules of behavior, that eventually amounted to “macrobehavior,” or societal pat-terns.36

Not all complex systems have the ability to self-organize. To do so, systemsneed to be nonlinear. They need to operate in far-from-equilibrium conditions,where customary constraints loosen and random noise occurs, consisting of smallbut frequent aberrations from the expected that may become incorporated as thesystem evolves. However, systems cannot self-organize effectively without someparameters as well. To avoid flying apart altogether, they need some form ofinternal redundancy in the form of attitudes, expectations, and behaviors. Theyrequire some sort of constraint, “boundaries. . .firm enough to contain the processof self-organization, yet permeable enough to allow a vital exchange with theenvironment”37—a system constraint that some researchers refer to as an “attrac-tor.”

To illustrate with an analogy, students of crisis communication often notethat faced with the original Tylenol poisonings in 1982, Johnson & Johnson tookseveral measures that later proved crucial to its survival. First, it established someparameters—a kind of system constraint—by determining that its corporate credo,which gave priority to needs of the medical community and customers, wouldinform all its responses. Second, it ceded control of the poisoning investigation topublic officials operating in partnership with internal tactical crisis teams.38 Fromthe standpoint of complexity theory, Johnson & Johnson survived its crisis becauseit adapted to, rather than sought to control, a rapidly changing news environment,while its underlying credo defined orderly limits for its actions. In public relationsforums, this behavior is symmetrical; in complexity terms, it is a fortuitous localadaptation.

As even these few examples indicate, public relations as a complex phenom-


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enon does not violate other public relations theories so much as it augments thosetheories’ concerns with change, power, and strategy. Complexity theory doesbring to the fore some principles for understanding public relations behaviors thatwere more or less inherent in other approaches. First, with complexity theory wedo not expect that the players will be rational, and therefore we regard behavior,whether accommodative or manipulative, corporate or activist, as a form of localadaptation rather than an expression of long-term strategies or worldviews. Sec-ond, we base analyses on a shifting universe of simultaneous variables that influencepublic relations behavior in a way that makes cause and effect difficult to identify.Third, because of this shifting reality we look for overall patterns of behavior ratherthan isolated variables or highly specified instances that may not reflect the wholeprocess. Fourth, we keep in mind the possibility that decision A does not leadproportionally to outcome B. Fifth, we shift our view of the locus of control. Publicrelations theorists often disagree about the appropriate center of analysis:persuasion-based approaches tend to focus on the organization, whereas accom-modative approaches focus more on the audience. However, because complexitytheory studies interactions, its units of analysis do not involve individuals or singlevariables as much as the simultaneous interaction of multiple variables, especiallythe degree of change, between the organization and its publics, informed bychance and noise.

Coke, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, and NASA are well-known instances ofpublic relations problems that exhibit the characteristics of complex systems, butthey are far from unique. In fact, most other public relations situations could bemodeled with the same principles. The following section offers a few examples ofspecific methods for applying the study of complex systems to public relations.

THE SHAPE OF COMPLEXITY-BASEDPUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH

Researchers can be put off by the uncertainties inherent incomplex adaptive systems and the challenges of modeling them. An especiallydisputed issue is the extent to which complexity theory can meaningfully be im-ported from the physical sciences to the social sciences. In the past, the theory’susefulness seemed limited to metaphor, and it was not always clear that suchmetaphors were rigorous enough to rise above pop culture or new age manage-ment thinking. For example, Goldberg and Markoczy decried the “muddled rhet-oric” and “misinterpretations of management scholars” brought about by themetaphorical use of complexity theory and sought to show that game theory couldfill the same functions as complexity theory.39 Albert cautioned against “the risk ofscientism, ‘the blind application of the tools of the hard sciences to the study ofsociety, disregarding the distinctive characteristics of human action.’ ”40 Kellertcriticized the loose metaphorical use of complexity theory and urged scholars to“get the science right, since a misinterpretation of a theory or mistaken use of a


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scientific term may render fallacious any attempt to draw out the implications ofnonlinear dynamics.”41

At the same time, many complexity theorists have recognized that evenmetaphor can prove valuable in suggesting new approaches to social problems.Hence Kellert argued that although metaphorical extension

can be misused, sometimes grievously it also has a respectable use. . .The in-sights of linear Newtonian physics have sometimes proven useful for concep-tualizing human social change. If these uses are legitimate, then reconceptionsof the physical world can legitimately lead us to rethink our picture of how tounderstand the social world.42

Currently, complexity theory has moved well beyond metaphor. There nowexist a range of rigorous methods for conducting complexity-based research oninteractions between publics in a social system. Overall, two complexity-basedresearch approaches appear to have substantial potential for public relations issues.One approach, used in the prior sections of this article, involves qualitative inter-pretation by applying the principles of complex systems to unexpected, unin-tended, or unwanted public relations outcomes. A second complexity-based re-search approach uses a wide range of computer simulations. This approach couldbe data based, using computers to explore the ramifications of empirically deriveddata, or it could be agent based, using artificial agents to simulate features of socialinteraction.43 The following section offers several examples of complexity-basedresearch methods that appear highly relevant to public relations studies and meritfurther development.

Data-based computer simulations have been particularly good at modelingthe influence of new information on attitude change. For example, Goertzel andGoertzel considered audience responses to the testimony of Anita Hill and Clar-ence Thomas. They modeled underlying attitude schemas in terms of attractors, aset of parameters that define the extent and type of disorganization that a systemcan experience.44 They hypothesized that the pressure of evidence would eventu-ally puncture existing attitudinal equilibria and would bring about radical attitu-dinal change, “an abrupt crumbling of the attractor and a regrouping of beliefsunder an alternative attractor.”45 Going beyond this metaphorical level, theyspecified the hypothesized dynamics of subjects’ belief systems in mathematicalterms and studied the interactions between elements of these belief systems in acomputer simulation that was later confirmed through more traditional means,surveys and content analysis. Obviously, the ability to model opinions emergingfrom a given group of stakeholders has both theoretical and practical value inpublic relations. Researchers might adapt such data-based simulations to concep-tualize how a particular public’s attitudes self-organize around key pieces of infor-mation to perpetuate, or suddenly transform, the position of an organization or anissue. Modeling the dynamics of public opinion would open a useful angle on bothreputational disorders and issue management problems.

Another approach to data-based simulation is the application of logistic regres-


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sion to time series data to model nonlinear changes in social behavior over time. Suchanalysis may forecast the direction, speed, and even the turbulence of future changes;it has been shown to closely fit social phenomena, such as single-mother births, drugabuse, or crime levels.46 The same technique might also identify the underlying struc-ture of public relations problems that take on the dynamic of a collective groundswellof opinion, independent of actions to influence it. Hence the logistic model might plotthe trajectory of media coverage of an industry or issue. It might establish patternsunderlying reputational trends that seem impervious to specific events, such as BillGates’ declining reputation or Michael Milken’s rising star. Because logistic regressionemploys time as a variable, this type of analysis might elucidate why some organiza-tions’ reputation can change literally overnight, while others change slowly. Finally,such a model could potentially guide proactive interventions that help to ameliorateunstable behavior in the future.47

The logistic model is well adapted to capture the dynamics of change, adevolution into disorder. Other data-based complexity models are best at captur-ing the evolution of consensus. Particularly promising are studies that use networkanalysis to study factors that influence self-organization into a new order. Forexample, Koehler48 and Comfort49 both used network analysis to study disasterrecovery by organizations that had been disoriented by natural calamities. Theyshowed that organizational stability after a period of confusion is likely to dependon specific indicators of connectedness among the various organizations in-volved.50 Public relations studies might apply this model to entire industries, suchas tobacco or chemicals, that are trying to stabilize a post-crisis reputation in arapidly changing public opinion climate, examining the indicators that stabilizesuccessful or unsuccessful industry players. Like logistic regression, network anal-ysis might also model the dynamics of reputation, finding patterns in the reputa-tional vagaries of public figures, for example, or identifying indicators that helpedJohnson & Johnson and Intel to recover their reputations after crises, whereasExxon’s and NASA’s reputations self-organized into a radically different image.

These complexity-based studies all use empirical data to study patternsunderlying massive attitude change. Another approach uses agent-based computersimulation, where the researcher specifies initial properties for how individualplayers are to interact, then observes the global outcome after simulating a series ofinteractions through a computer program.51

Agent-based modeling premised on complexity theory has already suggesteda number of interesting postulates about human behavior that have considerablerelevance to public relations. One particularly promising area involves the evolu-tion of consensus or cooperation. For example, agent-based models have sug-gested that entities—people, nations, or business firms—do not appear to collab-orate based on long-term strategic considerations. Instead, they form allianceswith others who are simply most similar to them. These local, myopic allianceseventually form large-scale patterns with important social implications.52 In publicrelations studies, such simulation could prove useful in understanding the dynam-ics of many alliances that affect organizations, whether the alliances involve activistgroups, pack journalism, or trade associations. For example, agent-based simula-


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tions could model interactions between entities that often compete in issueforums—activist publics, corporations, and government—studying the effects ofmoral, financial, or political resources on the competition. Agent-based simula-tions could also establish principles about the evolution of homogenous mediacoverage after a destabilizing crisis. They could also model the effect of industrysolidarity versus defections during a controversy, such as recent public statementsby tobacco industry executives concerning the addictiveness of nicotine.

These methodological approaches represent only a fraction of a growing num-ber of complexity-based studies, but their relevance to public relations should be clear.In particular, these often unconventional methods create a central place for concernsabout local power, global dominance, and change. Such methods, therefore, offerhighly appropriate tools to study “postmodern public relations,” which is “more aphilosophy of the immediate than a project toward the ideal state of society.”53 Post-modernists would claim that local actions bring about “fundamental change in soci-ety”;54 complexity theorists would make the same claim by saying that local actions are“micromotives” that effect societal patterns, or “macrobehaviors.”55

As useful as the insights of complexity theory are, it offers anything but apanacea for uncertainty. In fact, “the more one appreciates [its] contradictions andaccepts the ambiguities, the greater will be the uncertainty one experiences.”56 Forone thing, complexity-based analyses cannot predict the precise shape or timing offuture events, although complex models can offer interesting propositions aboutwhy events unfold as they do. Reflecting on a similar problem, Axelrod situatedagent-based modeling as “a third way of doing science” that is neither deductionnor induction. Rather, its purpose is to “aid intuition” and “deepen our under-standing of fundamental processes,” such as social attributes that shape competi-tion, loyalty, cooperation, and culture.57

Although social scientists traditionally aspire to reasonable certainty, com-plexity theory tells us that certainty is elusive and transient, and we should notworry about this inconclusiveness. By considering the transitory, uncertain, pro-cessual nature of relationships between the organization and its publics, currentpublic relations researchers acknowledge the “wicked problems” of the field.58 Forpublic relations researchers, one important lesson of complexity is that circum-stances can probably be influenced (though not fully controlled), and our influencewill be more effective if we cultivate nonlinear models and focus on the mutualadaptation of many components rather than the role of a few components. Post-modernists urge such ceding of control on ideological grounds; complexity theo-rists advocate it as a result of empirical observations.

CONCLUSIONS

This article offers a far-from-exhaustive account of com-plexity theory, its postulates, or its associated methods, particularly with referenceto the social sciences. Still, it is hoped that even these few examples show com-plexity theory’s potential to produce substantial insights into public relations con-


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cepts. This article sought to lay a foundation for these future applications in threeways. First, it has argued that the preoccupations of current public relations theory,such as transience, power, ideology, and accommodation, are equally central tocomplexity theory, so that both fields are highly compatible on the level of theory.Second, it has argued that the relevance of complexity theory to public relationsgoes well beyond the level of metaphor. In that respect, the paper summarized anumber of postulates about social behaviors derived from complexity theory andindicated their relevance to specific public relations problems that could be ex-plored in future studies. Third, it has described several quantitative complexity-based research methods with which public relations problems could be modeledand tested. Possibly such studies would show that our field itself has come tobehave as a complex system, where interplay among multiple, related theoriesproduces a coherent over-all pattern.

NOTES

1. James E. Grunig, “Collectivism, Collaboration, and Societal Corporatism as CoreProfessional Values in Public Relations,” Journal of Public Relations Research 12(2000), pp. 23–48.

2. Sheryl L. Williams and Mary Anne Moffitt, “Corporate Image as an ImpressionFormation Process: Prioritizing Personal, Organizational, and Environmental Audi-ence Factors,” Journal of Public Relations Research 9 (1997), p. 241.

3. Thomas J. Mickey, “A Postmodern View of Public Relations: Sign and Reality,”Public Relations Review 23 (1997), p. 273.

4. Gabriel Vasquez, “Public Relations as Negotiation: An Issue Development Perspec-tive,” Journal of Public Relations Research 8 (1996), pp. 57–77.

5. Carl H. Botan and Francisco Soto, “A Semiotic Approach to the Internal Functioningof Publics: Implications for Strategic Communication and Public Relations,” PublicRelations Review 24 (1998), pp. 21–44.

6. Ibid, pp. 36–38.7. Robert L. Heath, “A Rhetorical Perspective on the Values of Public Relations: Cross-

roads and Pathways Toward Concurrence,” Journal of Public Relations Research 12(2000), p. 75.

8. Bruce K. Berger, “The Halcion Affair: Public Relations and the Construction of Ideo-logical World View,” Journal of Public Relations Research 11 (1999), pp. 188–189.

9. Ibid, p. 200.10. Ibid, p. 193.11. Derina R. Holtzhausen, “Postmodern Values in Public Relations,” Journal of Public

Relations Research 12 (2000), p. 110.12. Ibid, pp. 103, 102.13. Ibid, p. 107.14. Amanda E. Cancel, Glen T. Cameron, Lynne M. Sallot, and Michael A. Mitrook, “It

Depends: A Contingency Theory of Accommodation in Public Relations,” Journal ofPublic Relations Research 9 (1997), p. 33; see also Amanda E. Cancel, Michael A.Mitrook, and Glen T. Cameron, “Testing The Contingency Theory of Accommoda-tion in Public Relations,” Public Relations Review 25 (1999), pp. 171–197.


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15. Michael R. Lissack, “Complexity: The Science, Its Vocabulary, and Its Relation toOrganizations,” Emergence 1 (1999), pp. 110–126.

16. C. West Churchman, “Wicked Problems,” Management Science 14 (1967), pp.B141–B142.

17. Ibid, p. B141.18. Strictly speaking, complexity theory and chaos theory are slightly different fields.

Goldberg and Markoczy defined the differences thus: “The study of chaos generallyinvolves the study of extremely simple non-linear systems which lead to extremelycomplicated behavior, and complexity is generally about the [simple] interactions ofmany things [often repeated] leading to higher level patterns.” See Jeffrey Goldbergand Livia Markoczy, “Complex Rhetoric and Simple Games,” presentation at the1998 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Organizational TheoryGroup, p. 4. Chaos theory—often the favored term in sciences such as biology,physics, and mathematics—aids in studying and making predictions from nonlineardynamical systems. By contrast, complexity theory “is really about how a systemwhich is complicated [usually by having many interactions] can lead to surprisingpatterns when the system is looked at as a whole” (Goldberg and Markoczy, op. cit.,pp. 4–5). For a good discussion of various other terms for complex systems, as well asa lucid history of the idea of emergence, particularly during the late 19th and early20th centuries, see Jeffrey Goldstein, “Emergence as a Construct: History and Is-sues,” Emergence 1 (1999), pp. 49–72.

19. See Laura P. Cottone, “The Perturbing Worldview of Chaos: Implications for PublicRelations,” Public Relations Review 19 (1993), pp. 173–174; David McKie, “ShiftingParadigms: Public Relations Beyond Rats, Stats, and 1950s Science,” AustralianJournal of Communication 24 (1997), pp. 81–96; Priscilla Murphy, “Chaos Theoryas a Model for Managing Issues and Crises,” Public Relations Review 22 (1996), pp.95–113; Kim Witte, Gary Meyer, Helen Bidol, Mary K. Casey, Jenifer Kopfman,Karen Maduschke, Alicia Marshall, Kelly Morrison, Kurt M. Ribisl, and Steve Rob-bins, “Bringing Order to Chaos: Communication and Health,” CommunicationStudies 47 (1996), pp. 229–242.

20. In contrast to rational actors, Axelrod characterized adaptive actors as follows:“[Adaptive] individuals are assumed to follow simples rules [that] are not necessarilyderivable from any principles of rational calculation based upon costs and benefits, orforward-looking strategic analysis. . .Instead, the agents simply adapt to their envi-ronment.” See Robert M. Axelrod, The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Mod-els of Competition and Collaboration (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1997), p. 153.

21. E.g., James E. Grunig, Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Manage-ment (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992).

22. “Defense Department Finds Some of Its Wool Blankets and Uniforms Contain DDT:Provides Guidance to Public and Military Services,” news release from the Depart-ment of Public Affairs, Department of Defense (November 16, 1992); “Some Mili-tary Surplus Blankets Tainted with DDT,” News, Cable News Network, Inc. [CNN].Transcript #254-3 (December 12, 1992).

23. W. Timothy Coombs, “Choosing the Right Words: The Development of Guidelinesfor the Selection of ‘Appropriate’ Crisis-Response Strategies,” Management Commu-nication Quarterly 8 (1995), pp. 447–476.

24. Alain Albert, “Chaos and Society: An Introduction,” in A. Albert (ed.), Chaos andSociety (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1995), p. 3.


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25. J. R. Hagerty and N. Deogun, “Coke Scrambles to Contain a Scare In Europe,” TheWall Street Journal (June 17, 1999), pp. B-1, B-4.

26. James N. Rosenau, “Many Damn Things Simultaneously: Complexity Theory andWorld Affairs,” Paper presented at the Conference on Complexity, Global Politics,and National Security, sponsored by the National Defense University and the RANDCorporation, November 1996, Washington, D.C., p. 8.

27. Jack Glascock, “The Role of AT&T’s Public Relations Campaign in Press Coverage ofthe 1982 Breakup,” Public Relations Review 26 (2000), pp. 80–81.

28. Op. cit., p. 255.29. Op. cit., pp. 185–203.30. Op. cit., p. 96.31. Op. cit., pp. 96–113.32. See Otto Lerbinger, The Crisis Manager: Facing Risk And Responsibility (Mahwah,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), pp. 37–38.33. Op. cit., pp. 106–107.34. A similar instance of unpredictable coevolution in international politics was discussed

by Schofield: “Who could have guessed in 1989 that the events in the U.S.S.R. wouldlead to the unification of Germany, to interest rate choices by the Deutschbank, toextraordinary exchange rate speculation against the sterling. . .to the possible demiseof the EMU, maybe to violent disagreements over GATT? It is also entirely possiblethat the initial events have had something to do with the recent Israel-PLO accord(many new immigrants to Israel from Eastern Europe, increased votes for the LaborParty, etc.). . .Since it is impossible to know what the triggering mechanisms are incomplex collective choice situations, causal relationships must generally be obscure.”See Norman Schofield, “Chaos or Equilibrium in a Political Economy,” in A. Albert(ed.), Chaos and Society (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1995), p. 206.

35. Goldstein, op. cit., pp. 49–72.36. Thomas Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior (New York: Norton, 1978).37. Op. cit., p. 59.38. See Lerbinger, op. cit., pp. 148–150.39. Goldberg and Markoczy, op. cit., pp. 2, 21.40. Op. cit., p. 1.41. Stephen H. Kellert, “When Is the Economy Not Like the Weather? The Problem of

Extending Chaos Theory to the Social Sciences,” in A. Albert (ed.), Chaos and Society(Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1995), p. 44.

42. Ibid, pp. 40–41. For more complete discussions of the use of metaphor in the scienceof complexity, see the following: Alan D. Beyerchen, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity andthe Importance of Imagery,” in D. Alberts and T. J. Czerwinski (eds.), Complexity,Global Politics and National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University,1997), pp. 161–62, 167–68. [Online]. [Available: http://www.dodccrp.org]; Lis-sack, op. cit.; and M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science At the Edgeof Order and Chaos (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1992).

43. See Albert, op. cit., p. 9.44. Although many people view attractors as “magnets” around which systems organize

themselves, they instead represent boundaries beyond which systems do not go.Hence Michaels (1995) defined an attractor as “a graphic representation of potentialsystem behaviors over time. . .a definition of the system boundaries [our potentiali-ties]” (pp. 22–23).

45. Ted Goertzel and Ben Goertzel, “Attitudes as Chaotic Attractors: Rethinking the


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Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas Affair,” in A. Albert (ed.), Chaos and Society (Amster-dam: IOS Press, 1995), p. 154.

46. Specifically, Priesmeyer (1995) used the logistic equation to produce a “map” thatcompared x-axis data, showing the internal activity level of a particular system, withk-axis data, showing the degree of stability in the external environment. See H.Richard Priesmeyer, “Logistic Regression: A Method for Describing, Interpreting,and Forecasting Social Phenomenon [sic] with Nonlinear Equations,” in A. Albert(ed.), Chaos and Society (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1995), pp. 329–338. Among otherthings, “The logistic map shows that the opportunity for true system change is built intothe system, but. . .only when the system is operating in ‘far from equilibrium condi-tions’ does the opportunity for change exist” (H. Richard Priesmeyer and E. Cole,“Nonlinear Analysis of Disaster Response Data,” Paper presented at the “What Di-saster Response Management Can Learn From Chaos Theory” Conference, Califor-nia Research Bureau (May 18–19, 1995). [Online]. [Available: http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/96/05.html]

47. However, this idea needs qualification. Conceptually, crisis points in complex systemsare elastic—that is, their impact may be moderated by beginning to adapt before theactual crisis occurs. Yet this “corrective action does not mean planning the outcomeof the change. It means increasing positive feedback into the system so the change isless catastrophic.” See Mark Michaels, “Seven Fundamentals of Complexity for SocialScience Research,” in A. Albert (ed.), Chaos and Society (Amsterdam: IOS Press,1995), p. 25.

48. Gus A. Koehler, “Fractals and Path Dependent Processes: A Theoretical Approach forCharacterizing Emergency Medical Responses to Major Disasters,” in Proceedings of theSociety for Chaos Theory in Psychology (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995).

49. Louise Comfort, Self Organization in Disaster Response And Recovery: The Maharash-tra, India Earthquake Of September 30, 1993 (Natural Hazards Center, University ofColorado at Boulder, March 23, 1995).

50. For example, Comfort (op. cit.) used 6 “connectedness” variables to trace the self-organizing process: number of organizations participating in disaster response, num-ber of interactions between participating organizations, degree of shared goals amongthe organizations, boundaries of the system, duration of interactions among theorganizations, and types of transactions by the organizations.

51. See Axelrod, op. cit.52. For example, Axelrod (1997) conducted a computer simulation in which countries in-

volved in World War II chose allies based on weights given to ethnic, religious, territorial,ideological, economic, and historical similarities. The simulation required each country toalign myopically, by choosing another similar country to align with; that pair would thenalign with another pair. The model, which predicted actual alliances with near perfectaccuracy, also showed alliances being formed on the basis of immediate cultural similar-ities rather than strategic concerns such as fear of other nations.

53. Op. cit., p. 97.54. Ibid, p. 99.55. Schelling, op. cit.56. Rosenau, op. cit., p. 2.57. Axelrod, op. cit., pp. 3, 4–5.58. Churchman, op. cit.


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