Silence and invisibility in public relations

•Explained is the stigma of silence in the “symbiosis” between journalists and public relations practitioners.•Concepts of silence, including from Aristotle, Foucault and Cage, are examined in regard of their applicability in public relations theory.•Four types of silence in communication practice are identified: absolute, defensive, preserving and anticipating silence.•Interrogated is the role of silence and invisibility in resistance, framing and discursive change.

Public relations practitioners and academics are often silent on silence because the stigma on silence threatens to become a stigma on public relations. Journalists and communicators work in professional exchange and strive. The public relations practitioners are fully visible for the journalists; invisible are they only for the public. Silence has become a “code word” journalists use to pressure information sources not to shut up. This paper discusses public relations responses to that stigma, which include strategies of silence. I draw ideas from Aristotle's “apophatic” silence, Michel Foucault's “exhaustive representation”, Frances Sendbuehler's “profound communication silence” and John Cage's “sound of silence”. I suggest borrowing from those ideas and the development of silence and invisibility as central categories in public relations. Both are carriers of meaning. Both are ontological, neutral phenomena – neither good nor bad. I show possible applications in the areas of resistance, framing and change.