Toward an historically informed Asian model of public relations

•The framework of expert systems and institutional logics is used to analyze the historical development of public relations.•Public relations in Asia-Pacific emerged as part of nation building and later grew in reaction to economic globalization.•The governance sphere dominates in most Asian societies while the corporate sphere is gaining importance.•An indigenous Asian model of public relations conceptualizes both spheres and their shifting relationships.•Proposals for a new approach to conceptualizing a model of Asian public relations are made.

This paper undertakes a meta-analysis of the 51 historiographies of public relations in Asia-Pacific countries to identify common themes, threads and theoretical insights. The authors propose a set of necessary components for the study of Asia-Pacific public relations drawn from a historical perspective that differs from the paradigmatic underpinnings of the major Western models. They draw conclusions about epistemological and practice differences between public relations in the West and in the Asia-Pacific region in a globalizing world.