109 Getting to the heart of public relations Getting to the heart of public relations: the concept of strategic intent Melanie James University of Newcastle Abstract This paper suggests that public relations can be understood as the strategic attempt to get the subjects of public relations activities to construct the intended meaning of the employing or commissioning entity rather than any other meaning. The author puts forward that the intentional construction of meaning for strategic purposes may be at the heart of public relations as everything undertaken by practitioners could be framed within a concept of strategic intent. One way of conceptualising this assertion is to consider two key concepts within the ield of public relations – strategy and the construction of meaning. This paper suggests that the development of theory to accommodate such a position should be considered and proposes that a broadly social constructionist approach may offer the best prospect of undertaking this. If this view was widely adopted then the debate as to who holds the power and wherewithal to inluence and control the meaning construction process, and the ethics of doing so, could take place. Keywords: Public Relations, Strategy, Social Constructionism, Meaning, Strategic Intent. Introduction Strategy has been a key concept at the core of public relations since the early 1980s (Holtzhausen, 2002, p. 254) however there has been little evidence of how the word “strategy” and those words relating to strategy – strategic, strategies, strategically – are deined nor is there any agreement about what public relations strategy is or should be (Xavier, Johnston, & Patel, 2005). Leichty and Warner (2001) state that “public relations is irst and foremost concerned with meaning” (p. 61) and that “meaning and interpretation are the central processes of all public relations activities” (p. 61). This paper proposes bringing together strategy and the construction of meaning as a means of clarifying the purpose of public relations and suggests that the development of theory to accommodate such a position should be considered. apprj-vol10.indd 109 19/01/10 3:28 PM