The Function of Post-Democracy and Public Relations as a Diagnosis of New Times

A crisis of democracy has been cited for a long time in the studies of politics and communication. This discourse of crisis that is identified with the liberal parliamentarian democracy relates, in general, to the problems experienced in the subjects of the accountability of the decisions made in democracy, the reliability of the democratic institutions, the state of law, the participation in the political decision making processes and the human and citizenship rights, as well as the freedom of the media. The present study focuses on the possible role of the media, and especially the public relations, in the understanding of post-democracy, which accepts the crisis or erosion of democracy and the neoliberal global age as a diagnosis and also as data. The basic assumption is that public relations serve not only to the rationalization of the societal persuasion, to the dissemination of the popular political arguments or to the production of the demonstrational aspect. Thus, it is underlined that, contrary to the claims of the proponents of the post-democracy, public relations could provide positive contributions in these new times to the problems experienced under the subject headings of the democracy, such as representation, participation and the justification of the decisions. Within this framework, the present study summarizes the arguments developed concerning the post-democracy and the definitions about the position and function (role) of the public relations, and then discusses the practices that may reveal the democratic potential of the public relations again.