By Jason Young

Books can change the world. But can a textbook?

In PR, one textbook really started it all — seven decades ago.

The definitive text is “Cutlip & Center’s Effective Public Relations, 11th Edition.” The current edition was written by — really edited and updated by — two San Diego State University professors, Glen Broom and Bey-Ling Sha. But as the title implies, two other PR luminaries first gave life to the text: Scott M. Cutlip and Allen H. Center, both of whom have now passed.

There’s no other way to put it: Cutlip and Center’s first edition was revolutionary. In 1952, public relations wasn’t a field of academic study. Look where we are 70 years on.

As many have said before and since, PR doesn’t get enough respect. But their work helped to lay a foundation for scholarship and professional practice.

PR is a field (the authors importantly defined it as “a management function”) that has grown and evolved tremendously, thus 11 editions of the book over 70 years. “Effective Public Relations” has been called “the Bible” and “the gold standard.”

Btw, if you are thinking about taking one of the PR accreditation exams, this book is almost certainly the basis for or a key study aid for that test.

(For a far different, and non-academic, view of the PR profession, read Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs.” Jobs was masterful at public relations and, no surprise, media attention was instrumental at every stage of his career and in each Apple product launch.)

Why study this maturing field?

Professor Cutlip had a good answer, I believe:

“Public relations strategies and tactics are increasingly used as weapons of power in our no-holds-barred political, economic, and cause competition in the public opinion marketplace,” he once said, “and thus deserve more scholarly scrutiny than they have had.”

I agree.