Public relations and ‘its’ media: exploring the role of trade media in the enactment of public relations’ professional project

This article explores the relationship between trade media and the construction of occupational legitimacy in the context of professional projects, using the example of public relations. We suggest that the practices of trade journalism result in such media playing the role of an institutional sub-system within occupational fields such as public relations, helping to construct occupational archetypes that have disciplinary effects on practitioners and provide the basis for public claims to legitimacy. We illustrate our argument by presenting the results of a critical discourse analysis of PRWeek, the main trade publication for public relations in the UK, to demonstrate how jurisdiction, practice and practitioners are constructed through media discourses in ways that serve the professional project articulated by the powerful actors in the field.