The purpose of this paper is to describe three foundational concepts that contribute to conceptual heritage of the field of public relations (publics, organizations and relationships). Conceptual heritage is positioned as a type of shared public memory, a dominant narrative, that encourages adherence to the past whilst recognizing that counter-narratives can pose useful alternatives to foundational concepts.,The approach is a selective literature review that describes three dominant concept categories and presents more recently developed alternative concepts and approaches to illustrate how public memory is subjective and evolving.,The concepts of publics, organizations and relationships have grounded the dominant narrative and development of the field of public relations. Though these concepts continue to be influential as researchers rely upon and expand upon their legacies, counter-narratives can spur the innovation of ideas, measurement and practice.,The paper focuses on only three major foundational concepts selected by the authors. The importance of these concepts as well as additional examples of the field’s conceptual heritage and evolution could be identified by different authors.,The analysis demonstrates how the public memory contributes to the development and evolution of the field of public relations. Counter-narratives can offer appealing, subjectively constructed challenges to dominant narratives.,This paper describes and critiques public relations’ conceptual heritage and argues that conceptually and methodologically-based counter-narratives have contributed to its evolution.

中文翻译：

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公共关系的概念遗产：利用公共记忆探索束缚和解放

本文的目的是描述有助于公共关系领域（公众，组织和关系）概念继承的三个基本概念。概念遗产被定位为一种共享的公共记忆，一种占主导地位的叙事，它鼓励遵守过去，同时认识到反叙事可以为基础概念提供有用的替代方法。该方法是对三种主要概念类别的选择性文献综述。公众，组织和关系的概念奠定了公共关系领域的主流叙事和发展基础。尽管这些概念在研究人员依赖并扩展其遗产的同时继续具有影响力，但反叙事可以激发思想，测量和实践的创新。本文仅着重于作者选择的三个主要基础概念。这些概念的重要性以及该领域的概念传承和演变的其他示例可以由不同的作者来确定。该分析表明，公共记忆是如何促进公共关系领域的发展和演变的。反叙事可以对主流叙事提出有吸引力的，主观的挑战。本文描述并批评了公共关系的概念遗产，并认为基于概念和方法论的反叙事对其发展作出了贡献。