A metamodern public relations workflow for the polycrisis: Communication research and planning based on a What If framework

Abstract

In a world of intersecting crises—climate, conflict, inequality—public relations finds itself in flux, facing situations without single or obvious solutions. This article proposes a metamodern workflow for public relations, one that embraces uncertainty, pluralism, and relational ethics. Drawing on recent conceptual work, we position generative AI not as a solutionist tool for efficiency, but as a provocation: a mirror of our sociotechnical condition and a medium for speculative, stakeholder-centric practice. The proposed genAI enhanced ‘what if’ workflow replaces deterministic ‘if-then’ logic models with reflective, scenario-based approaches, embedding deliberative temporality, stakeholder co-creation, and ethical humility into communication planning. This shift from managerial instrumentalist to stakeholder-centric thinking reclaims public relations as a site of societal value—not in opposition to organizational strategy, but as its reimagined core. This, we argue, enables public relations practitioners to become curators of complexity and facilitators of communitas: cultivating shared meaning across difference, rather than smoothing it over. Furthermore, we explore how genAI can support—but not substitute—this role, modeling possible futures and mapping divergent stakeholder positions. This metamodern orientation does not resolve paradoxes but inhabits them, oscillating between pragmatism and idealism, structure and fluidity. It critiques the legacy of commercial democracy and managerial instrumentalism while offering an alternative: a relational, reflexive, and socially situated praxis of public relations. This article invites scholars and practitioners to reconceive public relations not as a promotional and persuasive function, but as an anticipatory and co-creative force for public and social value.