Projecting Imagination: Creative Tales of Global and Corporate Futures

In considering future visions and public relations, we position such speculations as imaginative art rather than exact science and move away from dominant approaches in two key literatures. Firstly, in relation to leadership literature, while acknowledging the contribution it has made to the importance of future vision, we distance ourselves from the view that such projections are the restricted domain of leadership. Instead we show how they matter to public relations by extending Rost’s conceptualization of a divide between twentieth and twenty-first century paradigms to support the usefulness of scenarios in preparing for change in uncertain and turbulent times. Secondly, in relation to public relations education, we move away from the more quantitative and business-as-usual US style forecasts for the 21st Century. In making these departures we draw from other futurist writings, especially scenario theory and practice, to contend that public relations, both as a practice and as a body of theory, needs to be more knowledgeable about, and more involved in, existing projections. We conclude by recommending that scenarios become an accepted part of preparing public relations for the nonlinear, complexity of business-as-unusual future predictions not addressed in the field’s current thinking.