Many years ago, I used to write for television shows in a scriptwriting and storylining capacity. When we had non-white (or ethnic, as we often refer to ourselves) characters, many writers’ rooms would struggle to ideate story arcs that didn’t lean into stereotypes: unwanted arranged marriages; voodoo spells to befall a love rival; or, benefit fraud.

On the whiteboard of one writer’s room, however, was a photo of Dev Alahan, the fictional character from UK TV stalwart, Coronation Street. The aim in that room was to write for ethnic characters as the Coronation Street writers did for Dev – not through the lens of his race. He was a romantic lead for many years, a businessman, a confidant, and prone to human failings as any other character. His ethnicity was incidental to what he was doing.

Public relations in Australia needs to address its diversity problems through the lens of Dev. Can we become more diverse without waving diversity flags?

Despite a growing emphasis on multicultural communication and diversity in the past two decades, as well as equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across both academic and professional fields, the Australian PR sector remains disproportionately white. Why is it that the academic foundations of PR, and the institutions that sustain it, have failed to disrupt entrenched exclusions and instead contributed to the ongoing marginalisation of non-white professionals within the field? Why has the PR industry in Australia, despite decades of growth and institutional maturity, remained so culturally homogeneous?

In answering these questions, we must look to the problem not only through an industry lens but also in the epistemological and institutional development of the field itself – its historical grounding, disciplinary framing, and education pipelines. When doing this, it becomes evident how whiteness has been normalised and maintained throughout the evolution of PR in Australia.

Post-war origins

The Australian PR profession had its origins at the end of World War II. Scores of government “officers” spilled out of the war effort and needed to put their communication skills to use, now serving corporates as opposed to their nation. Thus, a profession emerged and organised itself relatively quickly, with the Public Relations Institute of Australia being established in 1949 as the representative industry body. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 – its tenets colloquially referred to as the ‘White Australia Policy’ – was still in place and only ended in 1973. Thus, the first 30 years of the PR profession was inevitably white due to the laws of the land.

In the 1980s, PR entered the academic realm at a time when the field was largely conceptualised through managerial, strategic, and functionalist lenses. These early frameworks, focused on organisational legitimacy and reputation management, were often uncritical of power, representation, or cultural exclusion. As a result, the professional identity promoted through academic programs and industry partnerships was normatively white, middle class, and English-speaking. University had become free since 1974 but culturally, it was commonly seen as a path for the few rather than the many.

The free university model came to an end in 1989, around the time our first-generation Australians from Asia were ready for university. The cost of university added to existing reservations about certain areas of higher education. As a first-generation Australian myself, I recall my father telling me that only Medicine would be acceptable, with Law at a stretch. Otherwise, I should look to start an “import/export” business and open a store. The cost of university made it a significant investment for ethnic families, many just finding their feet on the economic ladder and breaking away from the support of government assistance which helped many new arrivals.

Lack of cultural capital

PR has rarely been positioned as a viable or attractive field for non-white students by higher education institutions. Often perceived as a ‘frivolous’ discipline, PR sadly lacks the cultural capital and economic security typically associated with fields that are prioritised by ethnic families and communities making intergenerational investments in education. For students whose families have made significant sacrifices to pursue higher education, PR appears as a risky and ambiguous path, and one that may offer little in return for a high-stakes personal and financial investment.

For those who broke the mould, universities were still adjusting to a more diverse cohort. Let’s be honest, at least in Australia, many still are. Assessment designs and teaching and learning approaches still acclimatise middle- to higher-income students to tertiary education more than they do for lower socio-economic students.

Research tells us that so-called ‘first-in-family’ higher education students are particularly vulnerable to attrition; should they discover that a chosen degree is a poor fit, they are far more likely to leave higher education entirely rather than change programs. These educational barriers are exacerbated by the broader neoliberal restructuring of Australian higher education in the 2010s, which has arguably devalued the humanities and social sciences.

PR programs have been caught in a proverbial rip that has cast it further from shore with funding cuts, disciplinary convergence, fee increases, and declining institutional support. This is hardly a green light for a student under cultural pressure to make an acceptable choice, the first time.

Unchanged norms and assumptions

In parallel, DEI initiatives within industry have largely failed to translate into meaningful demographic change for PR. Analysis shows that these initiatives often focus on symbolic gestures, such as day-specific celebrations or cultural competence workshops, without addressing the deeper structural barriers to inclusion. Diversity becomes a public-facing brand asset, rather than a transformative institutional priority. Meanwhile, the norms and assumptions that underpin PR as a discipline – what counts as knowledge, whose voices are heard, and what comprises professional identity – remain largely unchallenged.

The ubiquity in communication technologies has preserved and had enduring effects on how the field conceives of communication expertise, identity, professional legitimacy, and success. And in the Australian media, still heavily influenced by the US and UK, PR practitioners are still bound by the stereotypes of Edina Monsoon, Samantha Jones, or (intake of breath) Emily Cooper.

Beyond our sunny shores, we might find some inspiration of what might be possible. Personally, I was always suspicious about all things ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) as a supposed nod to diversity and ‘seeing’ these groups in the UK. (I can’t ever say it or even write it without getting the theme tune from that 1980s show Fame in my head: “BAME! I’m gonna live forever.”) Whilst it is increasingly on the outer as a term (led by the UK Government), it did see more profile and discourse of race and ethnicity in the profession. It built purposeful professional networks. Yet there hasn’t been much uptick in proportional ethnic representation across the industry. The CIPR’s 2024 PR Population report indicated 87% of PR practitioners were white. We may celebrate that it is no longer 96% as it was in the same report of 2017, but these are turgid tides of change.

Afraid of the question?

No official statistics exist for the PR industry in Australia (one wonders if they are afraid to ask the question), but with 48% of Australians having at least one parent born overseas, and 28% of Australians being born overseas themselves, one glance at any national PR convention in Australia will show you that the PR profession is far from representative of this.

Australia’s PR industry would benefit from establishing networks of support and connection for ethnic minorities but would be unwise to assume that adopting similar initiatives will, on their own, deliver materially different outcomes.

In a recent “Conversations in PR” webinar, hosted by the national industry body Communication and Public Relations Australia, a panellist shared an anecdote from the US about black students studying PR citing the example of Olivia Pope from the 2010s TV show Scandal as a source of inspiration to enter the profession. Identity matters. We should celebrate the green shoots when we find them.

We need to address this stagnation. Everyone needs to change their starting positions on this issue. Meaningful transformation must begin within academia through a reframing of curricula, research priorities, and student recruitment strategies to centre inclusivity, decolonisation, and cultural equity. We need to incorporate teaching on the racialised dynamics of access, legitimacy, and knowledge production. PR needs to be reimagined as a vital space for civic engagement, social critique, and cultural inclusion.

Beyond dedicated days or weeks to eliminate discrimination, the PR profession needs to interrogate its assumptions about what a PR practitioner looks like and take concrete steps to create more inclusive entry points, mentorship pathways, and leadership structures. Such structural reconfiguration will take time, but now is the time to at least acknowledge the need to change. At a recent PR symposium I attended, one industry panellist deftly pivoted from a question on the lack of industry diversity and opted to celebrate the diversity of “all people’s experiences”.

Where’s Dev when you need him?