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Public relations AI practices: Neoliberalism, field theory, and professional dispositions within an AI-mediated habitus

Public relations practitioners increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) bots and agentic systems to enhance decision-making, build campaigns, and support stakeholder research. The growth in AI use, however, reflects pressures of neoliberalism influencing everyday practice. Neoliberalism is an ideology that embodies market ideals and a sense of technological inevitability. Within neoliberalism, practitioners may believe they are exercising a degree of autonomy in decision-making, while actually navigatin…

By the Truvace desk1 min read1 sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-1763· cite & verify
Public relations AI practices: Neoliberalism, field theory, and professional dispositions within an AI-mediated habitus
From blackout at Pearl Harbor to spotlight on Tokyo Bay: a study of the evolution in U.S. Navy public relations policies and practices during World War II. by Klinkerman, Robert Dale.. Public domain

In brief

A study based on interviews with 22 public relations practitioners examined how they use AI bots and agentic systems for decision-making, campaign building, and stakeholder research. Drawing on Foucault and Bourdieu, the author found neoliberal patterns circulating in how practitioners talk about and deploy AI.

The findings matter because practitioners who feel autonomous may in fact be working within market and efficiency pressures, while the field lacks regulatory frameworks. The study suggests professional dispositions fill that gap, but it does not show how well they work in practice.

Main points

  1. The study interviewed 22 public relations practitioners about their AI deployments.
  2. Practitioners framed AI as compulsory to stay competitive, a mode of self-optimization, and an efficiency and productivity multiplier.
  3. Professional judgment, context, and responsibility emerged as field dispositions within practitioners' neoliberal habitus.
  4. The author argues for combining human oversight, responsible risk management, and formalized governance.

The problem

Public relations practitioners describe AI as compulsory for staying competitive and as self-optimization, suggesting market logic pre-structures choices they feel are autonomous, amid no regulatory frameworks.

The rundown

The article places AI adoption in public relations within neoliberalism, an ideology of market ideals and technological inevitability. It argues practitioners may think they exercise autonomy while navigating a field already structured by market logic and efficiency goals.

Using Foucault and Bourdieu as theoretical lenses, the interviews showed that neoliberal narratives actively circulate in AI practice. Despite this, practitioners' dispositions such as professional judgment and responsibility were important.

The author concludes that, with no regulatory frameworks in place, these field dispositions play an important, even necessary, role in AI implementation, and that a unified approach may bolster professional work.

Sources

  1. Peer-reviewedPublic Relations Inquiry2026-10-16

The debate