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The Golden age of PR reminds us that the P stands for PublicThe golden age of strategic public relations arrives with an uncomfortable paradox. Communicators have never had greater access to power. Today, we sit with chief executives, shape strategy, question risk and advise before decisions become public. 16 Jul 2026  Strategic communicators have reached the executive table just as the public has gained greater power to set the agenda, says PR Powerhouse’s Lebo Madiba (Image supplied) This is real progress, but it rests on an assumption that deserves more scrutiny. We seem to believe that because we can influence what leaders decide, we can also influence how the public will understand those decisions. This is no longer guaranteed. More access but the boardroom has less controlWhile communicators have moved closer to power, companies, governments and other organisations have become less able to decide what people believe and when an issue becomes impossible to ignore. We may have more access to the boardroom, but the boardroom has less control over the conversation happening outside it. The question is what that access is now meant to achieve. The value of the communicator cannot lie only in helping leaders make decisions or explain them afterwards. It must also lie in helping leaders understand how those decisions will be experienced by the people affected by them. By the time the public exposes the gap between what an organisation believes and what people are living through, the opportunity to change course may already have passed. How quickly that can happenJacinta Ngobese-Zuma and the March & March movement have shown us how quickly that can happen. Whatever one thinks of the movement’s politics, methods or claims, it has made immigration impossible for government and business to avoid. It has drawn law enforcement, employers, political leaders and the media into a conversation whose timing and terms they did not choose. The movement did not wait for a political party, newsroom or public institution to decide that immigration deserved national attention. It built enough public pressure to force the issue onto the agenda. Once that happened, silence was no longer an option. Everyone had to respond.  An important shiftFor me, this is an important shift. The public no longer has to wait for an institution to recognise an issue before making it matter. Women For Change has used public power for a very different purpose. Its work around gender-based violence and femicide took experiences that South Africa had come to treat as tragically familiar and made them impossible to dismiss as part of ordinary life. The movement gathered personal stories, anger and public support around a simple demand that the country could no longer keep describing gender-based violence as a crisis while responding to it as though it were routine. Its campaign changed the cost of doing nothing. Statements of concern were no longer enough because the public had already decided that the usual response was inadequate. March & March and Women For Change are not morally or politically equal, and they should not be treated as though they are. What connects them is their ability to force powerful organisations to respond before those organisations are ready.  Influence brings a different responsibilityIf this is indeed the golden age of strategic public relations, then perhaps our greatest mistake would be to treat it as the destination. The profession has finally earned the strategic influence it has argued for over many years. What we are discovering is that influence brings a different responsibility. It asks us to remain curious long after we have earned credibility, to challenge assumptions inside our organisations and to recognise that the public we exist to understand is constantly changing. This is an exciting moment, as we mark World PR Day 2026. The public is no longer a fixed audience reached through familiar channels.  The real promise of the Golden Age of Strategic PRIt is dynamic, organised and increasingly capable of shaping the conversations that organisations once believed they could control. The channels will continue to evolve. So will the communities that occupy them. Our task is not to become attached to either. Instead, we have to keep asking better questions. The value we bring lies in our ability to help organisations stay connected to the public they exist to serve, even as that public continues to change. Perhaps that is the real promise of the Golden Age of Strategic PR. Not that we have finally arrived, but that we finally have the opportunity to shape better decisions because we understand the people beyond the boardroom better than ever before. About Lebo MadibaFounder and Managing Director of PR Powerhouse | Communications Strategist | Corporate Reputation Leader | Podcaster at Influence View my profile and articles... |
