The growing importance of faith in public relations

Abstract

Religion and faith have played influential roles in numerous major events throughout history – from wars and inquisitions to the establishment of education and healthcare systems. In modern times, the influence of religion continues to be evident in many countries throughout the world in a variety of ways. In some countries, religion plays a significant role in the government, while in others it influences society and popular culture. Internationally, some religious figures like the pope and the dalai lama garner significant media attention and are influencers to millions of people – both religious and secular. With 6.1 billion people worldwide professing adherence to a faith (Hackett & McClendon, 2017), communicators and organizations must understand how to connect with stakeholders about issues of religion and develop relationships with these audiences. While Christianity and Islam are the largest religions with 2.3 billion and 1.8 billion followers, respectively (Hackett & McClendon, 2017), understanding other faiths is equally important, since their influence and the level of importance they have in people’s lives varies across countries and regions. For example, the Pew Research Center found that a significant majority of people in Asia, Africa, and South America indicate religion is very important to them (Tamir et al., 2020). Failing to understand different faiths and their roles in people’s lives can present a significant barrier to fostering organization-public relationships. Despite these data points, the intersection of faith, religion, spirituality, and public relations is an under-researched area of scholarship when compared to research on public relations in corporate contexts. Understanding religious stakeholders, their motivations, and their needs has implications that are important for corporate, nonprofit and religion communicators alike. While earlier public relations scholarship (see, Tilson & Chao, 2002; Tilson & Venkateswaran, 2006) began to explore the importance and composition of relationships with religious audiences, current scholars are continuing to build upon research in this area, and this is evidenced by the articles included in this special issue of the Journal of Public Relations Research on faith, spirituality, and public relations: In “Examining devotional campaigns and stakeholder-centric relationships in public relations materials: A case study,” Jordan Morehouse examines one religious institution’s approach to developing and fostering relationships with stakeholders. While this study focuses on one organization, it also indicates how these findings can apply to other religious institutions and thus expand relationship management literature. In particular, this article concludes that organization-public relationships are not the sole focus of many organizations’ relationship-building efforts. This is an important reinforcement of how public relations functions in a religious context. “Social media conversion: Lessons from faith-based social media influencers for public relations,” by Brian Smith, Danielle Hallows, Maggie Vail, Alycia Burnett, and Caleb Porter, seeks to understand the motivations and perspectives of influencers. Specifically, the article focuses on religious and faithbased influencers and furthers the study of influencer relations. While this study does have some clear practical implications for engaging social media influencers, especially faith-based ones, by exploring these in the context of parasocial relationships, it also enhances the understanding of relationship management theories.