Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2046147x231200891
Chedza Simon, Sian Rees, Richard Thomas
This article examines Facebook posts in Botswana to determine how government public relations (PR) practitioners used language to help protect the reputation of two state-owned agencies during times of crisis. For insufficiently prepared PR practitioners, crises can quickly become complex owing to the proliferation of social media which has dramatically reshaped crisis communication in non-Western, multicultural contexts. While crisis communication has drawn more scholarly interest, the way the Botswana Government use language to maintain power and legitimacy during emergencies represents a fresh case study. We use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in our scrutiny of the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) crisis of 2011, and the Botswana Railways (BR) crisis of 2019. The analysis reveals a corporate ideology of economic development used as an underlying manipulative and propagandistic form of organized persuasive communication (OPC) strategy aimed at establishing and maintaining power. The article also demonstrates how, via this strategy, the government uses state power to galvanize support and mobilize audiences to rally behind state-owned organizations.
{"title":"Behind the scenes: A critical discourse analysis of Botswana government power plays on Facebook during two post-millennial state-owned organizational crises","authors":"Chedza Simon, Sian Rees, Richard Thomas","doi":"10.1177/2046147x231200891","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147x231200891","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Facebook posts in Botswana to determine how government public relations (PR) practitioners used language to help protect the reputation of two state-owned agencies during times of crisis. For insufficiently prepared PR practitioners, crises can quickly become complex owing to the proliferation of social media which has dramatically reshaped crisis communication in non-Western, multicultural contexts. While crisis communication has drawn more scholarly interest, the way the Botswana Government use language to maintain power and legitimacy during emergencies represents a fresh case study. We use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in our scrutiny of the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) crisis of 2011, and the Botswana Railways (BR) crisis of 2019. The analysis reveals a corporate ideology of economic development used as an underlying manipulative and propagandistic form of organized persuasive communication (OPC) strategy aimed at establishing and maintaining power. The article also demonstrates how, via this strategy, the government uses state power to galvanize support and mobilize audiences to rally behind state-owned organizations.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135200686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231200239
Rosalynn A. Vasquez, Marlene S. Neill
Despite being one of the fastest growing and highly influential segments of the U.S. population, Latino/a/xs have been largely underrepresented in the public relations field. In response to the scarcity of research examining the role and influence of Latinas in public relations, this study contributes a unique perspective by providing new insights into the challenges U.S. Latinas face in the public relations industry, their coping strategies, and how those may vary based on cultural identities (immigrant, first-generation, and non-immigrant Latinas). Through 24 in-depth interviews with Latinas working in mid-management and senior-executive level roles, this study reveals inclusion, intersectionality, isolation, language, pay equity, and pigeonholing as key challenges to career advancement; and identifies action, rational thinking, avoidance, emotional support, instrumental support, and personal advocacy as main coping strategies used to address these challenges. Findings also provide recommendations and a timely call for greater cultural sensitivities, accountability, and DEIB in public relations.
{"title":"“Underpaid, undervalued, undermined”: Examining the cultural identities, challenges, and coping strategies of U.S. Latinas in public relations","authors":"Rosalynn A. Vasquez, Marlene S. Neill","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231200239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231200239","url":null,"abstract":"Despite being one of the fastest growing and highly influential segments of the U.S. population, Latino/a/xs have been largely underrepresented in the public relations field. In response to the scarcity of research examining the role and influence of Latinas in public relations, this study contributes a unique perspective by providing new insights into the challenges U.S. Latinas face in the public relations industry, their coping strategies, and how those may vary based on cultural identities (immigrant, first-generation, and non-immigrant Latinas). Through 24 in-depth interviews with Latinas working in mid-management and senior-executive level roles, this study reveals inclusion, intersectionality, isolation, language, pay equity, and pigeonholing as key challenges to career advancement; and identifies action, rational thinking, avoidance, emotional support, instrumental support, and personal advocacy as main coping strategies used to address these challenges. Findings also provide recommendations and a timely call for greater cultural sensitivities, accountability, and DEIB in public relations.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"293 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48355490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231180501
Hannah Ravell
With Roland Barthes’ 1968 essay ‘Death of the Author’ as its touchstone, this article reflects critically on the hashtag #ripjkrowling that trended on Twitter in September 2020. Through a thematic content analysis of the top 100 tweets from this hashtag, it will examine celebrity author J.K. Rowling’s reputation amongst fans and wider audiences. Rowling’s history of disseminating transphobic rhetoric online as well as the news her 2020 book contains transphobic messaging will be considered. When Barthes called for the ‘death’ of the author, he highlighted the importance of understanding texts as independent from authorial intention and biography. As this case illuminates, when fans cannot reconcile Rowling’s values with those of her creation they pronounce her ‘dead’. Exemplified through this hashtag, in this post-Barthesian world of celebrity authorship, the author is being revived only to be killed off again. This paper seeks to examine why Potterheads, in response to Rowling’s controversies pertaining to LGBTQIA+ issues, are pronouncing her ‘dead’. From there, this article explores a broader public relations inquiry into what this means for public relations practice when media products and brands belong to the fans, especially politically and socially active ones like Potterheads. Mainstream participatory culture logics on Twitter such as hashtag and fan activism will be reflected on to understand their role in how modern fans separate art from their artists, and implications for Rowling’s authorship, Harry Potter readership and public relations.
{"title":"#RIPJKRowling: A tale of a fandom, Twitter and a haunting author who refuses to die","authors":"Hannah Ravell","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231180501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231180501","url":null,"abstract":"With Roland Barthes’ 1968 essay ‘Death of the Author’ as its touchstone, this article reflects critically on the hashtag #ripjkrowling that trended on Twitter in September 2020. Through a thematic content analysis of the top 100 tweets from this hashtag, it will examine celebrity author J.K. Rowling’s reputation amongst fans and wider audiences. Rowling’s history of disseminating transphobic rhetoric online as well as the news her 2020 book contains transphobic messaging will be considered. When Barthes called for the ‘death’ of the author, he highlighted the importance of understanding texts as independent from authorial intention and biography. As this case illuminates, when fans cannot reconcile Rowling’s values with those of her creation they pronounce her ‘dead’. Exemplified through this hashtag, in this post-Barthesian world of celebrity authorship, the author is being revived only to be killed off again. This paper seeks to examine why Potterheads, in response to Rowling’s controversies pertaining to LGBTQIA+ issues, are pronouncing her ‘dead’. From there, this article explores a broader public relations inquiry into what this means for public relations practice when media products and brands belong to the fans, especially politically and socially active ones like Potterheads. Mainstream participatory culture logics on Twitter such as hashtag and fan activism will be reflected on to understand their role in how modern fans separate art from their artists, and implications for Rowling’s authorship, Harry Potter readership and public relations.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"239 - 270"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41679393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-31DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231180862
Tugce Ertem-Eray
Several scholars have addressed the convergence of public relations and public diplomacy theories, and many have argued that public diplomacy needs to move beyond normative theories of communication. Yet little scholarly work has been done to date. To fill this gap, this study explores how critical and postmodern theoretical approaches can inform public diplomacy practice by extending the cultural–economic model (CEM) of public relations through Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Based on interviews with organizational members of Sister Cities International (SCI), this study suggests that critical–cultural and postmodern perspectives can inform SCI’s public diplomacy efforts by considering larger structural factors in tension with agency. Thus, this study contributes to both the development of robust international public relations theory and theory building in the public diplomacy field. Findings indicate that drawing on Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (1997), social capital contributes to the notion of institutionalized relationships, such as family or resources, that individuals acquire through group memberships as found in articulations within the CEM. Additionally, although the CEM explains the connection between culture and power in creating meaning, Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital makes explicit a focus on education, which is a significant focus of many public diplomacy efforts. Therefore, the term cultural capital provides additional insight into the model to inform public diplomacy efforts. Thus, this study extends the CEM through Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice by indicating the role of social capital and cultural capital in SCI’s public diplomacy efforts.
{"title":"Extending the cultural-economic model of public relations through Bourdieu’s theoretical lens to inform public diplomacy efforts","authors":"Tugce Ertem-Eray","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231180862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231180862","url":null,"abstract":"Several scholars have addressed the convergence of public relations and public diplomacy theories, and many have argued that public diplomacy needs to move beyond normative theories of communication. Yet little scholarly work has been done to date. To fill this gap, this study explores how critical and postmodern theoretical approaches can inform public diplomacy practice by extending the cultural–economic model (CEM) of public relations through Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Based on interviews with organizational members of Sister Cities International (SCI), this study suggests that critical–cultural and postmodern perspectives can inform SCI’s public diplomacy efforts by considering larger structural factors in tension with agency. Thus, this study contributes to both the development of robust international public relations theory and theory building in the public diplomacy field. Findings indicate that drawing on Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (1997), social capital contributes to the notion of institutionalized relationships, such as family or resources, that individuals acquire through group memberships as found in articulations within the CEM. Additionally, although the CEM explains the connection between culture and power in creating meaning, Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital makes explicit a focus on education, which is a significant focus of many public diplomacy efforts. Therefore, the term cultural capital provides additional insight into the model to inform public diplomacy efforts. Thus, this study extends the CEM through Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice by indicating the role of social capital and cultural capital in SCI’s public diplomacy efforts.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"271 - 291"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46540142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-17DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231165225
Marlene S. Neill, Juan Meng
Are servant leadership and ethics of care being practiced by public relations leaders? This study involved in-depth interviews with 32 public relations leaders working in a variety of organizational settings in the United States and provided insights from men and women, including people of color. We found evidence of an “other oriented approach” to leadership that involved prioritizing the needs and concerns of employees and a genuine concern for the wellbeing of others. The findings are consistent with characteristics associated with both servant leadership and ethics of care. The public relations leaders were able to provide specific examples of how these perspectives impacted their decision making and specific ways they demonstrate that they care about their employees. The leaders engaged in active listening, which allowed them to identify employee needs. They then had to access whether or not they could meet those needs, and at times that involved assisting employees in leaving the organization. Implications for theory and practice are included.
{"title":"Examining the characteristics and virtues associated with servant leadership in public relations","authors":"Marlene S. Neill, Juan Meng","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231165225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231165225","url":null,"abstract":"Are servant leadership and ethics of care being practiced by public relations leaders? This study involved in-depth interviews with 32 public relations leaders working in a variety of organizational settings in the United States and provided insights from men and women, including people of color. We found evidence of an “other oriented approach” to leadership that involved prioritizing the needs and concerns of employees and a genuine concern for the wellbeing of others. The findings are consistent with characteristics associated with both servant leadership and ethics of care. The public relations leaders were able to provide specific examples of how these perspectives impacted their decision making and specific ways they demonstrate that they care about their employees. The leaders engaged in active listening, which allowed them to identify employee needs. They then had to access whether or not they could meet those needs, and at times that involved assisting employees in leaving the organization. Implications for theory and practice are included.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"183 - 209"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42412991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-11DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231157407
César García
This paper is about the importance of personal relationships in the history of public relations. It suggests that clientship and exchange of favors were at the core of the history of public relations from its beginnings. Modern reviewer Richard Beard (2012) is “struck by its modernity,” particularly the book’s extensive advice regarding the usea of personal relationships to gain political influence and power. Quintus Cicero should be included in the proto-history of public relations, and his approaches reveal commonalities with non-Western approaches to public relations such as India’s personal influence model or China’s guanxi.
{"title":"Quintus Cicero’s Commentariolum petitionis: The importance of personal relationships and clientship in the history of public relations","authors":"César García","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231157407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231157407","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is about the importance of personal relationships in the history of public relations. It suggests that clientship and exchange of favors were at the core of the history of public relations from its beginnings. Modern reviewer Richard Beard (2012) is “struck by its modernity,” particularly the book’s extensive advice regarding the usea of personal relationships to gain political influence and power. Quintus Cicero should be included in the proto-history of public relations, and his approaches reveal commonalities with non-Western approaches to public relations such as India’s personal influence model or China’s guanxi.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"211 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42046597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-03DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231155907
Josh C. Bramlett
{"title":"Book Review: Government communications and the Crisis of trust: From political spin to post-Truth","authors":"Josh C. Bramlett","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231155907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231155907","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"229 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45279086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-28DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231154550
F. Weder, C. K. Weaver, Lars Rademacher
Purpose: In an era of networked production of the public sphere and with the arrival of new communicator roles such as citizen journalists, influencers and bloggers, the “old” roles and professions of “the journalist” and “public relations professional” are challenged. In this paper, avoiding the familiar debate about antagonisms between journalism and public relations, we provide empirical insights that identify specific characteristics of a convergence in the “doing” of public relations and journalism. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper presents recent data from a series of comparative interviews, conducted in Central Europe (Austria, n = 10, Germany, n = 25), New Zealand (n = 7), Australia (n = 25), and the Pacific Islands (n = 5). The conversational narrative interviews bring in self-reflections on skillsets, professions, normative frameworks and the doing of professional communication from a range of communicators, primarily public relations practitioners and journalists, but also activist campaigners, science communicators, bloggers, and social influencers. Findings: The findings show that while interviewees were likely to represent their roles as related to a singular, across those roles they presented what they did – the “doing” – as akin to that of an authorial “curator” of communication in the context of societal transformations and constantly changing and converging media environments. Across different communicator roles professional communication is increasingly perceived as a co-creational process of entering, initiating, sometimes managing, and, thus, driving public discourses and conversations. Originality/Value: The paper complements the debate around skills and professionalization in public relations and adds to broader discussions about role responsibility, agency, and authorship related to public conversations in an age of digital transformation and social change by bringing in the concept of curating as the co-operative ‘management of stories’ between, and across, professional roles.
{"title":"Curating conversations in times of transformation: Convergence in how public relations and journalism are “Doing” communication","authors":"F. Weder, C. K. Weaver, Lars Rademacher","doi":"10.1177/2046147X231154550","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X231154550","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: In an era of networked production of the public sphere and with the arrival of new communicator roles such as citizen journalists, influencers and bloggers, the “old” roles and professions of “the journalist” and “public relations professional” are challenged. In this paper, avoiding the familiar debate about antagonisms between journalism and public relations, we provide empirical insights that identify specific characteristics of a convergence in the “doing” of public relations and journalism. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper presents recent data from a series of comparative interviews, conducted in Central Europe (Austria, n = 10, Germany, n = 25), New Zealand (n = 7), Australia (n = 25), and the Pacific Islands (n = 5). The conversational narrative interviews bring in self-reflections on skillsets, professions, normative frameworks and the doing of professional communication from a range of communicators, primarily public relations practitioners and journalists, but also activist campaigners, science communicators, bloggers, and social influencers. Findings: The findings show that while interviewees were likely to represent their roles as related to a singular, across those roles they presented what they did – the “doing” – as akin to that of an authorial “curator” of communication in the context of societal transformations and constantly changing and converging media environments. Across different communicator roles professional communication is increasingly perceived as a co-creational process of entering, initiating, sometimes managing, and, thus, driving public discourses and conversations. Originality/Value: The paper complements the debate around skills and professionalization in public relations and adds to broader discussions about role responsibility, agency, and authorship related to public conversations in an age of digital transformation and social change by bringing in the concept of curating as the co-operative ‘management of stories’ between, and across, professional roles.","PeriodicalId":44609,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Inquiry","volume":"12 1","pages":"163 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65447401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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