Abstract
As editors we value diverse perspectives and research approaches, and in this issue we include contributions that elucidate public relations using concepts and theories from outside the mainstream, in order to generate new insights and research agendas. We have also included articles that are written around empirical work, and those that focus solely on the development of argument to unpack and problematize concepts. As it happens, there is some consonance among the articles; for example: shared concerns in relation to ethical praxis at the individual, organizational, societal and global levels; an interest in occupational identities; and a commitment to reflexivity.
We open our second issue with an article that argues for a hermeneutic approach to public relations ethics with a view to increasing reflexivity in the field. Hermeneutics, according to Fawkes, is central to public relations practice: ‘given the centrality of interpretation … the practitioner is constantly interpreting various internal and external publics to the organization and vice versa, and is prized for skill in understanding the nuances and navigating the pitfalls of interpretation’. Her article proposes a new approach to considerations of professional ethics in public relations. She presents a taxonomy of public relations theory linked to ethical theory, highlighting a number of problematics. She questions the way in which discussions about the loss of public trust focus on their lack of trust rather than on the lack of trustworthiness and her article re-orientates the burden of analysis about public relations ethics onto public relations actors and agents, rather than their critics. She highlights the value of a human-centred approach and understanding through interpretation within a relational context, indicating along the way that there are important, but relatively unexplored components within public relations ethics such as spirituality, thus leading towards a more holistic conception of public relations.
Continuing the ethical theme, and sharing concerns with reflexivity, Simmons and Walsh apply concepts from the interdisciplinary field of organizational justice to bear upon public relations, focusing specifically on fairness, which they argue is central to the creation of trust. The article has a significance beyond its stated remit, because it opens up areas given little attention within public relations such as justice (distributive, procedural, interactional) and, while their discussion is focused on the organizational context, there is clearly room for these concepts to be extrapolated not only to societal contexts, but to the global.
Simmons and Walsh reflect upon the issues that arise in situations where public relations exercises power in politicized organizations such as the challenge of expediency and organizational interests to argue for independence. Indeed, one might take inspiration from their article to suggest that in future more specific attention should be given to the philosophical concept of autonomy in public relations practice, and tensions arising between that and obligations and duty to demonstrate loyalty to management. Such a research trajectory could usefully encompass both conceptual and empirical dimensions, and might yield new insights into the identities of public relations practitioners in organizational contexts.
Ihlen and Verhoeven pick up themes from Public Relations Inquiry 1(1) to present something of a retrospective in their consideration of public relations’ academic identity in societal contexts and arguing for the importance of social theory in understanding the potential role of public relations in social change, and the prioritization of trust, legitimacy, understanding and reflection. Towards the end of their article, Ihlen and Verhoeven comment: ‘The issue of gender is part of the wider issue of diversity and social power in the profession …’ a theme that is taken up by Daymon and Surma in their article ‘The Mutable Identities of Women in Public Relations’, in which they explore female identity work navigating tensions between the workplace and private space. Their research is based on 35 interviews and focus groups spanning age range 20–50, and generates rich insights into discrete identity categories, their boundary maintenance and random disconnectedness. In addition to the blurred identities that emerge alongside the tensions and pressures of home-working, intrusions into private space, the challenges to professional identity in domestic space clearly emerges, sometimes exacerbated by the consequence of biological destiny.
Our final article presents a discursive analysis of a publication of the US and Foreign Commercial Service and the Department of State to explore themes that exemplified the relationship between power and control within the context of contemporary neocolonialism. This article highlights a gap in the public relations literature by drawing attention to corporate public relations practices that articulate neocolonial and neoliberal ideologies within the international public sphere. Ban and Dutta layer a range of theoretical strands and concepts, including postcolonial theory, neoimperialism, Orientalism, globalization, civil society and power, to set up the empirical part of their project from which they ascertain the emergence of paradoxical stereotypes that reveal ideological framing given context through discussion of the pragmatics of business ethics. Many of the themes discussed in this article are foregrounded in Public Relations in Global Cultural Contexts: Multi-Paradigmatic Perspectives, edited by Bardhan and Weaver (2010) and reviewed for this issue of Public Relations Inquiry by Gaither.