Abstract
The articles in this issue explore a range of political themes connected to discourse, identification and power. The first article (Vardeman-Winter, Tindall and Jiang) considers how the descriptive theory of intersectionality has critical implications for public relations as a discipline and a practice, challenging situational theory and established conceptions of publics. Intersectionality implicitly politicizes public relations since identities are sociopolitical constructions and raises issues for research practices, explored by the authors through critical review of past empirical studies. The authors argue that their approach offers a better understanding of ‘phenomenological situations’ making use of ethnographic insights. The tensions between interpretations that respectively propose organizations or publics (activists) have more power is foregrounded as: ‘Intersectionality illuminates this “crisis of representation” over who has what power in public relations, based on their identities and how these identities are situated in sociological contexts.’ Identities and identity formation and maintenance are seen as central to the understanding of the acquisition, enactment and ‘management’ of power.
Power is central to the second article (Place and Vardeman-Winter) where: ‘The public relations industry can be viewed as a site through which power is exercised, and public relations professionals are players in systems of power dynamics and relations.’ The authors discuss hegemonic discourses in public relations where the concept has had purchase in considering the impact of public relations practice in society as well as in paradigm debate within the field itself (L’Etang, 1996: 34; Roper, 2005) blending insights from subaltern and post-colonial theories while adapting Foucault’s concept of bio-power to argue that ‘public relations embodies hegemonic discourses through which bio-power is achieved’. Using grounded theory the authors explore hegemonic discourses in public relations as understood by practitioners illustrated by insightful quotations from the empirical project.
Political discourse is the focus of the third article (Wise and James), which explores political discourses and intentional positioning in a specific case relating to the introduction of an Australian carbon tax and employing critical discourse analysis. Their case analysis also blends concepts from the field of impression management in the empirical analysis to argue that the approach may assist towards more nuanced understanding of transparency and ethics. Politics also seeds the final article in this issue, which focuses on cultural and ethnic diplomacy and the role of cultural intermediary in the context of museums, heritage and commemoration, subjects to which the journal returns in its Special Issue on Memory to be published in 2015. In this article, the authors (Johnson and Sink) blend a number of novel themes: ethnicity, cultural intermediation, cultural and public diplomacy and converged media. The article focuses on ethnic museums to explore issues that arise for organizations ‘whose central missions encompass the realities of race and ethnicity’, drawing on a range of literature including sources from museum studies. Their consideration of race and public relations’ role in society is linked to concepts and literature on activism, and contextualized by discussion of digital communication and authenticity. It concludes with an argument that ‘the societal role of public relations surfaces when we consider ethnic public relations’ identifying a series of research questions and core challenges that form a research agenda that has wider implications for the public relations field.
Finally, our issue concludes with a book review (Demetrious) focused on a topic that is fast becoming the focus of revisionist thinking in public relations: that of activism.