Extending the cultural-economic model of public relations through Bourdieu’s theoretical lens to inform public diplomacy efforts

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.

Keywords

Cultural-economic model public diplomacy pierre bourdieu international public relations theory of practice

Scholars (e.g., Arsenault, 2013; Zaharna, 2010; Zaharna et al., 2013) state that in the 21st century, with increasing globalization and the development of new communication technologies, public diplomacy practices have changed from simply presenting messages to forming relationships with foreign publics. This relational approach indicates that contemporary public diplomacy has focused on building and maintaining relationships with foreign publics to gather international support for a nation’s foreign policy (Golan and Yang, 2015). Thus, scholars (e.g., Fitzpatrick, 2007; Signitzer and Coombs, 1992; Zhong and Lu, 2013) have emphasized the centrality of the public relations perspective for public diplomacy. For example, Golan (2015) emphasizes that “a variety of public relations theoretical perspectives can guide public diplomacy scholarship at the relational level” (p. 422).

Scholars have proposed the relevance of public relations theories and models to public diplomacy practices. For example, Yun (2008) analyzed the empirical associations between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980) and excellence theory (Grunig, 1992) in public diplomacy, whereas Kim (2015) applied crisis management frame to public diplomacy and suggested how crisis management research can be applied to public diplomacy programs. Ki (2015) proposed a framework that could link relationship management theory to public diplomacy. Most of these works have tended to espouse the dominant public relations theory of the time. However, some scholars (e.g. Bravo, 2015; Brown, 2013; L’Etang, 2009) argue that scholars need to move beyond normative theories of public relations to analyze public diplomacy efforts. For example, L’Etang (2009) states that when scholars link public diplomacy to public relations, they need to consider the realities of hegemonism, nationalism, and aggression, which have been ignored in dominant organization–management approaches in public relations literature. However, little study has investigated whether critical theoretical approaches inform public diplomacy efforts. To fill this gap, this study uses SCI as a case study, which is a part of a larger study, particularly focusing on the theoretical implications of extending the CEM using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory. The CEM is used as a critical theoretical approach to analyze public diplomacy efforts because it emphasizes interrelationships of culture, identity, and power (Curtin and Gaither, 2007) and focuses on examining public relations practices in their fullness and complexity by considering publics as active participants (Curtin and Gaither, 2005). Curtin (2023) mentioned that the CEM can be criticized as not providing depth or insight; therefore, it requires “theoretical development to provide the necessary research foundation” (p. 157). Therefore, because the CEM is a model and not a theory but incorporates elements of both structure and agency, this study also considers how postmodernist theory, specifically Pierre Bourdieu’s, can provide more explanatory power and depth to the model. This study argues that Bourdieu’s theory can be integrated into the CEM to analyze public diplomacy efforts by examining relationships between social structures, fields, and the types of capital relevant to the public diplomacy field.

SCI is one of the oldest U.S. public diplomacy initiatives to build relationships between communities by linking individual cities all around the world to promote citizen diplomacy (Sister Cities International, n.d.). President Eisenhower launched SCI during the Cold War to support person-to-person efforts. He invited Americans to work with him to “create worldwide understanding of U.S. aims and to help build a climate for enduring peace” (Cull, 2008, p. 118, 119). Although many initiatives lost their attractiveness after the Cold War, SCI survived and continued to serve after 9/11. Therefore, this study uses SCI as an example to analyze public diplomacy efforts.

Literature review

Sister Cities International

President Eisenhower founded SCI at the 1956 White House Summit on Citizen Diplomacy, although communities around the world had started to build relationships even earlier. Immigrants who traveled around the world had retained their culture and named towns that they built in honor of their ancestral homes or patrons, such as New York, Williamsburg, and St Louis. These early towns are seen as the beginning of sister city relationships and are known as “nametowns” (Sister Cities International, 2006).

Today’s sister city movement emerged at the end of World War II, which destroyed many cities around the world and left thousands hungry and in need of help. The postwar environment made people open to the idea of reaching out to those communities, and U.S. citizens reached out to citizens of Japan and Germany to help them after the war. For example, in 1951, Arlington, Texas, arranged a humanitarian aid project for Konigshofen, Germany, which initiated a long-term relationship between the two cities (Sister Cities International, 2006).

During World War II, General Eisenhower commanded the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe and the occupying forces in Germany. He saw the war’s destructive consequences firsthand and wanted to bring people together to plan and work toward common peace around the world. After becoming president in 1953, he encouraged communities around the U.S. to create town affiliation links with communities around the world. For example, in 1955, Hagerstown, Maryland, and Wesel, Germany, became sister cities to build relationships among their residents. Eisenhower and the early pioneers of the Sister City Program believed that if the citizens of countries could build mutually respectful relationships, it could transform diplomatic relations between those countries (Sister Cities International, 2006). When the program was first devised, relationships focused mainly on culture and education (Mascitelli and Chung, 2008).

Any city looking for a sister can be a part of the Sister Cities Program and have more than one sister (Sister Cities International, n.d.). Choosing a sister city is not a random process. According to Zelinski (1991), “historical connections, shared economic, cultural, recreational and ideological concerns, similar or identical place names, and, to a certain extent, the friction of distance” all play roles in choosing a sister city (p. 1). Others have suggested that sister cities should be of equal size, that larger cities should have more sister cities than smaller cities for a successful engagement process, and that the financial and human resources dedicated to the relationships are one of the most important variables for a successful sister city relationship (e.g., Gil, 2020). Officials from both communities must sign an official agreement to become sister cities. Sister city organizations can include volunteers and representatives from nonprofits, companies, or municipal governments.

The relationships between sister cities are independent of each other, and they can decide what projects are important to them (Sister Cities International, n.d.) and suitable for the needs and resources of both cities (Cremer et al., 2001), such as student exchanges, sporting events, or economic exchanges. For example, Salisbury, Maryland, and Tartu, Estonia, are sister cities that have an exchange program for college students studying cybersecurity (Ledbetter, 2017). Spoleto, Italy, and Charleston, South Carolina, have an arts festival that helps Charleston’s local economy (Jaffe, 2013). Although projects vary among sister cities, they all aim to build relationships. In addition, these relationships are performed at the local level and do not depend on the support of national governments (Cremer et al., 2001).

According to the SCI website, today SCI serves as the national membership organization for sister cities across the U.S. and unites thousands of citizen diplomats and volunteers in almost 500 member communities in more than 140 countries who run sister city programs to promote peace and strengthen local communities. The program has created approximately 3700 jobs in its network and provided more than $400,000 in humanitarian aid (Sister Cities International, n.d.). SCI (2006) also observed that many of the early relationships built under the Sister Cities program have lasted into the present. Since the program started, trade activities have increased, and the number of people and students who have traveled from the U.S. to visit a sister city has also increased and vice versa (Sister Cities International, 2006). Hu et al. (2021) have characterized sister city relationships as “decentralized intergovernmental relationships” (p. 1279) that not only promote information exchange between governments, businesses, and citizens but also allow local leaders to build relationships and economic exchanges for the local community.

Scholars (e.g., Arsenault, 2009; Fisher, 2016; Zaharna et al., 2013) have argued that today, countries’ public diplomacy efforts need to focus on forming relationships, cooperation, and collaboration among diverse communities around the world. As a long-term public diplomacy initiative, SCI has tried to adapt its public diplomacy efforts to new public diplomacy features by focusing on collaborative and relational strategies instead of simply disseminating messages. Therefore, SCI makes a good case study for this study to examine how the organization perceives and performs public diplomacy efforts.

Cultural-economic model of public relations

The CEM of public relations is based on the circuit of culture model (du Gay et al., 1997) and explains how the connection of culture and power creates meaning (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). The circuit of culture model guides theoretical development that emphasizes identities, differences, and power (Curtin and Gaither, 2005). Depending on the circuit of culture, the CEM not only sees culture as a process and a space in which meanings are created and places culture at the center of any communication efforts but also sees power as inherent and fluid in all relationships (Gaither and Curtin, 2007).

The circuit of culture model consists of five moments in a process: regulation, production, consumption, representation, and identity. These five moments “work in concert to provide a shared cultural space in which meaning is created, shaped, modified, and recreated” (Curtin and Gaither, 2007, p. 38). Thus, there is no beginning or end on the circuit, and each moment contributes to the whole in concert to create meaning (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). According to Curtin and Gaither (2008), we can understand the practice of public relations only if we understand how meaning is produced and reproduced in different moments of the model. Moreover, it is better to analyze each moment separately to understand the dimensions of each moment and to indicate whether extant research belongs to specific moments (Curtin and Gaither, 2005).

Regulation

This moment is about how to control cultural activity (Curtin and Gaither, 2005) to construct social order and common sense for individuals (Curtin et al., 2016). Regulation comprises formal and legal controls, such as laws and institutionalized systems, as well as informal and local controls, such as norms and expectations that form culture (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). In terms of public diplomacy efforts, this moment can help public diplomacy practitioners to understand what meaning is established as a norm in the host country and how narratives can be changed and challenged over time.

Production

This moment “outlines the process by which creators of cultural products imbue them with meaning” (Curtin and Gaither, 2007, p. 39). In terms of public diplomacy programs, we can think of this moment as the programs’ planning and communication steps. This moment also introduces power dynamics from creation to execution and includes the creation of identity and messages for the public.

Representation

This moment refers to “the form an object takes and the meaning encoded in that form” (Curtin and Gaither, 2007, p. 40). The meaning is socially constructed by producers with a specific public in mind (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). Within this moment, producers create a shared cultural space by considering differences and power relations through communication channels (Curtin and Gaither, 2005). In terms of public diplomacy programs, practitioners encode meaning into program materials. Because public diplomacy practitioners represent governments, NGOs, or multinational companies, they encode the meaning of those entities in program materials.

Consumption

This moment refers how publics decode messages. This moment becomes a form of production because new meanings occur as a consequence of use when publics decode the messages within their own social contexts (Curtin and Gaither, 2007). In terms of public diplomacy programs, publics interpret program messages and become active meaning makers.

Identities

Identities “are meanings that accrue to all social networks, from nations to organizations to publics” (Curtin and Gaither, 2007, p. 41). Identities are always in process, constructed through difference and power, and are often conflicting (Curtin et al., 2016). Therefore, the moment of identities is seen as one of the most challenging moments because publics are actively negotiate different identities (Curtin and Gaither, 2005), and public relations practitioners need “to create shared identities between products or issues and publics” (Curtin and Gaither, 2007, p. 167). In terms of public diplomacy practitioners, this moment emphasizes the need to consider multiple identities when defining publics for public diplomacy programs.

Because the CEM is not a theory but a model that incorporates elements of both structure and agency, this study considers how Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice can provide more explanatory power and depth to the model.

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice

Bourdieu’s sociological work, which he called a theory of practice, focuses on the practical logic of everyday actions of individuals (Bourdieu, 1977). His sociological concerns also included understanding relations of power and domination and the development of reflexive sociology (Power, 1999). In Bourdieu’s thinking, social structures and mental structures are interlinked. The subjective representations of the agent also need to be considered because they help agents change these objective structures (Wacquant, 2006). To effect this synthesis of objectivism and subjectivism, Bourdieu talked about habitus, field, and capital.

Habitus

Bourdieu explained the regularities of behavior associated with social structures using the concept of habitus. Habitus reflects social structures, such as class, gender, and ethnicity, and shapes how agents perceive and act in the world (Power, 1999). It is impossible to have the same experiences, in the same order, for all individuals in the same class (Bourdieu, 1977). Therefore, individuals who have had similar experiences share these social structures, even though each of them has a unique variant of the common matrix (Wacquant, 2006). Thus, habitus relates to “the common style not only by its conformity but also by the difference” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 86). In addition, habitus not only is structured by the social forces that produced it but also shapes and makes coherent the various activities of individuals (Wacquant, 2006). Habitus is “the product of structure, producer of practices, and also reproducer of structures” (Power, 1999, p. 49).

Doxa is another important concept in Bourdieu’s thinking as a source of habitus: it is the combination of both orthodox and heterodox norms and beliefs. Doxa refers to “a set of unquestioned beliefs by which aspects of the world and its constituents (people, things, one’s own social situation, and practices) are grasped as ‘natural,’ taken for granted” (Vakalopoulos, 2022, p. 8). Bourdieu (1984) argued that doxa happens when we “forget the limits” that have given rise to unequal divisions in society: in doxa “an adherence to relations of order which, because they structure inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self-evident” (p. 471). But the practice involves more than habitus and is conceptualized as the product of relationships among habitus, field, and capital (Power, 1999).

Field

Fields are the structured social settings in which habitus operates, organized around specific types of capital (Swartz, 1997). Society consists of many different fields, such as education, science, art, law, and business (Wolf, 2018). A field is defined as a network of objective relations between positions (dominant and subordinate) and is organized around a limited amount of capital or power, which is shared unequally among the agents. In a field, agents and institutions are always in a struggle, and those who dominate the field make it function to their advantage through struggles characterized by resistance, claims, and contention (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). In addition, those who dominate the field tend to have a privileged position in other fields, such as politics and media (Swartz, 1997). Fields can also include subfields that can be nested hierarchically within broader fields, “like a Russian doll,” meaning that the nested field depends on the broader field (Kluttz and Fligstein, 2016, p. 192). Also, a field cannot exist without capital (Power, 1999). The various fields are distributed within the field of power depending on the hierarchy of forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1989b).

Capital

Bourdieu extended the idea of capital beyond economic resources and identified four types of capital (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic) that determine status and power in a given field (Swartz, 1997). Economic capital refers to things that are “immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 242). Other forms of capital can be converted, in certain conditions, into economic capital; they all have economic capital as their basis (Bourdieu, 1986). Cultural capital is defined as things that can be “institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 242). Cultural capital exists in three forms: the embodied state, the objectified state, and the institutionalized state (Bourdieu, 1986). In the embodied state, cultural capital takes the form of long-lasting knowledge and expertise, whereas in the objectified state, it takes the form of physical objects, such as books, instruments, and dictionaries. In the institutionalized state, cultural capital takes the form of institutional recognition, such as university degrees (Bourdieu, 1986; Wolf, 2018). Social capital “is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectively-owned capital” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 247). It is the result of networks of institutionalized relationships, such as family (Power, 1999), and includes resources that individuals possess because they are members of a group (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Symbolic capital is “the form that the various species of capital assume when they are perceived and recognized as legitimate” (Bourdieu, 1989a, p. 17), for example, ascribing moral qualities to individuals because they donate time and money to charities (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Symbolic capital relies on other individuals who believe that someone has these qualities, which is why it is described as “misrecognized” capital because it is seen as an individual’s natural quality rather than something that must be gained over time (Wolf, 2018).

In Bourdieu’s thought, the relation between the individual and society substitutes for the “constructed relationship between habitus and field(s),” that is, between “history incarnate in bodies” as dispositions and “history objectified in things” in the form of systems of positions (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 8). This relationship between habitus and field(s) is significant because it determines social action. To understand the practice, it is crucial to understand both the social constitution of the individual and the creation of the particular social universe and conditions in which the individual operates (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). These three concepts (habitus, capital, and field) are interlinked, and together they suggest the logic of individuals’ everyday actions.

A few public relations scholars (e.g., Ciszek, 2020; Edwards, 2006, 2009, 2011; Ihlen, 2005, 2007; Wolf, 2018) have applied Bourdieu’s theory to public relations practice. For example, Wolf (2018) discussed Bourdieu’s ideas and his understanding of activism in society as an alternative approach to activist public relations. Ihlen (2007) extended selected parts of Bourdieu’s work to the study of public relations. Edwards (2006) used Bourdieu’s concepts of fields, habitus, and capital to demonstrate how power operates in public relations. However, none of these studies examine public diplomacy practices. Moreover, Curtin and Gaither (2005) argued that public relations practitioners’ boundary spanner role, which is discussed as a traditional concept in the functional perspective, may be reconstructed in terms of Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of cultural intermediaries, which applies to those in occupations such as advertising and public relations. Therefore, this study also argues that Bourdieu’s theory can be integrated into the CEM to analyze public diplomacy efforts by examining relationships between social structures, the fields, and the types of capital relevant to the public diplomacy field and asks:

RQ1

How does Bourdieu’s theory extend the heuristic value of the CEM?

Method

In the communication field, scholars use qualitative research to describe or understand communication and interaction patterns, how individuals create meaning, and how these meanings affect their actions (Davis and Lachlan, 2017). Therefore, qualitative methods are most suitable for this study to understand how meanings are constructed and social, political, and cultural contexts influence public diplomacy practices. To answer the research question, this study used in-depth interviews.

Data gathering

This study is part of a larger study conducted using in-depth interviews with the organizational members of SCI (26 participants), which formed the case study on which the research was based. Snowball sampling was used to collect data from organizational members and “is the method of asking study participants to make referrals to other potential participants, who in turn make referrals to other participants, and so on” (Davis and Lachlan, 2017, p. 152). The organizational members consist of those who live in the U.S. and play an active role in the organization’s public diplomacy efforts both in the U.S. and around the world. The researcher asked organizational members who agreed to participate in the study to suggest additional participants. Through the organization’s website, the researcher was able to connect with one of the global envoys and some of the state representatives who suggested additional participants throughout the interview process. Thus, participants were recruited by sending an email invitation to those whose email addresses were found on the organization’s website and by using snowball sampling. The interview sample consisted of 26 participants. Although McCracken (1988) indicated that eight participants are sufficient for interview studies, this study aimed to reach data saturation, which was achieved when the researcher received no new information during the last interviews.

Ten of the interview participants were male and 16 were female; however, gender variation was not a concern for this study. To see different perspectives of how organizational members perceive their organization’s public diplomacy effort, this study included participants who had different titles within the organization, such as global envoy, mayor, local volunteer, and state representative. Because the organization mainly includes White members, the author was able to interview only three African American organizational members. In addition, most of the interview participants were older than 50.

In-depth interviews

Upon receiving Institutional Review Board approval, the author conducted interviews over Zoom. Each participant verbally agreed to a consent form, indicating that they agreed to do the interview and to have the interview recorded. The author used an interview guide to shape the conversation (Warren and Karner, 2015). The interview guide included grand tour questions phrased in a nondirective manner to allow participants to tell their stories in their own terms (McCracken, 1988), such as their involvement with the organization, their role at the organization, and the biggest challenge they have faced on the job. The researcher also asked what has changed throughout the years in the program to those who were organizational members for more than 20 years. In the end, the researcher asked the participants what else she should have asked them about and what else the participants wanted to tell her to not miss any experiences that they wanted to share about the organization. Each grand tour question included several probes to follow up as necessary to gain more insightful information from the participants. Follow-up questions such as “Could you say some more about that?” and “What do you mean by that. . .?” were also used to clarify or elaborate the participants’ answers.

The interviews lasted approximately 1 hour each and were conducted starting at the beginning of August 2020 and ending at the end of September 2020. The author conducted all interviews and used a professional transcription service to transcribe them from digital recording files. The author compared the written transcripts with the recordings to verify the accuracy of the transcription.

Interview analysis

During the first stage of this process, which is called open coding, the author needs to have some sense of the “big picture” of the data (Warren and Karner, 2015). This stage involved close reading and naming each word, line, or segment of data. Codes were created by defining what the author saw in the data (Charmaz, 2006). The author identified recurrent patterns or themes, then connected them to issues in the research literature and started to make analytic decisions depending on the focus of the research (Warren and Karner, 2015). The second stage included coding the most salient categories and developing axial codes to connect the most salient categories with subcategories to identify relationships among them (Charmaz, 2006; Lindlof and Taylor, 2011). These links could include conditions, actions/interactions, and consequences to answer the why, where, when, by whom, and how questions, as well as “what happens” because of these actions/interactions (Charmaz, 2006). The author focused on how these axial codes can be integrated into theory in the third state, called theoretical coding (Charmaz, 2006).

Because this paper is concerned with theoretical development, only a brief overview of the results of the empirical study are provided here.

Results of the previous study

The results of the larger study indicated four salient categories: uncertainty about the future, eliminating differences, prioritizing economic gain, and decentralizing politics. These categories are discussed briefly here because they inform how Bourdieu’s theory could extend the CEM.

Participants emphasized the local efforts and volunteer work in city relationships and talked about how real work was done at the local level, such as raising money, traveling across countries, and programming exchanges. One thought that “All depends on the people involved.” They believed that their efforts at the local level made people-to-people diplomacy possible and that the organization wouldn’t be able to survive long term without local efforts and volunteers. However, there was also uncertainty about volunteerism because it is also seen as one of the biggest challenges for the organization and it creates skepticism about the organization’s future. Some participants think that not only is the organization aging but they also can’t represent the values, beliefs, and opinions of different generations because of the organization’s lack of youth. Moreover, some participants mentioned the lack of diversity in the organization. For example, participant seven believed that “This organization cannot, in its leadership, cannot be reflective only of white Anglo men.” This salient category is related to the moment of production because of its emphasis on the role of local efforts and volunteers in building relationships within the organization.

Participants also talked about how important knowing differences among cultures is in sister city relationships. Representatives of the organizational members considered the importance of cultural competency to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures. They, however, believed that they are all the same at the end of the day. Participants also mentioned that most people speak English around the world or they can use interpreters, so the language barrier is not a problem in building sister city relationships. Even though representatives of the organizational members are conscious of the cultural and language differences between people, they believe that everyone is the same at the end of the day and see cultural and language differences are superficial. They thought that everyone speaks English, wanted to eliminate differences among nations, and were trying to build relationships by seeing American culture, language, and U.S. cities as the norm. Participants also mentioned how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their programs and they had to adjust their technology usage through social media and video conferencing software. Even though participants believed technology provides easier and faster communication between sister cities, few talked about challenges, such as Internet connectivity or time differences. This category is related to the moment of regulation that examines how power flows are enacted in culture and technological infrastructure.

The third salient category that emerged from the interview data was prioritizing economic gain. Participants indicated that financial firms and business leaders are important for the organization to create business relations for economic gain. Participant 12 also said, “When we form our board of directors, we use representation from all the major companies in our state… So when we need their help, they’re very willing to give us help.” Participant 17 added, “You need to talk to some business leaders in your community into agreeing to work with these other cities whether it’s allowing some people to come here to look at their businesses and industry or send some people over there, you know, to work with their business and industry.” A few participants emphasized that the need for economic development is the prime factor of the organization. For example, participant 22 believed that “They wanted to be sure that any relationships they had with other cities were more, um, focused on economic and business, and not so much on the softer side such as culture and charities.” Participants also talked about the importance of education in sister city relationships. Participant 26 thought that “Scholarship leads to economic development” and added, “We would say and it’s a job creator. Uh, so the companies liked it because here they are getting a fully vetted and trained student that they had a year to work with to get that student culturally acclimated within their company before they actually had to hire them.” Several participants talked about educational exchange as one of the organization’s most significant efforts. Many efforts start with high schools or universities to build relationships between cities. Businesses support these educational efforts with the intent of economic gain. This category is related to the moment of production because it indicates how economic aspects play a significant role within the organization when organizing a public diplomacy program.

Another salient category was decentralizing politics because participants thought that politics are creating issues in sister city relationships. For example, participant two believed that it is difficult to deal with nonstable governments and leadership. Participant 9 said, “When our president and our government bans travel from Muslim countries, the Indonesian students could not come to the summer program. They couldn’t, they couldn’t get a visa.” Participants emphasized the importance of the country’s president and the mayors in these relationships. Several participants, however, thought that leadership can also create issues to maintain these relationships. Therefore, they believed it is essential for the organization to decentralize the leaders' role in these relationships to avoid their negative influences on the efforts. They also thought that the organization needs to isolate itself from the State Department. For example, participant 26 said, “State Department just stay out of the way…Get out of the way because this is not government. This is people to people. And if many people on the other side of the relationship get the sense that it’s government driven, they-they will not interact with this.” This salient category is also related to the moment of regulation because it contains government attempts to regulate sister city relationships.

The next section discusses how each code can be integrated into Bourdieu’s theory of practice and provide more explanatory power and depth to the CEM of public relations.

Results

The results presented here focus particularly on the theoretical implications of extending the CEM using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, which can provide more explanatory power and depth to the model.

The CEM aligns well with Bourdieu’s theory of everyday practices. The CEM and Bourdieu use different languages, however. For example, in Bourdieu’s thinking, language is one of the main tools that organizes our understanding of the world by normalizing social structures and actualizing power relations (Bourdieu, 1991). The CEM also believes that language constitutes reality. In the CEM, meanings are also created on account of discourses, and we understand the world through these discourses. Moreover, in Bourdieu’s thinking, social structures and mental structures are interlinked. Bourdieu can help us understand everyday practices in public diplomacy through the relationship between the structure and the agent, rather than by just focusing on governments in public diplomacy. To effect this synthesis of objectivism and subjectivism, Bourdieu talked about habitus, field, and capital.

Bourdieu (1990) discussed how everyday practices, as reflections of habitus, operate in the context of fields. Individuals are in a struggle to dominate the field through the control of field-relevant capital (Bourdieu, 1990). Habitus is structured through past influences and present stimuli with the patterned social forces that give form and coherence to the everyday practices of agents, which reproduce the structure (Wacquant, 2006). Therefore, both producers’ (organizational members) and consumers’ (those from other nations) everyday practices within the sister city relationships operate as reflections of habitus in the public diplomacy field. Habitus also reflects both continuity through transporting social forces stored in the individual organism across time and space and discontinuity through the acquisition of new dispositions (Wacquant, 2006). In Bourdieu’s thinking, the public diplomacy field is a network of relationships between positions occupied by agents. In sister city relationships, these agents are individuals who are involved in sister cities as volunteers, consumers, state representatives, or mayors. In sister city relationships, these agents have unequally shared power or capital. Their positions depend on the types and amounts of capital that they have in the public diplomacy field. Because a field is an arena of struggle among agents and institutions to maintain or overturn the existing distribution of capital (Wacquant, 2006), the public diplomacy field is also a battlefield wherein power and capital are endlessly disputed. The CEM also considers power flows, identities, and the interplay of structural forces with agency to understand public diplomacy practices.

The CEM of public relations shares some Marxist roots with Bourdieu’s thought. The CEM of public relations is based on the U.K.’s Open University’s circuit of culture (du Gay et al., 1997). The model grew out of Marx’s circuit of capitalism and Hall’s encoding–decoding model, drawing on the Frankfurt School’s neo-Marxism (Curtin et al., 2016). Moreover, the model encompasses some elements of postmodernism by connecting culture with power as inherent and fluid in all relationships, which provides for agency within the constraints of structure (Curtin and Gaither, 2007; Gaither and Curtin, 2007). Even though Bourdieu did not consider himself a Marxist theorist, the theories of Karl Marx also influenced Bourdieu’s thinking (Swartz, 1997). For example, Fowler (2013) indicated that Bourdieu not only used Marxist concepts and methodological frameworks but also recognized the importance of studying power relations within the transformation of social relations. Some scholars (e.g., Beasley-Murray, 2000; Brubaker, 1985; Desan et al., 2014) have noted the differences between the two theorists. For example, Beasley-Murray (2000) indicated that Bourdieu’s economic capital is closely related to wealth and fails to provide an account of the accumulation of surplus. Bourdieu, however, describes how power relations operate and endure in everyday practices through the relationship between the structure and the agent, which is similar to the CEM. Both the CEM and Bourdieu are concerned with the dynamics of power, but Bourdieu is less flexible in his understanding of the fluidity of power. The CEM tends to be a bit more nuanced and allows competing discourses by balancing the tension between agency and structure that informs practices. According to the model, meanings are created in producers’ and consumers’ daily lives, with the recognition of the role of historicity in shaping those meanings. The CEM provides more room for agency because of its understanding of the fluidity of power than Bourdieu’s thought does.

Bourdieu also connected social capital to status and power, whereas the CEM doesn’t explicitly deal with social capital. SCI is one of the oldest public diplomacy initiatives in the U.S., with a large network around the world with more than 140 countries. The organization also has powerful connections with U.S. presidents as honorary chairs of the organization, the State Department as the main funding source for the organization, and business leaders and financial firms for economic gain. Thus, these networks and powerful connections provide social capital to the organization. In sister city relationships, organizational members representing internal publics are also other forms of social capital. Social capital includes the resources that these individuals have because of their membership in the organization (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). These individuals, who possess social capital to legitimize their power and influence on behalf of the organization, have more status and power than those who consume the efforts because they are the ones who need to approve the organizations’ public diplomacy efforts. The organization’s members serve as cultural intermediaries because they mediate between producers and consumers (Curtin and Gaither, 2007), creating an identification between the organization and those other nations. They are the ones who formulate and disseminate information to affect values and attitudes about social and cultural roles, identities, and practices, which indicates that they are performing cultural intermediary work (Edwards, 2012). Their cultural intermediation involves imposing American values on external audiences—those of other nations—by privileging American culture and language. They use various strategies and tactics such as posters, newsletters, and organizing events to legitimate the organization’s public diplomacy efforts through what Bourdieu called symbolic imposition (Ciszek, 2020). They legitimize both their organization’s narratives and the cultural forms these narratives take. Thus, they dominate the field and make it function to their advantage by eliminating differences and imposing their values on those of other nations. They generate only one meaning, which represents the West.

Bourdieu’s social capital contributes to the CEM’s production moment by providing resources to organizational members who represent internal publics. The resources that organizational members have through their membership in the organization allow them to legitimize their power and influence on behalf of the organization. These individuals have more status and power than those who consume the efforts because they play significant roles in planning the organization’s public diplomacy programs and communicating with consumers on behalf of the organization within the sister city relationships. Therefore, organizational members also legitimize their power by encoding the SCI’s program’s intended messages into the programs.

These organizational members who represent internal publics also have control of the instruments of production, such as new communication technologies, posters, and brochures that allow them to represent their own truth. According to Bourdieu (1996), what gets on media is determined by the owners. In sister-city relationships, using new communication technologies to organize public diplomacy programs reinforces the representation of Western power because they are typical Western communication tools that are run and owned by U.S.-based corporations. Thus, meanings represented in sister city relationships are constantly shaped by the moment of production, such as new communication technologies, indicating how new communication technologies dominate the field of cultural production and represent the domination of Western cities as an extension of economic capital in which all other fields are nested.

Bourdieu (1986) defined cultural capital as things that can be “institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications” (p. 242). Cultural capital exists in the institutionalized state in sister city relationships, which indicates the form of institutional recognition, such as university degrees, because many organizational efforts start with education. Almost all participants talked about the importance of the student exchange programs for the organization. Education also had a significant place in Bourdieu’s thinking. Educational institutions are “the foundations of domination and of the legitimation of domination” (Bourdieu, 1989b, p. 5). Bourdieu saw the educational system as one of the main institutions that contribute to the distribution of power in societies. Universities, colleges, and schools are the institutions that produce, transmit, and accumulate various forms of cultural capital (Swartz, 1997). They play a critical role in the reproduction of the distribution of cultural capital which entails the reproduction of the structure of social space which is central to having a monopoly on dominant positions (Bourdieu, 1989b). They serve to reinforce social differences, transmit the culture of the dominant class, and legitimize it as naturally superior to others (Johnson, 1993).

In relation to the concept of doxa, educational institutions convey the natural attitude (Bourdieu, 2001), which is taken for granted as reality and accepted as unproblematic (Bourdieu, 1990). The U.S. has always been an attractive country for international students, providing them with high quality education and the opportunity to improve their English skills (Yildirim, 2012). The organization also attracts many college and high school students through its exchange programs, and these programs are built on U.S. cities as the norm, with an overrepresentation of American culture and language that creates an inequality in the sister city relationships. Therefore, these cultural and language exchange programs legitimize practices that are included in doxa to define the field in which it operates (Bourdieu, 1977). In addition, these programs contribute to the power distribution in sister city relationships by maintaining inegalitarian relationships among cities. In line with Bourdieu’s (1984) thought, doxa happens in sister city relationships by giving rise to unequal divisions among cities. Moreover, Bourdieu believed that the educational system is the most responsible institution for keeping inequalities of privilege and power intergenerationally (Swartz, 1997). These programs have a long history in the organization that allows the U.S. to sustain its position of privilege and power through the reproduction of power relationships among sister cities. Accepting this doxa as a natural practice results in orthodoxy that establishes the “rules of the game” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 165–167).

Bourdieu’s cultural capital in the institutionalized state contributes to the CEM’s moment of regulation. According to the CEM, regulation indicates “any government attempt to regulate a behavior becomes an exercise in legitimizing power and exerting it that both alienates and provides structure” (Curtin and Gaither, 2007, p. 57). These educational exchanges represent one of the organization’s attempts to regulate behavior to legitimize the organization’s power and allow the U.S. to maintain its position in these relationships.

Cultural capital also considers producers’ work in terms of their strategies and trajectories, based on their individual and class habitus (Johnson, 1993), which indicates an embodied state in which cultural capital is in the form of long-lasting knowledge and expertise (Bourdieu, 1986). Producers’ actions are consciously or unconsciously defined by a habitus and structures that reflect the dominant relations in the field. Participants, who are mostly older white people, play a significant role in the organizations’ public diplomacy efforts. When they organize a public diplomacy program, they give priority to the American city in the relationship when trying to find commonality among cities and try to impose their culture on younger people and those from different nations. The positions they have occupied in the organization not only reflect the structure of the field but also the power relations in the field, which is the dominancy of old white American culture. The embodied state of cultural capital contributes to the CEM’s production moment. In sister city relationships, this moment refers to the planning and communication steps of the organization’s public diplomacy efforts and introduces power dynamics from creation to implementation. Interview participants are the creators of public diplomacy efforts within the sister city relationships. They are the ones who do the real work within the organization, such as raising money, traveling across countries, and organizing social events and exchange programs. Participants create identity and messages for young people and those from other nations, reflecting the structure of and the power relations in the public diplomacy field within the sister city relationships.

Many similarities, then, are apparent between the two theoretical approaches. The CEM does not privilege institutions and inform the organization’s public diplomacy efforts as a cultural practice of meaning surrounded by different identities, relational characteristics of difference, and the role of power (Curtin and Gaither, 2005). Bourdieu (1990) also helps us understand everyday practices in public diplomacy through the relationship between the structure and the agent, rather than just focusing on governments or organizations in the public diplomacy field. Both the CEM and Bourdieu were influenced by Marxist theory and were concerned with the dynamics of power. Bourdieu also connected social capital and cultural capital to status and power, whereas the CEM does not explicitly deal with social capital and does not focus on specifically educational qualifications. Therefore, these two concepts of Bourdieu extend the heuristic value of the CEM to explain public diplomacy practices.

Discussion

This study extends the CEM through ties to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The concept of social capital can provide much insight into the CEM with an emphasis on networks of relationships and resources that individuals have because they are members of a group. Bourdieu connected social capital to power and status; therefore, the term provides better explanatory power to the CEM because it allows the model to explain public diplomacy practices as a cultural practice of meaning, which is also surrounded by social capital. In addition, in Bourdieu’s thinking, the term cultural capital is also connected to power and status and helps us understand the importance of educational institutions and producers who play significant roles in these institutions. The CEM does not specifically focus on education, but because education is one of the most significant areas of public diplomacy, this study argues that it is necessary to provide a better explanation of the role of education in the public diplomacy field.

Given that this is a single case study with organizational members who lived in the U.S., it does not allow for generalizable results. Therefore, future studies can apply this study’s framework to other public diplomacy organizations and other citizen diplomats around the world. In addition, this study focused on the production moments of the model. Future studies can also include the consumption and identity moments of the model by focusing on the whole process. They can ask questions regarding consumption and identity moments of the model to get different aspects of Bourdieu’s thought such as how publics interpret public diplomacy practices or how public diplomacy practitioners define publics. Moreover, this study advanced the theoretical understanding of the CEM of public relations by examining public diplomacy practices. Thus, future studies could be designed in a context other than public diplomacy practices to provide more insight into the model.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr. Patricia Curtin for her helpful comments on this manuscript. The author would also like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive feedback. Additionally, she is deeply grateful to her participants for making this project possible.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Tugce Ertem-Eray

Author Biography

Tugce Ertem-Eray (Ph.D., University of Oregon) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, NC State University. Her fields of interest are international public relations, public diplomacy, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and strategic communications.

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