Rhetorical Approach vs. Critical Approach in Public Relations

The purpose of public relations

According to Heath (2006), the rhetorical approach is the process in which truth, value and proper policy are determined through the dialogue of arguments and counterarguments. Thus, public relations’ role in this approach is like that of an advocate. By using persuasive communication, PR practitioners present facts, values and policy positions. The advocated position is subject to analytical examination by providing counterarguments, and so on as the issue is refined. Consequently, the purpose of public relations in the rhetorical approach is to gain better understanding of the publics and, at the same time, establish clarity.

Furthermore, Heath (2000) also argued that public relations itself is a rhetorical process which assists in building society, whereby “through statement and counterstatement, people test each other’s views of reality, value and choices relevant to products, services and public policies.” In other words, from the rhetorical perspective, the goal of public relations is always concurrence instead of consensus.

Additionally, the rhetorical approach also claims that individual practitioners should play a reflective manager role where they view the organization as an outsider.

On the other hand, according to Dozier and Lauzen (1998), the critical theory raised two definitions of public relations. Firstly, it defines public relations as an intellectual domain where it embraces a wider range of research questions and incorporating additional perspectives. Secondly, it considers public relations a professional activity where it is the management of communication to build mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationships with key publics.

In the past, critical theory sees the mass media, including PR, as a mean of protecting and extending the influences of the wealthy and powerful. However, this is not the view of scholars who study public relations. On the contrary, postmodern PR practitioners are considered activists within the organizations (Holtzhausen, 2000).

The focus of the practice

The rhetorical perspective of public relations stresses the marketplace of public discourse, where ideas are contested, issues are examined, and decisions are made collaboratively. It is a never-ending process because counterargument is always ongoing.

Heath (2006) stated that the rhetorical approach requires a more societal level of analysis. Hence, it focuses on the rhetorical issues – problems that center on a contestable matter of fact, evaluation and policy – that are not limited to an organization and, therefore, emphasizes on the issues themselves and not the organization per se.

On the other hand, if for the rhetorical PR, the dialogue and process themselves are the emphasis, the critical professional view of PR focuses on the management of communications to build mutually beneficial relationships and the critical intellectual view of PR focuses on the communications of relationships while hitting on the intended/unintended consequences. Critical approach views activists from their perspective from within an organization, acknowledges the differences in power and influence, then takes the PR practitioner outside the relationship and focuses on the differences.

Subsequently, critical theory highlights the moral and ethical contradictions in public relations practices; therefore, its focus shifts away from the organizational level analysis and toward not only the societal but also the individual level of analysis.

The role of public

In the rhetorical approach, publics have more power and are more independent. They are neither passive recipients nor bound by organizational messages. As being participative and empowered, publics play the role of co-creators and co-participants in the communication process. In other words, publics talk about issues from their own perspectives and pursue the matters that they find important.

Explaining the view of how publics interpret communications and make decisions accordingly, Heath (2000) argued that rhetoric approach recognizes the fact that both participants – organization and its publics – have their own self-interest as well as philanthropic motives to engage in any debate and that meaning is fabricated through the interpretation of communications, rather than in the transmission of messages. To this effect, Heath stated that rhetorical PR practice is principally ethical because “it empowers participants to engage in dialogue.”

Conversely, Heath (2006) also claimed that “a rhetorical perspective champions the human will and intellectual ability to discover and examine facts, to develop and refine values need to guide policy, and to forger policy that blends the interests and meeting the needs of members of society. A rhetorical perspective assumes that any idea is only as good as its ability to withstand public criticism and to achieve concurrence.” However, the birth of the Internet and social media respectively, has generated much more challenges for PR practitioners. It has created a public sphere, which is a powerful platform for public debate. In addition, the new media has also given the ‘netizens’ – who make up a substantial portion of the publics – the ability to become brutally verbally abusive without suffering any consequences; therefore, it becomes even harder to create a message that can “withstand public criticism.”

On the other hand, the popularity of social media also contributes to critical scholars who apply discourse to media theories. As the publics now have their own channel to voice their opinions, they gain more control in what they perceive as news and newsworthiness. Not only can they create such trend and newsworthy materials, but also make the media change their approach to a more symmetrical and interactive way. For example, the Trayvon Martin case was one that receives limited to none national news coverage until those who felt strongly about the injustice began to share the story via Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media outlets. These postings lead to the case being covered by national news stations, resulting in an investigation, accusations, arrest and the setting of a trial date (Blow, 2012).

The major tools for managing or analyzing public relations

In the rhetorical approach, as the main emphasis is the dialogue between competing viewpoints with a focus on careful analysis of face and value, language is the major tool. In public discourse, language is used to shape social perception and affects how publics would engage in the communication. Therefore, relationships are by-product of the dialogue.

Nevertheless, The critical and rhetorical theories are somehow related to each other. Discourse is used to develop an understanding of truths and therefore, leads to a better social understanding. However, the critical theory aims to be more practical by acknowledging the power imbalance between the organization and publics. At the same time, power imbalance does not necessarily hold such negative implication if it can lead to an effective discourse to create a concurrence of social truths. In this situation, the practitioner would play a role of an advocate within the organization by recognizing the diverse attitudes and values of both internal and external publics.

Strengths

Both theories add value to the ideas marketplace and public arena by educating consumers, informing public stakeholders as to the contours of public policy opinions. They both seek moral ends. However, the rhetorical approach also has additional strength to crisis communication, as it lies in the application of reputation repair as part of the crisis response as well as post-crisis communication.

Weaknesses

The rhetorical perspective recognizes that even within the marketplace, the organization still holds enough power to create a “louder voice” and stand out among other rhetoricians; at the same time, make its arguments more effective. Accordingly, organizations usually have more time and resources in preparation of presenting their issues and/or arguments while the publics are usually diffused and disorganized, therefore have fewer advantages. Such cases create ethical questions about this approach. Thus, the question remains relative, as public discourse is not a legal case where there are judge and jury to decide the final outcome. In other words, the ultimate “truth” is more likely to fall in the hand of the participant who holds more power and resources.

Moreover, the idealism of practitioners according to the rhetorical approach might threaten their values within the organization. To be a rhetorically effective communicator, the practitioner needs to be ethical. Though, this can be challenging as the management might see practitioners as not supporting the organization.

On the other hand, the critical approach brought up the concept of “invisible clients,” which are organizations with sufficient financial resources to hire public relations practitioners to conduct studies that are beneficial to the organizational interest. Thus, the perspectives of these invisible clients would influence the research questions that public relations scholars ask and seek answers for, the theories they build, the methods they use, and ultimately, the interests they serve. PR scholars, most of whom are professors and advisors to future PR practitioners, may develop a perspective corresponding with that of their invisible clients. As a result, intellectual prejudice is unavoidable when PR scholars begin influencing those they teach with organizational input rather than examining the practice from an assembly of perspectives. This situation can cause practitioners to lose sight of their publics’ ultimate well-being because they are more focused on meeting organizational goals rather than looking out for a specific public. Subsequently, PR scholarship falls under the market-oriented administrative heading because PR research serves the private interests of organizations that pay for and find it useful in optimizing their security and profitability.

How these approaches should be used in our understanding of public relations

Since public relations is part of each society’s rhetorical process, a rhetorical perspective offers rationale for the ethical practice of public relations by explaining how public relations participates in the creation and implementation of value perspectives that shape society.

Nonetheless, critical theory introduces new concepts that contradict with other theories. The concepts of media politics and information subsidies would provide new intellectual tools for determining publics. By posing questions, including awkward and unpopular ones, as well as interrogating the status quo (i.e. asking why notions shape organizations and how they work for benefit), critical public relations research contributes to PR practice by developing an understanding of how discourse is used to establish different perspectives of information. Hence, critical perspective is theorized as a legitimate tactic in the struggle for negotiation power.

References

Blow, C. M. (2012). The curious case of Trayvon Martin. The New York Times.

Dozier, D. M., & Lauzen, M. M. (2000). Liberating the intellectual domain from the practice: Public relations, activism, and the role of the scholar Journal of public relations research, 12, 3-22.

Heath, R. L. (2000). A rhetorical perspective on the values of public relations: Crossroads and pathways toward concurrence. Journal of Public Relations Research, 12, 69-91.

Heath, R. L. (2006). A rhetorical theory approach to issues management. In C. H. Botan, & V. Hazelton (Eds.), Public relations theory II (pp. 55-87). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Heath, R. L. (2006). Onward into more fog: Thoughts on public relations’ research directions. Journal of Public relations Research, 18, 93-114.

Holtzhausen, D. R. (2000). Postmodern values in Public relations. Journal of public relations research, 12, 93-114.

Marsh, C. (2010). Precepts of reflective public relations: An Isocratean model. Journal of Public relations Research, 22, 359-377.

Motion, J. & Weaver, C. K. (2005). A discourse perspective for critical public relations research: Life Sciences Network and the battle for truth. Journal of Public Relations Research, 17, 49-67.

Pompper, D. (2005). "Difference" in public relations research: A case for introducing Critical Race Theory. Journal of Public Relations Research, 17, 139-169.

Disney’s influence and reflection on social ideology of genders

Besides the questionable legitimacy in Disney’s effort in introducing different ethnicities to younger age groups, the company is also (un)-intentionally imprinting in the publics’ mind a perception of what a princess "should" look like. Thus, the question remains relative - what is a princess supposed to look like?

         Although these characters are make belief, children identify with them on a much deeper level. The natures of conflict through Disney films are the ideals that they show through their princesses. Disney has created standards for young girls on how to grow up into proper women in order to find their prince, a.k.a. “true love.” Such indication prompted a question that whether true love has to be a prince, in other words, a man with royal descendant or a wealthy family background.

         In terms of appearance, it is observed from the films that women are supposed to be beautiful, acquiescent and have curvy figures. However, over the years, as observed from the movies, the princesses’ appearance has evolved from pretty “girl-next-doors” to idealized women with the looks of a Barbie doll and the figure of a top model. While Snow White and Cinderella were still characterized by a healthy roundness, from Aurora on, the princesses are all forced to meet with almost unachievable body images. Like Yzaguirre (2009) observed, from naive, innocent and proper girls, they have evolved into sex symbols, as the length of their skirt or coverage of their skin and breasts seems to have followed the reduction trend. For instance, Jasmine wears a crop-top that reveals her belly and a major part of her chest; Pocahontas’ skirt is over the knee and Ariel’s outfit is nothing but a bikini. Subsequently, as reflected in numerous media publications in the last two decades, young girls are nowadays encouraged to meet with increasingly unrealistic beauty ideals, which force them to present themselves as sexualized objects.

         The princesses from the 90s on have been modeled after contemporary and Hollywood’s beauty icons. In the Little Mermaid, Ariel’s looks were supposedly based on Farrah Fawcett’s, a 1970s actress and pin-up girl (Bell, 1995). Sherri Stoner, an actress weighing only ninety-two pounds, served as a live-action model for both Ariel and Belle (Bell, 1995). The rather conservative ambitions of Ariel are explained by Yzaguirre (2006) as typical of the 1980s, an era during which young women are said to have rejected the more feminist, challenging ideas of the 1970s, while still retaining the aim for economic equality. This resulted in a confusion and contradiction of expectations imposed on teenage girls.

         The new beauty standards also opened up a path for another behavioral value, as their main concern is to make sacrifices to please men and serve as objects to be looked at. It should be noted that there seemed to be a tendency in the later films to depict extreme sex objects as “exotic.” For example, Jasmine from Aladdin, Ariel from the Little Mermaid and Megara from Hercules are all portrayed as more aggressively sexual, utilizing their seductive qualities as a tool. Jasmine used her sultry look to deceive Jafar, while Ariel made use of her beauty and body language, instead of her other qualities, such as her singing talent, to get the prince to kiss her before sunset.

         In terms of social expectation of gender roles, during the period from the 30s to 60s, Disney films showed a male dominated outlook. Thus, feminists have regarded Disney movies as an unhealthy outlook for young children, especially girls, to watch for the physical attributes they suggest, along with the values supporting male dominance. In the first three Disney classics – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, the princesses do not hold jobs of their own and will not disobey direct orders. Cinderella would just keep on passively obeying every orders from her stepmother and stepsisters, though unwillingly. When she was not allowed to go the royal ball, she still showed neither resistance nor rebellion.

         However, a more positive evolution can be detected in the behavioral patterns through the films. The first two princesses introduced – Snow White (1937) and Cinderella (1950) – came out after the efforts were made in fighting for women‘s suffrage and helping with World War I. The two princesses’ only goal is for marriage and love, and all they do is wait until their princes find them. They are the models for the typical housewife, as Snow White takes care of the dwarves and Cinderella looks after her stepmother and stepsisters and the animals. Moreover, they only know how to be pretty and sing. The next princess – Aurora from Sleeping Beauty – was brought to screens during the second wave of feminism which lasted 1960’s to the 1980‘s. Women were fighting for inequalities, whether they were legal, sexual, family, workplace, or reproductive rights. The Feminine Mystique in 1963 by Betty Friedan was the book that kicked off the new wave. In 1968 there was a protest to the Miss America Pageant, saying it was an arbitrary form of beauty and what society deemed as beautiful. Feminists were upset that the two most important gifts that the fairies gave Aurora were the gifts of beauty and singing (Henke, Umble & Smith, 1996).

         On the other hand, while Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora spontaneously took on domestic chores, seemingly happy to be a housewife, no “newer” heroine is ever seen cleaning or cooking, even if they are implied to still take on those chores. For example, as part of the authoritarian and Confucianism culture, Mulan is expected to cook, serve tea and feed the animals, she either fails because of her clumsiness or passes the responsibility to others.

         In addition, all Disney princesses are expected to marry or are forced into a prearranged marriage. All princesses dreamed of a romance themselves. For example, Ariel (1989), Belle (1991) and Jasmine (1992), respectively introduced during the third wave of feminism, in which women were focusing on being successful in the working world and achieving the most they could. Belle, Jasmine and Ariel are more independent, smart and not in a rush for marriage. Belle enjoys reading while Ariel and Jasmine are both tired of their supposedly ideal princess lives. Ariel wants to see the human’s world and Jasmine wants to escape from an arranged marriage. However, in the end, the feminists realized that all Belle, Jasmine and Ariel wanted were love, happiness and a fairytale ending. Even Tiana and Rapunzel, who fought to get that they wanted, which were a business and a real identity respectively in the end, they also got their princes. It is suggested that women cannot be single and happy, as it shows in the films that they need a man to fulfill their ultimate happiness. Pocahontas (1995) is the only one who does not marry, but – despite her hinted fear of commitment – she showed regrets having to repress her feelings. The Disney worldview is clearly a simplified one, especially with regards to romance. As heterosexuality is universalized, love at first sight, based on appearances, is common and seen as the inevitable result of a boy and a girl meeting under the right circumstances in most movies, except Beauty and the Beast and Mulan, where romances depict female desire, develop slowly and – rather than being easy – require mutual effort and compromises. It wasn’t until 2012, when Brave was released, that the new princess Merida was portrayed to not have a love interest, even the movie did not make an impact as expected.

         Furthermore, as Yzaguirre (2009) observed, unlike the older heroines, who suffered from a “Cinderella complex” through which they fooled themselves that sleep or death-like passivity and helpless dependence on men are the trend, the newer ones would stand up for themselves. While Cinderella, the embodiment of self-control, merely dared to utter protest when nobody could hear her, nearly all heroines from the fifties on rebel against their parents’ expectations. The practice of marrying off children seems to be the main cause of disagreement between different generations. Disney princesses increasingly want to grow intellectually and have a taste of adventure. However, they are unprepared for their encounters with the outside world, which are filled with dangerous obstacles and can only be overcome with the help of others. For example, Rapunzel disobeyed her mother – whom she later found out to be a witch that kidnapped her when she was still an infant – to run away from her tower to only find that she was unprepared for all the vicious scheming in the real world.

         Nevertheless, the more the princesses are sporty and intelligent, the less they are dependent on others, even though they often doubt their competence in taking important decisions and blame themselves when things go wrong. Belle, Pocahontas, Mulan and Jane are confident and brave enough to engage in risky rescue operations of others.

         However, these “daring expeditions” outside the domestic sphere are allegedly incorporated on purpose, because, as Yzaguirre (2009) argued, they eventually guide the princesses towards a romantic encounter. Women are never seen to show higher ambitions, for instance to take on a leadership position in their community. Even if they are offered the chance, such as Pocahontas being passed on as the tribe’s leader, they are still passively and unwillingly take it.

References

Yzaguirre, C. M. (2006). A WHOLE NEW WORLD? The Evolution of Disney Animated Heroines from Snow White to Mulan.

Racial diversity of Disney's princesses

The majority of Disney’s classics are adaptations of famous old fairy tales composed by European writers, such as Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Subsequently, Disney’s princesses are not very racially diverse, as the majority is Caucasian with the exceptions being Pocahontas, Mulan, Jasmine, and much more recently, Tiana who are of different ethnicities.

After the appearance of Snow White in 1937, four more princesses – Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel and Belle – followed before a different ethnicity was added. Jasmine was introduced in 1992 to become the first non-Caucasian princess. After Jasmine, more ethnicities were represented, including Mulan – Chinese, Pocahontas – Native American and Tiana – African-American.

However, among the princesses, only Pocahontas and Tiana are Americans. Pocahontas, introduced in 1995, is based on a real historical person that lived in North America during the 1500s – 1600s, most notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Tiana from “Princess and the Frog” is an African-American, second American introduced in 2009 – 14 years after Pocahontas.

Snow White is a German princess. Her original name is Sneewittchen, which means "white snow" in Deustch – the German language. She embraced a typical German ideal beauty, which is comprised of pale skin, black hair and brown eyes, and wore a dress that resembled the traditional German gown.

Cinderella and Belle are from France. Belle is a French name that means “beauty” and her story setting is in a French village and Cinderella’s stepmother – Lady Tremaine’s family name is DuBois, which is also a French family name, according to the movie.

Aurora is believed to have been a British princess. The rationalization for this deduction being the evidence of British decent such as her facial features and costumes. However, because the Grimm brothers – Aurora’s creators – were German, her ethnicity was also argued to be German.

Ariel wouldn’t have a specific nationality, as she is a resident of an oceanic city – Atlantic. However, she still has Caucasian features, such as pale skin and blue eyes, and therefore can be considered a representation of a Caucasian.

Jasmine is an Arabic princess and the first to not be Caucasian. She was based on princess Badroulbadour from the tale “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” in the Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights).

Mulan is a Chinese historical heroine that has been presented in numerous literatures. In Disney’s version, she does have typical Asian features, such as the pointy cheek and slanted eyes.

Rapunzel is an Irish princess due to the fact that the residents of kingdom have brown hair, reddish faces with Irish features. In addition, the dance scenes in her movie – Tangled – featured traditional Irish dancing.

Originally, the audiences in general, and feminists in particular, were really looking forward to seeing the Princess and the Frog because it was the first African American Princess. Right before 2009, women had made huge strides such as first woman being elected Speaker of the House, first to win a presidential primary and first four-star general. In association with this movie, women were excited about Princess Tiana having a desire to fulfill her dreams, and they liked the idea that there is not the typical patriarchal outlook that most other Disney films had held. They did not agree that 80% of the movie, if not more, she was a frog. It goes against having an African American Princess if she is going to be a frog (Lester, 2010).

Additionally, in late 2012, it was reported that Disney has created the first TV animation series to feature a Latina princess, “Sofia the First: Once upon a Princess.” However, shortly after the announcement, a Disney’s co-executive producer released a statement affirming that Sofia was of “mixed heritage” and not Latina as it was first advertised. The controversy caused Disney to receive heavy criticism.

Critics and activists argued that since Disney has created princesses representing other minorities, it was unfitting that the company hasn’t produced a princess that represents the group that took up 16.7% of the American population. Furthermore, if Disney does produce one, she has to carry biological features of individuals from Latin America, comprised of Mexico, Central America and South American countries.

In Disney’s effort to promote ethnic diversity to children, the company has incorporated cultural circumstances to educate young girls, such as nature preservation with Pocahontas and the famous Chinese ancient heroic story about bravery and defying conservative values of Mulan. The intention behind Disney’s postponement in embodying the Hispanic culture became questionable.

According to Sieczkowski (2012), the incident could be connected to the current American view toward the Hispanic community. Many Americans are uneducated about different ethnicities, of which some are misrepresented in the media, and therefore, are quick to make assumptions and judgments. Moreover, the tension derived from the debate over the immigration policy that geared toward the neighbor country – Mexico – may have also affected the American’s perception of the Hispanic community. Furthermore, the fact that Disney has waited more than 20 years since its first non-Caucasian princess to introduce a somewhat-Latino princess challenged Disney’s legitimacy in their motives and brought up questions of the company’s exclusion.

In addition, certain attributes of the character might relate to that of a child’s life or even the actual location. For example, New Orleans is the setting of Tiana’s story in the Princess and the Frog and the story of the Emperor’s New Groove took place in Peru.

Correspondingly, Disney could have practiced the same formula with a Latina princess. The challenge is picking a country in which its nationality represents the ethnic majority of the Hispanics, as some South American countries, such as Argentina, are more European than, say Peru, which is mostly populated by Indigenous Native American.

As the United States being considered a melting pot, American children are in consistent and instant communication and interaction with a wide compilation of difference races and hybrids. Elvia Ramirez, assistant professor of Ethnic Studies at Sacramento State University, commented that children should see a princess character that looks similar to them. “Children are going to look for a doll that they can see themselves in. If none of all the dolls manufactured look like them, they might feel symbolically excluded,” Ramirez said.

Thus, Sieczkowski argued that Disney’s effort of creating ethnic diversity of its princesses was an act to make the company look more inclusive, as the company was under societal pressure to appear more diverse.

References

Sieczkowski, C. (2012). Princess Sofia Is Not Latina, Says Disney. The Huffington Post.

Lester, N. A. (2010). Disney's The Princess and the Frog: The pride, the pressure, and the politics of being a first. The Journal of American Culture, 33(4), 294-308.

Celebrity Gossip and Its Impact

I believe the power of gossips and rumors over celebrity crisis management is an important topic to discuss because the emergence of communication technology development has drastically changed the way we manage our relationships (Ben-Ze’ev, 2004) and reputation (Solove, 2007). Serving as a platform for mass media as well as individual representation, web 2.0 has empowered new forms of information, including celebrity gossip. This emergence also created challenges for crisis managers to control the harmful information being disseminated as the courses of gossips have become much denser (Beer & Penfold-Mounce, 2009).

I found Ortner’s article very informative because it formulated the knowledge regarding celebrity gossip by defining celebrity gossip and analyzing the challenges and opportunities it poses to the celebrity. The article sorted celebrity gossips into five categories with different sub-categories, including sex (sexual orientation, sexual preferences and unconventionalities, cheating/affairs and sex tapes/nude photos), drugs, relationships (new relationships, engagement and marriages, pregnancy, children and other family, failing relationships, failed relationships and fake relationships), behavior and character (acting in an inappropriate way, plastic surgery, having issues with weight, celebrity feud, being an attention-seeker, dark secrets and oddities) and behind-the-scenes. Ortner mentioned that nowadays, for the media, bad news is considered good news as it is much more appealing to the audience. Thus, as a lot of celebrities “depending on gossip and its power to sell products and images” (Birchall, 2006; Fortunati, 2009), Ortner suggested crisis managers to practice evaluation of the gossip by using Solove (2007)’s assessment, asking questions such as “who is making the disclosure,” “is the disclosure made to the appropriate audience,” and “is the purpose behind the disclosure one we should encourage or discourage.”

On the other hand, Beer’s and Penfold-Mounce’s article approached the topic by considering celebrities “mobile and contingent, rather than fixed and stable;” thus, they proposed approaches that can accommodate this mobility. Suggesting that celebrity is now perhaps “the defining aspect of contemporary popular culture” and viewing celebrity gossip as a process of “moving and transforming through a media environment,” the two authors depicted from Ang (1985)’s “melodramatic imagination” theory to proposed a “new melodramatic imagination” understanding of the power of gossip over a celebrity’s career. Using Miley Cyrus as a case study, they argued that by being a byproduct of the new melodramatic imagination, the public is now a partner in assembling the content; thus, controlling the narratives of both sides would be the key to celebrity crisis communication.

Moreover, Fairclough (2008) claimed that nowadays, “celebrities are no longer perceived as primarily or necessarily figures of aspiration, but as characters to judge and deride.” Consequently, she observed a “bitch culture,” in which gossip bloggers play the roles of both the “producer” and “consumer” of the celebrity by deconstructing a celebrity’s image, at the same time contributing to, and sometimes re-shaping, the celebrity’s cultural impact. Additionally, in this “bitch culture,” the boundary between negative and positive meaning of the word “bitch” has almost dissolved as a lot of celebrities have built a “bitch” reputation to attract audiences. In other words, “bitch culture” has become embedded into the typical paradigms of celebrity mediation.

Reference

1.      Beer, D., & Penfold-Mounce, R. (2009). Celebrity gossip and the new melodramatic imagination. Sociological Research Online, 14(2), 2.

2.      Fairclough, K. (2008). Fame is a losing game: Celebrity gossip blogging, bitch culture and postfeminism. Genders (48).

3.      Ortner, H. (2013). Not so blind items: Anonymous celebrity gossip exposed. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit8/papers/Ortner_MIT8_Blind_Items.pdf

Global Communication: Current Trends

In the past decades, global communication has developed into a rapidly expanding field with a number of players. Communications across borders consist of flows of words, images, texts and data that move between and among individuals, governments, social movements and business organizations. However, according to Thussu (2006), as a result of the deregulation and liberalization of the international communication during the 90s along with new communication technology developments, especially the satellite, cable, digital and mobile, the world media marketplace has turned into a “global media bazaar.” (p. 98)
The first current trend is the media convergence. Before the globalization, most media corporations had very distinct area of business and functions. However, with the game-changing movement of privatization across the globe and the fascinating invention of information digitization, that distinction has dissolved drastically. From then we have seen a huge wave of mergers and acquisitions, which resulted in an unbelievably huge drop in number of private corporations. In 1983, there were 50 private corporations and in 2004, only five major ones remained, including Time Warner, Disney, News Corp, Bertelsmann, Viacom and NBC as a close sixth. (Thussu, 2006, p. 99)
As being said, the convergence of the media has given the major corporations the ability to “integrate content origination with delivery mechanism”. Not only that they create their own contents, but they also have a global distribution network to support their international visibility and impact. Thus, the five major game players above dominate the global market and control all the major aspects of mass media. (Thussu, 2006, p. 99)
Even though that trend creates a few criticisms, such as the limit of sources of information since there are very few conglomerates distributing information across all platforms, it leads to the next trend, which is the western domination in cultural and media products.
All five major corporations are western based, especially the U.S., which caused the West to dominate the world’s entertainment and information networks. They cleverly utilized the two major entertainment factors that can “cut across national and cultural and even linguistic boundaries,” which are sport and music respectively.
Now we see a wide variety of formats of western-made cultural products became international franchises. For example, the Idol Series, which originated from the UK, has been licensed and adapted in more than 30 countries. The multi-million-dollar franchise also created the foundation for subsequent franchises such as the X Factor, The Voice and the Got Talent series (Simon Fuller on how ‘Idol’ began, 2011). We also witnessed a lot of international mega stars who gained worldwide fame and popularity such as Britney Spears, Madonna, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. The Harry Potter fantasy novel series have been translated into 67 languages and created enormous international cultural and social impact. (Record print run for final Potter, 2007)

In the news arena, the West, led by the U.S., is also dominating. However, with another current trend of “contra flows” in global media, the major game players mentioned above should be a little concerned. In the past, U.S. media used to have strong credibility because of its independence of government control. However, in recent years, that credibility has been “severely dented” due to their biased coverage; for example, the extensive coverage of the so-called open-ended and global war on Islamic terrorism after 9/11. The news discourse is also biased in terms of nuclear issues. Additionally, with the cut back on foreign news coverage, a lot of U.S.’s way of framing stories on countries with geopolitical and economic interest is not really universally accepted.
Moreover, in the entertainment arena, the world is also seeing a subsurface wave of eastern culture, especially China, India and South Korea. While the Indian film industry has created its own reputation with “Bollywood,” China has also had a few international kungfu blockbusters and South Korea is spreading its culture with the “hallyu” wave.

 

A very recent example would be Psy – a South Korean artist – who has dominated the international music charts, including the U.S. and U.K., with the smash hit single Gangnam Style. He also took over Justin Bieber’s spot as the most liked video on YouTube (Guinness World Records, 2012). A few Chinese actors has had established international career such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li. As a result, now we see more and more Hollywood movies with multi-nationality cast.
Nevertheless, the U.S.’s domination in TV shows creation is also losing its position. One good example would be the hit TV show Ugly Betty, which originated from the Colombian show Yo Soy Betty, La Fea. That adaptation led the trend of U.S.’s adaptation of other countries’ TV shows, such as The Voice from Holland and reality TV series from the U.K. These examples serve as a precedent for the future and set the foundation for a more balanced media power concentration system.

The value of PR

        PR as a critical part of strategic management

Research has shown that PR practitioners are rarely included in the dominant coalition (Grunig & Repper, 1992). White and Dozier also indicated that very few communication managers are empowered as decision makers at the strategic level. Grunig (1992) proposed several explanations for public relations’ absence in strategic management, including the lack of comprehensive business expertise, passiveness, being foreign to organizational politics, and inadequate academia. Consequently, PR practitioners usually do not have an influential position and are relegated to a functional level within the organizational structure.

However, Sung (2007) proposed that PR is most effective when it is embedded in the strategic management framework. Specifically, PR professionals should be part of and cooperate with chief administrative officers and executive managers. Depicting from the Excellence Theory developed by Grunig, Sung suggested that PR can help executive managers identify uncertainties to contain risks and issues. Moreover, PR contributes to revenue generation by managing a good and healthy reputation as well as maintaining and building stable, quality and long-term relations with strategic constituencies (Huang, 2012). Ultimately, PR helps in cost reduction as those relationships would save the organization resources by preventing crises, litigation, bad publicity and other issues.

Furthermore, Kim, Ni and Sha (2008) stated that PR is more than just communication management tool between the organization and its publics. Instead, PR has a real and measurable impact on the success of achieving organizational goals by being a “communication discipline” that engages key audiences to bring back vital information for organizational analysis and decision making.

In addition, PR deals with not only external publics but also internal ones. For instance, it is critical that all employees to have a thorough understanding of organizational goals and strategy as well as their roles and responsibilities in executing them. Thus, PR as a strategic management function looks at all the stakeholders of the organization and uses a variety of tools and tactics to maintain and enhance relationships with them. Most importantly, PR provides strategic consultation to executives for effective decision making.

Grunig (2006) also argued that PR serves as “in-house activists” to manage the “corporate conscience” by advocating for two-way symmetrical communication and suggesting a mutually beneficial relationship with its publics. PR professionals should have an objective perspective to weigh conflicting needs of different publics and organizational goals to help executives make the best and most balanced decisions.

        How PR should be practiced in a strategic way to go beyond publicity and promotion efforts

Public relations and publicity are not synonymous. Publicity is only a function, a tool and a specialized discipline for PR practitioners to achieve further goals. Other important PR practices that go beyond publicity and promotion efforts include environmental scanning and identification of publics.

According to Sung (2007), PR practitioners monitor the environment to bring an outside perspective to the decision making process (pp. 175). This practice is a methodology to identify external competition as well as other social, economic and technical issues that might be overseen. Beside early issue identification, excellent PR also emphasizes monitoring the external environment and adjusting organizational mission to it.

On the other hand, by breaking up a mass public or population into smaller groups that have similarities, PR practitioners are able to evaluate the importance of different stakeholders to contribute to the most cost-effective organizational decisions (Grunig & Repper, 1992; Kim, Ni & Sha, 2008). Depending on the scope of resources available, PR practitioner can identify and prioritize strategic publics that would have the most impact and interaction with the organization to develop a more effective plan, instead of wasting time and resources on all publics. Additionally, by doing so, practitioners are also able to design the appropriate messages and strategies for each public, depending on the publics’ properties and expectations.

These two practices are much more than just publicity and promotion efforts as they set PR practitioners in a much more proactive role by preparing and anticipating for all possibilities, predicting new trends and opportunities, at the same time saving cost and resources by driving the organization in the right and strategic focus.

Furthermore, publicity and promotion are just two outcomes that practitioners aim for while building and maintaining a good organizational reputation. As “publicity” does not always mean good press coverage, for example, in times of crisis, publicity might be a massive dissemination of negative information across all media; the role of PR will go beyond establishing publicity to repairing reputation. If publicity is more about changing the knowledge (making publics aware of the organization and its service or product) and promotion is about changing behavior (attracting publics to purchase the product or consume the service), PR’s ultimate outcome is to change the attitude of the publics toward an organization or issue.

            Environmental scanning

            Public relations is often referred to as its functional level, which is nothing more than a simple set of communication strategies tactics. Many practitioners are usually portrayed as and mistaken as party planners and/or deceiving representatives who are willing to spin any story to get publicity for their organization. However, I believe PR is an integral part of overall strategy and should be practiced constantly. As communication campaigns are developed based on extensive research to address strategic organizational objectives with tactical outcomes, target audiences and key messages, environmental scanning would be a great contribution to recognizing the value of PR.

            One of the important roles of PR practitioners is to advocate for the balance of the organizational need and the needs of its stakeholders, including investors, customers, employees, and sometimes the community. For example, Toshiba is going through some financial difficulties due to the regression. The organization is faced with the possibility of closing a regional plant as that manufacturing location is no longer needed. PR practitioners would have to practice intense environmental scanning to evaluate the impact this decision would have with the employees, customers as well as the community there to help measure the aftermath and possibly suggest other alternatives.

            However, according to Sung (2007), this function is not widely practiced in public relations. One of the reasons for this is the lack of academia regarding how to conduct environmental scanning and how to use scenarios to explore possible outcomes. As a methodology for early issue identification and coping with external competition, social, economic and technical issues that may be difficult to see, practitioners can use this tool to help monitor, interpret and respond to issues that threaten organizational reputation, at the same time enhance organizational survival and growth. In addition, more than just media clipping, Grunig (1990) also pointed out that systematic analysis of media monitoring would help practitioners have a more accurate evaluation of the presentation of organizational reputation. Also, logically, by doing research based on the situational theory, environmental scanning also supports public identification to help save cost and resources. Thus, if more understanding of this powerful function is gained; environmental scanning would be a great contribution to the value of PR.

References

Grunig, J. E. (1990). Theory and practice of interactive media relations. Public Relations Quarterly, 35(3), 18-23.

Grunig, J. E. (2006). Furnishing the edifice: Ongoing research on public relations as a strategic management function. Journal of Public relations Research, 18, 151-176.

Grunig, J. E., & Repper, F. C. (1992). Strategic management, publics, and issues. In J. E. Grunig (Ed.), Excellence in public relations and communication management (pp. 31-64). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Grunig, L. A. (1992) "Power in the Public Relations Department". In: Excellence in Public Relations and Communications Management, Hillsdale, N. J.: L. Erlbaum.

Huang, Y-H. (2012). Gauging an integrated model of public relations value assessment (PRVA): Scale development and cross-cultural studies. Journal of Public Relations Research, 24, 243-265.

Steyn, B. (2007). Contribution of public relations to organizational strategy formulation. In E. L. Toth (Ed.), The future of excellence in public relations and communication management: Challenges for the next generation (pp. 137-172). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Sung, M-J. (2007). Toward a model of scenario building from a public relations perspective. In E. L. Toth (Ed.), The future of excellence in public relations and communication management: Challenges for the next generation (pp. 173-197). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

White, J., & Dozier, D. M. (1992), "Public Relations and Management Decision Making". In: Excellence in Public Relations and Communications Management, Grunig, J. E. (ed.), Hillsdale, N. J.: L. Erlbaum Assoc.