Reconfiguring Public Relations: Ecology, Equity and Enterprise (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies)

Reconfiguring Public Relations

“Conversations constitute realities and reconfiguring PR means changing its conversations” say McKie and Munshi in this new book, arguing that PR must engage more appropriately with the changing world of the twenty-first century. The authors set out innovative ideas for equipping public relations to respond and to reimagine itself in the light of current major forecasts and trends for uncertain business, environment, and social conditions. Indeed this is the first PR book of its kind to address environmental questions within the context of global business. McKie and Munshi’s project is to situate a transformed PR within the new global economy, offering ethical value beyond the limits of the excellence project. The authors draw from postmodern and postcolonial approaches to reframe cultural relations, PR education, futures, history and professionalism to suggest how PR might be moved from its current insularity and begin contributing to increased environmental responsibility, social justice and global enterprise. This book will be of considerable interest to postgraduate students of public relations and communication management in Europe, Canada, the US, and Asia. It would also be of topical interest to academics, professionals, and strategists in public relations. Dr David McKie is Professor of Management Communication at the Waikato Management School at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Dr Debashish Munshi is Associate Professor of Management Communication at the Waikato Management School at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Both have published widely on the subject of public relations.

Routledge advances in management and business studies

1 Middle Managers in Europe Yves Frédéric Livian and John G. Burgoyne

7 HRM, Technical Workers and the Multinational Corporation Patrick McGovern

2 Marketing Apocalypse Eschatology, escapology and the illusion of the end Edited by Stephen Brown, Jim Bell and David Carson

8 The Internationalization of Small to Medium Enterprises The interstratos project Edited by Rik Donckels, Antti Haahti and Graham Hall

3 Relationship Marketing in Professional Services A study of agency–client dynamics in the advertising sector Aino Halinen

9 Neo-Industrial Organising Renewal by action and knowledge formation in a project-intensive economy Rolf A. Lundin, Hans Wirdenius, Eskil Ekstedt and Anders Soderholm

4 Job Design and Technology Taylorism vs anti-Taylorism Hans D. Pruijt 5 Regulation and Organisations International perspectives Edited by Glenn Morgan and Lars Engwall 6 Information Technology, Organisations and People Transformations in the UK retail financial services sector Jeff Watkins

10 Perspectives on Public Relations Research Edited by Danny Moss, Dejan Vercic and Gary Warnaby 11 Resources, Technology and Strategy Edited by Nicolai J. Foss and Paul L. Robertson 12 Telecommunications Regulation Culture, chaos and interdependence inside the regulatory process Clare Hall, Colin Scott and Christopher Hood

13 Organisational Learning in the Automotive Sector Penny West 14 Marketing, Morality and the Natural Environment Andrew Crane 15 The Management of Intangibles The organization’s most valuable assets A. Bounfour 16 Power and Influence in the Boardroom James Kelly and John Gennard 17 Public–Private Partnerships Theory and practice in international perspective Stephen Osborne 18 Work and Unseen Chronic Illness Silent voices Margaret Vickers 19 Measuring Business Excellence Gopal K. Kanji 20 Innovation as Strategic Reflexivity Edited by Jon Sundbo and Lars Fuglsang 21 The Foundations of Management Knowledge Edited by Paul Jeffcutt 22 Gender and the Public Sector Professionals and managerial change Edited by Jim Barry, Mike Dent and Maggie O’Neill

23 Managing Technological Development Hakan Hakansson and Alexandra Waluszewski 24 Human Resource Management and Occupational Health and Safety Carol Boyd 25 Business, Government and Sustainable Development Gerard Keijzers 26 Strategic Management and Online Selling Creating competitive advantage with intangible web goods Susanne Royer 27 Female Entrepreneurship Implications for education, training and policy Edited by Nancy M. Carter, Colette Henry, Barra Ó Cinnéide and Kate Johnston 28 Managerial Competence within the Hospitality and Tourism Service Industries Global cultural contextual analysis John Saee 29 Innovation Diffusion in the New Economy The tacit component Barbara Jones and Bob Miller 30 Technological Communities and Networks International, national and regional perspectives Dimitris G. Assimakopoulos

31 Narrating the Management Guru In search of Tom Peters David Collins 32 Development on the Ground Clusters, networks, and regions in emerging economies Edited by Allen J. Scott and Gioacchino Garofoli

33 Reconfiguring Public Relations Ecology, equity, and enterprise David McKie and Debashish Munshi

Reconfiguring Public Relations Ecology, equity, and enterprise

David McKie and Debashish Munshi

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 David McKie and Debashish Munshi All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-95663-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-39408-2 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-95663-X (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-39408-6 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-95663-2 (ebk)

Contents

Acknowledgements 1 Locating the project, the personal, and the geo-politics of publishing Informing situations: space and time from Waikato to Downing Street 2 The personal is political: how do we fit into the reconfiguration project? 5 Locating publication: political economy, theory geography, and edge interventions 8 Limiting textbooks: the case of the creeping fox terrier clone 10 Enlarging the field: on status, textbooks, and terminology 11 Acknowledging antecedents, entertaining ideas, and net gains 13 Postscript that could have been a preface: acknowledging contradictions 15 Progressing the conversation: a brief outline plan of the chapters 17 2 Signs of the times: assessing the present and revisiting the past Vital signs (1): stormy weather and the ecological case for reconfiguration 21 Vital signs (2): equity, democracy, and global (im)balances 24 Vital signs (3): enterprise, markets, and corporate choices 26 Shifting signs: pluralisation and context-relevant PR 28 From pessimism to lines of flight: emotional matters, public diplomacy, and propaganda for peace 31 3 Pluralising theory: academic empires, excellence, and global implications Interpreting symmetry 36

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Contents Testing symmetry in two locations: can’t live without it (in PR) and don’t notice it (outside PR) 40 US primacy and the reach of the global 43 Strategic amnesia and empiricism’s empire 44 Beyond the parochial: empires, knowledge, and pluralism 45

4 Moving the settings: multiple diversities and requisite varieties Focusing on the core: photographic metaphors and ethnocentric lenses 49 Controlling the settings: trapped in the time warp of mechanistic models 51 Underexposed films: PR and the phobia of the other 54 The state of the art as a grainy picture: global PR theory and inherent inequalities 56 Freedom beyond Freedom House: towards new flowering democracies 57 Relocating knowledge in PR 59 5 Not enough Said: decolonising PR through postcolonial frameworks The new S-curve: an overview of postcolonial perspectives in communication from Said and Spivak 63 Colonising illusions: an “other” look at Bhopal 66 Continuing the S-curve: insights from Shiva to Shome and Hegde 67 Correcting myopia: diversifying publics and enlarging visions 68 Global relations: emerging situations and changing status 70 Metaphoric lines of flight: trees, tubers, India Shining, and Western PR in the dark 73 6 What’s next (1)? Empowering differences, learning from leadership, and equity in management after In Search of Excellence Leading change after modernity: heretical heroes of the post 77 Downsizing In Search of Excellence (1): metaphor banks, restricted credit, and reality checks 79 Downsizing In Search of Excellence (2): fashionable dismissals and corporate games 82 Exposing excellence: crossover culture and business science 83 Re-fashioning In Search of Excellence: interdisciplinary intertexts Ltd 84

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Non-Western searches: Eastern exposures, continuing contradictions, and the metaphor spectrum 86 Less than excellent: postscript on methodologies and what’s next in leadership 88 Uncertain times: leadership with more emotion and newer science 89 7 What’s next (2)? Accounting for value and returns on the real Accounting for the bottom line (1): discipline, demand, and building value propositions 92 Accounting for the bottom line (2): temptations and transparency costs 96 Accounting for activists: deviant dolls and online culture 97 Environment matters: tilting at windmills and returns on the real 99 8 Questioning professionalism: cover stories, disciplines, and identities Residing metaphors: limited hospitality and ideal homes for professional people 103 Testing identity: marketing ACID for PR 104 Communicated identity: from born in the USA to a Polish pope in Ireland 105 Planning futures: ACID dreams and university premises 107 Marketing matters: intimations of integration, demarcation disputes, and marketing after modernism 109 Competing disciplines: marketing offensives and partial colonisation 112 Community halls and social marketing 114 9 PR history (Ltd): postmodernising empiricism, selling stories, and telling tales Back to the “new” history: from innocence to interests 119 Metaphoric titles: (in)visible imaging, sensuousness, and ventriloquist voicing 120 (Dis)owning the creation myth: determining Darwinism, evolving ethics, and intelligent design 122 Other histories: researching without the US as prototype 126 Inclusive historiography: herstories and voices from below 129

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10 Back to futures: losing control and cultivating foresight Deploying foresight: from forecasts to future informed insight 133 Futuring in PR and an economic 9/11? 134 Global opportunities and a brief history of managing alternative futures 136 Imagined projections: catching the currents of change 137 Waving or drowning? Generation MM, poetry, and business 140 Enterprising solutions: the creative class and PR 142 Afterword: context, foresight, and conclusion 144 Bibliography Index

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Acknowledgements

It has taken more than seven years for this book to take shape and evolve. More than anything else, it was nurtured by conversations not only between us but also with many other people. These were the conversations that catalysed the aim of reconfiguring public relations to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and interconnected world and also to be more fun. It would be impossible to acknowledge the contribution of every individual or institution to our project but we are grateful to the Waikato Management School (WMS) for not only providing us with an intellectually stimulating working environment but also supporting us with research funds and wonderfully supportive colleagues. More specifically, in the Management Communication Department (MCom), we have had engaging conversations and raucous laughter with all our fellow MComrades, and acknowledge the department’s talented chairpersons at different times of our project, Ted Zorn and Juliet Roper. We recognise many of our departmental colleagues through our citations to their work in the book. We also thank the many activists and decent organisation communicators who have informed our work as well as our students from whom we have learnt so much. In terms of logistical support, we thank Terry Clague and his team at Routledge for working so efficiently and diligently with us on the production of this book. We also thank the department of Management Communication administrator, Jean Beaton; the computer staff of the Waikato Management School, especially Monica van Oostrom for her help with formatting; and Moira Neho for her assistance in cross-checking references. Among those who have inspired us in many different ways, we specifically acknowledge George Cheney and Bob Heath and also Kirsten Broadfoot, Lars Christensen, David Dozier, Susan Hafen, Vince Hazleton Jnr, Suzanne Holmström, Astrid Kersten, Martha Launzem, Jacquie L’Etang, Steve Mackey, Frances Nelson, Sally Planalp, Nancy Snow, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, Cynthia Stohl, Gaye Synnott, James Taylor, Gael Walker, Stefan Wehmeier, and Elizabeth van Every. We also gratefully record our thanks to supportive editors Ray Hiebert, James Chesebro, Ted Zorn, and, especially Roslyn Petelin for her belief in our work and providing us with an education in editing.

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At a personal level: David Above all I gratefully acknowledge my partner, colleague, font of practitioner wisdom, seeker out of innovative new ideas in PR, and sometime writing companion, Margalit, for her support and for accepting the time taken away from other joys, especially in Tel Aviv. My much missed father and mother, James and Winifred, my daughter Anna, granddaughters Abbie and Mhairi Charters, and friends who have all tolerated my frequent absences on this, and other work projects, for years. Also my co-writers: Tom Cockburn, Marie Louise Hunt, Chris Galloway, Kelly Robertson, Vikram Murthy, and Kay Weaver (with special thanks to them for letting me publish some co-authored material under my name), and those who gave exceptional assistance as I was travelling: Kevin Moloney, Alenka Elena, Dejan Vercˇicˇ (also for creating the phenomenon that is BledCom), Israeli academics and friends, Tamar and Jakob Katriel, Nurit Zeitman, Nurit Guttman, Alaya Malach-Pines, Yoram and Pnina Peri, Danny and Michal Arazi, Shlomo and Mena Inbar, Zveika and the Gareen Oz, and my extended Israeli family Doria, Yonathan, Galit, Nimrod, Gilad, Illana, Dana, Ilan, and the kids. Debashish My greatest source of strength and inspiration has been my friend, partner, and colleague, Priya Kurian, who made my transition from a journalist to an academic a smooth and hiccup-free one. I thank her for letting me use her amazing mind as an anvil to shape my ideas on. I also thank my daughters, Akanksha Khwaish and Alya Laaeqa, for their unbridled joy, companionship, and delight in everything I do. A special word of gratitude to my late father, Promil Kumar Munshi, who knew my strengths and weaknesses more than I do myself and who inspired me to follow my instincts; my late mother Aruna Munshi and my late grandmother Latika Munshi for making me who I am; all my uncles, aunts, and members of my dear families in India, both in the Munshi and Kurian clans, for believing in me and standing by me at all times. I am also grateful for the institutional support I have received at different times from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University; the Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language in Lancaster University; the Women, Culture, Development Program at the University of California at Santa Barbara; The Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) and the Chennai Mathematical Institute. For their intellectual support, I thank my colleagues from both journalism and academia, and countless other friends, fellow thinkers, activists, and scholars in not only India and New Zealand but also in Australia, China, France, Germany, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, Palestine, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the US. Given the iconoclastic nature of the work, the rider that none of those mentioned in the acknowledgements are responsible for any of the contents applies even more than usual although they may have immensely assisted in the book’s positive features. Some of the chapters in the book are extensive revisions of material pub-

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lished previously while some include excerpts of articles we have co-authored individually or jointly with each other or with others. We would like to thank the following publishers for graciously allowing us to reproduce, excerpt, or adapt material, authored or co-authored by us. Elsevier Publishers and Ray Hiebert for drawing on or excerpting from the following articles: McKie, D. and Munshi, D. (2005). Tracking trends: peripheral visions and public relations, Public Relations Review, 31(4), 453–457; Schoenberger-Orgad, M. and McKie, D. (2005). Sustaining edges: CSR, postmodern play, and SMEs, Public Relations Review, 31(4), 578–583; Munshi, D. and Kurian, P. (2005). Imperializing spin cycles: a postcolonial look at public relations, greenwashing, and the separation of publics, Public Relations Review, 31(4), 513–520; and from the following reviews: McKie, D. (2005). Review essay: Globalizing public relations: old wine, new bottles, and good years, Public Relations Review, 31(1), 149–152; McKie, D. (2006). Review of R. Lawniczak (ed.). Introducing market economy institutions and instruments: the role of public relations in transition economies, Public Relations Review, 32(3), 317–318; McKie, D. (2003). L.E.A.  liberating expansive authorship or licensing editorial abdication? Review of Thomas J. Mickey, Deconstructing public relations: public relations criticism, Public Relations Review, 29(2), 215–219. The Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal for the following articles: Munshi, D. (1999). Requisitioning variety: photographic metaphors, ethnocentric lenses, and the divided colours of public relations, Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 1(1), 39–52; McKie, D. and Hunt, M. L. (2000). Staking claims: marketing, public relations and territories, Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 1(2), 43–58. The Australian Journal of Communication and Ros Petelin for drawing on or using excerpts from several articles, including the following: McKie, D., Motion, J., and Munshi, D. (2004). Envisioning communication from the edge, Australian Journal of Communication, 31(3), 1–11; Munshi, D. and McKie, D. (2001). Different bodies of knowledge: diversity and diversification in public relations, Australian Journal of Communication, 28(3), 11–22; McKie, D. (2005). Public relations in Britain: a history of professional practice in the twentieth century, Australian Journal of Communication, 32(2), 127–130. BledCom and Dejan Vercˇicˇ for drawing on and excerpting from a number of papers, including McKie, D. and Weaver, K. (1999). Sheltering public relations: business houses, family homes, and external environments (pp. 50–54). In Vercˇicˇ, D., White, J., and Moss, D. (eds), Public Relations, Public Affairs and Corporate Communications in the New Millennium: The Future. Ljubljana, Slovenia: Pristop Communications and Toledano, M. and McKie, D. (2006). Promoting social integration: a study of media, democracy and public relations over an extended time frame, BledCom 2006, 18–29.

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Locating the project, the personal, and the geo-politics of publishing

The Muppets dream, aspire, attempt and fail – and they do so unbitterly, humorously, endearingly. We (whose lives and aspirations are not so dissimilar) can both stand the comparison and take heart from their example. (Alan Coren, Editor, Punch magazine, cited in Wedemeyer and Jue, 2002, p. xv)

We certainly see ourselves and, to an extent, people on the planet and in public relations (PR), as having kinship with Coren’s view of the Muppets’ process. There is much that is absurd in the project of this book. First, our ambition is to reconfigure PR to fit with contemporary conditions in ways that can globally catalyse human enterprise and equity. This involves attempting to convey an assessment of the characteristics, challenges, opportunities, tendencies, and potential of the international situation even as it changes day by day (and as knowledge about it expands exponentially). One example of the complexities can be illustrated through our teaching of students from China in a Western academic location. Faced with an everchanging world, these students are forced to negotiate the constant state of flux they find themselves in. Many students go back to China after a year’s study to find their rapidly globalising homeland virtually unrecognisable. Similarly, those who return to study at our university management school find that institution different as Chinese students have rapidly grown to be over one-third of its student population. The academic world is slowly adjusting to these profound changes. In China itself, students are studying PR through US textbooks “translated verbatim into local languages such as Mandarin, without any attempt to align the contents with local environmental contexts” (Sriramesh, 2002, p. 56). PR scholarship and teaching needs to take into account the changing conditions of Chinese students and the changed conditions they are creating. Only a few years ago it was impossible to have an open discussion of Chairman Mao even in International MBA executive classes. Then students would break down in class as they told moving stories of how their parents and grandparents had been devastated by the dictates of the Cultural Revolution. Now such traumatic moments are rare. Currently, more common discussions, relevant to this book, concern the likely usefulness, or not, of Western media and management practices to a

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nation with a significantly larger growth rate, more authoritarian structures, more government intervention (especially in all forms of media), and extensive ecological degradation. The complexities of globalisation, which we discuss as part of the warp and woof of contemporary life, bring these students into contact with us and with Western PR. The ensuing dialogues help teachers and students alike to learn and to experiment despite their dramatically different frames of what constitutes PR, let alone a civil society. In conditions of such uncertainty and flux, our desire for comprehension can seem like a distant academic echo of the Muppet cycle of dream followed by failure. Although we intend it to have utility, and we make specific suggestions, this book is not intended as any kind of “how to” manual. As in communicating with our students, it is often from the breadth, depth, and diversity of the strategic conversations – to adapt a term from Kees van der Heijden’s (1996) Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation – that realities emerge. That is to say conversations constitute realities, and reconfiguring PR means changing its conversations. For that reason we frequently challenge the content, ideas, and thinkers of the discussions currently forming the field, and introduce fresh subject matter, different theories, and previously unheard voices. In order to create space for these, we contest the tendency for talk in the field to revolve around the gravitational pull of the “Grunigian paradigm” (Moloney, 2006, p. x), although it means taking a few more orbits for the purpose of justifying our case. Deriving the name from its chief originator, James Grunig, the Grunigian paradigm (aka the two-way symmetry movement, or excellence study, or excellence project) has been an overriding voice in PR research, especially since the large International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) grant from 1985, and the subsequent publishing of its results (e.g. Dozier et al., 1995; J. Grunig, 1992a; L. Grunig et al., 2002). Our ambition to enlarge conversations about PR extends beyond the academic. Corporate and government PR can also be made more transparent and accountable, especially when they act in support of ecological degradation, ethnic bias, anti-democratic movements, and unjust business practices. Reconfiguring Public Relations, which emerges from our position as part of a management school committed to sustainability, resituates PR as part of a wider movement towards more regionally and internationally inclusive enterprise foregrounding equity concerns, and environmental and social sustainability. Paradoxically, this will require PR to be more in touch with both the new currents in business globalisation and with the activist and critical voices that challenge that globalisation.

Informing situations: space and time from Waikato to Downing Street In reforming the conversation, a further Muppet-like feature involves location since the heartland of PR is the US. We enact our aspirations in a place far from

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that action, and, indeed, other major global centres, at Waikato Management School in Hamilton, a small town at the geographical edge of the world in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The peripheral situation brings strengths as well as weaknesses. Nonetheless, Hamilton, a town in the Waikato region, best known for farming and innovation around agriculture, would not be the obvious first choice of a place to produce a book aiming to reframe, reorient, and reconfigure the field in global business terms. In our defence, research confirms the utility of learning from edges in science and elsewhere (Boettcher, 2001). We trust that the local can coalesce with the international to stimulate multiple twigs of growth rather than fixed branches of disciplinary knowledge. We take heart from the disproportionate consequences inherent in the butterfly effect identified in chaos theory. After all, to draw an analogy from Lorenz’ famous meteorological example, if a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado off Texas, then words from Waikato might also perturb PR across the other side of the world. A further trajectory of possible absurdity involves both space and time. For the former, we talk as much, if not more, of what is missing, and what might develop, in PR, rather than what is actually there. For the latter, our focus is on future potential, or what Derrida (1994), in relation to democracy, terms “the tocome . . . of an alterity that cannot be anticipated” (p. 65). Because we see the field as intellectually insular and out of touch with advances in other disciplines, we propose ways, sometimes highly speculative, to redress that, and, hopefully, to initiate more interesting conversations on the “to-come” of PR. The field’s insularity is particularly disabling in relation to current global conditions, and so we foreground particular clusters of knowledge that are not common in PR and where we risk exposing our lack of expertise. The aim is not to rush to expose our ignorance but to encourage others, who are better informed, to expand on the knowledge to advance the field. Desirable outcomes would encompass enlarged dialogues between PR insiders and outsiders on the possibilities for practice and research in, say, advances in cognitive neuroscience, or the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Only too aware of our own limitations, we welcome other contributions to identifying important knowledge gaps and to suggesting how to fill them. Another absurdity, or perhaps contradiction, is to try to reconfigure PR as a field to further a more ecologically aware, and socially egalitarian, world through sustainable enterprise. Usual assessments are akin to the view of Jones et al. (2005) on business ethics, that is, it “holds great promise . . . but at the same time it seems compromised to its core” (p. 2). Inside the field, many would question whether PR should intervene with such an agenda; outside the field many would simply laugh and point to the frequent examples of unethical PR practice from global warming, to politics, and tobacco promotion (see Lubbers, 2002). We share such doubts and, as partial response, include activist practice, research, and thinking as major contributors to the conversation. Moloney (2006) talks of a “great Niagara of PR” (p. x) that is too large to be ignored and we extend his metaphor of fluid range to an expanding field of oceanic scale

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with significant countercurrents. PR is too important to be left to corporate and government practitioners (and academics taking their primary role as serving them); and global publics and other disciplines are too important not to be made aware of what Cutlip’s (1994) still-relevant book title called PR’s Unseen Power. There are already indicators of increased visibility in Britain as public dissatisfaction pushes political communication towards greater transparency. It is visible in the changing agenda of Tony Blair’s early PR adviser turned politician, Peter Mandelson, in his book The Blair Revolution (Mandelson and Liddle, 1996) and his introduction (Mandelson, 2002) to its re-publication six years later. In the first edition, the seven indexed references to public, which ranged from “public appointments”, through “public spending” to “public-private partnerships” (Mandelson and Liddle, 1996, p. 267), excluded PR. Nor had the index any reference to “spin” or “sleaze”. This was not the case in Mandelson’s (2002) introduction to the reprint, The Blair Revolution Revisited (Mandelson and Liddle, 2002): he first reaffirms the central importance of PR, “To succeed, New Labour has to become new New Labour, not because the project and its goals are in dispute, but because in modern politics, maintaining connection with the public is a constant challenge” (Mandelson, 2002, p. xiii). He then responds, in a section ambiguously entitled “Killing ‘spin’ ” (p. xliii), to criticisms of his party’s abuse of PR: The idea of “spin”, that the government simply makes things up or hides the truth is being peddled aggressively by New Labour’s critics. As a result, unjustifiably, ministers are often not believed and the government as a whole is not always trusted. If a politician opens his or her mouth, he or she is accused of “spinning”. Answer a simple question and this is “spin”. Facts are “spin”. Anyone who works for a politician or a minister is a “spin doctor”. Journalists regularly discuss policy in terms of how they are “spun”. (pp. xliii–xliv) We think he protests too much. Nevertheless, while sometimes “more spinned against than spinning” (Cockerell, 2006, p. 52) by the media, Mandelson’s (2002) rueful conclusion on the New Labour project, that “Too much of what the government is doing fails to make an impact because its words are dismissed as spin” (p. xlv), signals the need for higher standards from PR once its unseen power rightly becomes publicly visible and openly debated. The PR-influenced language of the New Labour government also sparked academic criticism from discourse theory that our field would do well to heed. Fairclough (2000) recommends that New Labour move to a greater “honesty” and “away from designing its language quite so much on the basis of market research and focus groups, [and] away from its preoccupation with ‘spin’ and how to say things in ways that will win support” (p. 160). He concludes that “Long term trust cannot be built on this basis”, which, on the contrary, “results

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in contempt for politics” (p. 160). Held in at least as much contempt as New Labour, PR also needs to rebuild trust through greater honesty and openness. This means greater transparency, and resisting the pull to secrecy from its past when, as late as the 1990s, one of its founding fathers, Edward Bernays, still “sermonized on the invisibility with which public relations experts must, ideally, perform their handiwork” (Ewen, 1996, p. 15).

The personal is political: how do we fit into the reconfiguration project? In advocating greater transparency, we are obliged to practice what we preach. Accordingly, in this book, rather than attempting any “spurious neutrality” (Fairclough, 1989, p. 5), we similarly declare influences shaping our thinking: investigation of social matters is perfectly compatible with committed and “opinionated” investigators (there are no others!), and being committed does not excuse you from arguing rationally or producing evidence for your statements. (p. 5) The life stories of authors are often suppressed in academic books (but see May and Mumby, 2005a), yet the history of every scholar’s personal development – cultural backgrounds, ideological predilections, places of study, theoretical preferences, and life trajectories – impacts on their research projects. Our own trajectories could not have been more different; yet the knowledge gained from these different cultures, educations, and experiences sparked the writing of this book. Accordingly, to acknowledge our interestedness, we offer the following brief backgrounds. David No one in my family attended school beyond the age of 15. This was not that unusual in the children of working class Scots in that era. In retrospect, the catalyst for my academic career came from an unsympathetic schoolteacher. The woman in question pronounced in class to the effect that McKie would never go to university. Inadvertently, she introduced the possibility of university study into my consciousness – albeit more through my stubborn attempt to refute her opinion of me as unfit for advanced study, than for any career or scholarly ambitions. Anyway, I left school to escape such teaching but returned to study as a mature student via night classes and then a postgraduate scholarship. I have now spent around 35 years from student to professor with teaching posts across four continents. Through it all I have retained a critical stance to official educational establishments and a keen desire to assist others who are in similar positions of doubt about their abilities, to still go forward and learn anyway. I remain suspicious of self-elected gatekeepers to knowledge whose pronouncements follow a

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pattern of excluding or marginalising people unlike themselves. In travelling across Europe while writing this book, I have been gratified by younger scholars who came and thanked me for publishing a piece on the new science and PR (McKie, 2001), which they said helped them resist narrowly positive teachers and supervisors. In seeking a disciplinary home that would make a practical difference to inequality, I have moved across many disciplines, from literature and cultural studies to media and leadership. Rather surprisingly, since most would see its contribution as increasing inequality, I found a publication home in PR. As well as promotional activities for universities, I have been involved outside academia in small scale, or cottage, PR for much of my life in assisting local causes, political organisations, authors, artists, and small businesspeople to make their voices heard in crowded media spaces. I also run an international consultancy based in New Zealand, where my clients include its leading corporations, with a four year development programme with the talented employees of Telecom New Zealand, and five years working on leadership with stimulating Maori health workers as well as assisting responsiveness to Maori in the New Zealand police. The main areas of my business involve action inquiry and research, change management, emotional intelligence, entrepreneurship, leadership, and strategic communication. All of these also inform the writing here, provide some professional background, and help shape my thinking on business. As a former activist I retain sympathy for many of their projects and any examination of history reveals human dissent as one of humanity’s major resources of progressive change and future hope. I have lived long enough to see formerly reviled radicals, including Nelson Mandela, proved right and becoming inspirational world leaders in going against the mainstream until greater justice was attained. For me activists, often engaged in local campaigns that gathered momentum and resulted in significant social change, from the misunderstood Luddites, through the feminist movement, to the Greens of today, have been the dynamo of life-affirming change. I also believe activist PR is not only vital PR but has repeatedly shown itself to be innovative PR. Much of this book draws from activists’ experiences, often gained through considerable personal sacrifice. I salute their efforts and gratefully acknowledge their input (and the liveliness of their writings). Again let us stress that we do not make any claim to be writing a disinterested piece. In fact many of our disagreements with PR work is that it presents itself as impartial, scientific, and universal, rather than influenced by its origins and originators. While generalisations about large nations are dangerous, we know of no US university under the legally embedded guidance “to act as the conscience of society” that covers all New Zealand universities. So, for example, when, in the aftermath of 9/11, Argenti and Forman (2002) express their conscience it can be unashamedly the conscience of American capitalism rather than the American people: Taking a retrospective glance, we could see the foreshadowing of the violence in the increasing verbal attacks on corporate America, especially the

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anticorporate jamming that floods the Internet and the envy of our freedom and prosperity as seen in the worldwide media. (p. 5) While Adbusters (see www.adbusters.org), and other cyberjammers can be accused of excesses, the allegation that they, and books such as Canadian author Naomi Klein’s No Logo (2000), foreshadowed the violence of Al Qaeda’s World Trade Center attack is unjustified. It is often accompanied by a narrowing of the rest of the world’s disagreements with the US to the simplistic result of “envy” of American freedom and prosperity. Although I taught in Australia for ten years, Britain for six years, Libya for one year, and the US for one year, and neither of us was born here, we are proud to be New Zealand-based academics. That background not only colours our point of view but, as the book goes on to show, it also influences our intellectual allegiances and attitude to power, both within and outside of the academy. Debashish In the scholarly pursuit of research in PR, I have always seen myself as an outsider. Having been a journalist for much of my adult life, I was never entirely at home in either the academy in general or in the discipline of PR in particular. To me, academics were those who worked in their ivory towers, far removed from the issues that confronted “real” people. I also believed that they were largely self-centred beings who wrote treatises for themselves and a small group of people in their inner circles. As far as PR was concerned, I had no doubt that it was all about spinning the truth and obfuscating facts for strategic organisational gain. When David asked me, in the late 1990s, if I would consider doing a paper on PR for an upcoming International Communication Association conference, I looked at him in utter disbelief. “You must be crazy!” I told him. “Well, I am”, he responded and went on to talk me into exploring the discussion of “requisite variety” in mainstream PR literature. Neither of us was clear on the extent of disciplinary coverage of the subject but knew that PR tended to gloss over issues of diversity. My journalistic instincts told me that there was a “story” in this and I jumped headlong into doing the research for the paper. In some ways, being an outsider helps me research and write on issues of diversity. As a Third World academic working in a Western setting, I have come face to face with the physical, emotional, and professional challenges of being what postcolonial scholars call the “other” (see Munshi, 2005a). An acknowledgement of my own status as an “other” has helped me sharpen my focus on perspectives and practices that lie on the margins of established discourse in not just PR, but also communication management in general. It has given me a chance to think about, and draw on, theoretical approaches such as postcolonialism, which had never been applied to these fields of study. My background as a journalist, and my ongoing negotiations with otherness, have together helped me

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to redefine the notion of publics in PR and reach out to listen to the voices of people who are not even considered publics in PR textbooks. Such people, most notably the poor in the Third World, are bearing the onslaught of so-called development projects but are not in the line of vision of either academics or practitioners in PR. Working on collaborative projects with colleagues in fields as diverse as Engineering, Environmental Studies, Indigenous Studies, Organisational Studies, Political Science, Physics, Public Policy, and Sociology has helped me step out of the sequestered comfort zone of mainstream management discourses. These projects have opened my eyes to the many different realities of people who have to negotiate the undercurrents of power embedded in the dominant discourses of modernisation, be it in the realm of development or science and technology. During my field trips to India, for example, I have been able to see globalisation in its myriad facets. Under the discursive spotlight of the country’s economic progress (see, for example, Ohmae, 2005; Friedman, 2006), the upwardly mobile middle class is choking the roads with late-model cars and traipsing in and out of multi-storey steel and glass malls. Yet the infrastructure has not kept pace with the booming economy and the rising expectations of the people. Far worse, the divide between the rich and the poor has sharply widened even as the safety net that once characterised India is yanked away (see, for example, Sainath, 2006; Hallinan, 2006). While the PR machinery of international corporations, strategically aided by Western journalists, continues to wield the power of representation on behalf of the elites, the poor seem to be getting pushed to the margins. As Cockburn (2005) says, “Even as Friedman hailed India’s Tiger Economy, the country slipped to rank 127 in the UN’s Human Development Index of 2003” (p. 10). Ultimately, for me, if the profitability and success of the PR enterprise depends on the dehumanising or invisibilising of the Third World publics, then the very notion of an ethical PR would be unattainable. Creating PR with a conscience requires Western practitioners, journalists, and academics to work with their non-Western colleagues for a just, equitable, and sustainable world. This book gives us a chance to think through how this can be achieved.

Locating publication: political economy, theory geography, and edge interventions Recently, we were invited by the Review of Communication to undertake a review essay, for which we gratefully acknowledge the generous editorial and intellectual assistance of James Chesebro, on recent PR books in Australia, New Zealand, and the US (McKie and Munshi, 2004). In a mad Muppet moment, we knew it was both impossible to do, and, for the two of us (keen to learn from the comparison and contrast), impossible to resist. The survey foregrounded the major shaping role of the political economy of publishing in theory generation. Put simply, different emphases emerged from different geographies. The US

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offered “a relative abundance of choice and diversity with specialist books, textbooks, theoretical books, and ‘how-to’ or ‘practical’ manuals” (McKie and Munshi, 2004, p. 279). In sharp contrast, outside of North America, PR-specific scholarship usually, albeit with such exceptions as German language PR publishing, struggles for a niche market let alone a spread of genres and a range of special interests. The publication possibilities for writers for whom English is not a native language are especially restricted. Lauf’s (2005) empirical analysis shows that “the dominance of the U.S. in communication journals has been much greater than in journals of other disciplines” (p. 148). Finding “indications that non-U.S. authors are disadvantaged”, Lauf further speculates that “the review process discriminates against international manuscripts”. He suggests that “U.S. editors might overrate minor mistakes in U.S. citation systems . . . lack of English proficiency, missing U.S. literature, and so on” (2005, p. 148). These findings resonate strongly with our own impressions of mainstream PR scholarship. Indeed, as a form of counterbalance, we co-edited a special issue of Public Relations Review (McKie and Munshi, 2005a) on “Global Public Relations: A Different Perspective”, for which we take the chance to publicly thank the editor, Ray Hiebert, for granting us editorial freedom for radical content. Our initiative arose out of the sense that exclusion was a widespread feeling outside the US core. Accordingly we called for papers asking for authors to send us their idea of edge-happening PR. That special issue gave us an opportunity to provide scholars in the field with an “exposure to the ‘other’ ” (Slack, 2005, p. 6) and opened up the field to a number of controversial aspects. Israeli practitioner turned academic, Toledano (2005), for example, provided an account of the rarely considered, at least outside of Israel and the Jewish diaspora, history of Zionism as a PR challenge. Articles (Kersten, 2005; Kersten and Sidky, 2005) from two US-based academics (although the former was born in Holland and the latter in Afghanistan) courageously considered the controversy surrounding Iraqi prisoner abuse and resituated it as a crisis of dysfunctional leadership best analysed as systemic neurosis through frameworks developed in leadership. Petelin (2005) introduced the first application of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome theory into the field. In a number of ways the articles illustrate how contestations become most evident at the edges. Each edge is “like a tectonic plate that grinds against another and forms multiple layers of complex formulations” (McKie and Munshi, 2005b, p. 456) that simultaneously rupture old concepts and burst forth with new material. These disruptions, as Slack (2005) points out, “permeate – more accurately, characterize – the world around us; they are already of substantial symbolic and material consequence” (p. 6). As we had over 30 submissions in a relatively short time frame from the call for papers to the submission date, we realised that a significant number of writers, from all over the world, saw themselves as, at best, edgy or marginalised, or, at worst, excluded. Occasionally, the marginalisation tended towards self-affirming exclusion in as much as submissions ignored the usual length

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conventions and submitted papers without any attention to Public Relations Review’s style or referencing protocols. It is worth reflecting that many others who failed to submit may have lacked the confidence or even the willingness to attempt submission to a US-based journal. Despite our global call, we failed to attract any submissions from Asia. Although a major region in twenty-first century business, Asia remains massively underrepresented with few publications in English, and practically none outside of US-educated and excellence study-influenced graduates. Otherwise it has been virtually “a silent continent when it comes to public relations pedagogy even though public relations is said to have been practiced in Asia since pre-biblical times” (Sriramesh, 2004b, p. 2). Sriramesh (2004a) himself, has begun to redress the balance with both a soloedited collection, Public Relations in Asia: an Anthology, and a co-edited global anthology covering Asia and beyond (Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ, 2003a). Unfortunately, the publishers, Thomson Learning in Singapore, do not promote the Asian collection through their other international offices (Sriramesh, 2006). As a result a vital collection that fills a gap, and is fascinating in its own right, has additional barriers to cross to participate in the mainstream discourse. Our book also aims to redress what we see as a debilitating US-centric dominance that extends selective experiences from that part of the world into unquestioned universals elsewhere. However, we too acknowledge having been shaped by this mould, writing as we do in the English language, and drawing on works largely published in Europe and the US. In contesting existing attempts to codify a body of PR knowledge (PRSA Task Force, 1988; McElreath and Blamphin, 1994), our idea is to mark free space for new entrants who are locally informed and capable of shaping the future field that is likely to be predominantly Asian. Our personal preferences, in that we both received Western educations, with a European bias, lead us towards European thought, and European-influenced Third World writing, and specific theorists, whose work is often not available in PR publications in English. Similarly, we acknowledge that, although strongly influenced by feminist writing, we deal with wider issues of equity and diversity that mitigate against giving women the focused attention that they merit. In this book, we seek to clear the path for shifting the paradigm in PR research in the largely English-speaking part of the Euro-American world by using theories from within it, but not in PR, and from outside of it (Vervoorn, 2002). Accordingly, we draw from the tradition of many postcolonial theorists (Chakrabarty, 2000; Said, 1978; Spivak, 1999), who work in the Euro-American centre but are strongly critical of the ideology of the West (and do not see any necessary contradiction between the two), and we highlight distortions in PR research brought about by a limited engagement with diverse theories.

Limiting textbooks: the case of the creeping fox terrier clone The largest and easily the most read PR books, because they are prescribed on educational syllabi internationally, are textbooks. However the preponderance of textbooks, and particularly, current US textbooks, can distort the dissemination

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of knowledge. This can occur by assuming a universal experience undervaluing the contributions of different cultures and histories, and by targeting undergraduate US students as customers more than as learners. This can limit the theoretical range, discursive scope, and cultural width, especially when being used internationally by students with different educational levels and intellectual traditions than their US counterparts. A discipline that is highly textbook centred, is also more prone to perpetuating error as illustrated by Stephen Gould’s (1991) seminal chapter on “The case of the creeping fox terrier clone”. The case arose through Gould’s desire to find if there was evidence of creationist interference in introductory accounts of evolution and his resulting analysis of major high-school science textbooks. Finding some creationist appeasement, he was more startled to discover that evolution sections were “virtually cloned” (Gould, 1991, p. 156) in moving from one to the next and to find confirmation for this cloning phenomena in the field of psychology in “Diane B. Paul’s fascinating article ‘The Nine Lives of Discredited Data’ (The Sciences, May 1987)” (p. 156). Gould’s (1991) miniresearch supported: first, Paul’s inference that careless copying of errors arise “because authors of textbooks copy from other texts and do not read original sources”; second, her argument “that the increasing commercialization of textbooks has engendered this virtual cloning of contents”; and, third, her acceptance that with future textbooks the “quality of marketing will make the difference” (pp. 157–158) in sales. Gould (1991) draws ironic attention to the “conspicuous absence of any mention whatsoever about the quality of the text itself” (p. 158). For PR our caution arises directly out of Gould’s (1991) further observations on a case “that may seem tiny and peripheral in import” but because, “perhaps paradoxically, such cases provide our best evidence for thoughtless copying” for “when a quirky little senseless item attains the status of the proverbial bad penny, copying from text to text is the only reasonable explanation” (p. 158). His example is from the fossil record and “an animal informally called Eohippus (the dawn horse), or more properly, Hyracotherium” (p. 158), which a large majority of the texts describe as being “ ‘like a fox terrier’ in size” (p. 159). After a scholarly detour of the evidence of comparative sizes, Gould (1991) cites less dated research as making the comparative animal much too small. While we do not wish to chase down detailed error in PR textbooks, we do examine the larger issues around cloned frameworks, and check the applicability of Gould’s (1991) conclusion that “Thoughtlessly cloned eternal verities are often false” (p. 167) to contemporary PR theory.

Enlarging the field: on status, textbooks, and terminology In society and in the academy alike, reputation does matter. We believe the field’s low status in both arenas requires action at a number of levels. Gould’s (1991) case highlights some problems with textbook prominence but there are others. As a field aspiring to be what Hebdige (1990) calls a YUMDie, or

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“young upwardly mobile discipline” (p. ix), PR may not be unusual in having textbooks as a formative force, but it is still celebrating that as a strategy in the twenty-first century. In organisation studies, for example, Scott (2006) observes that while “it is also recognized that a thoughtful and well-written text can exert enormous influence on an academic field”, it “is well known that authors of texts are the ‘Rodney Dangerfields’ of the academic world: writing texts is not the route to scholarly respect” (p. 889). In PR the textbook tradition started, as L. Grunig and J. Grunig (2003) note, with Edward Bernays, who also “began what has become the noble tradition of using his own textbook (in this case Crystallizing Public Opinion [Bernays, 1923]) in the class” (p. 344). While there are pros (e.g. familiarity, knowledge, tailored relevance, and royalties) and cons (e.g. restricting diversity and student access to alternative points of view) in prescribing one’s own textbook, we wonder what makes the action “noble”. For a discipline desperately seeking respect from other disciplines, the less noble tradition of theory books may be, as Scott’s (2006) dismissive “Rodney Dangerfields” (p. 889) comment indicates, a better route. Undoubtedly, however, the seminal text of contemporary PR is J. Grunig and Hunt’s 1984 book, Managing Public Relations. This was written and published as a textbook, yet contains seeds of the two-way symmetrical theory that germinated into the excellence study and has subsequently expanded, we will argue, to the extent of threatening the space for growth of other perspectives in the field. One specific target of artificial cloning that originates in the J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) textbook is their formative four-stage evolution of PR that appears without challenge in so many current and recent textbooks. In Chapter 9, in critically examining its origin and spread, we will, like Gould (1991), suggest what “the textbook tradition of endless and thoughtless copying has done to retard the spread of original ideas” (p. 159). As with many in the field we plead guilty to using the single term PR to signify a variety of realities and not always being clear on the particular reality that is being invoked. On the whole our major topic is PR as an academic or educational project. However, that project cannot always be simply distinguished from the practice, since many academics are practitioners and practitioner perspectives form the core of many academic programmes. Moreover, theory and practice also have an indivisible fusion that is only split artificially for analytical convenience. Nevertheless, whenever possible we try to specify points where differences matter by referring independently to theory, to practice, or, where appropriate, to both theory and practice. That confusion is compounded by the many incarnations of PR. The major referent for PR outside the academy is the profession practiced in and by corporations and governments (and agencies, who serve mainly corporations and governments). These muster the largest resources and employ the majority of PR people. While acknowledging this preponderance of a profession devoted to activities for the already powerful, we explicitly reject definitions, which would restrict it solely to a management function as though that marks its beginning and end. Strong environmental opponents acknowledge its importance: “Public

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relations, not physics – or even ecology – is the paradigm science of the modern age” (Athanasiou, 1996, p. 228), but they position its role as entirely negative because it is perceived as corporate or government communication. Considerable evidence supports this perception of negative impact, but we write in the hope that it can increasingly make a positive difference in its corporate and government expressions as well as outside of them. It is a fact that much of what Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Martin Luther King, and many NGO activist groups have done, and some continue to do, is also PR. From such instigators it plays a conscious role, not just in maintaining a diversity of opinion, but also in social cohesion, maintenance of values, and influencing progressive change. Reiterations that PR is a management function uphold a fallacy that has political and practice consequences. Huge corporations and tiny activist groups alike practice PR even if the former employ paid professionals and the latter, although not always, untrained and enthusiastic amateurs. This fuller spectrum of what constitutes PR activities exists whether or not it is loaded in terms of a massive imbalance of both communication and material resources. Moreover, the rise of the Internet has shifted positions on the spectrum between established communication power and its opponents in favour of the latter. Corporate and government PR are making adjustments proactively and reactively. Proactive examples include Cockerell (2006) acknowledging New Labour’s former PR pivot Alistair Campbell as the instigator of previously restricted Lobby briefings being made available “on the Number 10 website” (p. 56); reactive examples include the same Alistair Campbell’s resignation after the public furore concerning the exaggeration of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. PR has also had a significant non-corporate and non-government history. PR, from the distant past to the online present, operates outside of, as well as inside of, the management function. In the first half of the twentieth century, as Ewen’s (1996) PR! A Social History of Spin copiously illustrates, many of the techniques of US PR were pioneered by social movements before being adapted by corporate communicators. At the end of the twentieth century Coombs (1998) wrote on the effectiveness of the Flaming Ford activist Internet site, which mobilised consumers against a life threatening design flaw in the company’s cars, its negative impact on Ford’s corporate reputation, and its positive pressure to reduce driver danger. In addition, many small groups, from reading circles to cancer support organisations, also practice PR. The emphasis on corporations marginalises small to medium enterprises (SMEs), which form a huge part of the world economy. Although these will not be our focus, it remains important that the concentration on corporate and government communication management does not ignore the fact of their existence, and, therefore a range of PR practices that are often socially beneficial (Schoenberger-Orgad and McKie, 2005).

Acknowledging antecedents, entertaining ideas, and net gains Play has an importance not acknowledged in PR. It is, in many of its forms, a valuable economic commodity in its own right as Orbanes (2004) records in The

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Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuits. As well as bringing in serious money it underpins innovation through Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Schrage, 2000). In Wolf’s (1999) account of The Entertainment Economy: How MegaMedia Forces Are Transforming Our Lives, the blurring of boundaries between business and entertainment has made the latter a differentiating factor in what we buy, the depth of penetration, and the scale of profitability so that: “Entertainment – not autos, not steel, not financial services – is fast becoming the driving wheel of the new world economy [italics in original]” (p. 4). The field’s residual Puritanism, heavily influenced by its lower North American power base, matters in this lack of acknowledgement. Prior to PR members having the numbers to make the transition from an interest group to a division at the International Communication Association (ICA), its acronym was PRIG (Public Relations Interest Group) and a certain priggishness and undue seriousness continues to permeate the field. In pluralising its ideas, we import theoreticians talking of desire, emotions, and sex. These concerns, like play, matter to a fully alive field. In his discussion of IRC, the net’s pioneering multi-user chat system, Rheingold (2000) helpfully reminds us that neither due scholarly diligence, nor the Protestant work ethic, was what created the net as we know it or what powered many of its subsequently valuable transformations: IRC is . . . “the great good place” of the Net . . . scientists and scholars began to get the word that IRC was a way to convene informal discussions among geographically distant colleagues, but the continuing popularity of IRC seems to be primarily a function of its appeal as a psychological and intellectual playground. Why should taxpayers support anyone’s playground? It’s a good question, and it goes to the heart of the current debate over privatization of the Net. It pays to keep in mind a bit of history when addressing the question, however, because playgrounds have played a critically important role in the evolution of computer technology. The very earliest creators of interactive computing also created the enormously popular Spacewar game in the early 1960s, which turned expensive research computers into powerful versions of what would come to be known in the 1970s as video games [. . .] The government-sponsored researchers who built the first ARPANET started using government resources to exchange e-mail about science fiction. ARPA administrators wisely invested in building even more powerful CMC systems when the SF-LOVERS list began to eat up more and more of the communication capacity of the systems. In computer technology, playgrounds often are where real innovations emerge. (pp. 184–185) We willingly acknowledge that we follow others in seeking change and gratefully build on their efforts. There are a number we particularly acknowledge.

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Robert Heath, especially through the breadth of his rhetorical sources, enriches the field intellectually and practically. In a discipline notable for restrictive gatekeeping, Heath has consistently opened up paths to publication for many in the US and for many, in much greater need, outside of its borders with an admirable generosity of spirit and openness to critical viewpoints. Heath’s (2001a) Handbook of Public Relations brought diverse writers from all round the world, with diverse perspectives, into the mainstream of PR alongside established US theorists, in a way that made a statement that the discipline was global and open to global and critical inputs. Although only intermittently in the field, George Cheney’s multiple inputs, more recently with Lars Christensen (Cheney and Christensen, 2001b, 2006), have contributed significantly to making PR a more democratically sensitive, inclusive, informed, and thoughtful discipline. Kevin Moloney (2006) provides democratic directions for progressing the profession and parallels work by L’Etang (2004) and L’Etang and Piezcka (1996a, 2006a), who have also gone boldly beyond to create critical escape routes. Our colleagues in the Waikato Management School introduced and developed Foucauldian and Faircloughian Critical Discourse in PR (Henderson, 2005; Motion and Leitch, 1996; Weaver et al., 2006); pioneered innovative interdisciplinary work from politics (Roper, 2004; Schoenberger-Orgad, 2002); and are shifting paradigms on PR and sustainability (Roper and Toledano, 2005), corporate social responsibility (Ganesh, in press; May et al., in press; Munshi and Kurian, 2005; Munshi and Kurian, in press; Zorn, in press), social enterprise PR in SMEs (Schoenberger-Orgad and McKie, 2005), and social entrepreneurship in corporate governance (Roper and Cheney, 2005).

Postscript that could have been a preface: acknowledging contradictions Discursively we acknowledge that our language is shot through with contradictions. We seek to have people entertain our ideas so, despite the academic theory content, we use intertextual links with popular culture, including songs and movie titles, to increase accessibility, import energy, and generally try to live up to Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars’ (2000) description of their own writing as “Serious Humor” (p. 10). As suggested above, entertainment is a vital part of business, and is also central to the promotional culture, which includes PR, and is a defining characteristic of the contemporary condition (Wernick, 1991). Academic writing ought similarly to be more open to attracting larger interested audiences as well as captive student audiences. In addressing such concerns, hybrid high culture–low culture forms have found favour in marketing. Stephen Brown’s (1995) Postmodern Marketing, for example, uses lines from films to spice up theoretical discussion and his Postmodern Marketing Two: Telling Tales (Brown, 1998) adapts, and puns (badly) on, pop song lines in similar fashion to provide chapter titles such as “Bakhtin the US, Bakhtin the US, Bakhtin the USSR” (p. 127) to track the disparate influences of the Russian

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theoretician of dialogue in the US, invoking Bruce Springstein’s song in the process. In Tsoukas and Knudsen’s (2003) The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory, Czarniawska (2003) devotes a complete chapter on “The styles and the stylists of organization theory”. She not only proposes that “the rapprochement between organization theory and cultural anthropology that happened under the guise of ‘organizational culture’ studies was most likely given an impulse by people who wanted to study poetry that pretends to be scientific” (p. 246), but cites as support Karl Weick’s use of a humorous quotation from Kurt Vonnegut: My advisor smiled, “How would you like to study poetry which pretends to be scientific?” he asked me. “Is such a thing possible?” I said. He shook my hand. “Welcome to the field of social and cultural anthropology,” he said. (Weick, 1979, p. 234, cited in Czarniawska, 2003, p. 246) In marked contrast to PR, while simultaneously explaining why this is so, Czarniawska (2003) celebrates the fact that “organization theory has many excellent stylists, probably due to its much lamented plurality [italics not in original]” (p. 238) and, for the rest of the chapter, she looks at the rich interplay of style and meaning and how they help generate fresh theory. In line with Czarniawska’s (2003) argument, and the qualitative research tradition that classifies writing as a legitimate “Method of Inquiry” (Richardson and St. Pierre, 2005, p. 959), we experiment stylistically to assist thought exploration. That is why we warmly welcome the publication of Hobsbawm’s (2006a) collection, Where the Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in PR and Journalism, since many of her contributors, if thin on academic theory, live up to the serious fun of the title in engaging with vital issues with insight. We also play seriously with titles (and subtitles, and phrases) to alert readers to the instability of language, which through puns, such as that on entertaining ideas, enable us to simultaneously suggest amusing thoughts, inviting attention, and being open to fresh theory. In this we are weak followers of Derrida, who contends that verbal texts rely on the assumption that language is merely the vehicle for transmitting thoughts and so deploys deconstruction to overturn that assumption of verbal “centring”. That centring, for Derrida, is also a “censoring” of meaning by positioning human experience around a hierarchical and illegitimate equation of word and thing. In working to overturn such assumptions one deconstructionist trademark is playing “meaningfully” with words to destabilise the seeming solidity of their associated concepts. Derrida, and other deconstructionists, frequently emphasise textual instabilities by means of punning, or by writing concepts under erasure (that is with a line, or lines, scored through them to denote their dubious relationship to material phenomena). Sometimes words can be broken down to show component parts to expose their “constructedness” and their potential to house

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other meanings so that the word “MAN-AGE-MENT”, as well as the practice, is exposed with the word “man” as its verbal opening in a way that would evade semantics and considerations of non-sexist language (see McKie, 2001, pp. 76–77, for a deconstruction of excellence). Ironically, this kind of tight focus, and creative play, on small variations on letters, language, and meaning has drawn corporate attention online via “gripe sites”, which are both “an embarrassingly public forum for trivial customer or employee complaints . . . [and] an established tool for serious issues-led activism” (John and Thompson, 2003, p. 129). They advise corporations on limiting their “reputational liability” to gripe and rogue sites “by applying a thorough planning process to domain registration”, and by taking “care to register all likely permutations and easy misspellings of their corporate and product brands, as well as appending or prefixing their brands with common derogatory descriptors (e.g. ‘sucks’)” (p. 130). PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), for example, ran successful campaigns to force McDonald’s and Burger King (identified online as Murder King) to implement a more humane way of killing the animals that they used for meat. As we write this, PETA are currently reworking KFC as Kentucky Fried Cruelty at (www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com) with the help of a downloadable video featuring Pamela Anderson. Our wordplays in this book lack such celebrity support and are partly a mild homage to Derridean practice, though we fall far short of Derrida’s punning in more than one language, etymological scope, and creative use of typography. Our playfulness often sits uncomfortably alongside a certain moralistic tone. Ironically, despite frequent deployment of language such as “needs to”, “requires”, and “must”, our invocations, although in the imperative and demanding change as a matter of urgency, sit alongside a genuine tentativeness in exploring possible options. While we spend considerable energy in unsettling the Grunigian paradigm, we have no desire to replace it with one of our own. We simply want to decrease the concern with whether or not new developments fit, or do not fit, with two-way symmetry and to focus instead on whether they advance the field professionally and socially. In short, we hope the book entertains enough broader, inclusive, and innovative ideas to enliven and expand the field and to encourage others, especially those currently in the margins, on more emancipatory lines of flight that engage with ecology, equity, and enterprise.

Progressing the conversation: a brief outline plan of the chapters The opening word of our book title is “Reconfiguring” because this is a large task and a work in progress. We focus our attention on making a case for reconfiguration both externally, through the present state of the physical and social environment in the second chapter’s reading of the signs of the times (especially environmental ones), and internally, through the present state of PR in Chapter 3. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on equity and globalisation with an emphasis on postcolonial and decolonising points of view while Chapter 6 looks at learning from

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leadership and the past history of excellence in the business field. Chapter 7 considers economic questions and searches for value propositions for PR after the crisis in the new economy, and those concerns carry over into Chapter 8’s reinterpretation of the field’s perennial concerns with professionalism. Finally, in concluding the case for reconfiguration, we explore beyond the present in two directions: back to the history and historiography of the field in Chapter 9; and forward through future methodologies and future studies in Chapter 10.

2

Signs of the times Assessing the present and revisiting the past

PR needs to be sensitive to change and to be aware of the shifting contexts within which it has to function. This chapter sets out our view of contemporary conditions in the midst of transformative change: “Every few hundred years in Western history, there occurs a sharp transformation” in which “society rearranges itself – its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions” (Drucker, 1993, p. 1). While we agree with Drucker that transformation is underway, we disagree that it is restricted to Western history. In fact, a distinctive feature, and driving force, of this transformative change is its global scope, and its insertion of all history into world history. Currently PR is unprepared for engagement with the globally transforming environment of the early twenty-first century. Indeed as a vastly expanded electronic capacity collects and communicates a wider world opinion to more people, more quickly than ever before, the ongoing US leadership in global commerce, politics, and PR has been called into doubt. In Global Outrage, Stearns (2005) records the huge international rallies and large opinion polls of people opposed to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq as a key moment in his pioneering concept of world opinion history. Historically, for Stearns (2005), this “was world opinion, unprecedented in the strength of its opposition to a great power, unusually coordinated thanks both to the passion involved and to high-speed technologies”. Even “governments, as in France and Germany, saw their own policies constrained, partially guided, by the sentiments of the public”. In the end though “this was also world opinion aborted”: “The United States government, despite some bows to the United Nations, largely ignored the world . . . went to war, and encountered few immediate adverse consequences” (p. 4). At the same time global leadership is less in the hands of governments. Just as 400 years ago, “social responsibility shifted from the church to the state, as government replaced religious institutions as society’s predominant force”, now, at the start of the twenty-first century, “business appears the next likely candidate to carry this mantle” (Joel Makower and Business for Social Responsibility, 1994, p. 33). This perception captures a consensus on the central role of business in contemporary global life that covers both those who fear the consequences of a coming time, When Corporations Rule the World

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(Korten, 1996), and those for whom it signals the advent of an emerging planetary civilisation (Hart, 2005). To map this present context for PR, we first revisit accounts of earlier large scale business change that has been categorised as transformative (if more national than international in its early stage). Summarising historical retrospectives on the early twentieth century, Raucher (1968) observes, in his book Public Relations and Business: 1900–1929, how business apologists for that 30-year period “have claimed that the ‘transformation of capitalism’ has meant that the fundamental outlook and motivation of business managers have morally improved in comparison with the late nineteenth century” (p. 152). On the other hand, Raucher (1968) also notes how business critics “have argued that business changed its methods to meet the countervailing forces of external opposition from government, labor unions, and other sources without yielding basic profit motives” (p. 152). Finally, he comes down on the side of the critics because PR as a “defensive political device . . . appears to have been very much a sophisticated response to external pressures”, and, while it cannot be known if “such ‘enlightened’ policies” would have been created without such external pressure, “the history of PR suggests not” (Raucher, 1968, pp. 152–153). That history, as Cleveland (1946) notes, involves the substantial PR role played by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which, from “1895 to the present time . . . has vigorously (and often militantly) sought to further the interests of industrialists . . . Much of this opposition has taken the form of extensive propaganda designed to influence the electorate” (pp. 1–2, cited in Cutlip, 1995, pp. 259–260). Raucher’s (1968) account and, more strongly, Ewen’s (1996) pro-activist version act as strong correctives to Hiebert’s (1966) interpretation of the same early phase of capitalist transformation in Courtier to the Crowd: the Story of Ivy Lee and the Development of Public Relations. Hiebert’s (1966) account has been seminal, in shaping subsequent PR interpretation of the events covered in Raucher, by framing the period as a triumph for Lee and his business employers: For a time during the second half of the nineteenth century, industrial leaders turned to monopoly as a solution to their economic problems. By the turn of the century, however, a reversal was taking place, largely as the result of a new kind of communication that appealed to mass man: “yellow journalism” with its practice of “muckraking.” This gave to such antiindustrial groups as the agrarians and grangers, populists, labor unions, and progressives a new power over public opinion that allowed them to counterbalance the might of the industrial captains, for a while even threatening the continued existence of their power by bringing into question the basic idea of free enterprise. Ivy Lee arrived on the scene at a moment when capitalistic forces no longer seemed to have the upper hand in the struggle for public opinion. (pp. x–xi)

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Then, as now, media expansion and increased public access – although higher up the social scale than the net and shorter in numbers than today’s international mass communication audiences – played a major role in the change: “Nourishing a trend toward middle-class spectatorship, a new and increasingly disembodied public sphere was being spawned by the dramatic growth of mass-circulation media between the early 1880s and the First World War” (Ewen, 1996, p. 52). In this earlier hinge of history, PR obviously played a role, but a largely reactive one of less significance than that its own historians claim for it. Today, in the midst of a comparable capitalist transformation that Kelly (2005) characterises as Powerful Times, we follow his subtitle’s call for Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World by adopting “a powerful orientation toward learning, experimentation, and discovery that will require us to acknowledge uncertainty and embrace ambiguity – even as our impulse is to seek comfort in certainty and adhere to a set of familiar convictions, assumptions and beliefs” (p. xx). This time around we see the opportunity for PR to be proactive and in the vanguard of positive change. However, Kelly’s (2005) call points to features currently absent in PR, which rarely satisfies the demand for a learning orientation, for experimentation, for discovery, for acknowledging uncertainty, and for embracing ambiguity. Accordingly, as well as experimenting (with approach, language, style, and theory), we seek to admit uncertainty, and to manage with – at least as much in the sense of “coping with”, as in the sense of “controlling” – ambiguity. In dealing with ambiguity we pay heed to Kelly’s (2005) advice to avoid an “ ‘either/or’ mindset”, and join his search “for recurring themes and patterns” (pp. 18–19) by concentrating on our three selected themes of ecology, equity, and enterprise (without ignoring their interactions and without giving any one of them precedence over any of the others).

Vital signs (1): stormy weather and the ecological case for reconfiguration The Worldwatch Institute’s (2005) Vital Signs: The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future 2000–2006 provides a snapshot of the state of the planet with “upto-the-minute information on global warming, population growth, military spending, HIV/AIDS, economic equity, the trade in drugs and a whole range of other environmental, developmental, social, political, and economic trends” (blurb). One outstanding feature, which has been a prominent part of many people’s experience (and massive media coverage), is the increase in weatherrelated disasters: “In 2004, weather-related natural disasters caused nearly $105 billion in economic losses” almost twice as much as 2003, became “only the second time that recorded losses have topped $100 billion”, and followed a general increase “over the last 25 years” (p. 50). As these figures illustrate, environment and economy are strongly connected. Other contemporary accounts consistently confirm the interconnection. This is supported by the contents, as well as the title, of probably the single

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most authoritative recent report on the state of the planet: the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s [MEA] (2005) Living Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-being. Produced by the board governing the Millennium Assessment process, the MEA’s members included “representatives from U.N. organizations, governments through a number of international conventions, nongovernmental organizations, academia, business, and indigenous peoples”. It reads the weather signs as a warning and identifies “the growing threat to ecosystems from climate change and nutrient pollution” (MEA, 2005). The MEA findings concur with other research such as: 1 2

3

the frightening question in cosmologist Martin Rees’ (2003) book title: Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-First Century?; the equally disturbing summation of recent climatology findings in the alarming title of science journalist John Cox’s (2005) Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means For Our Future; the first-hand observations of ecological change that lead Mark Lynas (2005) to conclude “that all the impacts described are just the first whispers of the hurricane of future climate change which is now bearing down on us” (p. 298).

If PR is to respond to the material challenges of the contemporary world, it has to engage with the implications of the growing body of evidence of physical eco-degradation. The signs so far are not good. During the last quarter of a century, scientists internationally have reached a consensus on the dangers of global warming (see, for example, the US National Academy of Sciences reports (National Research Council, 1983, 2001) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports (1990, 1995, 2001)). They all support the MEA (2005) assessment of high risk. Unfortunately, PR is more visible in opposition than in support of tackling the problem. In fact, eminent scientists and scientific bodies are attacking the PR activities of a contrarian movement, which denies that there is convincing evidence of global warming. In analysing this powerful countermovement, McCright and Dunlap (2000) identify the role of the American political conservatives and their “industry allies” (p. 518) as working to de-legitimise climate change as a significant “problem” (p. 499). British scientists similarly perceive this countermovement as an alliance of corporate-funded PR practitioners and scientists. Ex-President of the Royal Society, and former chief scientific adviser to the British Government, Lord May (2005) of Oxford, targeted what he calls a US oil industry funded “climate change denial lobby” into Britain: On the one hand, we have the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the rest of the world’s major scientific organisations and the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor all pointing to the need to cut emissions. On the other hand, we have a small band of sceptics, including lobbyists funded by the US oil industry, a sci-fi writer (in the shape of Michael Crichton) and the Daily Mail who deny the scientists are right.

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May (2005) goes on to draw parallels with “the tobacco lobby’s attempts to persuade us that smoking does not cause lung cancer”, and describes its media influence as “poisonous”. At this point in planetary history, PR has expanded to a significant global role which brings with it increased responsibilities. At present, the major existing bodies are too self-interested, and not self-reflexive enough to take up the challenge. The Global Alliance (n.d.), for example, seeks to be “the authoritative global voice on PR matters”, while simultaneously claiming to work “in the public interest for the benefit of the profession”. We argue that to meet Kelly’s (2005) challenge, especially on the environmental front, PR will need to develop a more reflective metaview, with a less selfinterested global dimension, and: to construct new globally-oriented public relations fora to deal with the expansion of megacatastrophic planetary risks. These fora would parallel, and learn from, a range of other existing examples: the Global Environment Facility, which is an independent organization that gives grants for projects that benefit the global environment and sustainability; and the Forest Stewardship Council, which issues a consumer label to wood products constructed from sustainably-managed forests; and, especially, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of international scientists who gather to assess the state of knowledge and give advise to the Framework on Climate Change (see Simmons and Jonge Oudraat, 2001). In the absence of emergent, globally-concerned, and environmentally-aware public relations fora, or massively improved linkages between such existing institutional sites as conferences, professional bodies, and universities, practitioners will lack an overview perspective to guide them to informed choices . . . Moreover, since anti-environmental forces currently have more resources, a public relations profession without that reflective element, is economically structured to support the high-risk acceleration of global warming and other ecological degradation. (McKie and Galloway, forthcoming) This will be a preparatory step to establishing transnational institutions – for example, see Ruggie’s (1998) Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization – to translate the findings into action. Without such moves, PR risks deepening the growing opprobrium it has gathered for practitioner and consultancy support of anti-environmentalism identified at an international level by Beder’s (2000) book, Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism, by Lubbers’ (2002) Battling Big Business: Countering Greenwash, Infiltration and Other Forms of Corporate Bullying, and, at a local level, by Hager and Burton’s (1999) Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign in New Zealand. As with the earlier “transformation of capitalism”, PR is not solely accountable, but the taint of the tobacco lobby still stains the profession. Over time that may seem insignificant in comparison to the current practice of building countermovements designed to

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obstruct attempts at avoiding planetary degradation and eco-disasters. Accordingly, this narrower economic-centred view may put both the economy and the environment at risk since the former is dependent on the latter. Historical change cannot avoid being ecological change, economic change, and egalitarian change. PR has to engage with all three.

Vital signs (2): equity, democracy, and global (im)balances Sriramesh (2003a) analyses linkages between globalisation, democracy, market democracy, and PR, but elsewhere the literature tends to present the simultaneous spread of economic globalisation, and global PR along with it, as unreservedly positive. Seitel (2004) is typical in portraying the twenty-first century as holding the promise of being “the golden age of public relations” because, with the influence of “Economic globalization”, the practice “has become a growth industry round the world” (p. 510). The only downside he refers to is “Global jealousies, fueling terrorism and anti-Western feelings” (p. 510). The field’s treatment of equity issues resembles its engagement with ecological issues. In this sphere too, it requires a similarly self-reflective disciplinary overview with a global dimension. Although he writes pre-9/11, and pre-Iraq War, Derrida’s (1994) analysis remains accurate: never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth and of humanity. Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history, instead of celebrating the “end of ideologies” and the end of the great emancipatory discourses, let us never neglect this obvious macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable singular sites of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in absolute figures, never have so many men, women and children been subjugated, starved or exterminated on the earth. (p. 85) The French philosopher’s analysis is confirmed by economist Stiglitz’s (2003) comments, in Globalization and Its Discontents, that “globalization has not succeeded in reducing poverty, neither has it succeeded in ensuring stability” as crises “in Asia and in Latin America have threatened the economies and stability of all developing countries . . . [with] fears of financial contagion spreading around the world, [so] that the collapse of one emerging market currency will mean that others fall as well” (p. 6). Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (2006) also examines the dark side of globalisation to ask why the spread of free market liberal democracy has been accompanied by extreme violence in such forms as indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations and systemic ethnic cleansing in disparate locations across the globe. These analyses underpin the urgency in our concern with equity, and the lack of it, in the changing business context. We use the term equity, and the

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absence of equity, in a broad sense to encompass issues of diversity, democracy, politics, and justice, as well as their antonyms from ethnocentrism to injustice, and substantial sections of the spectrum between polarities in “the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers and other moving groups” and the re-wired “global configuration of technology” crisscrossing “previously impervious boundaries” (Appadurai, 1990, p. 297) at ever increasing speeds. The changing technological landscape is tilting other status quos. In Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Rheingold (2002) charts business and social manifestions of the uptake of new technology in society. Categorising the January 2001 overthrow of President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines as “the first head of state in history to lose power to a smart mob” (Rheingold, 2002, p. 157), he recounts how over one million people in Manila, “mobilized and coordinated by waves of text messages, assembled at the site of the 1986 ‘People Power’ peaceful demonstrations that had toppled the Marcos regime” (Rheingold, 2002, p. 157) and how thousands of them “converged on Epifanio de los Santas Avenue, known as ‘Edsa’, within an hour of the first text message volleys: ‘Go 2EDSA, Wear blck’ (p. 158). Rheingold (2002) concludes that: “Over four days, more than a million citizens showed up, mostly dressed in black. Estrada fell. The legend of ‘Generation Txt’ was born” (p. 158). Rheingold’s (2000) sensitivity to differences in culture also offers unusual ways of assessing the present and its links to the future. In tracking research into an online community using Fujitsu’s “Habitat” system – a combination of “a cartoonland graphical representation of participants and their environment with a synchronous chat system” (Rheingold, 2000, p. 184) – he describes the phenomenon of “Kansei” or the “invisible and perhaps partially ineffable component of Japanese spoken communication . . . which can be only loosely translated as an intuitive, partially aesthetic, sense of rightness about the contextual elements in a conversation” (p. 203). His findings have wider implications for communication and e-commerce in general, and PR online and multiculturalism in particular: Kansei might turn out to be an important term all over the Net, as an aid to evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of each Net tool in different situations. The Net is increasingly a multicultural forum – the only multicultural forum of any scope. To focus on developments in the United States is wise because that is where the Net began, and where many technical and social innovations continue to emerge. But to do so exclusively is to miss the big picture: the Net is happening to the whole world. Because of the sharp focus on communications and information technologies at the highest levels of Japan’s industrial policymakers, the question of Japan and the Net is perhaps the most important critical uncertainty in the shaping of tomorrow’s Worldnet. (Rheingold, 2000, p. 203)

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PR would do well to keep the changing cultural and technological landscapes in mind to free innovation, to promote competition, and to maintain democracy. They may prove useful as people in business communities and world institutions alike call for a rethinking of issues of equity in relation to issues of enterprise and ecology, or what Porritt (2005) calls Capitalism As If the World Mattered.

Vital signs (3): enterprise, markets, and corporate choices To the financially influential audience at a World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland’s Davos, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (1999) suggested countering critics of global capitalism by launching a global initiative to institutionalise good corporate citizen behaviour and by choosing “to unite the power of markets with the authority of universal ideals”. That initiative was developed into the Global Compact as an essential part of ensuring “that the global market is embedded in broadly shared values and practices that reflect global social needs and that all the world’s people share the benefits of globalization” (Annan, cited in Rowe, 2005, p. 130). At a less lofty level H. F. Johnson (2005), Chairman and CEO of S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., sets out two opposing sides of the dynamic tension surrounding enterprise and market economics. He acknowledges that by “improving the lives of workers in one country while degrading the environment in another”, business has fuelled “the growing anti-globalization outcry”; but asserts that “the corporate sector can be the catalyst for a truly sustainable force in the global development for all on the planet” (p. xxxi). Stuart Hart’s (2005) Capitalism At the Crossroads expands on the polar opposites first with a more muted form of Derrida’s (1994) summation of “a decade of economic globalization, privatization, and free trade” in relation to business and enterprise, as producing, at best, mixed outcomes: “Whereas the wealthy in developed countries have grown richer, the vast majority of nations and people in the world have yet to benefit from the apparent triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy” (p. xxxvii). However, more optimistically, Hart (2005) also ushers in what the subtitle of his book calls “The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World’s Most Difficult Problems”. He indicates ways for business to rise to the challenge of sustainable development along the lines of the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (WCED) (1987) definition, as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (p. 8), by: creating a new, more inclusive brand of capitalism, one that incorporates previously excluded voices, concerns, and interests, the corporate sector could become the catalyst for a truly sustainable form of global development – and prosper in the process. To succeed, however, corporations must learn to open up to the world: Strategies need to take account the entire

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human community of 6.5 billion, as well as the host of other species with which we share the planet. (Hart, 2005, p. xli) Business PR practices have long been implicated in a modernisation project colonised by dominant Western perspectives, and narrowly logical thinking that might sometimes be classed as economic fundamentalism. As a consequence they see offshore populations as additional consumer numbers, minority publics as a problem to be managed, workforces as requiring control, and nature as a realm to be mastered and exploited. Current strategic thinking (Prahalad, 2005), in line with demographic trends and other global shifts, repositions the billions at the bottom of the economic pyramid as customer relationship opportunities and talent pools (Mahajan and Banga, 2005), and environmental sensitivity as a source of profit rather than an obstacle to it (Hart, 2005). Current scriptwriters of the PR field still reinforce elitist control over a changing world by “promoting a synthetic equality that ignores the lopsidedness of actual power structures” (Munshi, 2005a, p. 53). They ignore the power of emerging markets (and their populations) and support anti-environmentalist movements that retard the implementation of measures to respond to threats such as global warming. The shift in relation to nature should be modelled more in terms of what Giblett (2004) terms mutuality rather than mastery. Forging a worldview akin to Kofi Annan’s idea of a global compact, which is more representative of an increasingly complex, diverse, and uncertain world, will require changes in the field. It will need to move towards an actively multicultural theatre. Increasingly obsolete theories of management such as command-and-control will make room for more, and more flexible, theories to enable inclusive and collective engagements with issues of difference. Within corporate PR this side of the debate on the new capitalism is neglected. Although progress has been made (see Chapter 5), the conversations have still to become more polyphonic or many-voiced. Significantly, clear positive consequences – not just for reducing poverty and for expanding global enterprise, but for gender equity, and contributing to world peace – through enlarging input by people from developing nations, and by spreading their innovations, have been acknowledged by the award of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank: for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights. Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. [. . .]

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Signs of the times Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development. Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy cannot achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male. (BBC News Online, 2006)

Shifting signs: pluralisation and context-relevant PR Pluralism in PR theory is not expanding along with these new directions in business and global change. Almost any innovation has to fight for space against the inertia exerted by the dominance of the excellence tradition. For followers of two-way symmetry, the final theory has been found. The remaining tasks are augmentation within its parameters, defence against its detractors, and extension of its global grip. Nevertheless, from small beginnings (Botan and Hazleton, 1989), through the 1990s (Toth and Heath, 1992; L’Etang and Pieczka, 1996a), other perspectives have gradually become more visible. We survey the current contours of conceptualisation, and issue prioritisation, through four significant 2006 book publications: Botan and Hazleton (2006a); L’Etang and Pieczka (2006a); Moloney (2006); and Hobsbawm (2006a). Three of these four books are augmentations of earlier projects and so demonstrate durability and gathering momentum for multiple approaches. Botan and Hazleton’s (2006a) Public Relations Theory II looks back to the collection’s predecessor, Public Relations Theory (Botan and Hazleton, 1989), which was a milestone publication in introducing theory to the field. Retrospectively, they recognise more changes than continuities with the earlier period. They note, for example, the rise in practitioner remuneration, the massive globalisation of the field in practice so that “several large [US] firms . . . each have client lists with a dozen or more national governments on them”, and the huge expansion of higher education so that in 2005 “GradSchools.com lists 64 graduate programs in public relations in the United States and 31 more internationally, although known programs in Germany, Brazil, and elsewhere had been left off that list”, so that “demand for qualified faculty” (Botan and Hazleton, 2006b, p. 2) has also continued to grow. Nevertheless they conclude that their focus is PR theory rather than economics or education. In that theory area Botan and Hazleton (2006b) acknowledge a shift that is in tune with global shifts in other areas: while “the United States is the birthplace of public relations theory and has been dominant in public relations research in recent years” (p. 13), perhaps the most important development “is that this U.S. dominance is fading” (p. 13). They identify at “least two other centers [Europe and Australasia] for theory work . . . emerging in the world with, possibly, two more [Brazil and China and Southeast Asia] starting to develop” (Botan and Hazleton, 2006b, p. 13). While their earlier book “set out to argue the need for more theory in PR” (Botan and Hazleton, 2006b, p. 4), they see this one as

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“engaged in the new task of giving voice to the need for diversity and competition between theories in public relations” and “believe that the field cannot develop further without such a contest of ideas”, which they term “a paradigm struggle” (p. 4). Although we will dispute the basis for their accompanying assertion that the Grunigian paradigm is the only paradigm in town, it is heartening to find these pioneers calling for increased pluralism and exemplifying it in practice with the inclusion of international contributions. At the same time they follow their introduction with J. Grunig et al.’s (2006) chapter on “The excellence theory”. On the opening page, the excellence study authors implicitly dismiss the editors’ opening call for a contest of ideas by classifying it as a mark of a field’s immaturity: “In mature sciences, scholars generally agree on common theories. In immature sciences, however, everyone seems to have his or her own theory, and debate rages among the competing camps about which theories are preferable” (J. Grunig et al., 2006, p. 21). Indeed, contemporaneous with the growth of plural perspectives, attempts to solidify and extend the Grunigian paradigm beyond the present continue. The latest is Toth’s (2006) 656-page collection, The Future of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, in which, according to the publisher’s promotional blurb, the contributors “consider the indelible theory building” of J. Grunig and L. Grunig and “present research that advances excellence theories, adds new dimensions and directions to the excellence theories, and shows how the excellence study has moved to the global stage” (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006). Since Toth’s (2006) collection was unavailable as we were writing, we can only note the blurb’s claims and observe that the title, in selecting “excellence” rather than “excellence theory” or “excellence research”, operates semantically in pulling all that is excellent into the two-way symmetry movement’s ambit as if any other kind of PR lacks a future that may claim to be excellent. Directions more consistently diverging from excellence theory than Botan and Hazleton (2006a) can be found in L’Etang and Pieczka (2006a). Public Relations: Critical Debates and Contemporary Practice (L’Etang and Pieczka, 2006a) strengthens its predecessor’s core, Critical Perspectives in Public Relations (L’Etang and Pieczka, 1996a), with more iconoclastic chapters on accepted beliefs in mainstream PR in, for example, professionalism, systems theory, and postmodern writing, and augments them with newer fields such as sport and tourism. Although many of its contributors are still linked to the one institution, Stirling University in Scotland, the new edition acknowledges globalisation and pluralisation by widening its contributor base with non-institutionally aligned Australasian and European authored chapters. Consistent with its critical theory lineage, Public Relations: Critical Debates and Contemporary Practice (L’Etang and Pieczka, 2006a) has a more philosophical, and less PR-centred, bibliography than most literature in the discipline – authors cited at some length include US network theorist Manuel Castells, French poststructuralist Michel Foucault, and British sociologist, Bryan Turner, all of whom are used for conceptual updating that acknowledges aspects of the new context.

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Among the important commonalities between both of these collections are their casts of academic contributors and their orientation, albeit less sustained in the former, towards moving the field beyond two-way symmetry. The academic focus, the attempt to open new directions acknowledging the change in media conditions, and the reworking of a previous volume, are all common to the third of these 2006 books, Moloney’s (2006) Rethinking PR: PR Propaganda and Democracy. While published as a second edition of his earlier Rethinking PR: The Spin and the Substance (Moloney, 2000), this book, as we will show in Chapter 3, significantly extends that earlier work, notably on the Grunigian paradigm. Our fourth selection, Where the Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in PR and Journalism (Hobsbawm, 2006a), is very different from the others. The contributors, who are largely journalists and PR practitioners, completely ignore the Grunigian paradigm and touch only briefly on other academic PR theory. They foreground a different agenda, in a context heavily marked by contemporary, mainly British, conditions. And they are much more direct in naming, and engaging with, such current issues as: lack of public reputation and trust, insularity, interactions with journalism, the political economy, implications of new technologies, transparency of media and PR, and even global financial literacy in Anna Schiffrin’s (2006) “PR in developing countries”, which provides a model for non-exploitative relationships that should be a template for new PR initiatives in the area. Eschewing simplistic generalities, editor Hobsbawm’s (2006b) introduction does not pretend that the issues are easy. Nevertheless, she notes with approval the crucial shift in emphasis from the unseen to the seen, declares herself “in favour of continuing the trend of making PR’s role more public” (Hobsbawm, 2006b, p. 2) despite difficulties in knowing “how truth is interpreted, and the different truths of those telling it, and on whose behalf” (p. 11). All of these introduce complications into notions of mutual communication exchanges as a permanent answer and she does not rest at either idealism or hopelessness. Hobsbawm’s (2006c) own individual chapter puts many of us academics to shame in setting out specific proposals for improving ethics practically and for educating publics through increased visibility for both professions. She cites David Michie’s (1998) observation that “ ‘a fascinating picture would emerge if newspapers were required to print the names of PR consultants providing them with materials for each issue, in the same way that foodstuffs manufacturers have to give details of their products’ contents on the packaging’ ” (cited in Hobsbawm, 2006c, p. 123). She then goes on to extend this new transparency and label it “ ‘Inside Out Information’ or IOI” (Hobsbawm, 2006c, p. 122). Taking advantage of Internet possibilities, she proposes providing websites with inside information on the connections, sources, and creators of media stories and lists of PR clients “something along the lines of the academic model of citations, so that the audience for a story can really track and trace its origins . . . and understand much more fully the basis on which that story has reached them” (Hobsbawm, 2006c, p. 124). Specific suggestions include asking the BBC to consider

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offering “a continuous Big Brother-style broadcast of the newsgathering teams making their choice of stories” and the “best PR agencies” allowing “webcams to cover media relations activity” (Hobsbawm, 2006c, p. 125). In addition, because it is “irrefutable that the practices of PR and journalism are inexorably linked”, she opposes their educational segregation and while she does “not think that providing academic-based courses in either discipline can work without being done in tandem with direct experience, neither can learning about one practice work properly without learning fully about the other” (p. 126). As we discuss in Chapter 8, professional jurisdictions have a major impact on the creation and maintenance of a profession, so this suggestion to shift from competition to cooperation may help ensure PR’s survival. Along similar survival through cooperation strategy lines, Hobsbawm (2006c) contends that there is a need to widen the current watchdog regime since “there is no single trade body or legally defined group that currently has at its heart the twin practices and ethical considerations of journalism and public relations” (p. 127). To address the absence, she proposes establishing a Media Commission to deal “with the practical and interconnected issues between PR and journalism and broadcasting” (Hobsbawm, 2006c, p. 128). Hobsbawm’s (2006c) own firm practices what she calls “Integrity PR” (by matching its principles with its client list) and has succeeded “despite suspicion of the idea by an industry that took some time to accept that to believe in your client (or the cause you espouse) is essential if you are to be believed by the media you inform and lobby” (p. 126). Nor is Hobsbawm unaware of the economic pressures against integrity in PR and for accepting socially dubious clients. Borkowski’s (2006) sometimes tongue-in-cheek chapter, “Is honesty the best policy?”, makes plain the pressures, the temptations, and the professional challenges: Whatever ethical position you take, it’s extremely difficult when times are hard and your loyal employees are banging their begging bowls on your door to turn down income from drug companies, arms manufacturers, GM crop researchers, cosmetic firms with a taste for guinea pig testing, gasguzzling 4  4 makers, political parties, hell, even tobacco manufacturers . . . They all need good PR desperately, and no one is prepared to pay more than them for a slice of your time and a turn on the media roundabout. The organized pre-planned use of lies to create column inches and TV coverage is at its most cunning and electrifying when employed by companies or individuals with plenty to hide. (pp. 36–37)

From pessimism to lines of flight: emotional matters, public diplomacy, and propaganda for peace Within US PR, one significant voice strongly suggests that all is not well in how post-excellence study PR intersects with its context. Educator, practitioner, textbook author, and leading historian of the field, Scott Cutlip’s (1995) final

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historical book ends with a lament for the state of the nation and for PR’s contribution to that lamentable state: This is my last work in a career that has spanned 62 years in newswork, public relations, and education of two generations of public relations practitioners. As I pass the baton to the present generation of journalists, practitioners, and educators, I do so with a sense of deep concern for the vitality and integrity of the nation’s public information system, the public information system on which we must depend to govern ourselves and do the nation’s business. America’s public relations practitioners, some 150,000 strong, wield a major influence in that system by providing nearly half of the mainstream media’s daily content. Their effort is to put a favorable spin on the news in the interest of the client, not the public’s interest. (pp. 282–283) Cutlip’s (1995) assessment is salutary and it is noteworthy that it appears in print over a decade after J. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) reshaping of the field and three years after the publication of the first large excellence study collection (J. Grunig, 1992a). If Cutlip had believed that excellence study research and theory had begun to transform the field, surely he would have been less pessimistic. We end this chapter with an intermittently recurring feature: a brief exposition of what, adapting Deleuze and Guattari (1972, 1987), we term a “line of flight”. Our pathways are less expansive than those French philosophical sources: each is simply designed to offer ways of escaping the current iron cage of a narrowly rational positivism inhibiting an intellectually insular field. We found reading Cutlip’s (1995) deeply-felt lament for the negative role of PR despite a lifetime of commitment to the field, to be a moving experience. The time has come to recognise that PR is not only cognitive. Emotion and desire have been undervalued and have been slow to emerge in academic PR (but see Yeomans, 2006), yet emotional matters have received considerable attention in business (Goleman, 1998; Goleman et al., 2002). That shift in attention has been powered by the growing impact of insights from the new field of cognitive neuroscience developed since the 1970s. Gazzaniga et al. (2002) describe the field as “a hybrid of disciplines . . . [with] roots in neurology, neuroscience, and cognitive science” (p. 7). Their book also tracks the rapid progress in the field through technological advances that enable the physical tracking of feelings in the brain. They quote Joseph LeDoux (1998), a leading authority on The Emotional Brain, who concludes that “the brain did evolve to deal with danger and other so-called emotional situations without cognition and consciousness . . . and I’m taking a chance and assuming that invertebrates are not consciously aware of their emotional reactions” (cited in Gazzaniga et al., 2002, p. 543). In parallel neurological research, Antonio Damasio (1994) has identified the associated mistake as “Descartes’ Error” whereby excessively logical behaviour can cause us to make irrational decisions. Damasio (1994) suggests that a more

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consciously emotional response is justified because of the residual and erroneous Cartesian hangover of a disembodied mind. In fact he continues: “Versions of Descartes’ error obscure the roots of the human mind in a biologically complex but fragile, finite, and unique organism” and, as a result of failing “to see the inherent tragedy of conscious existence”, people “feel far less called upon to do something about minimizing it, and may have less respect for the value of life” (p. 250). We think the emotional underpinnings to the dire situation described by Cutlip deserve much further scrutiny. However let us end with an instance of what happens when emotions are consciously mobilised in a way that pushes through one of the excellence study shibboleths, US propaganda. To do so we quote at length from a telling tale in the public domain from a former insider. Nancy Snow’s (2004b) book chapter, “From bombs and bullets to hearts and minds: U.S. public diplomacy in an age of propaganda” is powered by personal feeling and suggests what is possible if the spectre haunting PR, propaganda, is acknowledged and addressed directly. Between 1992 and 1994, Snow (2004b) worked (although she acknowledges this was not in the official job description) as what she terms “a government propagandist by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and the State Department in Washington, D.C.” whose “euphemism was public diplomacy” (p. 17). They aimed to “ ‘tell America’s story to the world’ ” (Snow, 2004b, p. 17) and she goes on to record how after September 11, it became “clear that the propaganda war was underway” (p. 17) and the US was participating by disseminating US propaganda even if it still preferred the euphemism of public diplomacy. Her conclusion is refreshingly honest and partisan in openly pushing for propaganda for peace: Right now, every night, as we sleep, the war propagandists, both state and stateless actors, are dominating the media landscape. This should come as no surprise, because war is viewed by many as an efficient means of carving up centralized zones of power – the power to control, the power to dominate, both through message and force. Peace propaganda needs the same amount of diligence and hard work. If we spend too much time worrying about using propaganda for peace, we will continue to subject ourselves to governments and other interest groups who are more than willing and able to utilize propaganda methods for their own violent causes. If your cause is the cause of peace, then utilize communications responsibly, truthfully, and effectively. This is a call to arms, to arm ourselves with knowledge, content, and context generated from open and diverse channels of communication. White House news conferences, CNN, and Al-Jazeera should not be watched in a vacuum, separated from the world’s people. If so, then the world will remain in the hands of the war propagandists. (Snow, 2004b, p. 2)

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Pluralising theory Academic empires, excellence, and global implications

As Pimlott (1951) observed in the middle of the last century: “Public relations is not a peculiarly American phenomenon, but it has nowhere flourished as in the United States. Nowhere else is it so widely practiced, so lucrative, so pretentious, so respectable and disreputable, so widely suspected and so extravagantly extolled” (p. 3). As well her advocacy of propaganda’s positive possibilities, Snow (1998, 2004a, 2004b) is unusual in her multiple accounts of contemporary US propaganda. Post 9/11, however, she is part of a growing trend in the US that both acknowledges PR as part of the same family of activities as propaganda, albeit as “its ‘black sheep’ cousin” (Carden, 2005, p. 614), and that exhorts the field to engage with it. Following Jowett and O’Donnell’s (1992) muted admission that “propaganda is not necessarily an evil thing” (p. 271), Burton St. John III (2006), for example, urges PR practitioners and scholars alike to “move beyond the 80-year-old progressive stance that refuses to acknowledge an ethical role for propaganda” (p. 227). According to Moloney (2006), the intervention of Grunigian theory during “the Cold War between capitalism and communism in economics, and between liberal democracy and dictatorship in politics”, positioned PR as taking “a progressive journey towards betterment, if not perfection” through “an intellectual route map that in its stages distanced PR from propaganda, and made public relations intellectually respectable, decently practicable, and legitimately teachable at public expense in the ideological and geopolitical circumstances of the 1980s” (p. 3). To reach their two-way symmetric destination, PR practice first travels from one-way asymmetrical communication, “with complete truth not essential”, through one-way symmetrical with “truth important”, and two-way asymmetric, whose purpose was “Scientific persuasion” with “imbalanced effects” (J. Grunig and Hunt, 1984, p. 22). In effect, by situating two-way symmetrical communication as a theoretically ideal, already practised, and widely attainable, form of PR, J. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) model severed the connection between public relations and propaganda. In what is, retrospectively, a breathtaking break with time-bending implications (see Chapter 9), they relegate propaganda almost entirely to the province of propagandists as a different breed of communicators. The engineered gap between PR and propaganda allows “PR teachers and students [to] glide over the state-

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ment that three parts of the Grunigian typology are pathologies of the fourth and not much practiced part (two-way symmetrical)” (Moloney, 2006, p. 168). In effect, by “exposure and repetition the ‘ought’ of the fourth has become the ‘is’ of the other three” with “an implied judgement that PR has become two-way respectful dialogue with others – or that it soon will” (Moloney, 2006, p. 168). Before the declaration of the break, (i.e. in the period before two-way symmetry was explicitly executable), pre-excellence study PR belonged to an almost prehistoric period of asymmetry and so evaded moral evaluations. In the contemporary world only poor practice, which fails to live up to, or does not aspire to, the Grunigian standards, has a link to propaganda. And this is irrespective of how infrequently two-way symmetrical practice occurs. Logically, once its existence has been confirmed, it can be diminishing, or need never actually recur again, for the same theoretical effect to be achieved. The resulting dismissal of existing asymmetrical practices as anachronistic, apart from specific circumstances (and sectors, such as entertainment), shifts attention away from engaging with actual flawed practice (other than to say it should follow excellence research principles). The excellence team cite Moloney’s earlier version of the British pedagogic consequences at some length: For university teachers seeking to found their work on an academically respectable basis, his [J. Grunig’s] and Hunt’s work were welcome to staff competing on campuses for resources against teachers of older and more established disciplines. The Grunigian paradigm gave them academic status. More emotionally, it met internalized needs of UK public relations teachers who had to convince themselves that they were worth a place on higher education campuses. Whatever the explanations, the outcome in the lecture theatre has too often been: “Public relations is a good thing called symmetrical communications” rather than “Maybe it should be that but the data seem not to fit”. (Moloney, 1997, p. 140, cited in J. Grunig et al., 2002, p. 319) L. Grunig et al. (2002) frame this account as a “naive utopian portrayal of the two-way symmetrical model”, go on to quote Moloney (1997) further on “distortions by disciples” (p. 319), and use his words that the “normative aspect of symmetrical communication has, so to speak, been over-stamped on its minority existence” (p. 140) to illustrate “that it is a mistake to believe that a normative theory describes all positive practice” (p. 319). When Moloney (2006) returns to the theme nine years later, he comments that “Grunigians can be read as though they regret the popularity of asymmetrical PR”, but it “is the natural outcome of PR practice in its drive for communicative self-advantage, and it is an outcome that is sought after” (p. 167).

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Interpreting symmetry Accordingly, the Grunigian map acts as distorted projection in glossing over the “drive for communicative self-advantage” and remains content to have the collateral benefits of grateful educators and practitioners rather then address power directly. Along with the most critical (see, for example, Cheney and Christensen, 2001b; Gandy, 1982; Kersten, 1994; Kunczik, 1994; Leitch and Neilson, 2001; L’Etang, July, 1995; L’Etang, 1996; Pieczka, 1995, 1996; Stauber and Rampton, 1995; Weaver et al., 2006) and other dissenting, theorists (see, for example, Cancel et al., 1999; Coombs, 1993; Heath, 1992; Karlberg, 1996; Leichty and Springston, 1993; Miller, 1989; Murphy and Dee, 1996; Vasquez, 1996), we continue to perceive the two-way symmetrical form as one, or all, of the following: flawed, largely normative at best (and, at worst, misleading in its promise of equality of exchange amid realities of uneven power), very restricted in practice, and, to date, structured in support of socially exclusionary practices (Dozier and Lauzen, 1998). The list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, it is extracted from just those authors selected for a re-education class in two-way symmetry in one excellence publication (L. Grunig et al., 2002, pp. 310–327). Nor is it just opponents that J. Grunig finds in naive error: “Both the disciples of the symmetrical theory and critical scholars who debunk it seem to have reconstructed the theory inaccurately in their minds – to the extent that the theory appears to be ridiculous” (J. Grunig, 2001, p. 18). The track record of symmetry development, rather than “numerous revisions of the theory we have made over the years as a result of research” (Grunig, 2001, p. 17), looks more like a series of gradual adjustments to external criticism. The process follows a pattern of points being met with silence, or denial, then slow uptake, then incorporation. Examples include Murphy’s (1991) piece on Game Theory, which went on to earn entry into the Grunigian canon for the previously excluded concept of mixed motives: “In actuality, I never viewed the two-way symmetrical model as one of pure cooperation or total accommodation . . . Therefore, Murphy’s mixed-motive model actually described the two-way symmetrical model as . . . originally conceptualized” (J. Grunig, 2001, p. 12). Similarly, Dozier and Lauzen’s (1998) critique of the limits of symmetry in relation to disadvantaged groups was initially rejected before it was reinstated as the acceptable face of critical theory. We perceive the same pattern in philosophical issues. So while L. Grunig et al. (2002) write that some critical scholars “have asserted that our theories of public relations are ‘modernist’ – that is, based on a belief in rational, linear, and positivist scientific thought”, the excellence theorists themselves “believe the symmetrical model and the theory of strategic management . . . are decidedly postmodern” (p. 328). While symmetrists have been fiddling with making external views fit their theory, and helping educationists to feel good about teaching PR, the field has been burning with unaddressed issues and lack of academic and social status. In relation to both, postmodernism goes beyond instrumental rationality to engage with the limits of reason, epistemology, the representation

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of the world, the nature of contemporary power, and the relativity of power/knowledge configurations. Symmetry has no substantive engagement with these issues. At this stage let us be clear that, although we have multiple doubts about its methodology, its intellectual depth, its standards of proof, and its implementation, we have no problem with the idealism of two-way symmetry. To us it is common sense that, for long term relationships, you treat your partners and prospective partners with respect as to what they say and what they seek and discuss ways to resolve differences. The real difficulties come with how to do that. The “symmetrists”, to use Brown’s (2006, p. 206) commendably brief collective term for excellence study adherents, draw little from dialogue research that pays attention to specifics (see Kent and Taylor, 2002) and have not used their ascendancy to pioneer replicable dialogue-building techniques. Two-way symmetry may serve a purpose in reassuring some educators, and building disciplinary self-esteem, but the reassurance lacks substance. Meantime, in acting as a weapon of mass distraction it diverts discussions from what one practitioner/scholar termed the “dirty realities” of PR that will have to be addressed if the discipline is to earn a good name. In addition, the symmetrists often behave in decidedly asymmetrical fashion. Their research is firmly organisation-centric, rather than from the publics’ perspective, and more from the top of the organisation at that – see the appendices on “Questionnaires for Heads of Public Relations Departments” (L. Grunig et al., 2002, pp. 563–600) and on “Questionnaire for CEO or Other Member of the Dominant Coalition” (pp. 601–609). The asymmetrical absence of data from disadvantaged publics leaves symmetrists’ claims to mutual benefit as one-sided assertions. Certainly evidence from activists suggests a deeply asymmetrical situation usefully summarised in the foreword to Lubbers’ (2002) collection on Battling Big Business by Naomi Klein (2002): this book does not tell the story of corporations defending themselves against public concern and criticism with facts, arguments and improved practices. It tells the story of a few very powerful multinationals using, in Eveline Lubbers’ words, “a bag of dirty tricks” against their critics, from setting up fake activist organizations, to sending in spies to infiltrate meetings, to pressuring the state to treat legitimate activists like terrorists . . . for those who don’t identify as activists, but believe in the principles of open debate and free expression, this book should serve as a warning. PostSeptember 11, many of the strategies used to silence anti-corporate activists are being used against much broader segments of the population. (pp. 8–10) Instead, the excellence study constantly speaks for those on the other side of symmetry from the organisational perspective. This is clear in their adoption of the agency’s perspective in one of their own examples. Vercˇicˇ et al. (1996) describe a context where many organisations do not have experience of activist

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pressure to “incorporate the demands of activists into strategic planning, therefore, Pristop [the leading Slovenian agency involved] organizes the opposition to communicate with its client” (pp. 59–60). As a result, according to a partner of the firm, “for maybe four or five of the disputes it was not the activist group that organized themselves” (cited in Vercˇicˇ et al., 1996, p. 60). Moreover, Pristop continued to persevere with these tactics despite knowing some other “major players would take advantage because the activists have no tradition of organizing themselves” (cited, p. 60). However, the explanation for Pristop’s move was not to improve democracy, but for the system to work properly for their client organisation: We have organized the activists so that management gets the other side organized to talk with. Because the basic problem at the beginning is who is representing whom? If you have several hundred people on the other side, say in some local community, you’ve got to talk. We help organize the other side so that at least you can engage in negotiations. Otherwise, there is no one with whom you can negotiate. (cited in Vercˇicˇ et al., 1996, p. 60) This is an isolated but welcome example of specific difficulties that bring an outside public into the account. It raises central issues about who is representing whom. These have to be fully examined from the activist group side before twoway symmetrists can claim win-win situations. Amongst environmentalists, the fiercer debate concerns whether spokespeople for environmental causes should take any paying position at all with corporates that have bad environmental records. Monbiot’s (2002) “The Greens get eaten”, for example, is scathingly dismissive of leading figures in eco-movements who go on to work with “companies whose practices they once contested” (p. 53). He sees the environmental movement at risk “of being swallowed by the corporate leviathan” (Monbiot, 2002, p. 55) and that no one “threatens its survival as much as greens who have taken the company shilling” (p. 55). In her treatment of activism L. Grunig’s (1992) organisation-centred attitude is captured in her chapter title “Activism: how it limits the effectivism of organizations and how excellent public relations departments respond” and her nine assumptions about activism assume nothing positive about activists despite claiming that instead of “trying to dominate their environment, practitioners of this model [two-way symmetry] want to understand and to cooperate with their relevant external publics” (pp. 513–514) and noting that activist pressure creates an opportunity for communicators to gain more organisational power and status. The results of the neglect of the nonorganisational side of symmetry was noted in as late as Karagianni and Cornelissen’s (2006) “Anti-corporate movements and public relations”, which accurately observed: “the public relations literature (as an important source of knowledge for practitioners) is very much in its infancy and does not offer the theoretical and conceptual tools to analyze and understand this emerging movement” (p. 168).

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That neglect of research by the excellence study could be compensated by drawing on data and fieldwork from other disciplines. In the field of organisational communication, such communication research is more widespread with diverse organisations and communities, such as Cheney’s (1999) Values at Work: Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragón in a workers’ cooperative. Indeed the author of that study has, from the 1980s, been among the area research leaders. Cheney and Christensen (2001b) did in fact comment that the two-way symmetrical model was idealistic and recommended the precaution of not taking “managerial accounts and self-reports, such as the ones presented in J. Grunig’s chapter [J. Grunig, 2001, pp. 11–30], at face value” (p. 180), because, where ideas such as symmetry “have become almost sacred terms . . . it should be no surprise to find these notions often used and represented by decision makers in their descriptions of organizational practice” (p. 180). This comment drew the following rather asymmetric response from L. Grunig et al. (2002): Such a claim is the ultimate put-down of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to social science and, if accepted, would discredit all of the research evidence that we have painstakingly gathered and interpreted in this book. Cheney and Christensen (2001) would have us believe that the participants in our research were deluding themselves or lying to us. (p. 320) However, as Cheney and Christensen’s writing testifies, the social world is not naturally equal so symmetrical strategies and tactics, have to acknowledge inequalities and find ways of equalising communication power. Moloney (2006) provides practical strategies for addressing equity in communication and PR. Noting a positive social shift in how more “marginal, resource-poor groups are lobbying now than forty years ago”, he suggests that their access to policy-makers would increase with more measures (private and public subsidy) to produce PR communicative equality” and that, without such measures, lobbying is “a concern for democrats because it mostly mobilises bias in favour of powerful and dominant organisations and groups” (p. 12). Following British precedents, Moloney (2006) focuses thinking on PR equity provisions, akin to already existing legal aid provisions, for resource-poor groups through a series of questions: “Could voluntary service councils subsidise PR agencies to offer free PR advice, as legal aid centres support lawyers offering legal advice? Could legal aid centres have PR advice sections in them? Could citizens’ advice bureaux offer PR advice?” (p. 81). Observing that PR “resource equalisation is already on the agenda of the voluntary sector”, he argues for significant extensions in order that: it be systematised and expanded into a communicative equality to promote social justice. Such equality need not be focused exclusively on the social disadvantaged. Poor communications resourcing is not uncommon in other

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Pluralising theory sectors, and non-commercial groups wanting a PR “voice” for new technologies (e.g. nanotechnology), environmental practices (e.g. renewable energy sources) or lifestyles (e.g. trans-sexuals) could be given a communications subsidy. The media also has a training role vis-à-vis resource-poor groups . . . The UK media takes up that role via the Media Trust, sponsored and supported by media organisations and PR firms. Its purpose is “to help charities communicate” and it trains them in PR. (Moloney, 2006, p. 81)

This is a thoughtful proposal with an agenda to move beyond idealism to practice. It comes from someone who writes from within PR, who has been a practitioner for a significant part of his career, and who comes to a credibly nuanced conclusion that “the positive effects of PR still outweigh the negative ones – just” (Moloney, 2006, p. 176). It offers tangible defence against external criticism and offers a way to engage with the low public standing of the profession. The low academic standing of the discipline is another question.

Testing symmetry in two locations: can’t live without it (in PR) and don’t notice it (outside PR) Henry Mintzberg (2004), in his iconoclastic attack on MBA education, suggested the bottom line for measuring MBA results was performance in the top positions in the business world after graduation. Accordingly, Harvard Business School’s achievement in placing their MBA graduates in CEO positions mattered less than what those CEOs subsequently achieved for their organisations (Mintzberg, 2004, pp. 112–116). Building on that useful line of thinking, we examined two-way symmetry’s achievement through the extent to which it is not only picked up, but operationalised, in congruent disciplinary fields. As a rough test, we sought out any references to the Grunigian two-way symmetrical communication model by authors publishing in recent authoritative handbooks or collections in adjacent fields between 2002 (18 years after the publication of Managing Public Relations and ten years after the 1992 Excellence volume – and therefore time enough for impact and influence to permeate) and 2006. The oldest, Carlsnaes et al. (2002) Handbook of International Relations, a substantial 571-page volume with 28 individual chapters involving 34 different authors, makes no mention of either J. Grunig or two-way symmetrical communication. We were unable to find a handbook of political communication so we took two different texts to act as substitutes. The first, Esser and Pfetsch’s (2004) book, Comparing Political Communication: Theories, Cases, and Challenges, contained 17 chapters, 21 contributing authors, and 418 pages, and had a rough comparability with a handbook. It did not yield a single reference to J. Grunig or two-way symmetry either. In fairness, both cases may be linked to disciplinary divisions, as neither field interacts much with PR. Nonetheless, if two-way symmetry were useful to understanding public interactions, it would be reasonable to expect citation.

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Our second substitute for a handbook of political communication was Kaid’s (2004) Handbook of Political Communication Research, which features 540 pages, with 19 chapters and 30 contributing authors. It does register influence in an interesting way: one of the 19 chapters devotes most of a page to the relevance of two-way symmetry in improving Internet democracy (Tedesco, 2004, p. 524). This application seems unjustly neglected, and offers an arena for possible use for symmetrical, or at least some of the less asymmetrical, exchanges on the net. Although without any attribution, Holtz’s (2002) Public Relations on the Net seems to build explicitly from the two-way symmetry concept: “The best public relations efforts are not only two-way but also symmetrical – that is, they afford both the company and the strategic audience equal opportunities to participate in the discussion and – even more important – equal opportunities to achieve their objectives” (p. xiv). Our final two fields lie closer to PR and have a record of interaction with it. Indeed some of their authors and editors have demonstrated considerable facility in, as well as familiarity with, the discipline. In Harris and Fleisher’s (2005) Handbook of Public Affairs, for example, both editors are knowledgeable about, and have published on, PR. Nevertheless, in that volume (with 579 pages, 29 chapters, and 31 contributing authors), the only reference to the Grunigian canon is a one page mention of J. Grunig and Hunt (1984), and that is in relation to lobbying and not symmetry. Jablin and Putnam’s (2001) The New Handbook of Organizational Communication offers a distinctive exception to the other evidence of omission. It has the healthiest representation with 27 citations of J. Grunig and nine referring to two-way symmetry. However, two-way symmetry appears less influential than its nine citations suggest because all appear within only two of the volume’s 20 chapters, one of which, Sutcliffe (2001), is concerned with “Organizational environments and organizational information processing”, where it would be hard to ignore PR. At present it is difficult to write on PR and ignore two-way symmetry. The other chapter that addresses two-way symmetry (Cheney and Christensen, 2001a) considers the relationship between internal and external communication. Despite a generous acknowledgement of the normative value of the two-way symmetrical model “as an important communication ideal or beacon in today’s society” (p. 261), Cheney and Christensen (2001a) suggest that in practice this model may function to embed inequity: the analyst interested in ethical and democratic issues should pay attention to the possibility that the communication systems being developed these days – though avowedly to satisfy the general public’s demand for insight and participation – are too closed around organizations and their active and resource rich publics and stakeholders . . . What appear, to some observers, as symmetrical systems of communication may, in other words, turn out to be “corporatist” systems organized around specific issues with only limited access to the non-organized stakeholders . . . Such a pattern of communication by and among well-established and resource-rich entities can exacerbate

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So overall, the picture is of a continuing lack of significant uptake for symmetrical theory in other important disciplinary sites. That is of concern to a field seeking respectability. It is not a concern with regard to rhetoric in PR, which has never sought such ascendancy or uniqueness and is comfortable sitting alongside other approaches within PR, as in Toth and Heath’s (1992) Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations, or alongside other perspectives on common topics of interest such as O’Hair et al.’s (forthcoming) Terrorism: Communication and Rhetorical Perspectives and permeate other disciplines as in the Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication (O’Hair and Heath, forthcoming). The excellence study has taken a more exclusive route. If, as Botan and Hazleton (2006b) claim, two-way symmetry is the first dominant paradigm in PR: why are congruent fields so uninterested? And why are those who do register any interest so doubtful of its value in practice? Moloney’s (2006) insight on the prevalence of the Grunigian paradigm having more to do with comforting PR teachers in the specific educational, political, and social conditions of the late twentieth century provides one logical answer. Whatever the answer, we see good reasons to resist both the push of US PR to become more dominant internationally and the symmetrists’ reach for global primacy, in both the geographical and the universal senses. In Kelly’s (2005) challenging times of swiftly-altering environments, and considerable uncertainty, we see canonisation attempts and claims for global applicability as out of step with the context. Knowledge is better dispersed among plural knowledge traditions, which are often locally influenced, increasingly decentralised, and changing quickly. Knowledge configurations need to attune to learning from criticisms and to gather from diverse sources to adapt to new circumstances. The negative chorus of voices not only comes from outside the field. Even before the deception employed to launch the invasion of Iraq, Cutlip’s (1995) discussion of what he calls the “sense of deep concern for the vitality and integrity of the nation’s public information system”, is eloquently pessimistic: “The U.S. Military’s control of the news of the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991 was a perfect example of how news sources, guided by public relations officials, can control and shape the news with truth a casualty” (p. 283): Propagandist, press agent, public information officer, public relations or public affairs officer, political campaign specialists, trade association lobbyists – all are protected in our democratic system by the same First Amendment rights that journalists enjoy, enabling them to play a far more important opinion-making role that the public perceives, or that journalists (who themselves are only some 130,000 strong) are willing to admit. It is safe to say that more than 40% of today’s media content originates in the

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word processors and fax machines of public relations specialists. The thrust of their work is always the same – to mobilize public opinion in the interest of the paying client. Their hope is to set the public agenda in their favor. These professional case-pleaders play to win. And usually do. The some 100 million dollars the insurance, medical, and health industries spent to kill President Clinton’s proposal for health reform in 1993–1994 is a case in point. (p. 283)

US primacy and the reach of the global Despite these failings, only five years later, leading excellence theorists asserted that “the American concept of public relations is the only global concept of public relations available currently” (Vercˇicˇ and J. Grunig, 2000, p. 12). Far from reflecting reality, we argue that the statement serves instead to self-validate US PR in general, and the excellence tradition in particular. Because of their status in the field, and the scope of the claim, which they themselves make, their justification requires consideration. It also opens up issues around certain terms – global (or universal), concept, and theory – with methodological and political dimensions. Vercˇicˇ and J. Grunig’s (2000) use of global, in “global concept” (p. 12), implies the meaning universal, as well as the geographical sense of global, at a time when PR as a practice has been spreading across the globe. This spread has mainly been from the developed to the developing world and several large US firms “each have client lists with a dozen or more national governments on them” (Botan and Hazleton, 2006b, p. 2). Furthermore, Montenegro (2004) extracts the revealing statistic from 2001 data that “the largest public relations firms, such as Fleishman-Hillard, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Hill and Knowlton, and Burson-Marsteller earn about half of the fees abroad” (p. 102). It is in this climate that Vercˇicˇ and J. Grunig (2000) suggest that there is only one PR theory, which then clearly has universal aspirations to uniformity. This is somewhat at odds with the geographical sense of global that informs a steadily expanding, and clearly diverse, globalisation process. In Ritzer’s (2004) analysis, its impact and significance “is to be seen virtually everywhere . . . most visibly in the now-commonplace protests that accompany high-level meetings of such key global organizations as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank” (p. 71). Despite noting “the level of protest against them” (p. 71), he foresees the globalisation process as leading to “the death of the local [italics in original]” (p. xiii). In this context where local ideas, as well as local practices, struggle to survive, we see no reason to stack the cards further in favour of the powerful by accepting that the US conception of PR is the only universal concept of public relations. If that were accepted, then, according to Vercˇicˇ and J. Grunig (2000), any conceptual criticism of PR would have to be criticism of the US conceptualisation of PR not because “other conceptualizations are not possible or even emerging” but as

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“a simple but accurate statement that other conceptualizations have not yet been developed to a level that allows disciplined criticism” (p. 12). Within the next few years, Vercˇicˇ (2003) himself admitted the situation had changed and listed work “initiated on alternative conceptualizations, primarily in Europe . . . with reflections from Africa (Rensburg, 2002), Asia (Sriramesh, 2002) and Latin America (Ferrari, 2002)” (p. 478 fn). This acknowledgement, however, leaves the imperial reach of US methodology intact. In re-labelling what others termed “a new wave of Asian research” as “a series of small tributaries of American positivism”, Chris Ryan (2006), a leading international authority on tourism, captures the continuing methodological colonisation as so many US-educated Asian scholars return home with their implanted American conceptual equipment intact.

Strategic amnesia and empiricism’s empire PR, as numerous writers define it, is a management, or managerial function. Actually, only part of it is, and while that part may be the largest by far, the exclusion of non-management PR serves to foreground US PR as the prototype, when British (L’Etang, 2004), Israeli (Toledano, forthcoming), and even postcommunist Russian (Guth, 2000) PR, did not emerge primarily from business and the market sector. Moreover, the US emphasis, on big business and organisation-centred approaches, downplays PR as a means by which groups through the ages have argued their case and sought to achieve their aims. That said, modern management, like PR, did develop primarily in the US, but it has been open to other theoretical input, sometimes from other disciplines (Weber, 1964), as well as from theories and practices in other nations. The results have not always been universally appreciated as Clarke (2005) observes: The spread of management has been assisted by processes of naturalization. In the broadest sense, the specific formation of management as a social and organizational cadre is aided by the incontrovertible view that “wellmanaged organizations” are desirable. The blurring of general and specific in the word “management” has enabled the flourishing of a particular form of management (which is cost-conscious, power-hungry, anti-democratic, and tends toward a messianic view of its own importance). (p. 203) In the PR literature, Wakefield (1996) points out how Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars’ (1995) Seven Cultures of Capitalism raises alarm bells about the implications of cultural differences for American business in an environment of constant change. Summarising Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars’ work, Wakefield (1996) says that in a world where business and economic activity consists not of one universal model but seven different cultures of that one capitalist model, “the American value set is causing its organizations to lose ground in the emerging global marketplace” (p. 23). The subsequent rise of the

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Chinese and Indian economies lends weight to Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars’ (1995) contentions and recalls earlier Japanese business success. That success is acknowledged in what one chapter in the excellence collection (J. Grunig, 1992a), called the “meteoric rise of Japan as an industrial and economic power . . . [that] spawned a plethora of books and journal articles about Japanese industry and management styles” (Sriramesh et al., 1992, p. 578). Admittedly, in relation to Japan, rather than management theory, the words used are cultural, economic, industrial, and management (often associated with styles rather than theoretical substance). At one point J. Grunig (1992b) concedes that the US is not the best place to practice excellence because: “Excellent management and excellent public relations, in essence, can flourish only in collaborative participative cultures”, a conclusion supporting the position that “symmetrical public relations cannot function without a major change in US culture and political structures” (p. 247). Perhaps there may be parallels with knowledge.

Beyond the parochial: empires, knowledge, and pluralism Abbott’s (2001) Chaos of Disciplines illustrates both how knowledge growth is neither so geographically linear nor so incontestable as PR theorists may desire. He attacks axiomatic foundations for universal knowing, and links a lineage of contested knowledge from the early Roman Empire to the present day: the larger, universal framework for social science is by no means the standard, often-parodied axiomatic structure. Rather it resembles what the Romans called the law of peoples (ius gentium), a law that they applied to diverse groups at the edges of empire and that they distinguished from the formalized civil law (ius civile) that applied specifically to Roman citizens. There is no universal social scientific knowledge of the latter kind – systematic, axiomatic, universal in a contentless sense. There is only universal knowledge of the former kind, a universal knowledge emerging from accommodation and conflict rather than from axioms, a universal knowledge that provides tentative bridges between local knowledges rather than systematic maps that deny them, a universal knowledge that aims, like the ius gentium, at allowing interchange among people who differ fundamentally. (p. 5) The concept of a conflict-free knowledge has similarly been deconstructed in organisation theory. Shenhav (2003) has convincingly argued that the “conflictladen history of management and organizations was edited out of the canon” and proposes a more reflexive approach, which, rather than accepting instrumental rationality, proposes reformulating it “as a cultural system [mainly constructed in America]” in order to undercut “the assumption that instrumental rationality is a universal ontological feature of nature and society” (p. 203). Shenhav (2003)

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further notes the growing body of literature along these lines in the field and the associated establishment of “an alternative epistemological position . . . [with] a new critical outlet Organization . . . established mainly by European entrepreneurs-academics to give voice to heterogeneous views” (p. 203). These heterogeneous challenges to the imperial reach of universalising American organisational theory are equally relevant to PR. They may, perhaps, give pause for thought to those who hold that instrumental rationality is an ultimate measure. Two examples spring to mind. The first is Toth’s (2002) functionalist, “Show me the money”-style demand for postmodern PR: “I would be uncomfortable if it didn’t help the field become more effective. There is a need for practicality in a good theory . . . postmodernism must have a cash value for modern public relations” (p. 243). The second is L. Grunig et al.’s (2002) expression of disdain for Pieczka (1996) because “like many critical scholars, [she] expressed more interest in criticizing the symmetrical theory than constructing a replacement” (p. 318) and is adversely contrasted with “Dozier and Lauzen’s (2000) call for marrying public relations theory and critical theory for the betterment of public relations practice” (p. 318). L. Grunig et al.’s (2002) dismissals of critical theory sit alongside our second interpretation of “undisciplined” theory as theory not governed by methodological positivism. Again, in other fields, these debates are history in the sense of being passé. In his chapter in the collection entitled International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Smith et al., 1996), Smith (1996) describes the decadeold controversy in international theory: “For the last forty years the academic discipline of International Relations has been dominated by positivism” that “has involved a commitment to a unified view of science, and the adoption of methodologies of the natural sciences to explain the social world” (p. 11). This resulted in a tendency to “accept implicitly a rather simple and crucially, an uncontested set of positivist assumptions which have fundamentally stifled debate over both what the world is like and how we might explain it” (p. 11). Although he admits this was not true of the field’s critical scholars “because these writers never bought into the positivist assumptions that dominated the discipline”, Smith concluded that it was “the dominance of positivism that has accounted for both the character, and more importantly, the content of central debates in international theory” (p. 11). It is little wonder that in PR, the Grunigians and critical theorists disagree dramatically – see Roper’s (2005) insightfully provocative “Symmetrical communication: excellent public relations or a strategy for hegemony”. Moreover, one study that set out to test US excellence findings in the field in South Africa did not just fail to replicate them, but concluded that the whole replication enterprise risked distorting international research. Holtzhausen et al. (2003) “Exploding the myth of the symmetrical/asymmetrical dichotomy: public relations models in the new South Africa”, concluded: Based on our findings in this study, we challenge the application of the four historical U.S. models to international research settings. Research has long

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ignored the statistical unreliability of these models, lending credence to the belief that it is typical for U.S. standards of practice to be artificially enforced in international settings. It also points to the way in which models are reified and, therefore, accepted unconditionally. The research literature suggests that such thinking prevents nations from developing their own models of practice because they continually seek to emulate U.S. practices. [. . .] We would encourage international practitioners to trust their own instincts and develop culture- and country-specific practice based on the economic, social, and political realities of their countries, using research methods that best suit their cultural environments. (p. 338) These findings come together with what is emerging, in 2006, as a critical mass of dissonant voices. Over ten years ago, international relations similarly rejected positivist bids to close out the field. Smith (1996) records one particular attempt by Robert Keohane, who used his Presidential Address to the International Studies Association in 1988 to speak of evaluating rival research paradigms “in terms of the ‘testable theories’, without which they ‘will remain in the margins of the field . . . [since] . . . it will be impossible to evaluate their research program’ ” (Keohane, 1989, pp. 173–174, cited in Smith, 1996, p. 13). As Smith (1996) goes on to observe: “this form of response reveals the dominance of positivism, since Keohane issues the challenge on grounds that are themselves positivist” (p. 13). Ten years on, Botan and Hazleton (2006b) similarly position two-way symmetry as PR’s only paradigmatic theory for two sets of reasons. The first, that “the field has failed to see enough merit in what they [critics of ‘the Symmetrical/Excellence approach’] have said to develop their work into alternative paradigms” is a valid point that leads Botan and Hazleton to identify a “need to encourage the development of additional and different theories of public relations” as a “primary goal” (p. 9).The second set of reasons, that critics of the symmetrists “have limited their remarks to critiques and failed to conduct affirmative research” (p. 9) tends towards a restrictive model of empirical testing and therefore positivist proof. Karl Weick (1989), in “Theory construction as disciplined imagination”, was of the opinion that “theorists often write trivial theories because their process of theory construction is hemmed in by methodological strictures that favor validation over usefulness” (p. 517). In international relations, within two years of their closure, Waever (1998) looked back on the field’s great debates and came to the mature conclusion that the last debate, between positivists and their critics, should be “seen not as a debate to be won, but a pluralism to work with” (p. 155). Organisation theory and international relations as fields escape the imperial bids of empiricists and it is time for PR to make more space for postpositivist traditions.

4

Moving the settings Multiple diversities and requisite varieties

It is only by making room for post-positivist traditions that we can look meaningfully at issues of equity in PR. Building on our macro view in the previous chapter about the overwhelmingly organisation-centric character of PR, we zoom into a micro examination of equity, in particular relation to diversity, in action in PR. We carry out this examination through a detailed critique of the field’s deployment of the concept of requisite variety. While PR theorists have sought to use requisite variety to introduce multiculturalism to a field slow to engage with cultural diversity, we argue that the deployment of the concept does not go far enough to engage with contemporary issues revolving around diversity. On the surface, the concept of requisite variety seems equitable enough: “Diversity or requisite variety is the characteristic that helps organizations identify all . . . groups and foster relationships with each” (Hon and Brunner, 2000, p. 313). What remains understated in this conceptualisation is the centrality of organisational control. This is evident from Hon and Brunner’s (2000) conviction that “the organization is most effective when it is diverse enough to deal with and capitalize on the diversity in its external environment” (p. 313). In such a formulation, “the diversity of ideas and viewpoints within a manager’s self-regulating system should equal diversity of the environment” (Culbertson et al., 1993, p. 23). As this quotation indicates, the emphasis clearly rests on the manager’s “self-regulating system” and requisite variety is, therefore, reduced to a mechanism of control. As theorised by the British psychiatrist W. Ross Ashby (1956/1963), the Law of Requisite Variety is a complex one. At its core, the law endorses the need for plurality and diversity because only variety can foster harmony in complex mechanisms whether they are biological, mechanical, or societal. Yet, ironically, the law of requisite variety is also about control. In fact, the law is laid out in Ashby’s (1956/1963) introduction to cybernetics, a field of study defined by the mathematician Norbert Wiener (1948/1961) as “the Science Of Control And Communication” (p. x). Despite the rhetoric about diversity, the law of requisite variety tends to see variety as “disturbances” that need to be managed by a calculated integration of variety by the regulator (read manager). Ashby (1956/1963), for instance, says that the:

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law of Requisite Variety enables us to apply a measure to regulation . . . There is first a set of disturbances D, that start in the world outside the organism, often far from it, and that threaten, if the regulator R does nothing, to drive the essential variables E outside their proper range of values. (p. 209) The essence of Ashby’s (1956/1963) formula is that the unlimited range of variety in the external world (designated as T in his formula) could disturb the equilibrium in an organism (or organisation) and so this variety would need to be strategically controlled by the incorporation of some variety in the process of regulation.

Focusing on the core: photographic metaphors and ethnocentric lenses This logic of regulation and management of variety is central to Karl Weick’s (1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing, which is the principal reference point for PR theorists working with the idea of requisite variety. Providing an example of requisite variety, Weick (1979) says that if a photographer has to photograph 20 subjects at different distances from his camera, he has to have at least 20 distinct settings to bring all the negatives to a uniform density and sharpness. As Weick (1979) points out, a camera with less than 20 settings “lacks requisite variety and will not register with sufficient detail enough of that environment so that control can be maintained over it” [italics not in original] (p. 189). As it moves from photography to management, this notion needs to be contextualised as it is significantly reframed through Hamel and Prahalad’s (1994) notion of “managerial frames”, which are acquired “through business schools and other educational experiences and from consultants and management gurus, absorbed from peers and the business press, and formed out of career experiences” (p. 54). These managerial frames are the “corporate equivalent of genetic coding” and “limit management’s perception to a particular slice of reality” (p. 54). We argue that it is this exercise of control, by what Hamel and Prahalad (1994) call a “dominant managerial frame” (p. 54) of organisational leaders that we see as slanted in favour of the West, which has kept the balance of power in the hands of a Western cultural elite and impeded the progress of multiculturalism in the area of PR. As the relative balance of managerial numbers shifts away from the West in favour of the rise of an Eastern managerial elite with global power, this frame needs to reflect a less ethnocentric reality. To date, however, multiculturalism, even as a concept, has been slow to emerge in PR literature. Until the 1980s, the theoretical moorings of PR were anchored largely in systems theory (e.g. J. Grunig and Hunt, 1984) and communication theory (e.g. Botan and Hazleton, 1989). The first references to requisite variety began to surface at the beginning of the

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1990s (Culbertson et al., 1993; Dozier et al., 1995; J. Grunig, 1992a; L. Grunig et al., 1992), more than a decade after Karl Weick (1979) talked about the concept in the context of making organisations effective. Even these references were limited in their scope because the need for diversity in PR was seen primarily from the point of view of the management. Without requisite variety, as some PR scholars have pointed out, “senior managers of organisations interact awkwardly with constituents different from themselves” (Dozier et al., 1995, p. 151), which in turn leads to difficulties in communication and misunderstandings. This obvious focus on managerial and organisational control was subsumed under the rhetoric of the theoretical formulation of the two-way symmetrical model of PR (J. Grunig and Hunt, 1984) that we critique in the previous chapter. Despite its professed democratic aspirations, this model “does not address the asymmetries inherent in discourse practices weighted in favour of one of the discourse participants” (Leitch and Neilson, 1997, p. 19), and does not look critically at PR in an environment of social inequality with lopsided power equations. Such an unequal environment frequently characterises relations between the Western organisational core and the other. This narrow focus on organisational or corporate control based on self-interest has not disappeared in the twenty-first century. Continuity of such control is evident in more recent PR research that still endorses the two-way symmetry model and its relationship with requisite variety (Hon and Brunner, 2000; Pompper, 2004). While this research does highlight the importance of acknowledging the importance of diversity in organisations, it does not point to a balance of power away from an overt (or sometimes covert) dominant managerial bias. The refusal to see the dynamics of power in PR is rather naive in relation to other fields. Rihani (2005), for example, points out: To control a system with a given level of variety, one is confronted by two choices: either reduce the variety of the system to be controlled, or give the controlling system at least as much variety as the system to be controlled. Traffic management provides a good illustration. The authorities could either reduce variety (by means of rules such as driving on one side of the road and giving way) or recruit a traffic policeman/woman for each and every driver on the road. They naturally choose the first alternative. Rihani’s (2005) example illustrates how the default setting in the concept of requisite variety is always designed to suit the strategic interests of the manager. Attempts by PR theory to draw on the concept, therefore, reflect the field’s inherent need to legitimise and consolidate the power of the dominant core. This core is embodied in what Banks (2000), in a book devoted to Multicultural Public Relations, calls “organizational leaders” (p. 122). Banks (2000) does bring multiculturalism in PR under the spotlight by describing PR as “a cultural activity” (p. 30) and talking about how the “cultural aspects of public relations communication indicate that intercultural communication theory must be sensi-

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tive to both interaction that creates and displays identities among cultural groups and communication as a culturally coded system of expressing identity” (p. 31). However, in prescribing a plan for the future of multicultural PR, Banks (2000) highlights the central position of organisational leaders by asserting that a “genuine dialogue with relevant publics will occur only when organisational leaders personally demonstrate that they ground their own communication in solidarity and mindfulness” (p. 122). He omits saying who these “organisational leaders” are. The question, therefore, remains: is multicultural PR only about the leaders of an organisation having equitable relations with a requisite variety of diverse publics, or is it about the organisation itself acquiring a multicultural character? By ignoring such questions, Banks (2000), along with other theorists in the field, ends up reducing requisite variety to tokenism. Shorn of the egalitarian veneer, requisite variety in PR literature only bolsters the image of an other that is markedly different from the dominant mainstream of an organisation represented by “organisational leaders” (Banks, 2000, p. 122) and “senior managers” (Dozier et al., 1995, p. 151). The leaders and the managers are classified into a distinct group that excludes the other. This is an elite group that manages diversity.

Controlling the settings: trapped in the time warp of mechanistic models The notion of managerial control of diversity is institutionalised in PR textbooks. Far from integrating issues of cultural diversity into the core concepts of PR, many textbooks contain only token sections on cultural diversity, multiculturalism, and minority publics. While Lattimore et al. (2004) quote the wellknown PR figure, J. Donald Turk, as saying that “diversity will be characteristic of the work force and customer mix, as well as one in which diversity will be valued and even required to be a successful business” (p. 363), their 390-page book devotes just over two pages to a sub-section on “Diversity” in a chapter on corporate PR. In many other books too, despite well-meaning attempts to acknowledge the importance of issues of cultural diversity, these topics are often described as “issues of ethnicity and other cultural problems” [italics not in original] (Newsom et al., 1996, p. 74). Advertising commercial and film-maker Spike Lee recently observed that “there is much more diversity in the film industry than the advertising industry, and there is hardly any diversity in the film industry!” (Lee, 2000). His observations, and his follow up claims that “if we want to reach consumers, our agencies should look like the consumers, at least to some extent” and that “it’s not just about what color you are, but about your whole perspective on life” (Lee, 2000, p. 68). In another popular textbook on PR, Wilcox et al. (1998) talk of the emergence of a major “target audience” of ethnic minorities who “differ from the traditional mainstream citizenry in race, language, and customs” (p. 235). In considering ethnic minorities, these authors see only a “target audience” or a market that needs to be developed. In such a setting, organisational interests are

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evidently the prerogative of the “traditional mainstream citizenry”. Ironically, in the very sections devoted to different diverse cultures, the phrase becomes no more than a euphemism for the dominant Western worldview. This parallels the approaches of organisational strategic thinking. In most large organisations, it is the “dominant managerial frame” (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994, p. 54) that puts into place an administrative system that reinforces “certain perspectives and biases” (p. 55) at the cost of others. It is this managerial frame that controls the organisation and, by extension, its various internal and external publics. The discussion of the concept of requisite variety in PR literature makes little or no attempt to give the dominant managerial frame a truly multicultural character. PR as technique is part of a systemic view of the organisation. Such a view remains conceptually trapped in the mechanistic model of communication outlined in the information model in Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Communication. In their model, communication is essentially linear and moves from a source to a receiver and, as the originator of the communication process, the source is all powerful while the receiver remains passive. Such a transmission model has no room for political, social, economic, or cultural contexts. Its primary goal is to get the message from the source over to the recipients. The primacy of the source is what legitimises the communication plans of organisations: “Driven by the ‘logic of profit and competition’ ”, large corporations aim “to get their product to the largest number of consumers” (Morley and Robins, 1995, p. 11). The construction of a large market space is facilitated by the incorporation of smaller cultural spaces into the larger organisational culture defined by Western cultural norms, concepts, and ideologies. This dominant culture administered by “senior managers” (Dozier et al., 1995, p. 151), as part of the Western mainstream, then goes about controlling the large market space by carrying the non-Western “other” along. Multinational fast-food chains, for instance, devise PR campaigns that emphasise their attempts to incorporate local tastes, but ignore the fact that the genre of fast food itself is essentially Western and could be alien to some cultures. Coca-Cola is one example of a “global product bottling a blend of Western, American and ‘international’ values almost as hard to separate as the drink’s ingredients” (Moore, 1996, p. 68). This cultural control of the other by the dominant economic and social system fits neatly with other conceptualisations of PR. According to Miller (1989), for example, PR “serves as a definitional label for the process of attempting to exert symbolic control over the evaluative predispositions (‘attitudes,’ ‘images,’ etc.) and subsequent behaviors of relevant publics or clienteles” (p. 47). He goes on to suggest that “whenever control of the environment hinges on the attitudes and behaviors of others, attempts to control these attitudes and behaviors are inevitable” (p. 47). This organisational perspective, built around Western notions of organisational success and excellence, positions PR as an active tool of the organisation that “must contribute to achieving the profit goal of business in a competitive

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environment” (Cutlip et al., 1994, p. 437). There is obviously not much room for theories of cultural diversity in an environment geared towards profit-making by an elite group that runs the organisation without recognising the importance of diverse cultures to organisational well-being and growth. As acknowledgement of these cultures’ importance is beginning to win consent (see Hart, 2005; Mahajan and Banga, 2005; Prahalad, 2005), so, too, is the strength of the business case for more multicultural awareness, more multicultural organisations, and more multicultural leaders. Traditionally, as J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) express it, PR has been oriented to “the management of communication between an organisation and publics” (p. 8). In other words, the organisation is the sun around which the planet of PR revolves. As the organisational policy is essentially constructed by elite (mainly Western) policy-makers, PR practice ends up mirroring the interests of dominant groups. As a result, even when PR theorists advocate an engagement with other voices, they do not let go the primacy of the dominant core of the organisation. J. Grunig (2001) is typical in suggesting that “simultaneous fusion with the Other while retaining the uniqueness of one’s self-interest seems to describe well the challenge of symmetrical public relations” (p. 28). This emphasis on the centrality of organisational policy, reflected in the core aim of protecting “one’s self-interest”, restricts the role of the average PR practitioner. The symmetrists align their proposals with diversity but to date that is not happening in significant numbers in nations such as Britain (Edwards, 2006) and the US (Pompper, 2004). The symmetrists underpin the diversity axiom in two main ways. The first is economic – the need for requisite variety to fit market demands. This is condensed in the two sentence cover of The Public Relations Strategist’s “Special Diversity Issue” (PRSA, 2005): “The buying power of blacks, Asians and Native Americans will exceed $1.7 trillion by 2010, an increase of 268 percent from 1990. Are you ready?” This approach has already been taken up by several companies. Bush (2006), for example, talks about two separate PR campaigns by General Mills that specifically target AfricanAmerican and Hispanic communities. One campaign called “The Serving Up Soul Initiative” is geared towards increasing “awareness of General Mills’ products among African-American mothers”, while the other, titled the “Que Rica Vida” campaign, targets Hispanic mothers. What is interesting is the way the campaigns tap into the cultural reserves of minority communities to spread the way of life of dominant communities in a process that commodifies ethnicity. A part of the campaign aimed at the African-American community includes a competition to find a woman who can serve soul food in a creative way (Bush, 2006). The second way is moral – to do the right thing. Both these ways have their own values. However, a further, and more compellingly egalitarian argument, is how actively cultivating diversity increases creativity and grows the bottom line through developing employees with a range of diversities. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (2000) observe “More than we might expect, immigrants, refugees, outsiders, and diverse religious and ethnic groups within cultures have so often been successful at wealth

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creation that it cannot be a coincidence” (p. 6) and provide reasons in the rest of their book. That multiculturalism is good enterprise also informs Prahalad’s (2005) vision of the Third World as not only an untapped market but an untapped talent pool that can shape its own destiny without interference from the control processes and mechanisms of Western management practices.

Underexposed films: PR and the phobia of the other In following the voice of the dominant managerial frame of the organisation that employs him or her, the average practitioner is often left to see PR as an organisational activity rather than a public activity. And, in viewing PR primarily as an organisational activity, PR professionals, steeped as they are in unidimensional notions of efficiency, productivity, and persuasiveness, are unable to see the complexities of race, culture, and ethnicity. Even when they do recognise cultural differences, they tend to assume that every cultural group is homogenous. The lack of an awareness of the diversity within each such group inevitably leads to stereotyping of the other which, in turn, becomes a barrier in the way of establishing meaningful relationships at a public level. The disjuncture between organisational and public activities is best illustrated by a contemporary conceptualisation of PR in New Zealand, a country defined by the bi-cultural goals of the Treaty of Waitangi (signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840). As both “Pakeha and Maori cultures (in all their diverse modes of expression) belong in New Zealand”, organisations need to “understand the importance of both cultures as part of their broader cultural environment” (Tremaine, 1997, pp. 287–288). Despite this context, The New Zealand Public Relations Handbook (Peart and Macnamara, 1996), the only textbook devoted to PR in New Zealand, makes no mention of issues of cultural diversity. Instead the book defines and describes the nature of PR from one perspective: the perspective of the dominant managerial frame. “It has been said”, Peart and Macnamara (1996) note, “that a company or organisation today without an active public relations programme soon finds itself ignored by the media, threatened by hysterical minorities and faced with political and economic neglect” (p. 20). There is clearly no positive place in this perspective for the other, which, it is implied, is not only hysterical but a threat as well. Yet, such perspectives are often dictated by current mindsets rather than a careful study of the environment. They seem to unquestioningly follow Ashby’s (1956/1963) conception of variety as disturbances that might threaten organisational equilibrium and therefore would need to be managed. Half a century after Ashby’s formulation, PR scholars’ few attempts to look at issues of diversity continue to revolve around the need to manage groups of people who may have the potential to disrupt the perceived stability of organisations based on monocultural values and norms. Sha’s (2006) important contemporary work on the significance of intercultural PR, for example, eventually falls in line with the usual thinking when it calls for a “refined version” of situational theory with “efficient measures of cultural identity” to help “multinational corporations in

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the management of grassroots activist groups” (p. 61). While Sha’s (2006) study does well to acknowledge the importance of the variables of race and ethnicity in PR research, she does not in any way shake the fundamental will to control in PR. This notion of organisational control is what prompts PR to see any expression of alternative points of view as activism that needs curbing. As Sha (2006) says, a situational theory infused with cultural variables: would help organizations determine which stakeholder groups are likely to become active publics. With this ability to predict active communication behavior, public relations practitioners could plan communication programs to prevent or hinder the rise of activist publics or to encourage groups likely to become active in support of the organization, particularly in situations dealing with cultural issues. (p. 61) Despite the efforts to acknowledge the variables of race and ethnicity, such a reformulation of situational theory remains unmindful of the often invisible influence the dominant core wields. It assumes that sound PR is something that will persuade ethnic or cultural publics to support the organisation or prevent them from becoming activists. The assumption is based around an unchallenged conception of the organisation as race, gender, or class neutral. It does not, for instance, see that “the ways in which we routinely frame race preserve the Whiteness of the field, even as we claim to do otherwise” (Ashcraft and Allen, 2003, p. 6). These organisational communication scholars call upon all researchers working in the larger area of communication to explore the notion that organisations are fundamentally “raced” and that “we are also raced beings, instead of conflating race with people of color in general” (Ashcraft and Allen, 2003, p. 31). Such an exploration would allow us to see widely accepted theory and practice as “raced” rather than taken for granted as universal. That PR scholars and practitioners have continued to follow the practice of positioning minority groups as the other has subsequently been recognised by Macnamara (2004), who, in a self-reflexive piece, talks about how his “own previous texts in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia have been criticised for Western myopia and lack of focus on multicultural and cross-cultural issues in communication” (p. 325). In emphasising the need to incorporate issues of culture and diversity into PR research, Macnamara (2004) specifically acknowledges the critique of taken-for-granted views and perspectives in an earlier version of parts of this chapter published in the Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal (Munshi, 1999). This positive impact of our arguments on the field is encouraging, and illustrates what we are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, the kind of self-reflexivity demonstrated by Macnamara (2004) is still extremely rare in PR. Many mainstream scholars and practitioners need to reflect much more on their field and work towards actively changing the lens through which they view PR to make the field more equitable.

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The state of the art as a grainy picture: global PR theory and inherent inequalities PR is making strides towards a global approach. For example, Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ’s (2003a) edited collection, The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research and Practice, raises the bar for the future significantly in terms of new standards for aligning with changing demographics; range, scope, and depth of coverage; and cultivation of new authors, especially from underrepresented areas. In addition to their unprecedented geographic scope, Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ (2003a) introduce content and theory that add new breadth to the field. Significant innovations include Pratt’s (2003) chapter, “Managing sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa: a communication ethic for the global corporation” which is unique in introducing an ecological area as a focus of interest for PR. He foregrounds ethical communication as vital in sustainable development that, as a matter of life or death, urgently needs to be pioneered in his selected region. It can also provide prototype solutions for problems increasingly likely to confront the developed world, sooner rather than later, as oil runs out. Vercˇicˇ (2003) himself supports his assertion that PR is “a managerial function” with one of the few serious considerations of the role of transnational corporations as the “movers and shakers” (p. 478) of globalisation with input from critics of capitalism (Hertz, 2001; Klein, 2000). He also deploys Dicken’s (1998) Global Shift to give a thicker texture, a less celebratory tone, and a more complex account of phenomena that connect PR to globalisation. Moreover, as co-editor, he partially contradicts his definition of PR as exclusively managerial, or at least business managerial, by including a chapter adjacent to his own where Tkalac and Pavicic (2003) perform the overdue task of setting NGOs and PR into a global context that provides a platform for future work. Nevertheless, having acknowledged a few of the many innovative and valuable contributions that Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ’s (2003a) Global Handbook makes, we critique certain aspects of it as being stuck in the old mould. Even this collection exemplifies the tendencies of insular conceptualisations and ignoring, or downplaying, of the power asymmetries found in US PR. In short, despite its global aspirations and achievements, its good intentions and partial realisation, and the encouraging geographical spread of its international authors, we consider The Global Public Relations Handbook as symptomatic of some problems as well as the beginning of solutions. In addition to identifying problems with, and deconstructing, existing theorisations, the rest of this chapter offers theoretical augmentations by relevant contributors to global diversity from outside of the field. One example is Vervoorn’s (2002) Re Orient: Change in Asian Societies, which offers challenges to existing disciplinary models in what may be the Asian century. After revisiting Starck and Kruckeberg’s (1991) query whether there would be a “Europeanization of education and scholarship?” (p. 25), we suggest that a more urgent question was whether there should be an Asianisation

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of PR education and scholarship (Munshi and McKie, 2001). This is built on combining pre-2000 observations on the rise of China and Asia (Burstein and De Keijzer, 1998; Naisbitt, 1997a, 1997b) with other estimations of the shifting balance of economic power: “Wealth increasingly depends upon market demand rather than supplier pressure, and – with more than 90 per cent of the world’s population – the Third World will become the main economic driver of the Third Millennium” (Mercer, 1998, p. 15).

Freedom beyond Freedom House: towards new flowering democracies Enterprise links with equity and democracy and democracy with PR. Sriramesh (2003a) rightly celebrates how the “democratization of the world, especially in the latter half of the 20th century, has forced organizations of all types in many regions of the world to consider giving greater importance to public relations and communication management” (p. xxvi). However, he leaves unanswered Beck’s (1994) earlier key post-communism questions: “whether the historical symbiosis between capitalism and democracy that characterized the West can be generalized on a global scale without exhausting its physical, cultural and social foundations”; and whether we should “see the return of nationalism and racism in Europe precisely as a reaction to the processes of global unification?” (p. 1). Sriramesh’s (2003a) further comments overlook that question, and whether liberal democracy might have a use-by date in the globalising world. In PR this has practical implications as illustrated by Huang and Chen’s (2005) writing on China, when, for example, they use Freedom House statistics, and perspectives, to gauge media freedom and even observe in a footnote that “The Freedom House is a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, and other Americans nearly 60 years ago” (p. 59). They do so without displaying any knowledge of Freedom House’s partisan role in anticommunist, and, in places such as Nicaragua, anti-democratic, activities against elected governments. Sims’ (1992) fuller account of Freedom House notes that, despite its promotion as “a documentation center and clearing house on human and civil rights”, it should be reclassified as a “neoconservative heavyweight in the global war for ideas”, which, after the Second World War, provided “exhaustive ‘documentation’ of human rights abuses by Soviet and leftist governments, while downplaying and under-reporting abuses in U.S.-allied countries” (p. 47). As Google learned in its dispute over revealing activist net addresses to the Chinese government, global realities involve dynamic tensions between equity, in terms of human rights, and enterprise, in terms of business priorities. In considering more expansive senses of freedom and democracy in politics we turn to Beck’s (1994) critique of the limits of already existing democracy whereby the “West is confronted by questions that challenge the fundamental premises of its own social and political system” (p. 1) and Giddens’ (1994) discussions of how to widen traditional democratic processes. In a self-reflexive

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critique of the work of himself and his co-authors in Beck et al.’s (1994) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Traditions and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Giddens (1994) interprets an alternative order of democratisation around a botanical metaphor. In what he terms “the fragile-flower theory”, democracy is a tender plant that requires careful tending and nurturing “over a long period through the long-term development of a civic culture” (p. 191). He directly critiques Fukuyama’s position that “democratic forms of government” involve a “necessarily protracted process” that essentially involves “allowing the retarded countries to catch up with their more advanced counterparts where liberal democracy is already firmly established” with “deep roots” (p. 191). Against that he prefers what he terms “the sturdy-plant view” (Giddens, 1994, p. 192), which “does not equate democracy solely with liberal democracy within the nation state” and sees democracy as an ongoing work in progress so that: Processes of democratization stimulate the emergence of liberal democracy where it did not previously exist, yet at the same time also expose its limitations. Democracy in this broader sense is a hardy growth that can develop shoots even in quite infertile ground . . . it suggests that there are profound social changes occurring in the current era that do not occur mainly at the level of the state. (p. 192) We present the following summary of Giddens’ four key non-state social contexts because they seem to us to present a clear agenda of areas where PR might act to broaden democracy and foster more inclusive social cohesion both inside, and outside of, national boundaries. First, he suggests “ ‘emotional democracy’ in the domains of sexual relations, parent-child relations and friendship” so that “a relation of equals, organized through emotional communication coupled to self-understanding, becomes possible” and develops a kind of emotional democracy that “promises a great deal for the reconstruction of civic ethics” (Giddens, 1994, p. 193). This development is lent further weight by the growth of knowledge into emotions where further research may uncover further means of implementing such emotional democracy. Second, he advocates “the replacing of bureaucratic hierarchies by more flexible and decentralized systems of authority” taking care to acknowledge that “flexibility for some groups, in some contexts, may signal increasing constraint or oppression for others” (p. 193). For his third context, Giddens (1994) identifies the “development of social movements and self-help groups” and notes how, in certain circumstances, “such movements and groups set themselves up against existing ‘authorities’, whether these be state officials, professionals [NB authors’ note: who may include PR professionals] or others” (pp. 193–194). He continues that, “apart from the issues they pursue”, such groups can, if they are not always so in practice, also be “democratizing as modes of social association” (p. 194). Giddens’ (1994) fourth and final example is “at more global levels of devel-

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opment” (p. 194) and combine what he classes as a “superpolitical” level that interacts with the other three, which he follows Beck in classing as “sub-political” (p. 193). Without consciously including such dimensions into discussions of actual and potential social cohesion, PR is likely to keep addressing symptoms. It would do better to abandon the universalising limitation of its one size fits all view, and contribute to longer term in-process solutions for different regions in different circumstances.

Relocating knowledge in PR Sriramesh’s (2003a) introduction to The Global Public Relations Handbook, applauds the fact that the “scholarly body of knowledge of public relations has grown significantly in the last 25 years”, but laments the “lopsided” growth of this knowledge “because the focus of theory building has been confined predominantly to the United States and a few Western European countries” (p. xxv). We hoped this accurate perception signalled a welcome weighing in to tip the scales away from the West. We took the scholar’s shortcut of checking the index to see what theorist had been mobilised to redress the balance. Sadly, in the multiple entries chapters we found the usual suspects: Grunig, J. (48), Grunig, L. (47), and the old (i.e. Glen) Broom (21) rather than any new brooms. In fact the only non-PR specific theorist with multiple citations is Hofstede (38), and it is not a coincidence that he is the only European philosopher cited frequently by J. Grunig and his colleagues. Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ’s (2003b) acronyms, assumptions, and timelines reveal similarly slanted treatments. While the chapter by L. Grunig and J. Grunig (2003) is focused on the US and modestly acknowledges that it “may be early to celebrate the implications of the Excellence theory”, they go on to observe that it already “serves as the organization framework for this book” (p. 327). Such extensions of the excellence tradition are doing little to tackle the international theoretical–political divide. Certain temporal consequences of US-centricity emerge on the first page of Sriramesh’s (2003a) preface, which identifies the 1990s as “the decade of globalization because of the founding of the World Trade Organization and the formation of many regional and trans-region blocs such as NAFTA, the European Union, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC, founded in 1989)” (p. xxiii). In the quotation it is noticeable that NAFTA does not have its acronym spelled out, presumably on the assumption that what it stands for will be understood outside of North America, while APEC, although involving more nations and significantly larger populations, is not similarly trusted to be understood. More importantly, in temporal terms, the exclusion of the preceding pre-1990s centuries of globalisation through, mainly Western, empire building, exhibits a longer term strategic amnesia. It ignores, within the covers of the same book, Kunczik’s (2003) Saidian perspective of the importance of the image of the “Orient” as “almost a European invention” (p. 420) cemented in place by sustained economic and military interventions into the Middle East. Kunczik (2003) observes that such “stereotypes are extremely difficult to change by using public

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relations” (p. 420). As he is alone in the collection in tackling such systematic stereotyping, or ethnic profiling, the field is less likely to make any attempt to do so. The tensions between local–global have an important knowledge dimension. Increasingly, as Plumwood (1993) pointed out over a decade ago, assumptions regarding the universality of knowledge are being undermined; in her case from an environmental and feminist perspective. From a similar angle this questioning has been carried over in relation to economic, political, and social development (see Kurian, 2000). In relation to Asia, Vervoorn (2002) has questioned the neutrality of Western “scientific” knowledge and his critique can be usefully transferred to the US body of PR knowledge. European scholars have contested various limbs of the body, but, in a formulation akin to Abbott’s (2001) comments on Roman knowledge, Vervoorn (2002) perceptively alerts us to the dangers of having any singular universal body of knowledge with local variants: “The real test of knowledge is not leaving all that is local or particular behind, but recognising the ways in which it is local or particular, how it may fit into patterns not visible to a parochial observer” (p. 285). The potential for parochialism exists in the Washington Beltway and the Public Relations Society of America as well as in New Zealand and Singapore. One of our concerns is that Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ’s (2003a) book, in line with current US orthodoxies, may be reluctant to acknowledge already existing power imbalances, in economics, in images, and in histories. Clearly differential power is manifested in communication processes. Describing the “management of communication” as one of the “sovereign prerogatives” of the present age, Hardt and Negri (2000) say that “communication is the form of capitalist production in which capital has succeeded in submitting society entirely and globally to its regime, suppressing all alternative paths” (pp. 346–347). Clearly, while colonialism’s ambitious quest for physical territory has receded into the background, its will to exercise political and economic power continues. PR is no exception.

5

Not enough Said Decolonising PR through postcolonial frameworks

Much is lost by the field’s current insularity to theory from different parts of the globe, and from different disciplines. Rather than seeking to validate the neocolonial universality of a relatively narrow stream of US theory, we recommend that PR generates different epistemic maps. Our first example of the cost of such absences features one of the most influential thinkers on global relations, Edward Said. As Patrick Williams (2004) observes in his academic obituary of Edward Said (1935–2003): If it is unusual for the death of an academic to constitute much of a media event, then it is altogether rare for such a death to be a media event on a global scale, as was the case with Edward Said. That this should be so is perhaps no more than fitting for someone who not only did so much to rehabilitate the categories of the public intellectual and the intellectual engagé, both in his academic work and in his daily life, but did so precisely globally. (p. 169) Despite this being one of many acknowledgements of his importance in a global role, PR has yet to begin to come to terms with Said’s (1978) seminal book on Orientalism more than a quarter of a century after its publication. In the intervening years other disciplines have considered post-Orientalist, and postOccidentalist, concepts. In partial defence of the chapter title’s pun on Said’s surname, we signal not only PR’s lack of engagement with Said’s legacy in PR but also its neglect of the historical forces that have forged globalisation, and which continue to threaten equity and to retard sustainable societies. The almost total absence of Said’s contribution (but see Kunczik, 2003), and the debates he engendered, captures a critical gap in contemporary discussions of the global within the discipline. While communication studies in general has kept pace with postcolonial perspectives by documenting the “growing awareness of the limitations and parochialism of theory so steeped in Eurocentrism” (Shome and Hegde, 2002, p. 260), PR has not. Tied, as it is in some ways, to the apron strings of corporate communication and tangled in outmoded positivism, PR has been unable to feel

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the pulse of people around the world who have been influenced by Said’s “critical insights into ideology, history, power relations” (Hussein, 2002, p. 230). Indeed, as Bayoumi and Rubin (2000) point out, the: desire to engage with Said – by Indonesians and Parisians, from the Irish to the Iroquois – is perhaps felt even more so today, as bland pronouncements of globalization often mean little more than extending the military and economic reach of the United States, and the confusing reactions to global power fall prey to simple “us” versus “them” dichotomies. (p. xvi) Postcolonialism has been late to arrive in the field but a greater mainstream recognition of other perspectives has been enabled by the publication of the Handbook of PR (Heath, 2001a). This collection leveraged its status as a handbook to cast a broad international net. Instead of taking PR as US PR, Heath (2001a) featured authors from outside the US and writings by non-US theorists, which included some engaging with issues of power and contesting two-way symmetry (Leitch and Neilson, 2001). The collection integrated the field’s historical interests, from crisis and rhetoric to symmetry and strategy, with a substantial section on “Globalizing PR” (Heath, 2001a) that considered globalisation as “The frontier of multiculturalism and global diversity” (Heath, 2001c, pp. 625–628) and another on “PR in cyberspace” (Heath, 2001a, pp. 579–623). In a format variation unique among the now-extensive list of Sage Handbooks, Heath (2001a) concluded the 11 essays “Defining the discipline” (pp. 1–166) with a twelfth, entitled “PR as contested terrain: a critical response” (Cheney and Christensen, 2001b, pp. 167–182). This opening up of the mainstream field – as plural, globally diverse, open to debate, and receptive to outside critique – has been a watershed moment. Heath (2005) has subsequently followed up with a two volume Encyclopedia of PR, which included entries on critical theory (McKie, 2005) and postcolonialism (Munshi, 2005b). Viewed through postcolonial optics, the managerial bias of PR, as shown in the use of the concept of requisite variety, is an extension of old colonialist strategies. Just as powerful Western nations have sought to incorporate requisite varieties of other countries in the interest of expanding political influence, powerful Western businesses have tried to incorporate the other in the global marketplace in the interest of enlarging profitability. Understanding the link between old colonialist agendas and modern-day neo-colonialist strategies is central to the process of decolonising PR. To map out the structure of decolonisation, we draw on the perspectives of the postcolonial and the subaltern – defined as a “general attribute of subordination . . . expressed in terms of class, caste, gender and office” (Guha, 1988, p. 35). The project of subaltern studies, and of many aligned postcolonial scholars, is to view the world from the perspective of historically and epistemologically subordinated groups. As part of the decolonising project, such scholars challenge the homogeneous internationalism of dominant elites. They call into ques-

Not enough Said 63 tion how generations of Western thinkers, who may lack any knowledge of nonWestern cultures, have constructed theories that are supposed to apply to all of humanity (Chakrabarty, 1996). In such theory-building enterprises, incorporating and subsuming a homogeneous category of the other represents “the surface manifestations of a latent economic and cultural colonization of the ‘nonwestern’ world” (Mohanty, 1991, p.192). A major task of subaltern studies’ historiography, for example, has been “to retrieve some trace of the voice” (Bhabha, 1996, pp. 14–15) of the subaltern from the ventriloquism of the colonisers. In retrieving these voices, the subaltern collective has attempted to rewrite the histories of colonialism and nationalism from the perspective of the colonised. The field of PR however, has, as yet, had little engagement with decolonising projects. As a consequence, while the voice of the other might incidentally be heard, his or her words are not deliberately sought out, and will still be in virtual parentheses to the amplified speech of Western organisational leaders. In attempting to move beyond the symmetry model, Roth et al. (1996) took a unique step, in PR, by drawing from, or at least dipping into, postcolonial theory. Their brief immersion allowed them to argue in favour of ethical principles based on a critical assessment of issues of relative power. However, their reading of postcolonial work is limited: first, because of the merely cursory reference to Said’s (1978) classic book; and, second, because they see neither the centrality of the dominant Western managerial framework nor the homogenising tendency of the process of setting up a universal code. As a result, their approach aligns with the fake universalism of Eurocentrism and their central question – “Can’t we all just get along?” (Roth et al., 1996, p. 151) – avoids addressing power asymmetries. Instead Roth et al. (1996) look at how equitable their proposed incorporation of cultural variables are to the “development of mutually agreed upon principles to guide global practice” (p. 60). The idea that “we” need to “get along” seems admirable but cannot be taken out of the context of the ethnically narrow composition of the “we” and the logic of the neo-colonial market. Cultural diversity, from the perspective of that logic, becomes the means to a greater share of a market controlled largely by expansionist Western businesses.

The new S-curve: an overview of postcolonial perspectives in communication from Said and Spivak Postcolonialism offers radical new ways of understanding the world. It challenges both overt and covert forms of economic, social, and cultural imperialism. Interdisciplinary postcolonial approaches have been used extensively in art history, literary criticism, and cultural studies to critique the taken-for-granted worldviews of mainstream Euro-American writers, scholars, and thinkers. While Roth et al. (1996) do cite Said (1978), they have been unable to grasp the significant impact his works have made in challenging universalised Western assumptions about the world. As is well-known in literary and political circles, Said’s (1978) Orientalism showed how systematically exaggerated, exoticised,

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and erroneous images of the non-West in mainstream Western texts – novels, films, and other mass-circulated texts – perpetuated the myth of a superior West. This strategy helped colonisers to justify their disproportionate power. Novelists and film-makers, wilfully or otherwise, became part of a PR exercise that sought to engineer the image of the Western colonisers as benevolent rulers whose objective was to “develop” the world in their own superior image. From very early on, there are massive disparities in discourse and image circulation in terms of Fairclough’s (1995) conceptualisation of power “both in terms of asymmetries between participants in discourse events and in terms of unequal capacity to control how texts are produced, distributed, and consumed (and hence the shapes of texts) in particular sociocultural contexts” (pp. 1–2) Said’s ground-breaking work has left behind a rich legacy of postcolonial criticism which continues to scrutinise the way in which Western imperialist attitudes had paved the way for the justification of colonisation. It may not have been called PR when he first published in 1923, but Tallens’ (1955) The Projection of England displays a commercial sensitivity to early supply chain management as well as prototypical public diplomacy. Other empire promoters and the commercial exporters exhibit similar integration. Anne McClintock (1995) describes how in the era of colonisation, “colonial heroes and colonial scenes were emblazoned on a host of domestic commodities, from milk cartons to sauce bottles . . . toffee boxes to baking powder” and how: in the flickering magic lantern of imperial desire, teas, biscuits, tobaccos, Bovril, tins of cocoa and, above all, soaps beach themselves on far-flung shores, tramp through jungles, quell uprisings, restore order and write the inevitable legend of commercial progress across the colonial landscape. (p. 219) McClintock’s (1995) portrayal of colonial era representations of the Western civilising mission is not much different from, for example, Cook’s (2003) description of Enron’s PR-managed CSR report as being “sprinkled with images of sunlit foliage and smiling ethnic faces” (p. 40) and narratives of how the company “conserved trees in Bolivia and told the security men at its Indian subsidiary to stop beating people up” (p. 40). What is common to the colonial and neo-colonial communication strategies of powerful institutions, whether empires or corporate giants, is the core emphasis on promoting Western business and/or political interests but concealing their selfish goals under a gloss of universal good and benevolence. It will require reflexivity, and attention to developments in other fields, for PR to rise above this superficial gloss. No matter what economic benefits imperial strategies may bestow on the other, the hierarchies of power cannot be ignored. As the postcolonial scholar, Gayatri Spivak (1999) says: My generation in India, born before Independence, realizes only too well that many of the functionaries of the civilizing mission of imperialism were

Not enough Said 65 well-meaning. The point here is not personal accusations. And in fact what these functionaries gave was often what I call an enabling violation – a rape that produces a healthy child, whose existence cannot be advanced as a justification for the rape. Imperialism cannot be justified by the fact that India has railways and I speak English well. Many of the functionaries of the civilizing mission were well-meaning; but alas, you can do good with contempt or paternal-maternal-sororal benevolence in your heart. And today, you can knife the poor nation in the back and offer band-aids for a photo opportunity. (p. 371) In fact, PR, “by and large, spends the bulk of its energies on such photo opportunities for leaders of big business houses and multinational corporations (MNCs), overlooking the traumas of publics at the lower end of the pecking order, especially those in the Third World” (Munshi and Kurian, 2005, p. 516). Structurally, the dominant organisational core “manages” its image through an imperialist PR paradigm that creates and perpetuates an asymmetric hierarchy of publics: (1) the predominantly Western shareholders; (2) the Western consumer public/the global middle-class consumer; (3) the Western activist public; (4) the vast numbers of Third World workers who produce the goods for consumption by others; and (5) the even greater numbers of Third World citizens too poor to consume. The first is obsessive about profits and share values, the second consumes blindly, and the third provides resistance from within the West, while the last two fall below the corporate radar. Corporate PR efforts, therefore, focus on undercutting the protests of the third public to appease the second public and directly benefit the first public. Its agenda has no place for the colonised fourth and fifth publics. (Munshi and Kurian, 2005, p. 514) Effectively, this hierarchy creates impermeable boundaries between two halves of the world – one the so-called “developed” world with its obsession with bottom-lines and Western notions of economic clout and the other the so-called “developing” world which is deemed to live in the shadows of the developed world. If there is any communicative interaction between these two worlds at all, it is asymmetrical. An example of this asymmetry is in the PR-driven messages of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development produced by major global corporations. These messages constitute a well-designed “magic formula with which the world system of production pretends to solve the problems that it itself has created” (Boff, 2003). Central to this formula is the belief that image building revolves around keeping key publics at the higher end of the hierarchy happy. The formula thrives on a universalised conception of effective PR that is limited primarily to the concerns of publics in the developed world. Postcolonial perspectives enable us to unwrap the shiny packaging of

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persuasive messages of sustainable development drawn up by dominant coalitions. So, while such dominant coalitions use ecological narratives to show their desire to save the Earth, in practice they can be exposed as endorsing the continued exploitation of the Third World. In fact, even some mainstream environmental organisations have sometimes been co-opted by PR firms to support organisations involved in environmental degradation – see Burton (2002) on the “WWF’s role in sustaining cyanide use”. Furthermore, many underprivileged communities, including indigenous ones, in the developing world “are generally the victims of environmental degradation mostly caused by resource extractive operations of MNCs in the name of global development” (Adeola, 2001, p. 41). That popular PR practice, as well as scholarship in the field, is aligned in overlooking the case of the other is exemplified by how the tragedy of Bhopal continues to be treated in mainstream PR texts. It shows how, at its worst, PR actually recolonises.

Colonising illusions: an “other” look at Bhopal The gas leak in a Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, which claimed several thousand lives and left hundreds of thousands injured in 1984 (see, for example, Sen and Egelhoff, 1991; Lapierre and Moro, 2002), was one of the worst industrial disasters the world has known. It remains relevant today because it continues to be cited in PR literature as a landmark case. Bhopal illustrates both how a corporation dealt with non-Western constituents in what might be seen as a discriminatory fashion and how PR theory continues, retrospectively, to endorse that action. In a clear case of aligning with Western corporate bodies rather than human Indian bodies, the Union Carbide PR response to the disaster’s aftermath “dealt with the scientific, rather than the human, sides of the leak’s effects” (Ice, 1991, p. 358). The spotlight on Bhopal was guided by Western self-interest in that the tragedy involved “a U.S. firm that was manufacturing the same lethal chemical” (Heath, 1998b, p. 296) in America. The public outrage in the West had less to do with the actual dead and maimed Indian bodies than with the imagined Western injuries that might be inflicted by the threat of a similar accident in the US. Although this “was a financial differentiation” (Ice, 1991, p. 358) based on bookkeeping, Union Carbide used it to distance itself from its Indian subsidiary immediately after the Bhopal leak by differentiating between the US-based headquarters and the subsidiary in India. Even in the post-Bhopal phase, Carbide focused primarily on “maintaining its image with financial investors and the developed world” (Sen and Egelhoff, 1991, p. 77). The company’s distorted field of vision has since been approximated by the PR field’s vision. Both viewed the Bhopal tragedy almost entirely through the eyes of Union Carbide, the Western chemical industry, and its corporate wellbeing. One introductory textbook illustrates the convergence succinctly: “Following the Bhopal disaster and a resultant out-of-court settlement, Union Carbide found itself on the receiving end of a takeover bid. The bid was foiled

Not enough Said 67 as the result of better communications with appropriate publics and an increased share value” (Kitchen, 1997, p. 30). Other PR considerations similarly concentrate on that kind of balance sheet in the way those protagonists dealt with the crisis. As in colonial historiography, this concentration omits the perspective of the subaltern. Bhopal’s Indian victims are obviously not seen by mainstream PR as “appropriate publics”. Effectively, in the discourses of crisis communication, the bodies of these victims approximate to silent experimental subjects for the “science” of PR. Moreover, the Bhopal research findings have subsequently been deployed to chart new strategies for the profession and for its Western corporate clients. Dozier et al.’s (1995) discussion of how the Bhopal tragedy pushes all chemical manufacturers to change and be more open to the public, for example, refers to the public in the West. At the height of the crisis in Bhopal (where the human need was obviously highest), Union Carbide “distanced itself from the press in India” (Sen and Egelhoff, 1991, p. 77) but continued to communicate with the US media through official releases. After-the-event PR research publications continue to treat Bhopal as a source of data to help frame guidelines for Western centres, without much concern for the fate of the victims of the tragedy. Klein (2000), in documenting the way many multinational companies are creating “another kind of global village, where the economic divide is widening”, points out how, in the minds of global corporations, the Third World has “existed for the comfort of the First” (p. xviii). In fact it is evident that, just as with Bhopal, any “major changes” in work practices concern the reputation of Western corporate bodies in the West, rather than the condition of employees in the Third World where, for example, “Nike workers are still forced to work excessive hours in high pressure work environments, and not paid enough to meet the basic needs of their children, and are subject to harassment, dismissal and violent intimidation if they try to form unions or tell journalists about labor abuses in their factories” (Connor, 2001). Lipschutz and Rowe’s (2005) “Doing well by doing it? Social regulation and the transnational apparel industry” concludes negatively that in the corporate’s subcontractor factories “Few of Nike’s efforts have been rewarded with a clean bill of health from campaigners. According to various reports, surveys, and studies undertaken by outside observers and critics, none of the steps taken by Nike has fundamentally altered conditions” (p. 85).

Continuing the S-curve: insights from Shiva to Shome and Hegde Issues relating to diversity in the business world correlate with similar issues in the natural world, in which postcolonial scientist Vandana Shiva (1993) has condemned the Western world’s use of the Biodiversity Convention “to ‘globalise’ the control, management and ownership of biological diversity” (p. 151). In order to nurture diversity, Shiva (1997) says that “dominant groups of nations

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and humans” who impose their ways of life on other peoples and species need to give up “the will to control” (p. 120). Already Western seed companies have capitalised on patents of crops bred in the developing world to create profits and put farmers in the Third World out of business. Following Shiva’s (1993) insight that “biodiversity cannot be preserved until diversity is made the logic of production” (p. 146), global management is similarly unlikely to be sustainable until human diversity informs the logic of capitalism. Requisite variety cannot function fully until organisations become wholly multicultural and the other is not restricted to a “numerical, additive category” (Shiva, 1993, p. 87). In the light of Shiva’s (1993) insight, contemporary PR scholarship needs to be re-examined. Despite the desire to promote and celebrate diversity, research continues to look at issues of diversity as a strategic means to help “the PR function contribute to the bottom line” (Hon and Brunner, 2000, p. 336). Such research goes on endorsing the two-way symmetrical model as a model that “best facilitates excellence” (Pompper, 2004, p. 270), and highlights the “benefits of requisite variety” (Hon and Brunner, 2000, pp. 314, 335). The key issue of control is conveniently ignored. Pompper’s (2004) study on AfricanAmerican PR practitioners brings issues of diversity into PR literature. However, in framing them as “a conduit between senior-level management and key publics”, she excludes minority practitioners from a place in the “senior management” (Pompper, 2004, p. 290). Pompper’s study overlooks the power dimension despite the fact that her flow chart “offers organizational power holders an enhanced decision model that incorporates diversity [italics not in original]” (p. 290). The incorporation of diversity has an in-built power equation that PR continues to ignore. Communication scholars outside PR are already exploring the way power is wielded by implicit notions of universalised notions of management and communication. In a special issue of Communication Theory on “Postcolonial approaches to communication”, for instance, Raka Shome and Radha Hegde (2002) point out: “Denaturalizing communication (to use Grossberg’s words) and problematizing culture from a postcolonial perspective allows us to go beyond the descriptive and account for ways in which the Western realities have spread across the world as the universal condition” (p. 261). It is this unquestioned allegiance to the universal condition, manifested most prominently in the overwhelming legitimacy given to the voice of the dominant organisational core, which casts PR in a colonialist mould.

Correcting myopia: diversifying publics and enlarging visions The work of the postcolonial historian Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000) opens the way for PR to see beyond the usual Eurocentric ways of determining strategic stakeholders for organisations. In a landmark book, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Chakrabarty (2000) seeks to

Not enough Said 69 decentre the universalised notion of Europe, “an imaginary figure that remains deeply embedded in clichéd and shorthand forms in some everyday habits of thought” (p. 4). Challenging the classic liberal theorists’ idea that history belonged to Europe, Chakrabarty (2000) focuses instead on the alternative histories of subordinate social groups in India. He is critical of the Western pursuit of historicism, which presumes that history is shaped by an organic chain of events and developments over time. Historicist accounts, he points out, chart the development of modernity and claim that Europe was intellectually ahead of other regions, an ideology that allowed John Stuart Mill to write foundational essays which “proclaimed self-rule as the highest form of government and yet argued against giving Indians or Africans self-rule on grounds that were indeed historicist . . . Indians or Africans were not yet civilized enough to rule themselves” (Chakrabarty, 2000, p. 8). Indians and Africans did indeed, as did other colonised peoples, fight for and get self-rule and, in doing so, upset the historicists’ Eurocentric logic (Chakrabarty, 2000). In addition to importing contextual insights from postcolonialism, PR can draw from other fields to expose spurious claims to universalism. These importations can open up understandings of benefit to organisations who seek to cultivate diverse others as leaders, outsourcers, and partners, as well as customers. Feminist scholar Nancy Fraser (1997), for instance, deconstructs the key photographic metaphor of requisite variety as “tantamount to filtering diverse rhetorical and stylistic norms through a single overarching lens” (p. 83) and notes accurately that, because there is “no such lens that is genuinely culturally neutral, it would effectively privilege the expressive norms of one cultural group over those of others” (p. 84). To resist that further privileging of the already powerful, Fraser records how groups, such as women, workers, people of colour, and gays and lesbians, have often constituted what she calls “subaltern counterpublics . . . to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs” (Fraser, 1997, p. 81). Examples of such alternative publics include feminist journals and bookstores, gay and lesbian conventions, and ethnic minority forms and fora. The concurrent moves in PR have been less diverse with less opportunity for dialogue. Instead prominent PR practitioners have been arguing that centralised sites of control should simply incorporate the leading institutionalised opposition bodies. One case in point was when the then Director-General of the British Nuclear Industry Forum advocated bringing organised oppositional groups, such as Greenpeace, “into the tent” (Haywood, 1997) – a phrase that itself connotes negotiations with “natives” under an imperial canvas. The same phrase was used by the Director of Operations of Queensland Mining Council in the title of a talk to a national PR convention in Australia in 1998 (Mathias, 1998). Others, including IBM’s environmental director, have also argued for the inclusion of such “opinion formers” as a key “upstream” part of environment consultations (ten Brink et al., 1996). These attempts at inclusion remain open to the same charges of unequal

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incorporation already levelled against Roth et al. (1996). They do not begin to encompass such complex counterpublics as the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit and the Third World Network. Nevertheless, attention to a meaningful requisite variety (i.e. one that would include significant power sharing and attention to the voice and issues of diverse cultural others) earlier in the process could pay dividends. Just as intelligent, and inclusive, issues management can avoid the need for crisis management, so intelligent, and culturally inclusive, requisite variety can avert the need for divisive confrontations. This in turn reduces investment of resources into reactive media interventions, protracted negotiation, and reputation protection. The costs of such actions can be particularly heavy in relation to disputes over ethnicity where the ramifications are often both internal and international. With specific regard to ethnicity, the field needs to heed its own general advice that “relationships are long term rather than short term; that hazardous firefighting activities may be better accomplished in the light of such relationships” (Kitchen, 1997, p. 27). We contend that such longer-term relationship building needs to take into account the discursive complexities and desires of different ethnicities and counterpublics. Otherwise the homogenised worldview of PR maintains old colonial legacies that support neo-colonial economic interests. In PR texts these interests are entrenched in neatly demarcated, and often well-meaning, sections on multiculturalism. Typically, such sections emphasise the need to communicate effectively with selected other groups, such as Latinos, African-Americans, and Asians, but do not acknowledge how the power to set the communication agenda remains in Western hands.

Global relations: emerging situations and changing status In effect, by hailing globalisation without reservations, the field neglects accounts of how the process developed, the historical forces that forged it, and the resulting continuation of power inequities. This can be illustrated in recent collections on international PR. Tilson and Alozie’s (2004) Toward the Common Good: Perspectives in International PR, for instance, follows the pioneering model of Culbertson and Chen’s (1996) International PR: A Comparative Analysis. That is to say it assigns many regions to US authors better qualified in PR knowledge than local knowledge – although in fairness it has to be said that this is a difficult task and Tilson and Alozie are to be commended for succeeding in introducing some new authors and covering some new regions and periods. However, the continuities are more marked than the innovations. Tilson and Alozie’s (2004) Toward the Common Good: Perspectives in International PR contradicts its title’s claim, to be moving in the direction of the common good, by opening with an unreflective declaration of self-interest. Tim Traverse-Healy’s (2004) “Foreword” sets the book’s agenda as filling the scholarly gap in “coverage accorded the affairs of developing countries” and meeting the globalisation-fostered need for practitioners (presumably from developed

Not enough Said 71 countries), who “are fast entering the realms of developing countries” (p. xi). Such practitioners “want access to authoritative information describing the nature and the state of the craft in areas, territories, and countries with which they are not immediately professionally familiar but in which they can suddenly find themselves having to initiate operations” (Traverse-Healy, 2004, p. xi). As with Friedman’s (2006) account of how Reuters restricts high level journalism jobs to Western journalists at the expense of Indian journalists, Traverse-Healy is similarly open in seeking good PR jobs for Western outsiders in developing countries and continuing an international division of labour that has long favoured the West. By putting this upfront, Tilson and Alozie (2004) endorse that self-centred perspective rather than following their title’s stated aspiration of moving “Toward the common good”. It is confirmed empirically in Montenegro’s (2004) chapter in the book where her key point is that “multinational PR firms must adapt their practices” to gain work in the Latin American region although large US PR firms already “earn about half of the fees abroad” (p. 102). One chapter with a globalising title in Tilson and Alozie’s (2004) collection does exhibit a measure of reflexivity, as well as a rationale, both for foregrounding PR in the US and for reflecting on its claims to universality. US authors Melvin Sharpe and Betty Pritchard’s (2004) “The historical empowerment of public opinion and its relationship to the emergence of PR as a profession” is unusual in acknowledging that its perspective, materials, and history, are grounded in US developments. Not only that but they go on to justify that national grounding for the following reasons: “the documentation available from scholars and library resources”; “the democratic model is more closely identified with the United States than with any other country”; and “the PR profession in the United States is larger and more developed than in any other country” (Sharpe and Pritchard, 2004, p. 15). Their reasoning has strong empirical support. Sharpe and Pritchard (2004) go on to account for the field’s development in a similarly material-based fashion: “A convergence of three factors contributed to the emergence of PR as a profession: a growth in the global acceptance of democratic principles, growing global social interdependence, and the emergence of direct instantaneous communication abilities” (p. 15). Significantly, in addition to the shifting of business and, gradually, the growing number of professionals who work outside of the US, each of these factors is mutating in the present environment in ways that impact negatively on US moral and practical leadership. The first, the increasingly wide “acceptance of democratic principles” has come at a time when the US, and parts of Europe, instead of leading world opinion (see Stearns, 2005), are defying international law, arguing for the legalisation of torture and being brought to book for fabricating the weapons of mass destruction excuse to invade Iraq. Change for the US is equally evident on a number of other international fronts: in finance, where “the appreciation of the euro and of sterling versus the dollar . . . suggests a nascent challenge to the role of the dollar as the sole global

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reserve currency”; in politics, where the US, “though it still wields substantial influence, cannot claim the overwhelming power it once had to shape global alliances to its own purposes” and has to handle potentially huge volatility when unpredictable “disruptions in unstable states – such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – could easily spill over into major global disruptions”; and, in markets, where the “emergence of a tactical coalition led by China, India, South Africa, and Brazil . . . confronting Europe, the US, and Japan about agricultural subsidies opens a new front in international bargaining” (Harvey, 2003, pp. 230–231). In fact, Harvey concludes “India, Brazil, Russia, and China could together rewrite the economic geography of the world along much fairer lines in the twenty-first century”, and this “could well signal the emergence of an ‘antineo-liberal’ power bloc in the world” (p. 231). Sharpe and Pritchard’s (2004) second formative factor, “growing global social interdependence”, further loosens US leadership as, under the second Bush administration, the US increasingly tries to go it alone. It has manifest difficulties in relation to not ratifying environmental treaties, let alone, unlike the first Gulf War, putting together a coalition of the willing for war in Iraq. Unless this trend is reversed, the increasing isolation of the US in the global national community is likely to threaten its influence on future interdependence movements, especially if its economic position worsened. And finally, the emergence of direct instantaneous communication abilities and the resultant death of distance, again removes the platform for US supremacy as more and more of the globe catches on to the communications revolution. Ironically, the configurations around Sharpe and Pritchard’s (2004) three formative factors may be reforming to reduce, and perhaps replace, the leading international role of US PR. In these shifting market relations, the continuation of the will to maintain ethnocentric and national control threatens sustainable profitability. People make up markets and non-Western populations will tend to react negatively to organisations that marginalise them or, in extreme cases, ignore their humanity. In the case of Bhopal the other was dealt with as a numerical sum in market arithmetic. The Western multinational company’s “scientific and financial focus resulted in ‘looking beyond Bhopal,’ past the suffering of the victims toward the future of the company itself” (Ice, 1991, p. 358). Union Carbide’s visual reach encompassed the short term US future of the company but did not extend to a longer term view of how it would look to India and other large Asian economies. In PR in Asia: An Anthology (Sriramesh, 2004a), Sriramesh’s “Epilogue” concludes the anthology with a set of proposals for a more genuinely multicultural PR, which he hopes “will pave the way for the PR profession around the world to become more truly strategic as a result of becoming more multicultural [italics in original]” (p. 337). While strongly supporting the sentiment, we are concerned that it may be underpinned with excellence study assumptions (see White and Mazur, 1995), that PR does not serve vested interests, and that strategic goals and power are transparently shared. Our view, that the use of the term strategy in PR means different things to

Not enough Said 73 different people, finds support in Botan’s (2006) distinction between “strategy”, which “is a property of campaigns and is about planning and the maneuvering and allocation of resources” and “grand strategy”, which “is the policy-level decisions an organization makes about goals, alignments, ethics, and relationship with publics and other forces in the environment” (p. 225). Botan’s (2006) distinction, and his associated insight that although “grand strategies occur at a much higher level than do campaign strategies, what is most important is that they constrain or limit strategies” (p. 226), forms a foundation for an expanded view of strategy. Building on it, we suggest that PR as a field also has a grand strategy that limits, but that, as a field, it has not developed it as consciously as an organisation. This is to be expected since an organisation has to take many more collective, coordinated actions more often, and with clearer lines of authority. Accordingly much of the field’s grand strategy is unconscious. We see a pro-Western power interest embedded in the grand strategy of PR that may be a vital retarding feature in the frustratingly slow progress towards genuine multiculturalism. Power, profit, and ethnicity need to be explicitly brought into consideration as part of building social cohesion, locally, nationally, and globally. The field needs to overcome its consistent omission, or marginalisation of the perspective of the subaltern. Such marginalisation effectively keeps in place processes of neo-colonisation and an uneven international division of labour. Citing data from business bank Goldman Sachs on twenty-first century superpowers, Bakas (2006) names the top six as “the United States . . . Japan, and the so-called BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China” and notes that half of them will be in Asia which “will mean that that the twenty-first century will be characterized as the ‘Asian century’ ” (p. 31). Accordingly, the longer term, more equitable relationship building required for sustainable social cohesion, already needs to be taking account of the alternative subaltern forms and fora (Fraser, 1997), and those who theorise their value, as well as what they represent: some of the discursive complexities and desires, of people of different ethnicities and economic backgrounds, who in other countries, and globally, are majorities not minorities.

Metaphoric lines of flight: trees, tubers, India Shining, and Western PR in the dark Alongside their emancipatory lines of flight, Deleuze and Guattari (1972; 1987) offer multiple sources of new beginnings through their conceptualisation of the rhizome. In its botanical sense a rhizome is an underground tuber that ramifies and diversifies, producing new buds from anywhere in the system, and so having no apparent beginning or end. As such it opposes what Deleuze and Guattari call arboric systems of knowledge, based on the model of a tree, which solidify in visible and immovable forms, and which have clearly located areas of origin. Their rhizome is therefore both dispersed and mobile as a network of connections across which things flow and disperse. By having no centre and no steadily solid structure, rhizomes signal ongoing states of disarray. In this sense, they are

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perpetually in the stage of becoming. Rhizomes oscillate between the lines established by the arboric systems, and as such occupy the zone of fuzzy logic rather than conventional logic or simple aggregation. Although we make no claim to be Deleuzian scholars, we are excited by how Deleuze and Guattari offer a kind of metaphysics of process that acknowledges a fluidity, which is more representative of the ongoing flow of material conditions in making space for conditions of disarray than existing PR theory. Such metaphysics undercuts complacent conceptions of the fixed structures and underdeveloped body of theory that dominates the field. Deleuze and Guattari’s work engages with perceiving processes of change in what has been described as a “becoming ontology” (Chia, 1999, p. 222), which “offers a lifeline for the alternative conceptualization of organizational change that cannot be hijacked by the systematic reductionism of modernist thought” (p. 222). We recommend reaching for that lifeline by getting PR to shake off some of its conventional lines of thinking. Conventional worldviews of mainstream PR often maintain old colonial legacies in supporting neo-colonial economic interests. This was evident in the ambitious, multi-million dollar “India Shining” campaign run by a multinational PR and advertising agency, on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India, towards the end of 2003 (see, for example, Verma, 2003; Luce, 2003). The target publics for the media-centred campaign were clearly the upwardly mobile middle-class Indians as it focused on the achievements of the IT sector, the outsourcing contracts, and the building of entertainment complexes. The campaign did not reflect the realities of the poor. As Sainath (2004) points out, the irony of it all was that while the focus was on the lifestyles of the elite, not much was said about the increasing poverty, the crumbling public health system, or the destitution of landless villagers. The PR blitz did not help the BJP at all as the party crashed to a defeat in the general elections in 2004. Yet, after the election results were announced, a significant section of the mainstream media in the West appeared to be taken so much by surprise that some chose to call it a “stunning political upset” (see “The upset in India”, 2004, p. A 24; “India shifts course”, 2004, p. A 24). But was it really an upset? It was, after all, a verdict delivered by a huge majority of the country’s voters. What the election results did show yet again was that PR needs to acknowledge multiple and diverse publics rather than be subservient to a few elite ones. This is especially true when they comprise the vast majority as is the case in India and the world as a whole. Millions of impoverished Indian rural voters, marginalised in the age of globalisation and corporatisation, and ignored by the PR machinery, had their say in the world’s largest democracy. The Indian experience provides material proof of the possible falsifying of Fukuyama’s (1992) famous thesis, which he summarises in The End of History and the Last Man: What I had suggested had come to an end was not the occurrence of events, even large and grave events, but History: that is, history understood as a

Not enough Said 75 single, coherent, evolutionary process, when taking into account the experience of all peoples in all times. This understanding of History . . . is implicit in our use of words like “primitive” or “advanced,” “traditional” or “modern,” when referring to different types of human societies . . . This evolutionary process was neither random nor unintelligible, even if it did not proceed in a straight line, and even if it was possible to question whether man (sic) was happier or better off as a result of historical “progress”. (p. xii) Fukuyama (1992) placed his own end point in the “remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government” that may constitute the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and the “final form of human government” and, therefore, “the end of history” (p. xi). As we discuss in Chapter 9, J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) presented their description of two-way symmetrical communication as the evolutionary epitome of PR history five years prior to Fukuyama’s first 1989 National Interest article on his end of history. Events have led Fukuyama to reconsider his position, but before we reconsider PR history per se we want to track the past of excellence and its intertwining with leadership.

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What’s next (1)? Empowering differences, learning from leadership, and equity in management after In Search of Excellence

Postcolonial shifts at the former margins of geo-politics find counterparts in shifts at the traditional core of business, leadership, and economics. As with diversity, debates about the nature and meaning of such shifts are often intense with polarised extremes. That is because answers to the question of “what’s next?” carry with them a metaphoric bid to characterise the key characteristics of the age and its likely future directions. These bids are nothing less than an attempt to define the real and predict its evolution as in the large scale bid for reality in Peter Drucker’s (1990) comprehensively titled, The New Realities: In Government and Politics, in Economics and Business, in Society and World View. Awareness of the high stakes involved in defining existing or new realities is part of what lies behind the following slightly acerbic exchange published in Stuart Ewen’s (1996) account of his encounter with Edward Bernays: I told him that I knew a great deal about him, his life and contributions, and added that I had recently published a book exploring the influence of commercial imagery on the contours of American society. Without missing a beat Bernays retorted scrappily, “Of course, you know, we don’t deal in images [. . .] We deal in reality.” For Bernays and, as I would learn, for many others in the field, the goal was more ambitious. Public relations was about fashioning and projecting credible renditions of reality itself. [italics in original] (p. 6) Ewen (1996) concludes his opening chapter by acknowledging Bernays as a “trader in realities” (p. 17). J. Grunig and the excellence team trade in the same commodities and their project offers a good example of a bid for reality in PR. We seek to examine this bid by tracking some of the subsequent history of its model, Peters and Waterman’s (1982) In Search of Excellence. Since the publication of Drucker’s (1990) The New Realities, with a complete chapter on “The post-business society” (pp. 167–180), we suggest that two other major sets of bids have been made for changing the conception of the age to reflect further mutations in new realities. The first set have clustered around the prefix “post”, especially in conjunction with postmodernism, postmodernity, and

What’s next (1)? 77 postindustrial; the second set, the “endists”, cluster around the phrase “end of”, as pioneered in Fukuyama’s (1992) influential usage in The End of History and the Last Man (although he himself has since abandoned that position). He was followed by Brockway’s (1993) The End of Economic Man and, more recently, Roberts’ (2005) The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World, or by the near synonym, death, as in Kurtzman’s (1993) The Death of Money and Omerod’s (1994) The Death of Economics. All of these stress breaks rather than continuations. Strands of thought that prefer more business-as-usual perspectives use less final terms. Some opt for the term “hyper”, as in hypermodernity or hypercompetition (D’Aveni, 1994), or “late” as in “late modernity” (Hall et al., 1992; Murdock, 1992) as ways to put the emphasis on continuity, albeit with intensification, rather than on breaks, new paradigms, and finalities. Explicit discussions of endings and post-prefixed practices in business and economics have been relatively late (see Berg, 1989) in comparison to, say, architecture and media, and they remain relatively restricted. Nevertheless, this chapter contends that debates from the 1990s in business, economics, and management – although in a variety of different forms – have parallels with debates on endings, posts, and even announcements of deaths, elsewhere. It further contends that, central to these debates, and on an equivalent scale of large-break ambition to “endists” and “postists” in other fields, certain theorists characterise the contemporary age as distinctive from the historical period that preceded it.

Leading change after modernity: heretical heroes of the post Perhaps inadvertently, since he never actually uses the word, Art Kleiner (1996) has written the first postmodern account of how corporations have restructured themselves in the direction of devolving leadership and increasing employee participation in a democratic fashion. We identify the postmodern dimension most strongly through his book’s title, The Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws and the Forerunners of Corporate Change (Kleiner, 1996). That title resonates with postmodernists because, while almost all disagree on what defines the postmodern, most agree on two points: that the movement involves decentring, dissent, extremism, and marginality in relation to mainstream ideas; and, second, that it is powered by, often egalitarian, dissidents, outsiders, and iconoclasts. In the small, but not insignificant, postmodern movement within PR, this is certainly the case as Holtzhausen and Voto’s (2002) article title, “Resistance from the margins: the postmodern public relations practitioner as organizational activist”, suggests. Kleiner also takes the same historical pulse as many postmodernists by dating the birth of postmodernity (Boje and Dennehy, 1994; Hebdige, 1988; Jagtenberg and McKie, 1997) as an epoch originating either during and/or just after the Second World War. Above all, although unusual in his corporate focus, Kleiner is quintessentially postmodern in making a metaphorical bid for defining the characteristic features of modernity as relatively monolithic and outmoded. This enables him to keep it distinct, and separated by a great divide from his metaphorical characterisation of the present age as the age of heretics.

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Metaphorical bidding for an age can act as the cultural and social equivalent of management attempts to forge unified corporate cultures through the discipline of “building shared vision” (Senge, 1992, p. 211). Along with the obvious difference in scale, between firms and society, these bids differ in other significant ways. Most of all they differ because academics and writers, who tend to be relatively independent of corporations and governments, rarely have access to the controlling heights of management or the corridors of political power to sanction implementation of their visions. Nevertheless such proposals can, at the cost of historical modesty, secure significant measures of assent outside, and sometimes inside, corporations. BMW, the German car manufacturer, applied postmodern theory to their South Carolina factory with one visible result in the sign above the employee entrance: “Welcome to BMW. We are an information-processing and communications company that, as a happy by-product, shares in the building of fine automobiles for world markets” (cited in Eisenberg and Goodall, 2001, p. 167). Now the sign is not the territory. The downplaying of the material production of cars as the main focus, however, combines with the factory’s less hierarchical architecture, the practicalities of working with a multicultural workforce, and an associated commitment to more participative communication. In concert they offer a platform rejecting much of the scientific managerialism, bureaucratic hierarchy, and rational materialism associated with modernity. BMW’s move, and others like it, towards more postmodern practices, relates, as their sign suggests, to increasing awareness of the reflexive elements of language. Undoubtedly this growth has helped postmodern issues onto the agenda across almost all boundaries (see Rose, 1991; Rosenau, 1992). Reflexivity, as knowledge turning back on itself, has made a whole era more aware of the central role played by language and metaphor. Concepts can no longer be seen as simply reflecting an external world; words cannot merely be taken as transparent carriers of ideas: As a result all our claims about language and the world – and implicitly all our claims in general – are reflexive in a manner which cannot be avoided. For to recognize the importance of language is to do so within language. To argue that the character of the world is in part due to the concepts employed, is to employ those concepts . . . reflexivity has surfaced in divergent fields in superficially different guises. In factual disciplines such as science and history, anthropology or psychology, reflexive questions have been raised because the so-called “facts” on which such disciplines are based are no longer uncontentious. (Lawson, 1985, p. 9) Reflexivity intersects with metaphoric claims in general. In attempting to enhance the major aims of any group, whether corporate or governmental, leaders and managers “strive toward establishing first a local ontology and second a code of values, both the is and ought of organizational life [italics in

What’s next (1)? 79 original]” (Gergen and Whitney, 1996, p. 335). Once any group has established that their view of reality is correct then that group has virtually secured the means, and a measure of moral right, to manage that world. If the US, for example, is able to act with the power of an empire but without having to acknowledge that it is one, then its task of arranging that world according to its wishes is simpler. From this it follows that immodest proposals on the nature of worlds can impact on practices. Linking rhetorical energy and the power of their metaphors to attract, with the number and position of those who are influenced by them, such bids may make a substantial impression. They impact on how different social domains, as well as specific areas of knowledge, will be perceived. From its genesis as commissioned research for the Quebec government in the late 1970s, for example, Lyotard’s (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge offers a representation of the nature of the contemporary social world. Debates on these ideas, heavily influenced by Wittgenstein (especially the view that a language constitutes a reality), continue to reverberate far beyond the French-Canadian bureaucratic location and their philosophical origins. In the domain of management, similar proposals for characterising corporate culture emerge around the same time. In supporting this timeframe, Kleiner’s retrospective analysis has been praised as a “remarkable job of showing how [the present] revolutionary change in management originated” (Senge, cited in Kleiner, 1996, cover). That analysis positions the success of In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982) as a turning point. Like Lyotard’s 1984 report, the In Search of Excellence book drew from research in the late 1970s. Kleiner (1996) identifies its publication as pivotal in ending the “Age of Heretics as outside gadflies or covert double agents” and marking the entry of their formerly outlawed ideas into the mainstream, where “the world was ready to hear them” from Peters and Waterman, who “were insiders” (p. 350). Indeed Peters and Waterman’s (1982) bestseller is evangelical in its approval of heretical “disturbers of the peace” and “fanatical champions” and advocates “ad hoc behavior as more normal than bureaucratic behavior” (p. 134). Effectively they developed a manifesto for managers to mount the office barricades and attack modernist bureaucrats. Rather than encouraging gadflies and heretics, however, the Excellence tradition in PR stayed in the mainstream from its inception. It is reluctant to acknowledge any liberation movements and resists taking them on board. Indeed, it has consistently worked to exclude views that disagree with it, or are discordant with it.

Downsizing In Search of Excellence (1): metaphor banks, restricted credit, and reality checks Peters and Waterman occasionally present their bids in a manner which verges on that key indicator of the postmodern, self-reflexive awareness (Lawson,

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1985). When, for example, their introduction links “excellent companies” with certain types of “stories and imagery” (Peters and Waterman, 1982, p. xxi), they expose their own methodology. For bad examples they draw from Karl Weick, albeit without specific citation, to dismiss metaphors for company strategies they perceive as less than excellent: Weick supposes that the inflexibility stems from the mechanical pictures of organizations we carry in our heads; he says, for instance: “Chronic use of the military metaphor leads people repeatedly to overlook a different kind of organization, one that values improvisation rather than forecasting, dwells on opportunities rather than constraints, discovers new actions rather than defends past actions, values arguments more highly than serenity and encourages doubt and contradiction rather than belief”. (Peters and Waterman, 1982, p. 7) Accordingly, Peters and Waterman (1982) propose alternative metaphors, such as “sailing, playfulness, foolishness, seesaws, space stations, garbage cans, marketplaces, and savage tribes” – again from Karl Weick – as well as supplementing these with “skunk works, and czars” (p. 101), from their own research. Seen generously, In Search of Excellence establishes an enlarged metaphor bank which underwrites its authors’ arguments for change. Less generously perceived, the book is shot through with contradictory metaphors which pose logical problems. Although the “bootlegging” metaphor sits easily alongside “skunk works” and “cabals” (p. 107), for example, it is harder to integrate all of these with the straightforward production championship advocated on the same page. Overall the effect is to parallel the kind of “strategic ambiguity” summarised by one executive’s definition of effective communication: “All you have to remember is . . . let the language be ambiguous enough [so] that if the job is successfully carried out, all credit can be claimed, and if not, a technical alibi [can] be found” (cited in Eisenberg and Goodall, 2001, p. 25). To judge them by their own standards, Peters and Waterman (1982) may not fail to deliver an “important” supply of “new metaphors and models” but do they “stitch these terms together into a sensible, coherent, memorable whole” (p. 107)? The answer is yes only if readers and users of In Search of Excellence can be comfortable with ambiguity on a grand scale. Central to their multiple ambiguities is the paradox of human reengineering. The term reflects ongoing tensions between a residual scientific management – updated to acknowledge that an involved and committed workforce is now essential – and practices demonstrating that employees really matter. Occasional cracks in the discourse reveal Peters and Waterman as adopting the duplicity of executive strategic ambiguity. One becomes visible during the illogical logic of their final chapter’s account of the “simultaneous loose-tight properties” (Peters and Waterman, 1982, p. 318) of excellent company leaders:

What’s next (1)? 81 They believed in granting autonomy, room to perform. They believed in open doors, in quality. But they were stern disciplinarians, every one. They gave plenty of rope, but they accepted the chance that some of their minions would hang themselves. Loose-tight is about rope. Yet in the last analysis, it’s really about culture. Now, culture is the “softest” stuff around. Who trusts its leading analysts – anthropologists and sociologists – after all? Businessmen surely don’t. Yet culture is the hardest stuff around, as well. Violate the lofty phrase, “IBM Means Service”, and you are out of a job, the company’s job security program to the contrary notwithstanding. Digital is crazy (soft). “People at Digital don’t know who they work for”, says a colleague. But they do know quality: the products they turn out work (hard). So “Soft is hard”. (p. 319) There is one revealing sentence in the midst of this list of new, less hierarchical, and persistently positive, workplace contradictions: “They gave plenty of rope, but they accepted the chance that some of their minions would hang themselves”. It clearly endorses the traditional hierarchy of leaders and praises their generosity in allowing even very small inferiors the right to fail. At best this kind of pseudo-liberation management extends the range of Taylorist control by replacing rigid slide rule and stopwatch culture with the slightly less constrictive notion of a rope and, at worst, implies a metaphoric death, or end of employment, rather than a fine for lateness. In this, admittedly uncharacteristic, deferring to bad old managerial hierarchies, Peters and Waterman display a lack of self-reflexivity, and an irony deficiency, in relation to how to work with their own contradictory metaphors. The irony is compounded because the hanging imagery betrays direct links to modernity’s scientific management and its associated distrust of workforces, denigration of workers, and dehumanising assembly line. By contrast postmodern perspectives prefer to conceive of factories as living systems capable of generating their own order from the bottom up and begin: “with the idea that systems have lives of their own which make them fundamentally independent of human control” (Cooper and Burrell, 1988, p. 98). And, whether explicitly postmodern or not, firms promoting democratic practices, such as Ricardo Semler’s (1994) Semco company, place high value on: trust in our employees and distrust of dogma. We are neither socialist nor purely capitalist, but we take the best of these failed systems and others to re-organize work . . . At the heart of our bold experiment is a truth so simple it would be silly if it wasn’t so rarely recognized: A company should trust its destiny to its employees [italics in original]. (pp. 281–282)

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Downsizing In Search of Excellence (2): fashionable dismissals and corporate games Although sales continue for the Peters and Waterman work, the graph of criticism of the bestseller has also risen. Carroll’s (1983) early negative review has been succeeded by Ghosh’s (1990) less than flattering book-length retrospective appraisal and the later calculation that two-thirds of Peters’ 43 US exemplars of excellence had, within five years, “ceased to be excellent” (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 17). Business journalists Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) extrapolate from this shortcoming to make the charge of “faddishness” and to assert that the “fashion in theories is mirrored by a fashion in companies” (p. 17). Rather than see falterings or bankruptcies as unqualified evidence of the failure of the theory, other explanations are possible and changing with fashion need not be scathingly dismissed as mere “faddishness”. It might equally be argued that the firms had fallen away from living up to their own excellent practices, or had failed to adapt to a changing context. As we shall see this has implications for the excellence study in PR. More radically, however, we argue that the theories are not totally dependent on sustainable and observable corporate realities. Physics, the queen of the sciences, has long allowed aesthetics, as well as experimentation, as helpful criteria. In addition, in a world increasingly recognised as one constructed substantially by language, the excellent practices of firms have, of necessity, to be partially expressed through the subjective, language-bound, and self-interested views of managers and CEOs as well as the more objective evidence of balance sheets. Accordingly, a measure of reflexivity is needed to avoid the distorted simplification of measuring any theory’s success by seemingly objective standards. Much of the evidence cannot, by its very nature, be collected without subjectivity. In this area management literature would greatly benefit by restricting citations from the same self-written stories of the seemingly successful (Iaccoca and Novak, 1986; Scully and Byrne, 1987), and drawing instead from the feminist-influenced qualitative literature on the ambiguities of autobiography (Holman Jones, 2005). At any rate, whether undeterred by criticism or responding to it, Peters (1992) proceeded in one of his subsequent influential bestsellers, Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties, to establish a more systematic set of metaphors. This particular reengineering of focus deployed the notion of carnival. At this point Peters’ work also usefully serves to connect with two more postmodern traits in action within management literature: the first is the abolition, or blurring of boundaries, between the academic and the popular; and the second is an unusual interdisciplinarity of methods. The first parallels the breakdown of distinctions between high and low culture stretching from the three tenors of European opera achieving chart-topping status as mass-marketed promoters of such spectacular sporting events as the Olympics to more socially progressive recent crossovers, such as Live8, which “are as much about PR for a message as they are about a stage full of rock stars cheering a cause” (Byrne, 2006, p. 46).

What’s next (1)? 83

Exposing excellence: crossover culture and business science Peters’ crossover, of consulting, academic theory, and popular publishing, was outstandingly successful. He was a pioneer but is not unique. In fact, in contemporary business literature it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish many books as clearly belonging to the academic camp or the management bestseller camp. Indeed, market leaders have been revealed as owing their position to a form of corruption akin to pop music payola. In 1995 Business Week exposed how a book called The Discipline of Market Leaders, which made the New York Times bestseller list for 15 weeks and sold 250,000 copies, had been boosted by the tactics of the authors’ consultancy agency, CSC Index (cited in Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 23). The agency spent over a quarter of a million US dollars to buy the book in bookshops and so rig the figures to help put it on the list. Obviously subsequent sales of business books, and the associated consultancy work, have been transformed by the sheer number of buyers of In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982). Over a decade ago they were already estimated at over five million (Kleiner, 1996, p. 333). That publishing phenomenon encouraged further blurring of the demarcation lines. Coming to congruent conclusions from their rather different dissection of management gurus as “witch doctors”, Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) observe how the “books of tenured professors rub shoulders with those of outand-out charlatans” (p. 366). Moreover, they analyse how even the best management gurus struggle to keep pace with publishing industry demands for “breakthrough ideas year after year” and how lesser writers, many of whom “jumped opportunistically” from “other academic disciplines” are now “surrounded by the paraphernalia of their trade – their own consultancy, the speaking tours, the book contract” and are “obliged to churn out material, hoping to stumble across the next big idea” (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 366). While Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) dissect these trends, they fail to identify the postmodern context, and, therefore, the likely continuance and continuing centrality, of metaphor. Their own solution is embedded in the main metaphor of their book title, The Witch Doctors: What the Management Gurus Are Saying, Why It Matters and How to Make Sense of It (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997). In it they resort to the well-established contrast between the non-science of premodernity (complete with witch doctors) with the early modern medical science whose scalpels replaced its predecessors’ rattles. Despite the obvious linguistic dismissal of their opponents, Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) write that they would prefer their book to be seen as a “ ‘scalpel job’ rather than an easier ‘hatchet job’ ” (p. 22). Nevertheless the final chapter confirms the closeness of many of their nominated witch doctors to downright deception since, “no less than astrology”, the area is “a magnet for charlatans”, there are “virtually no barriers to entry”, and “the fortunes that can be made by the successful are gigantic” (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 370). Finally Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s (1997)

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advice time-travels from the seventeenth century to more modern medical practices as they claim that choosing “between the different medicines is not easy, particularly when so few of the witch doctors’ products come with any kind of health warning” (p. 371). Despite the accuracy of some of their diagnoses, and the potential of their recommended surgery, Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s (1997) attack on “management theory’s insensitivity to language” is inadequate and reads as if the gurus’ “sloppy writing” (p. 372) required no more than sub-editing. Outside of their own witch doctor imagery, they themselves register little awareness of its centrality, or of the shaping power of metaphor. In this respect, they are as “peculiarly un self-critical” (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 371) as the targets of their criticism. This is evident in the unstable mix of the following sentence: “Shareholder capitalism makes it possible for companies to make difficult but necessary adjustments that its stakeholder brother fudges; downsizing, delayering and reengineering a company is better than allowing it to die of obesity” (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 373). The “adjustments” from a more mechanical metaphor segue into the “brother metaphor” from kinships, which then recycles the mechanistically-sourced “re-engineering”, before ending on the human biology of “die of obesity”. The last image conveys an overweight body distinct from the opposite connotations of a lean management. The fusion of the sense of cutting the fat carried by the employees lower down the hierarchy with the implicit attribution that the excess weight is their own fault simply extends the earlier rope imagery. Overall, it is a metaphoric mix that obfuscates in semantically attributing blame rather than illuminating insight through consistent imagery.

Re-fashioning In Search of Excellence: interdisciplinary intertexts Ltd The cover of one of Peters’ (1992) later books, Liberation Management, aspires to a further enlargement of target audiences as its blurb puffs it as “Essential reading for everyone involved in business”. The same blurb adds a marketing pitch that incorporates a gender neutrality designed not to alienate female readers, and a target general audience beyond academic and nonacademic management buyers, by identifying itself as “Essential reading for everyone who cares about his or her own future” (Peters, 1992, cover). Subsequently these kinds of crossovers continue to impact on the discursive strategies of management writings. Such market orientations, in targeting actual managers, can be seen to surface in the introduction to such a markedly academic tome as Postmodern Management and Organization Theory (Boje et al., 1996): The book should be of interest to readers interested in the nature and meaning of postmodernism and its relevance to organizations and management. It should be of particular relevance to sociologists, anthropologists,

What’s next (1)? 85 and management and organization theory scholars . . . Managers will also find the book to be of interest because it outlines the current and future challenges facing management and provides innovative, non-traditional suggestions and approaches to these issues. Indeed, it is the “thinking manager” concerned with future organizational and management challenges who may benefit most from the new foundations for management practice that emerge from the application of ideas in this book (pp. ix–x) A further postmodern practice is an unusual interdisciplinary mix – most obviously evidenced in pop videos that plunder classic photographs, films, and banal advertising, often through an intensive intertextuality of drawing from diverse sources (Hebdige, 1988). This can again be demonstrated through Peters’ work. His Liberation Management (Peters, 1992) commenced its emancipatory messages to managers via carnival and progressed to a section drawn from quantum mechanics. For reinforcement he tops these up with quotations from literature (Shakespeare through to J.D. Salinger), and advocates beekeeping, Chekov, and theatre-going in relation to “creative business strategy” (Peters, 1992, pp. 608–609). In short, like a corporate predator Peters raids well outside of his original core business to asset strip metaphors that might give him a marketing edge. There are sound bottom line reasons for this approach. The top of the popular business market means megabucks not just in book sales but in even more lucrative consultancy fees. To be in fashion is to be cashed up: “The Guinness Book of Business Records cites Peters as ‘the highest paid management consultant’ calculating his income is $[US] 6.4 million per year from consultancy, lectures and book royalties” (Crainer, 1998, p. 5). In Liberation Management (Peters, 1992), for instance, the first chapter title is “Toward fashion, fickle, ephemeral”, the opening heading is “Yo, fashion!” and the whole book displays a marked increase in snappy headings, ever punchier quotations, and aggressive argot. Organisations similarly have to up the ante and earn praise for being “bonkers” (Peters, 1992, p. 15) rather than excellent. As for the metaphors themselves, his search is increasingly explicit with no less than four sections entitled “The quest for metaphors”. Peters’ restless seeking for new metaphors, however, is hindered by his limited interest in interdisciplinary intersections and the superficial application of those links and metaphors that he does find. In relation to carnival, his most sustained metaphoric exploration, which still occupies less than four pages out of over 800, these limitations can be clearly observed. Outside of leadership and management writing, carnival as organising metaphor had a revival through writings associated with the Russian semiotician, Mikhail Bakhtin. However, both Bakhtin’s own works, and those contemporary theoreticians who adopted him, offer more informed and deeper meditations on the medieval carnival and its contemporary applications. Unlike Peters’ rather narrow restriction to more modern US fairground carnivals, these writers view it from medieval models as a world turned upside down. Such

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theories offer a far greater potential for underwriting a paradigm shift (the usual code in business literature for the kinds of changes other areas discuss as postmodern). It is this kind of change that he strives to initiate in Liberation Management (Peters, 1992), and in most of his other books, and explicitly in Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution (Peters, 1987). Despite the persistent discourse of revolutionary change in Peters’ post-In Search of Excellence work, he promulgates it too often, and too much as mere fashion, for his work to retain credibility as a paradigm shift. Perhaps because of publishing market pressures, he ends up fitting the old modernist trope of “make it new” rather than dealing with the incommensurabilities involved in any sustained paradigm challenge. If leadership and management literature is to engage with a possible revolutionary shift then it needs to take account of postmodern formulations in other fields, reflect on its own periodisation, and relate these to its own bids for possessing the characteristics of the contemporary.

Non-Western searches: Eastern exposures, continuing contradictions, and the metaphor spectrum At present, however, just as semantically, the postmodern can never shake its modern predecessor, neither can postwar business metaphors completely shake off centuries of classic predecessors. Postmodernists have advocated the rescue of premodern perspectives from their modernist abandonment as irretrievably past any use-by date. Peter Senge’s (1992) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, for instance, is only one of the many influential books influenced by Zen and non-Western worldviews. Even the military metaphor dismissed by Weick in Peters and Waterman (1982) has been reinvigorated by interest in the art of Japanese management and other Eastern economic successes. The most quoted martial inspiration was Sun Tsu’s (1971) Art of War, the 2,000 year old Chinese classic. In peaceful, as well as warlike aspects, Eastern philosophies made metaphoric and cultural incursions into a predominantly Western management literature with adaptations of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching in Heider’s (1986) The Tao of Leadership and Dreher’s (1997) The Tao of Personal Leadership. Peters and Waterman (1982) even hitched a ride on Pirsig’s (1979) hippy classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as part of their project’s assault on mechanistic thinking (pp. 37–38). Confucianism is another prominent premodern worldview which, since modernity in all countries is being called into doubt, has been resurrected in the West and writers from East similarly promote The New Asian Way: Rebuilding Asia Through Self-Reliance (Foong, 2000). Clearly dynamic tensions, if not contradictions, abound. Although a stream of management literature preaches democracy, environmentalism, and empowerment, actual management practices rarely, to use a theoretically untenable, but polemically useful division, match their rhetoric. The questions posed, and the reservations expressed, by Boje and Dennehy (1994) remain valid:

What’s next (1)? 87 Are managers and bean counters going to serve the postmodern network by keeping it configured in ways that meet worker and customer needs? Or, in this postmodern revolution, have the forces of darkness learned to substitute words like “total quality management,” “sociotechnical systems,” “empowerment,” and “flexible manufacturing systems,” for the modernist command and control words or even the premodern torture and sovereignty words? Are management textbooks keeping their 1950’s principles and prescriptions intact, while using more politically correct words . . . Just because an organization will be flat, speedy, global, and customer-driven does not mean that managers, and customers will be unshackled from exploitation and abuse. (p. xxiii) From Karliner’s (1997) The Corporate Planet to Hertz’s (2001) The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, many critics question if large firms have merely added discursive colonisation as a tactic to extend their empire. Language, however, is socially created and not so amenable to control. New word orders frequently shift tectonic social plates far beyond the operating reach of the boardroom. Important, and highly contestable, spaces are opened up as the rhetoric moves away from mechanistic control and towards people and visions, away from objective science towards human values. Disney’s image of itself, in-house and in public, as the Happy Kingdom has to accommodate employees who claim happiness is impossible under bad workplace conditions and low pay and can make their unhappiness manifest in the media. Firms committed to workplace democracy and shared values face PR and stock market corrections if employees go public and emphasise a credibility gap. A heavy investment in brand equity opens corporate vulnerability not only to physical activism, as in the Greenpeace boarding of Brent Spar, but creative symbolic action, as in PETA’s KFC as Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign. It is in this context that the extensive and diverse spectrum of metaphor operates. The spectrum contains premodern, modern, and postmodern in unstable combinations. At the thin end Zand’s (1997) simplified plain speech movement abjures flowery metaphorical excesses and takes a minimalist tack toward the number and expressiveness of metaphors. At the thick end Hames (1994), in The Management Myth: Exploring the Essence of Future Organisations, presents the bulk of his case for living on the postmodern “hinge of history” (p. 4) through the medium of six metaphors. Given the vital role of metaphor, future research will continue to scan that spectrum. It will continue to pay particular attention to the intersection of potentially revolutionary changes in enterprise and ecology. What is at stake in the different metaphoric bids to expose modernist dehumanisation as past its use-by date is the need to invest in more equitable treatment of its customers, environments, stakeholders, and workforces. As “traders in realities”, PR academics and practitioners can contribute to making the answers to “what’s next?” more democratic and more sustainable across a hyperconnected globe.

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Less than excellent: postscript on methodologies and what’s next in leadership One reason for our sustained focus on the post-publication research on In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982) is its connection with PR. Apart from the obvious replication of the title, J. Grunig (1992b) acknowledges it as the model for the IABC excellence research: “we took Peters and Waterman’s (1982) study as an example of what we wanted to do. Peters and Waterman isolated the attributes of excellent management in general; we wanted to isolate the attributes of excellent communication management” (pp. 220–221). In that case, PR should have subsequently taken on board its negative outcomes, especially research findings that reveal how many of those organisations it characterised as exemplars of excellence ceased to be excellent just five years down the line (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997). J. Grunig (1992b) acknowledges failings in the Peters and Waterman approach and presents the excellence project’s methodological responses. He rejects checking or tracking the post-research period progress of his team’s organisations. The excellence project examples, therefore, stay stuck in the time of the research and external evaluation over time is not considered. This approach is actually in line with a belief that the attainment of two-way symmetrical communication is an end point. At any rate, their decision not to check ongoing external effectiveness leaves them immune to the criticism that engulfed Peters and Waterman, although there is still collateral damage in methodology. If the later less than excellent results for Peters and Waterman’s organisations indicate flaws in their approach, or their hypotheses, what does this mean for the PR excellence project? J. Grunig (1992b) responds to this one directly: instead of following Peters and Waterman alone, the excellence project scholars identify “attributes of excellence” (p. 221) from four streams. To Peters and Waterman’s (1982) original McKinsey research, they add further books by both authors, such as “follow-up books by Peters and Austin (1985), Peters (1987), and . . . similar studies” (J. Grunig, 1992b, p. 221). This response, of defending a relatively discredited method by adding more of the same, seems illogical. In fairness, the excellence project also augments by diversification with three further streams: the first consists of “books about innovation and entrepreneurial organizations” (J. Grunig, 1992b, p. 221); the second of books on Japanese management; and the third of “literature on TQM” (p. 221). While these additional streams clearly move away from a reliance on one approach, the augmentation of one set of attributes by an amalgam of more of the same plus other very different theories does not adequately answer the methodological doubts raised by the Peters and Waterman failings. The augmentation falls short of a systematic Delphi method, not least in being closed to expert outside challenge, while losing the coherence of following the single system developed by two McKinsey writers out of their consultancy data and experiences.

What’s next (1)? 89 In addition, despite its ongoing popularity, there are severe limitations to the whole retrospective tradition exemplified by In Search of Excellence, the excellence study, and backward-looking empiricism. Deployed extensively over the past two decades, such models extract lessons for the future from the collection and analysis of existing (Collins, 2001), and/or past (Kim and Mauborgne, 2004), organisations that are seen to be exemplars either during the research period or retrospectively. In times of rapid change and uncertainty, we contend that contemporary, or retrospective, data can be a misleading guide to effective forward-looking practice. This is supported not only by the relatively swift downfall of many seemingly “excellent” companies but the fast rise and fall of organisations such as Enron. This forward-looking emphasis also finds support among more recent leadership research.

Uncertain times: leadership with more emotion and newer science Bennis and O’Toole (2005) are part of an increasing literature that contends that leadership must involve energy and emotional resonance if practitioner realities are not to be lost in a business academia that is “too focused on ‘scientific’ research” (p. 96). Although these assertions have attracted more adherents in the last decade, they can be tracked back through earlier identifications of limitations through lack of pluralism – see Mintzberg et al.’s (2005) Strategy Bites Back: It Is Far More and Less Than You Ever Imagined. In their recent work on leadership resilience, resonance, and renewal, Boyatzis and McKee (2005) catch the shift in summarising the tendencies of recent findings from outside the field: The last twenty years have seen considerable research done on the power of positive imaging and visioning. The research in sports psychology, meditation, and bio-feedback indicates that we can access and engage deep emotional commitment and psychic energy if we engage our passions and catch our dreams in our ideal self-image. (p. 91) As well as this shift to more emotional engagement, another emerging trend is the trend of acknowledging what is wrong in the field. One prime example is the failure to come to terms with the Hitler syndrome, whereby the power of bad leaders has been neglected because of its horrific outcomes. In facing up to a misdirection of focus by concentrating too much on good leaders, the field is looking to learn from bad leaders (Kellerman, 2004), or even toxic leadership (Lipman-Blumen, 2005). One of the key findings is the role of followers in supporting or tolerating authoritarian leadership that damages the whole culture and how to build up a critical culture to prevent abuses of power. Another emerging feature builds on Kouzes and Posner’s (1997) research findings that: “The domain of leaders is the future” (p. xxv) to increase the forward-looking repertoire through action research (Reason and Bradbury, 2001), futures thinking

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(Tsoukas and Shepherd, 2004a), foresight planning (Slaughter, 1995), and scenarios (Schwartz et al., 2000). Finally the leadership literature foregrounds Weick’s (2001) influential concept of sense-making – see also Walker’s (2006) “Sense-making methodology: a theory of method for public relations” – to assist in providing appropriate responses to an unknowable, unpredictable world: Because the nature of the world is unknowable (chaos theory, and quantum theory) we are left only with sense-making. Even if we had the capacity to do more, doing more would not help. Quantum theory helps us understand that the present state of the world is, at best, a probability distribution. As we learn from chaos theory, the next state of the world is unknowable. And so we must pay attention to the world as it unfolds. (Weick, 2001, p. 92)

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What’s next (2)? Accounting for value and returns on the real

What’s next in economics? New realities, or, perhaps, a paradigm shift, emerged most publicly as the “new economy”. The term, now irretrievably bound up with the so-called dot.com revolution, lost credibility after the end of 2000 and the dot.com bubble burst. But the dot.bomb debris did not cover all dimensions of the new economy. Despite collateral damage, conceptualisations of a different kind of economy survive in its aftermath. Low and Kalafut’s (2002) Invisible Advantage: How Intangibles Are Driving Business Performance cites former CEO of Citicorp Walter Wriston’s insight into the crux of the issue: Postindustrial enterprises run on intangible assets, such as information, research, development, brand equity, capacity for innovation, and human resources. Yet none of these intangible assets appear on a balance sheet. This is another way of saying that, according to today’s accounting practices, the worth of a brand name like Citibank or Ford has no value. (cited, p. 97) The impact of cultural, economic, and technological trends recording processes of dematerialisation accelerated in the 1990s. The computer was the engine of change that “wrenched us out of the age of factory capitalism and hurled us into the postindustrial era of transnational corporate capitalism” (Dery, 1996, p. 3) as goods-producing industries gave way “to an information economy that produces intangible commodities – Hollywood blockbusters, TV programs, high-tech theme parks, one-minute megatrends, financial transactions that flicker through fiber-optic bundles to computer terminals a world away” (p. 3). Dery (1996) cites Robert Reich’s 1992 findings that only “17 percent of working Americans now manufacture anything, down from 22 percent as recently as 1980” (p. 3) and, from their economic journalism perspective, Micklethwait and Wooldridge (2003) provide further figures demonstrating the magnitude of the value shift to intangibles: By the end of 2001, General Motors boasted net-book assets (tangible things like factories, cars, and even cash) of $52 billion, but its market value of $30 billion was only a fifth of that of Merck, a drug firm that could

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What’s next (2)? muster a balance sheet value of $7 billion, but had a far more valuable trove of knowledge. In 1999, America’s most valuable export was intellectual capital: the country raked in $37 billion in licensing fees and royalties, compared with $29 billion for its main physical export, aircraft. (pp. 131–132)

One optimistic take on these postmaterial possibilities is that they prefigure The End of Work (Rifkin, 1995), when fewer employees will be needed to produce the traditional goods and services and when “a new vision based on transformation of consciousness and a new commitment to community will take hold” (p. 247). Less positive dimensions of postmaterialism emerged in one former Enron Europe employee’s poignant expression of the divide between material evidence and intangible realities at the plush London offices overlooking Buckingham Palace: “ ‘You walked through the offices every day and thought, ‘Someone is paying for this . . . We all had faith based on empirical observations’ ” (cited in McLean and Elkind, 2004, p. 239). On the cusp of the new millennium, Leadbeater’s (2000) Living on Thin Air: The New Economy invokes other empirical evidence to underpin a transformative pattern that downgrades views of the world as a material world: “We are living in an era of unprecedented productivity and creativity”, where the “generation, application and exploitation of knowledge is driving modern economic growth” and most of us “make our money from thin air: we produce nothing that can be weighed, touched or easily measured” (pp. ix, xi). Leadbeater (2000) further observes that contemporary outputs are no longer “stockpiled at harbours, stored in warehouses or shipped in railway cars” and that livings are earned “providing service, judgement, information and analysis, whether in a telephone call centre, a lawyer’s office, a government department or a scientific laboratory”. In short, Leadbeater (2000) concludes, “We are all in the thin air business” (p. ix). For academics and PR practitioners, who are accustomed to earning a living by conversation and speech-making, which some might call hot air, the rarefied atmosphere is nothing new. Its spread as a way of life, however, has posed significant challenges for accountants, companies, economists, entertainers, environmentalists, game players, and stock exchanges.

Accounting for the bottom line (1): discipline, demand, and building value propositions In the fields of accounting and investing, the shift of value from the material to the postmaterial has attracted high level attention. One leading US venture capitalist on a task force appointed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission punned on the commonly used acronym for the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAPP) to state, “There is a gap in GAPP” (cited in Low and Kalafut, 2002, p. 34). One senior KPMG accounting team, after researching contemporary value, and where to find it, rejected traditional measures such as

What’s next (2)? 93 capital and physical stock. Instead they recommended looking in the directions signalled by their book title: Weightless Wealth: Find Your Real Value in a Future of Intangible Assets (Andriessen and Tissen, 2001). By 2006, the virtual economies around multi-player computer games, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, have become so enormous that there is now talk of getting them to face the tax regime in the real world (Foley, 2006). At a micro level with macro implications, dematerialisation entails questions of accounting advice, standards, and valuations. No less a figure than Alan Greenspan, while still Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, observed in a 2001 speech to the National Association for Business Economics that over time “and particularly during the last decade or two, an ever-increasing share of GDP has reflected the value of ideas more than material substance or manual labor input” (cited in Low and Kalafut, 2002, p. 31). Even before the Enron disaster, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt echoed Greenspan and extended his concern to disclosure: “As intangible assets grow in size and scope, more and more people are questioning whether the true value – and the drivers of that value – is being reflected in a timely manner in publicly available discourse” (cited in Low and Kalafut, 2002, p. 34). Accounting theorist Baruch Lev (2000) is prominent among academics working on a new formula for a new economy because “Nearly everybody realizes that financial statements, despite the precision with which they are prepared are illusionary [italics in original]” (Low and Kalafut, 2002, p. 36). Why does all this matter to PR academics and practitioners? To the former it should be part of their job to read widely and offer interpretations of what is happening, what looks like happening, and what might happen. No one can know in advance what will happen, but speculation can help to prepare. Some ideas may turn out to be useful in practice sooner or later, but others may never. For academics, research is not pure, but neither can it be purely utilitarian, because in uncertain times, conditions change so rapidly that one stream of inquiry can become irrelevant while another, seemingly irrelevant, can become vital. For professionals, who do not know where value resides, it is hard to make a sound case for the value of PR beyond the experiential, let alone make a case for PR as a key strategic function in the organisation. Ulrich and Brockbank’s (2005) The HR Value Proposition, which attempts to make such a strategic case for human relations, contends that since “value is defined by the receiver, not the giver, any value begins with a focus on receivers, not givers” (p. 4). Reception has a business dimension, a social dimension, and interactions between them (e.g. Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR). Before considering wider social values – since much PR work will involve profit and loss sheets – an exploration of how these are calculated, how the calculations might be changing, and how these might impact on the field, is essential. It also matters because the move to intangible valuations has, in turn, tipped the return on investment (ROI) more in favour of PR. Hobsbawm’s (2006a) collection offers two useful takes on PR value propositions. The first, by Sherwood (2006), emerges from an older economy one:

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“action that leads to profit – is what business is all about. Try to elevate corporate philanthropy to the status of profits and the company accounts will prove you wrong” because of the “visual hierarchy that puts action on top of description, ‘above the line’ advertising higher than ‘below the line’ PR” (p. 208). Sherwood (2006) continues that “this is clear if you look at a company’s profit and loss statement” (p. 208). She develops her hierarchical conceptualisation further through metaphor: Imagine the profit and loss (P&L) as a ladder, sales right at the top rung. Immediately below the sales are the costs you can control to increase those sales. These include the advertising budget and count as “above the line” costs. As you descend the ladder, you move “below the line” into admin expenses. These costs are further removed from the all-important making and selling but are things you have to pay for in order to run your company. Things like head office costs and overheads that protect your company: insurance, corporate PR, expedient philanthropy and social initiatives. Right at the bottom is a netherworld of expenses that contribute nothing to your profits but that you have to pay out regardless: taxes, interest and dividends. The further from the top line a cost is, the less it has to do with the cutting edge of day-to-day operations. And the less it is perceived as essential. (Sherwood, 2006, p. 208) We quote this at length, not because we agree with it, but because it offers a good example of how guiding principles of value calculation can guide practitioners on how to position pitches closer to profit and loss considerations. Discussions of macroeconomics, and microeconomics in terms of charging, are noticeably absent in theory and textbooks alike, and we had to rely on practitioner and activist accounts from many of the figures that follow. Changes in economics, and economic thinking, tend not to feature at all in sections dealing with emerging trends. While Sherwood (2006) makes attitudes to value explicitly material through “the all-important making and selling” (p. 208), she also touches on a less tangible kind of costing in PR’s promotional contribution: “Editorial space is more valuable than paid space precisely because it is still presumed to be impartial” and cites an “industry rule of thumb . . . that editorial is worth three times paid space [italics in original]” (p. 211). For Sherwood (2006), PR’s added value in this case comes directly from its function since “PR does not exist to increase the sum of the public good. Nor . . . to find out the truth any more than barristers are. Both are performing the role of advocate for whoever is paying them” (p. 210). Accordingly, as in the capture of editorial space for clients, “Dissembling and manipulation are built in from the start” and promoting products “works best when it conceals its source . . . its message is most effective when the source is most disguised” (p. 210). Transparency can come at a cost. Sherwood’s (2006) specificity cuts through the vaguer and more altruistic textbook definitions of creating “consistency between organizational goals and

What’s next (2)? 95 societal expectations” (Lattimore et al., 2004, p. 5). It is echoed by Kate Nicholas (2006), a British-based associate publisher and former editor-in-chief of PR Week, as well as a practitioner and freelance business journalist. Admitting that lying, albeit more through exaggeration, occurs in the profession, Nicholas (2006) also foregrounds the inbuilt partiality and manipulation of practice: What is more common [than lying or exaggerating the truth] is the charge that public relations professionals are economic with the truth . . . well they would be, wouldn’t they? Surely that is what they are paid for, to present an edited version of reality to the outside world? That is the very purpose of public relations, to act as a filter between the media and an organization in order to encourage the most favourable interpretation of a set of circumstances or range of products, or of actions taken by that organization. Or in more serious cases to ensure that a story concerning information about an organization never makes it into the media and the public domain. (p. 170) Indeed, she continues, part of the challenge is getting appropriately paid for it since the nub of the problem is “with measuring and evaluating” (Nicholas, 2006, p. 170). It is at this point she encounters the realm of postmaterial accounting challenges, because: “Judging return on investment on a proactive media campaign to promote a new product line is fairly straightforward but how do you measure the success of keeping a company or person accused of wrongdoing out of the headlines?” (Nicholas, 2006, p. 170). Answers to that question revive a long-held practitioner dream of a seat at the board table, or the excellence project’s insistence on PR participation in the dominant coalition. However, as her example of a person accused of wrongdoing omits consideration of the rightness or wrongness of such an accusation, then the route to the dream’s fulfilment may be through covering up unethical behaviour. At any rate, according to a PR Week British CEO survey published in 2000, “63% of chief executives take direct responsibility for liaison with their in-house departments and consultancies” (cited in Nicholas, 2006, pp. 171–172). Nicholas (2006) further observes “a steadily increasing number of places at the boardroom table for corporate communication directors” (p. 172). She attributes both to “a gradual realization at board level of the immense value of that intangible asset – reputation” and how in “the more caring, sharing 1990s consumers wanted their choice of brand to say something more about their ethics and values” (p. 172). The rise has been reinforced by the increased importance of the organisational threat “in the gap between perception and reality” in clear and present danger of being critically and publicly highlighted by “consumer activists armed with internet access and 24/7 news channels with space to fill” (p. 173).

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Accounting for the bottom line (2): temptations and transparency costs Other writers in Hobsbawm’s (2006a) collection also connect intangibles with possible value propositions. Borkowski’s (2006) quote in Chapter 2 highlighted how the day-to-day consultancy pressures to pay loyal employees combine with economic opportunity to make it tough to turn down lucrative business from such clients as “drug companies, arms manufacturers, GM crop researchers . . . gas-guzzling 4  4 makers . . . even tobacco manufacturers” (p. 36). His almost apocryphal potential client list from hell illustrates the continuity of ethically dubious organisations from the past, with more contemporary variations attuned to changing public attitudes to science and the environment. Nor are falsehoods the prerogative of corporations. As the Weapons of Mass Destruction debacle revealed, the British and the US governments remain comfortable generating falsehoods that support winning hearts and minds for their policies. Contemporary culture is postmaterial culture is promotional culture. Promotion, in the widest sense of advertising, marketing, and PR activities and practices, shapes our culture’s “ethos, texture, and constitution as a whole” (Wernick, 1991, p. vii). Borkowski (2006) also identifies promotional culture routes to profit through deceptive associations “as a bowls competition turns out to be sponsored by a drugs company or a football league by a soft drink which contributes more to the world’s obesity figures than any other single factor” (p. 36). Deceptive association has also been used in efforts to redeem “tobacco manufacturers, whose status in the Western ‘ethical consciousness’ is now somewhat below that of Fred West or Peter Sutcliffe [notorious British mass murderers]” (Borkowski, 2006, pp. 36–37). Kathryn Mulvey’s (2002) “Krafting a smokescreen” details how Philip Morris tried to “look better to the public (by hinting at a move toward phasing out tobacco) and policymakers (by vastly increasing the company’s size and political muscle)” (p. 57) through acquiring food giants, General Foods, Kraft, and Nabisco, and using “their image, legitimacy and constituency to bolster cigarettes against the unsympathetic (to cigarettes) outside world” (White, 1988, p. 208). Although the attempt failed, the economics of the failure are relevant to both PR activists and their opponents. In the 1990s, Infact, a corporate accountability organisation, who had earlier campaigned with successes against GE’s nuclear weapon manufacture and Nestlé’s infant feeding formula, announced a campaign against Philip Morris. Mulvey (2002) tracked the tobacco giant’s responses, which were made public as the result of a lawsuit (p. 56). With the help of Burson-Marsteller, the tobacco giant developed various strategies and monitored Infact activists to the extent that one internal memo noted, “A box of Post’s ‘Banana Nut Crunch’ cereal was found . . . bearing a sticker . . . Stop Marketing Tobacco to Children – Boycott Philip Morris” (cited, Mulvey, 2002, p. 58). Nevertheless, in 1994, when the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility “filed a shareholder resolution calling on the company to spin off its tobacco operations from Kraft”, it specifi-

What’s next (2)? 97 cally cited “Infact’s boycott as one of the financial reasons for the separation” (Mulvey, 2002, p. 60). Mulvey goes on to state that in the last three years of the twentieth century, Philip Morris increased its corporate advertising expenditure “by a staggering 1,712 percent” and, “as Infact focussed its boycott on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese”, which is one of the firm’s most advertised and valued commodities, “the corporation began a $50 million image ad campaign touting Kraft’s ‘family values’ ” (2002, p. 60). These huge sums of money testify to the asymmetric power of corporations in conventional media contrasted with such opposition as “The December 2000 issue of Harper’s [which] included a half page ad sponsored by Infact and Adbusters that asked, ‘Why are you buying your food from a tobacco company?’ and urged readers to join the boycott” (Mulvey, 2002, p. 61). While his figures require research, Cesar Chavez, former leader of the United Farm Workers who does know a thing or two from experience, estimates that boycotts can be successful if only 5 per cent of consumers participate actively (cited in Mulvey, 2002, p. 61).

Accounting for activists: deviant dolls and online culture Both the political economies of advertising and boycotts are interesting but they are being transformed by webenomics and net evasions of copyright. The alteration is illustrated by Strangelove’s (2005) analysis of Barbie dolls, a US cultural icon, which “provides fertile ground for investigating this failure to control intellectual property – privately owned meanings – on the Net” (p. 137). He writes how in surveying: the economic and cultural impact of Barbie, the Economist borrowed “resistance is futile” language from Star Trek’s terrifying Borg collective to describe the pink mass-marketing phenomenon: “Of all the forces against which resistance is futile, Barbie ranks right up near the top . . . [O]ver one billion Barbie dolls have been sold . . . The Barbie brand is worth some $2 billion – a little ahead of Armani, just behind the Wall Street Journal – making it the most valuable toy brand in the world”. (Strangelove, 2005, p. 137) Strangelove’s The Empire of the Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement goes on to record Mattel’s “exceptionally aggressive and punitive use of litigation as method of bullying artists and Internet members who dare make use of the pink Icon” and how its “zealous defence of the purity of Barbie’s meaning has even extended to legal assaults on authors of Barbie jokes” (205, p. 138). However, he identifies a significant watershed between Mattel’s successful prosecution of online artistic use of Barbie in the 1996–1998 period with its lack of success five years later because “every appropriated image or Web-site parody Mattel’s lawyers have managed to remove” was quickly replaced by others and spread through “email and through new peer-to-peer applications” (Strangelove, 2005, p. 138).

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This reached the stage where “re-articulated images of Barbie now appear six times among the first twenty images returned under Google’s ‘Images’ search function when ‘Barbie’ is entered”. This had to concern Mattel since the range of images available, “Sorority Slut Barbie, Hacker Barbie . . . Lesbian Bondage Barbie, Gangsta Bitch Barbie . . . and Barbie on a Cross” (Strangelove, 2005, p. 138), conflicted with the desired brand image. Accordingly, stakeholder groups who want to create Barbie images (including pornographic ones), can no longer be legally stopped. Mattel is only one of a number of corporations who are going to have to (re)build relations with groups it could previously ignore. In the dot.com and ebusiness gold rush it was assumed that promotional culture on the web would be commercial culture, but Strangelove’s (2005) conclusion is economically sound in claiming that more attention needs to be paid to “decommodified online behaviour and non-market cultural activity” (p. 161) against frequent assumptions “that the Internet is a hypermarket when it may be better modelled as a predominantly anti-market cultural zone” (p. 161). As these Internet interventions suggest, the new media environment is a major shaping force on contemporary societies. Despite an increased concentration of media ownership, this expansion has been augmented by the increasing number of more traditional broadcast and print outlets. Together they provide PR practitioners with significant space for advancement as questions of emotion enter in ways that influence material value. Opinion pollster Deborah Mattinson notes how “people want business to become much more human . . . [and] to behave like trusted friends” and tracks the resulting change in Coca-Cola away from “a ‘think global, act global’ strategy . . . to a ‘think local, act local’ policy” designed “to disguise its global status and attune to local markets”. For Mattinson, this “illustrates a more general shift in branding which is increasingly about ideas, emotions, and relationship. It is about building intimacy” (2006, p. 157). The area of PR has at least as strong a background as advertising and marketing to compete, and the building of relationships and trust is traditional core business for the field. As illustrated in the chapter so far, these lie at the core of postmaterial valuations both offline and online. It is time PR theory addressed them directly, related them to value propositions for organisations, and for their usefulness in extending democracy. If the field were to become more enterprising, there might be a good economic and social return in building relationships with relatively unimportant, and previously legally manageable, groups, such as the Barbie Liberation Organization, a “self-described network of artists, parents, feminists and anti-war activists” who “switched the voice boxes of . . . ‘Talking Duke’ G. I. Joe and ‘Teen Talk’ Barbie dolls . . . [which] were heard to say, ‘Dead men tell no lies’ ” (Strangelove, 2005, p. 139). Discussing the values that their products promote may soon be unavoidable for organisations. The impotence of legal attacks in preventing widespread web circulation of images that run counter to organisational brands, has implications for environmental activists. A common corporate tactic has been the phenomenon of lawsuits known as SLAPPs (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation), which can be used to prevent illegal activities, but also to silence activists by

What’s next (2)? 99 entangling them in endless and often ruinously expensive legal wrangling. The online opportunities to spread activist and consumer messages through cyberspace make this a tactic of diminishing returns. As a result PR practitioners can hopefully get on with understanding the protesters’ points of view and accommodating them. Otherwise their organisations risk ridicule across the Internet – see the rogue site of www.gatt.org/slapp.html for examples of their “giggle quotient”, and the high negative visibility accorded firms who undertake the legal prosecution route. In addition anyone who has been faced with a legal suit is not likely to be predisposed to future cooperation.

Environment matters: tilting at windmills and returns on the real Online opportunities often accelerate the speed of change but as well as responding to specific cases, it pays to track trends. In Claudia Peters’ (2002) offline example, “Digging Up Astroturf”, there are high costs for lack of transparency that may not be immediately apparent since for organisations, “pseudograssroots front groups are a bargain . . . cost less than PR departments, and enjoy much more prestige in the eyes of the media, and sometimes even politicians, who are afraid of the power of the media” (p. 145). She recounts a number of German examples, including the case of Tetra Pak, a leading European manufacturer of soft drink cartons, who favoured the use of incinerators for waste against environmentalist objections. In support of their case, they funded dubiously named front groups, “Waste Watchers” and “Honest Waste Concept”, to echo the name of a genuine organisation “ ‘Better Waste Concept’ ” (Peters, 2002, p. 149) until media exposure caused them to close down after both fines and negative publicity. However, in an example of longer term interest, Peters (2002) charts the change in relations between German utility companies and wind power through the actions of a group called BLS, which opposes “the building of wind farms from the North Sea to the Alps” and according to the Federal Association for Wind Energy “has caused the abandonment of projects worth more than DM500 million (about $225 million)” (p. 151). She relates how, in an award-winning TV story, journalist Michael Franken’s research into BLS funding exposed “the conventional and nuclear power industry’s involvement in BLS” and how wind farms became “so profitable that large utility companies . . . are buying them rather than fighting them” (p. 152). It is a sign of change in the direction of what Hart (2005) and others recommend as making money in environmentally responsible ways. But as environmental risks grow, questions of time and investment priorities – on image or environment – are becoming critical. In relation to oil giant bp, Beder (2002) asks if a company would “spend hundreds of millions of dollars in solar investment just to enhance its reputation?”. Answering it by analysing the costs of the “beyond petroleum” rebranding, Beder (2002) reckons that, after spending $7 million on research and preparation, bp committed to a further

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“$200 million between 2000 and 2002 rebranding its facilities . . . and $400 million more on advertising its gasoline and pushing its new logo”. She concludes that despite the company’s environmentally friendly rhetoric, and some supporting actions when it might “invest in solar energy and admit that global warming should be prevented”, it will still “do all it can to ensure it can go on drilling for fossil fuels and expanding its markets for them” (p. 32). In non-activist PR, practitioners are frequently caught in the position of retarding environmentally positive progress. To date it may have been profitable, but the winds of democratic and ecological change are blowing more strongly, so that by the time they catch them, their reputation may be even worse than at present. And if global warming accelerates they may have to take substantial responsibility, including legal redress, for preventing precautionary steps. It is time to radically reassess the field’s perception of the nature of the world and its relationship to the (im)material short term and longer term profit, and social transformation. Dobson’s (2000) Green Political Thought makes a useful starting distinction between “environmentalism” as “a managerial approach to environmental problems, secure in the belief that they can be solved without fundamental changes in present values or patterns of production and consumption”, and “ecologism”, as a deeper ecological perspective, holding that “a sustainable and fulfilling existence presupposes radical changes in our relationship with the natural world, and in our mode of social and political life” (p. 2). At present environmentalism is more influential in behaviour, policies, and strategies but, despite its Utopian nature, Dobson (2000) argues that ecologism: provides the indispensable fundamentalist well of inspiration from which green activists, even the most reformist and respectable, need continually to draw. Green reformers need a radically different picture of post-industrial society, they need deep-ecological visionaries . . . Dark-green politics remind reformists of where they want to go even if they don’t really think they can get there. (p. 202) Adopting Hajer’s (1995) characterisation of environmentalism as “ecological modernization” (p. 25), Connelly and Smith (2003) see it as a particular economy-environment interaction that assumes “a zero-sum trade-off between economic prosperity and environmental concern . . . a ‘win-win’ scenario whereby economic growth and environmental protection can be reconciled” (p. 66). However, despite recording environmental gains through ecological modernisation since the 1970s, Connelly and Smith (2003) register unhappiness with its progress. First, because they share the Greens’ reservation of its “instrumental, use-value of non-human nature” as the only aspect of nature’s value, and its “failure within ecological modernisation to appreciate the diversity of values we associate with the non-human world” (p. 361). Second, because of its interna-

What’s next (2)? 101 tionally unjust implementation, whereby, for example, environmental degradation and pollution are exported to less industrialised nations (and enshrined in global agreements). Nor are they happy with Dobson-style radical ecologism as the only alternative. Instead they argue for “ecological democratization” since “only through the democratisation of our existing political, social and economic institutions (at all levels) will just and environmentally-sustainable policies emerge” (p. 361). Finally they reflect on their own position and set out strategies and beliefs based on how they see the world and what they value: No doubt we will also be accused of succumbing to the utopian impulse. How do we plead? The first response is that we believe that we must work on the material and institutions we have to hand: they cannot be wished away. We need to have strategies to reform global institutions, the state, private corporations and other associations. (Connelly and Smith, 2003, p. 361) Such strategies are beginning to emerge. Agenda 21 not only acknowledges that sustainability needs both enhanced participation and creative institutions capable of nurturing that fuller involvement, but has already fostered innovative forms in local processes. At present Connelly and Smith (2003) believe that “such practices are marginal; that such ideas only tend to emerge at the edges”. However, as communication scholars working ideas inwards from the edge, we believe PR can play a major role in creating innovative, sustainable, participatory, and viable institutions, and in moving them into core business. To that end we endorse Stahl’s (2005) process of “reflective responsibility” (p. 117) to think about our own field’s position, and to develop value-driven and inclusive strategies. Stahl’s process facilitates a “maximal plurality of voices and opinions to discuss future developments and thereby maximizes the chance of finding the adequate description of risk” (p. 128). As a result it helps ensure that, as well as ensuring an ethical acceptability, a responsible profession, as well as a “responsible company . . . has an optimal chance of assessing its environment correctly, thereby maximizing its economic chances of success” (Stahl, 2005, p. 128).

8

Questioning professionalism Cover stories, disciplines, and identities

Questions of value carry over into professional identity. Although differing in what they perceive the problem to be (and who is to blame), diverse critics agree that PR has an image problem (Cropp and Pincus, 2001). The majority response to the problem since at least Edward Bernays, and through Pimlott (1951) to the present day (Cutlip et al., 1994), has been to work towards getting the status of a respected profession for PR. Consequently, professionalism holds a special, if unstable, position in PR. The idea of PR as a profession and its practitioners as professional, brings together six distinct, sometimes interlinked and sometimes conflicting, positions: 1 2

3 4

5

6

as the ideal behaviour of all involved in the field (that is, behaving professionally has intertwined moral and operational dimensions); as a significant, if elusive, benchmark in the search for parity (in economic and occupational prestige), with more established professions such as law and medicine; as technical competence (beyond amateur level that is usually informed by an appropriate education and relevant research); as an effective management function aligned to dominant coalition objectives (that provides bottom line benefits and/or the furtherance of organisational objectives); as a primary justification for higher status within society (because it fosters communication contributing to mutual understandings between organisations and stakeholders, including society as a whole); and as the successful outcome of a struggle for territory, or jurisdiction, in relation to areas of work also claimed by other occupations.

There is clear potential for misunderstanding and conflict in such divided core definitions. Nevertheless, on the basis of assumptions that the foundations of professionalism in the field are solid, attempts have been made to erect important future developments on top of them. In a 1998 article by the co-chair of the Commission on Public Relations Education – a body charged to “provide curricular recommendations to prepare students for careers in the 21st Century” (Kruckeberg, 1998, p. 235) – professionalism comes close to the status of a

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mantra, whose repetition is enough to ensure success for PR in the third millennium. In offering a dissenting view, we consider possibilities using different metaphors of buildings.

Residing metaphors: limited hospitality and ideal homes for professional people Before deconstructing the Commission on Public Relations Education’s future architecture, we look back to earlier debates. Leitch (1995) describes professionalism in New Zealand PR as the Florence Nightingale concept, or, to put it another way, following Nightingale’s view, that what makes a good woman is the same as what makes a good nurse, professionalism becomes “a personal rather than an occupational attribute” (Leitch, 1995, p. 30). From that perspective a hospital, or a nursing home perhaps, might be the field’s best metaphor of residence. But PR remains less hospitable to the care of wider publics than nursing. Christensen (1994) goes to the core of the issue by defining a profession as “an occupation where taking advantage of the customer is against the rules” (p. 28). This concurs with position one outlined above in terms of ideal behaviour, with associations of ethical duties to society. It also raises the question of who are the customers and/or custodians of PR as well as other questions about location and roofing: under whose awnings does PR operate? And who is entitled to share its protection from the rough winds of unfair trade generated by self-interested actions? Such questions point to unacknowledged contradictions in ideas of professionalism and its differing rewards. At a national level there remain unanswered questions about stakeholders who do not have, and are unlikely to have, sufficient impact on organisations to merit consideration. This is amplified as the profession globalises and Western firms and practitioners face the temptation of locking in increasing returns, and higher level strategic work, for Western agencies at the expense of practitioner colleagues, and disadvantaged populations, in emerging nations. The sheer size of the monies involved must act as a financial disincentive to share in globally equitable fashion. The 2005 worldwide fees for independent firms with major US operations reveal that Edelman PR Worldwide had net fees of US$261,858,702, and the aggregate of the top ten totalled US$661,553,390 (O’Dwyer, 2006), allied to the upward trend (every top ten firm had a percentage rise from 2004, with the average being 15.58 per cent) (O’Dwyer, 2006). The second position on professionalism and PR is as a significant, if elusive, benchmark in the search for parity with more prestigious occupations. This tends to be done through other implicit comparisons in relation to traditionally respected professions, and/or by metaphoric association with them. Early on Edward Bernays described PR in terms of the “Engineering of Consent” (see Cutlip, 1994, p. 180), which associated it with the practicality and precision of that applied science. He simultaneously championed the use of the term PR counsel to associate PR with law and psychology. Kruckeberg (1998) continues

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these associations by making analogies between PR and a trinity of desired occupations (engineering, law, and medicine). Alongside those aspirations, the third position in PR professionalism, technical competence above amateur level, seems obvious. However, care needs to be taken that professional proficiency does not form a false facade for an idealised professionalism practising a public service that has no foundation other than technical competence. The involvement of tobacco company PR employees, in, according to Kluger (1997), knowingly promoting life-threatening products – albeit with, perhaps, consummate technique (and considerable success in enlarging markets among Asians, women, and young people) – serves as a salutary reminder that public service and excellent professional technique need not always go together. Knowingly aiming to addict would count as taking advantage of the customer. The fourth position on professionalism is as an effective management function aligned to dominant coalition objectives. In this strategic role PR is promoted as serving the interests of both its customer organisation (the client) – and that client’s publics – rather than primarily, or exclusively, focusing on the interests of the client. The double vision is achieved through the art of “relationship building” where the objective is to unite, as if in happy matrimony and for mutual benefit, the interests of the PR client with those of its key publics (Ledingham and Bruning, 1998) and even a wider society. Although perhaps observed more in theory than practice, Ivy Lee (1925) set the ideal out in relation to a specific organisation: “A sound policy of publicity for a public utility company also involves the adoption of an attitude of citizenship rather than a merely selfish relation to the community at large” (cited in Mackey, 2006).

Testing identity: marketing ACID for PR The problem of PR is clearly not just a matter of image. To claim that PR has an “image problem” is to say that the industry is perceived as being of poor reputation and, by implication, that it can succeed by changing these perceptions. To say that it has an identity problem means questioning who we are and what we do. Accordingly, we deploy the ACID test framework from marketing (Balmer and Soenen, 1999) to consider the underlying identity issue. Originally developed to analyse the constituent elements that make up, not always coherently, an organisation’s identity, Balmer and Soenen’s (1999) ACID test is here adapted to test the soundness of the discipline’s basic building blocks and to determine how securely they fit together. ACID, in the test framework, is an acronym for the Actual, the Communicated, the Ideal, and the Desired components of identity. Putting the ACID to PR we start with the actual. In defining actual identity, the “A” of ACID, Balmer and Soenen (1999) refer to “the values held by the staff and management of the organisation” as well as “how these values are concretely manifested” (p. 83). At this point some of the weaknesses of applying a method designed to evaluate corporate identity to a profession are evident. With PR the problem is magnified

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because we are generally reliant on those who write about PR to communicate the information. However, there are indications that PR practitioners hold “their peers in comparatively poor esteem” and that, in general, “practitioners predominantly view their peers collectively as somewhat unprofessional and unenlightened in comparison to their own self images” (Sallot et al., 1998, p.14). A similar schizophrenic outlook characterises practitioner commitment to national professional bodies. Despite the growth in PR jobs and in membership of professional bodies, such as PRIA (Public Relations Institute of Australia), PRINZ (Public Relations Institute of New Zealand), PRSA (Public Relations Society of America), and IPR (British Institute of Public Relations), large number of practitioners in these countries, and many others, remain unattached to professional bodies. Nor do identity contradictions stop with individual practitioner perception and divisions between institutionalised and homeless, or nomadic, professionals. The history of PR bequeaths a substantial legacy of dubious origins. The ancestry of press agentry, and associations with public manipulation and propaganda, have left contemporary legatees with the problem of struggling to engender a sense of justified professional pride in their past. Here again the ghosts of leading practitioner pasts return to haunt present structures with Ivy Lee’s “great discovery . . . that a posture of candour gave the company room for presenting its version of events” (Filler, 1976, p. 246). Much more substantial ethical practice in the field and ethical education in training will be required to convert postures of candour into the transparent honesty increasingly being imposed by contemporary communication conditions. Given its dubious architectural heritage, in terms of shady practices, PR has to reconsider the foundations of its actual professional identity with care. Few positive associations exist in the public arenas.

Communicated identity: from born in the USA to a Polish pope in Ireland The task of communicating an identity, the “C” of ACID, has already been undertaken by a range of national bodies. Most have aimed to promote a positive identity. One of the more evangelical, and stylistically lively, attempts at such promotion is by Francis Xavier Carty, a former president of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland. In his collection of essays, From John Paul to Saint Jack: Public Relations in Ireland, Carty (1995) dedicates the book “To Pope John Paul II and to Jack Charlton who by coming to Ireland made it possible for this special book not to have a boring old title” (p. v) [NB for those not knowledgeable on soccer Jack Charlton was a famous English player who subsequently managed the Irish national team to enough, seemingly miraculous, success for the supporters to nickname him Saint Jack]. However, along with his witty title, Carty’s book returns us to core contradictions with a section of six statements on PR practice culled from the Public Relations Institute of Ireland. Statement one claims: “The function of public

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relations is to create a climate of mutual understanding between an organisation, the publics which it serves and the community as a whole”. This is clearly an idealised statement aligned to our fifth aspect of professionalism as a primary justification for higher status within organisations and/or society. However by the opening part of the fourth statement, “Public relations is a management function which is responsible for an organisation’s reputation”, there is, equally clearly, the same potential for contradiction between the organisation and some of its publics. In his own foreword Carty cements in the contradiction by claiming simultaneously that “Public relations is an honourable and honest profession” and, “an essential component of the management structure of any organisation” (Carty, 1995, pp. xi, xii), without acknowledging how manipulative engineering of consent has engendered a climate of public distrust. The ACID test of communicated identity must encompass investigating how PR manages its own reputation, how its various stakeholders view that reputation, and how media coverage constructs the industry. Carty is typical of PR spokespeople in conflating professionalism as public service with professionalism as a valuable management function, while ignoring the potential for conflict as in covering up a CEO’s unethical conduct. How well do claims that professionals “are deserving of honor and esteem” (Baskin et al., 1997, p. 49) stand up? How honourable is the skilled management of company reputation when that company may pose serious risks to public health or peddle scientific proof for untested medical products (McKie and Robertson, 2001)? In New Zealand, prominent practitioners are active in calming concerns over genetic modifications – labelled Frankenstein food in the press. Now while some of those fears may well be groundless, the scientific jury is still divided on long term outcomes. There are strong possibilities of replicating the bogus use of science by cigarette companies. When agencies deal with unethical clients they run the risk of ethical taint and it is time that PR came cleaner rather than claiming absolute purity through assertions of being “an honest and honourable profession” and claiming that “Public relations professionals deal in reality, not in trying to create false or misleading images” (PRII, cited in Carty, 1995, p. xi). Communicated identity also concerns media coverage. Neither factual nor fictional media texts give much credence to the claim that practitioners “deal in reality” rather than “false or misleading images”. Hollywood films in particular depict PR people as consummately skilled at throwing the American public off the scent of democratic truth. From the political manipulations of Primary Colours to Robert De Niro’s Wag the Dog portrayal of a spin doctor who manufactures a war to distract attention from the American president’s sexual harassment of underage girls, fictional film disregards PR practitioners’ pleas to belong to an honourable profession. Even an attempt to portray the female PR practitioner as hero – in the 1997 Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle, Sliding Doors – has her character tell the agency’s board of directors that we all know “public relations is bullshit” within five minutes of the movie starting. Television showed a similar lack of respect by making PR the subject of situation comedy in the US with Spin City, in the UK with Absolutely Fabulous and

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Absolute Power, and in New Zealand with Spin Doctors, all of which ran for more than one series, suggesting that the public had no problem with not taking PR seriously. In the political communication arena this changed dramatically with the television series The West Wing, which offers a valuable, albeit fictional, corrective to dubious tactics by President George W. Bush and his PR staff. Political communicators in the show are consistently shown as fully embodied characters with plausible moral dilemmas in juggling their support for their employer, the US President, with a commitment to public good: Presidential public relations not only exists in official Washington communications, it also exists in the virtual White House of the television show, The West Wing . . . Creator Aaron Sorkin’s television character and “textual president” (Finn, 2003, p. 101), Jed Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen), “is more an embodiment of the complexity of the issue than an ideologically driven proponent of one political vision” (p. 107) . . . Alongside him, the rhetorical control room of The West Wing’s White House communication staff, according to political scientist Samuel Chambers (2003), “may not only widen the American political spectrum but also open the space of the political” (p. 83) . . . Building on Habermasian theory, Chambers (2003) further argues, convincingly, that the widened dialogue is itself political, that such public conversations, in the sense of discussions that are open to significant numbers of the population, not only create change but they are changed even when consensus is impossible: “what they agree on is the importance of disagreement to politics and to democracy” (p. 93). (McKie and Munshi, forthcoming) Nevertheless PR cannot control its mediated identity, and, The West Wing aside, it mostly emerges as an illegitimate industry, as “a bastard child, a waif that was not wanted even by those [journalists] who temporarily took it in” (Baskin et al., 1997, p. 49). Less plaintively, we argue that while PR protests its honour so much, it simultaneously owns up to so little that is less than honourable, that general incredulity will continue with good cause.

Planning futures: ACID dreams and university premises An application of “ideal identity”, the “I” in Balmer and Soenen’s (1999) ACID test, to the practice of PR, involves such features as its optimum strengths, capabilities, values, behaviour, and performances. This requires judgement calls about how PR can best work for its dominant coalition, client organisations, for its publics, and for itself across a range of locations. After all, as Pearson (1989) observed a decade ago, “public relations is situated at precisely that point where competing interests collide” (p. 67). From our perspective PR can, and should, consolidate its role as a management function, but understand that this brings with it particular consequences. One key point concerns power in relation to the dominant coalition and this is

108 Questioning professionalism one power question where PR is vocal. In order to keep management in check morally, top practitioners in the organisation would not only be representatives, or the communicators of management policy, but accountable for its implications. For this to happen, PR would need to more universally realise its desired position as advisor to the CEO or dominant coalition. For J. Grunig and the symmetrists, and Carty and the Public Relations Institute of Ireland, that is a cornerstone axiom. However, in the more responsible position PR practitioners would be forced to look more closely at the assumption that they are fit to operate as the “conscience” of organisations. Greater power to shape strategy makes questions of affinity of interests and who benefits from the strategy sharper. At present, it would be hard for any outside observer to see why PR participation would improve boardroom ethics, other than with practitioners sensitive to activist demands. Organisations like the Public Relations Society of America, or the Public Relations Society of New Zealand, supply the markers of the “D” or desired identity of the ACID test for PR. This desired identity is explicitly outlined in the guiding principles of such organisations that strive to promote ethical behaviour and professionalism in PR practice. It is here that the profession overtly presents itself as determined to work in the public interest, according to the highest standards of honesty and integrity, accuracy and truth, and fair dealing. Part of that endeavour is to seek university approval and accreditation, or to accredit existing awards as suitable qualifications for entry into PR practice. There are good grounds for viewing PR’s entry into university curricula, and the associated social and intellectual status, as resulting less from the discipline’s academic status and more from a response to increased demand for vocational qualifications “to serve business and industrial interests” (L’Etang and Pieczka, 2006b, p. 433). Furthermore, as L’Etang and Pieczka continue, academia and PR practitioners have been in conflict about how, and by whom, PR should be taught. The trend is happening at a time when a building metaphor applied to the university is “warehouse” (Walshok, 1995, p. 3) – a discursive move registering a downgrade in status by its association with common storage and cheap sales. Yet we want to argue that universities can and do offer prospects for engaging with contradictions in professionalism. A current advantage of universities in New Zealand, for example, is their positioning as social critics or social conscience. As PR educators in New Zealand, we occupy a position that is protected from employers in a way that practitioners are not. Our privileged position allows us to be as concerned with social justice issues and “as much with the problems and dilemmas of intellectual knowledge as with the problems and dilemmas of action-based knowledge” (Walshok, 1995, p. 32), and to be concerned with occupants as much as buildings as in Tierney’s (1993) Building Communities of Difference: Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century. For this reason, we oppose moving too far in the direction proposed by Kruckeberg (1998) who would further strengthen the profession and profes-

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sional associations in decisions about educational aims and content. We are committed to sustaining university ideals – even when they are in many cases as contradictory and tarnished as those of PR – and producing critical and intelligent, as well as professionally useful graduates. Inside and outside ivory towers, many PR people are doing their best to do the right thing. For this to “translate into clear social benefits” (Walshok, 1995, p. 32) at present means, for us, sounding alarm bells. The strategy of buttressing PR edifices with short term business scaffolding is risky during times of rapid change. Danger signals can already be seen. The Henley Centre’s UK research discovered that “only 15% of the public broadly trusts multinational businesses to be honest and fair (compared with 27% who trust their newspaper, 39% who trust accountants and 83% who trust their GPs)” (cited in Mercer, 1998, p. 109). Since, in the public eye and in mainstream media representations of its activities, PR already lacks credibility, then too premature a decision to align with dominant coalitions without considerable forethought, open discussion, and academic checks and balances, may dangerously undermine its foundations and effectiveness.

Marketing matters: intimations of integration, demarcation disputes, and marketing after modernism Our sixth and final professionalisation position is when a profession emerges as the successful outcome of a struggle for territory, or jurisdiction, in relation to areas of work also claimed by other occupations. This sense is not widespread, and still controversial in PR. We use it to focus on demarcation disputes vital to PR in the wake of integrated marketing communication (IMC). Although IMC, as Hutton (2001) perceptively notes, “might be a necessary transitional term between advertising and marketing communication . . . the word integrated is superfluous, at best, and is little more than a confession that non-integrated or disintegrated communications have been the norm in the past [italics in original]” (p. 209). Along the sometimes ill-defined boundaries between advertising, marketing, and PR and between journalism and PR, between PR, relationship marketing, reputation management, and social marketing, and between human relations and PR, occupants of the different fields have proposed cooperative ventures, fought border wars, studiously ignored each other, and formed alliances. Theoretical alliances tend to undergo periodic shifts. In “Public relations and marketing practice”, Ehling et al. (1992) identified what, at that time, they perceived as the field’s top four theoretical influences: interorganisational theory; management and decision theory; communication theory; and conflict-resolution theory. In elaborating they drew heavily from two sources: Peter Drucker’s (1969, 1980) early writings on managing during uncertain times; and, although marketing was not one of the top four, Philip Kotler (1976, 1982, 1986, 1988). Since 1992, Drucker significantly developed his ideas, and Kotler has extended his – and had them radically challenged (Brown, 1995, 1998). However, Ehling et al. (1992) were most concerned to defend PR against colonisation by marketing and

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concluded with the strong recommendation that the “public relations function of excellent organizations exists separately from the marketing function, and excellent public relations departments are not subsumed into the marketing function” (p. 390). We share their aim of avoiding being “subsumed” but, outside of PR – and that includes marketing – the empirical proof of excellence has not established enough of a presence to act as a barrier. Tensions between the two professions are not anything new. However, Toledano’s (forthcoming) summary of sociological models of the development of professions (based on Abbott, 1988), supports our sixth sense of profession as the outcome of a territorial dispute: the emergence and disappearance of professions result from the competition between them. In his [Abbott’s] account journalism crystallized its professional identity by divorcing itself from public relations. In a mirror reflection, public relations scholars describe the emergence of public relations as a consequence of its divorce from journalism and advertising. Thus public relations practitioners are assumed to assert themselves as professionals by defining the differences between their practice and the other occupations from which they evolved. There is historical warrant for this approach. The Publicity Bureau, which has claims to be the first twentieth century PR firm, was set up in Boston in 1900 to head off journalistic criticism of railroad companies. In one of the field’s most cited documents, Ivy Lee wrote that his firm, Lee and Parker, was “not a secret press bureau” because its “work is done in the open” and “our plan is frankly and openly, on behalf of business concerns and public institutions, to supply to the press and public . . . prompt and accurate information concerning subjects . . . of value and interest to the public” (cited in Ewen, 1996, p. 77). Railroad workers disagreed to the extent of calling him “Poison Ivy Lee” and relations between practitioners and certain key publics, notably environmentalists (Athanasiou, 1996), remain noxious to this day. Poisonous imagery and accusations of mendacity combine in the bestselling anti-PR book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Stauber and Rampton, 1995). Its success owes much to the field’s neglect of self-critical reflection. Without more robust self-criticism, PR will deserve to retain its poor reputation. Later in the decade, Hunt and McKie (1998) researched the impact of marketing on the autonomy of PR in the Australasian banking industry. Their findings of reduced autonomy in the banking sector’s move towards traditional marketing went against the grain of the future projections in marketing (Popcorn, 1996) and PR (Turnbull, 1996). In addition, in relation to contemporary theory, what they identified as the industry’s narrowly modernist emphasis also led it to committing two of Drucker’s (1995) updated five deadly business sins: “the worship of high profit margins” (p. 47) and the “slaughtering tomorrow’s opportunity on the altar of yesterday” (p. 48).

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The same Australian banking research takes a similar position in arguing against the sector’s policies of expanding marketing departments and strategies at the expense of PR staffing and perspectives. It concluded that by “rejecting the profit at all cost mentality of the modernist industrial age, banks can aim to relate with all publics and can invest in the domain of greater social and environmental responsibility” (Hunt and McKie, 1998, p. 111). This includes modernity’s implicit assumption that inexhaustible environmental resources underpin modernity’s progress although, in “marketing terms the end of the world will be very big” (Elton, 1994, cover), and anyone “trying to save it should remember that”. A factor in the continuing short term thinking is the frequency of corporate leaders “with a traditional production, marketing, or accounting orientation” (Zand, 1997, p. 21). This state of affairs has since been disturbed by the “defection” to PR of leading marketing strategist Al Ries, whose book, co-authored by Jack Trout, on positioning was so influential that it led to a twentieth anniversary special edition (Ries and Trout, 2000). Ries went on to build an additional reputation through work on marketing warfare (Ries and Trout, 1997), branding (Ries and Ries, 1998), and Internet branding (Ries and Ries, 2000). This history increased the impact of Ries and Ries’ (2002) book, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, with its front cover announcement from the CEO of Edelman PR Worldwide that “It’s the end of the era of advertising domination . . . great brands are built with PR” (cover) and, inside, the authors’ own unambiguous proclamation that marketing “has entered the era of public relations” (p. xxi). This publication helped establish the value of PR in the commercial communication configuration. While one book is a harbinger rather than an arrival, it recognises the commercial return on investment on intangible aspects of PR. In a narrow, more tangibles-based accounting climate, PR was too often treated unequally and not respected for pursuing roles other than the support of marketing. That climate was already unstable because of the challenges thrown up by the effects of changes in technology, leisure, and levels of community cynicism on marketing and advertising throughout the 1990s. The increasing cynicism and sophistication of audiences who do not believe advertisements anymore (Goldman and Papson, 1996); increased advertising costs coupled with a decreasing audience due to cable TV, videos; and the readily-used fast forward button question the effectiveness of “mass market” concepts and strategies (Wells et al., 1998). Furthermore, the globalisation of information which means that people can access information and/or buy via the Internet, and increasing demands that companies be good corporate citizens and care for the environment, mean that many consumers are more concerned about these aspects of a company than what it might claim through advertising.

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Competing disciplines: marketing offensives and partial colonisation As part of the drive to maintain its relevance to business, marketing theory regularly reworks its definitions. Kotler had earlier gone so far as to define “exchange not [only] in economic terms but also in social-psychological terms in which at least two parties have something of value for each other” (Ehling et al., 1992, p. 380). As Ehling et al. (1992) go on to comment, once “marketing can be extended to the exchange of gossip, hunting with a dog, or a mother nursing her baby, it would appear that one has reached a point where the term marketing is being used in an unusual and unhelpful way” (p. 381). Nevertheless the expansion of territory accompanying Kotler’s semantic stretch has helped marketing to sell itself as providing a comprehensive service. For PR there have been various outcomes: at the customer and agency coalfaces, marketing tends to ignore the reality of PR and PR roles that do not narrowly support marketing objectives and practices; advertising and marketing firms have been buying up PR agencies; and theoretically and practically, marketing is taking over the territory of PR (Hutton, 2001). Since the early 1990s what many marketing and advertising agencies have been doing to maintain relevance is to add a couple of PR staff and promote themselves as offering a comprehensive service. Frequently, however, that service is limited to publicity used to back up advertising and marketing. Leading PR academic and consultant, Robert Heath (1998a), categorised the integrated marketing or integrated communication movement in the US as, largely, a move to have PR serve only the marketing function and get inexpensive promotion and publicity. The naked nature of the colonising trend is revealed in two books. The first is Hugh Davidson’s (1998) Even More Offensive Marketing, which promotes the value of POISE. The POISE acronym stands for: Profitable, Offensive, Integrated (“in the Offensive Marketing company everyone is a marketer”), Strategic, and Effectively executed (pp. 15–16). Relations with publics outside of the target groups are the obvious neglected element and the ambiguity of the term offensive neatly encapsulates many of the problems PR encounters with such direct territorial invasions. More modestly, in our second illustrative text, The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations, Thomas Harris (1991) simply lifts the most marketing-relevant elements of PR and renames the captured terrain “public relations marketing”. As Heath (1998a) observed, these kinds of views mean that organisations miss out on such other functions as “community relations, donor relations, employee relations, government relations, issues management and media relations” or vital jobs that are the province of PR. These aspects receive little attention in marketing and businesses which tend to have a short term focus, and concentrate on short term profits. By positioning PR as only marketing support, organisations run the risk of limiting relationships with a wide range of publics and, consequently, over the longer term, limiting profits. Short-termism is highly visible in the other wing of marketing’s ongoing –

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sometimes in strategic alliance with advertising – scramble for territory that is traditionally in the domain of PR. The offensive typically deals with any preexisting claims to areas by PR in one of two ways. The first is by silent incorporation of the territory without any indication of its prior history in PR. In one typical text, Advertising and Sales Promotion Strategy, Gerard Tellis (1998) leans on integrated communications concepts but explicitly restricts promotion to consisting “primarily of advertising and sales promotion”. In similar restrictive fashion, Tellis (1998) “integrates perspectives from a number of disciplines including marketing, economics, psychology, anthropology and operations research” (p. vii) but excludes PR which does not rate a single index, let alone chapter, mention in the new promotional mix. Marketing’s second way of invading PR domains can, paradoxically, often reveal the strong bottom line value of PR denied by the first. Burnett and Moriarty’s (1998) Introduction to Marketing Communication: An Integrated Approach, for example, concedes that the “Porter/Novelli public relations agency leads most Gillette product launch campaigns and works closely with other agencies . . . to establish the market” (p. 343). Indeed so successful was the Sensor campaign – selling twice as much as the company had forecast – that the Gillette marketing manager concluded that “PR was a key part of our strategy” but “we were not really prepared for the level of success it achieved” (p. 344). Burnett and Moriarty’s tactics, and they are paralleled by others, such as Belch and Belch’s (1998) Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, directly address prior occupancy by PR. Both books minimise any difficulty by minor acknowledgments so that PR is given a single mention in one chapter heading in each book’s contents. Thus both books simultaneously acknowledge, and diminish, the PR contribution to an integrated communications perspective emphatically centred on marketing. Nevertheless, Ehling et al. (1992), while we support their efforts to keep PR distinct from marketing, need to stay responsive to shifts in marketing. Otherwise they will remain unprepared for the way “marketing thought is evolving toward a public relations perspective to such an extent that marketing is essentially redefining itself as public relations” (Hutton, 2001, p. 211). The underlying rationale for marketing encroachments can be found in how some define “IMC as ‘the process of strategically developing or controlling or influencing all messages used to build and nourish relationships with customers and other stakeholders’ [emphases added]” and others describe “advertising’s job as ‘controlling the message,’ public relations’ job as ‘managing the dialogue’ ” and “relationship marketing’s job as ‘interacting with publics’ ” (Hutton, 2001, p. 211). Along with Ehling et al. (1992), Hutton (2001), too, picks up Kotler but as “perhaps marketing’s most visionary thinker over the past 25 years”, and instead of dismissing his enlargement of marketing to encompass ever-wider human activities, he notes Kotler’s specific positioning of marketing’s third level of consciousness as concerned with “an organization’s attempts to relate to all of its publics, not just its consuming public” (pp. 211–212). Hutton concludes that the varying definitions “are nearly identical, and all are simply definitions of

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public relations as it has been practiced by more enlightened organizations for years” (p. 212).

Community halls and social marketing By those outside the profession, and not employing it, PR still tends to be seen as inhabiting a house of ill-repute. The fifth professionalism position, as a primary justification for higher social status because of its contribution to the larger community, falls down before public scepticism. There is sufficient evidence in the public arena for that scepticism to be justified as an identity, rather than an image, problem. As a way forward we suggest that the PR field looks to build a metaphoric community hall, with rooms set aside for enterprising associations where business and social goals can be integrated. To get construction underway will take changes in three directions: the first by increasing professional position one (i.e. by increasing the ideal behaviour, and being seen to be increasing that conduct); the second, by developing position six (i.e. by claiming jurisdiction, and, more specifically claiming it in areas of social benefit); and the third, by developing a reflexive inclusive vision through open dialogue that offers progressive leadership directions to dominant coalitions. Although the three are not mutually exclusive, we consider each in turn. The first position’s (increasing ideal behaviour) positive side involves massively increasing transparency. The field’s implication in corporate and political power has to be made visible voluntarily (before, for example, it is “outed” by investigative journalism); its communicative resources shared more widely, along the lines of Moloney’s (2006) PR resource equalisation proposals; and its CSR initiatives need to be less ethnocentric and less self-interested (and acknowledge self-interest when it exists). The positive side can be further augmented by following Hobsbawm’s (2006c) “Inside Out Information”, and, wherever possible, her practice of integrity PR by taking clients with shared moral values. The ideal behaviour’s negative side involves rooting out unethical approaches that occur through deliberate non-disclosure. Both sides have cost implications. The positive side adds to overheads (e.g. staff time and expertise to post material onto a website) and Sherwood’s (2006) editorial pricing as “worth three times paid space” (p. 211) would come down in value, at least initially, if it was not generally believed to be impartial and the source not disguised. The negative side, by scrutinising unethical developments, would impinge on such cash-generating innovations as guerrilla PR, part of which practices new deceits on publics. In this area the textbook has a valid gatekeeping role to exclude the unethical, but some evidence to date does not auger well. Lattimore et al. (2004) present guerrilla tactics as “ ‘under the line,’ which means they aren’t standard operating procedures” (p. 264). They state, with one illustrative case of a phoney movie reviewer, that they “can boomerang if not done honestly” (p. 265). Nevertheless, even in their example of paying trendy young people or actors to “visit clubs and bars, initiating brand conversations with the question, ‘What are you drinking?’ ”, their major problem seems to be that “the

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practitioner gives up a good deal of control by using them” (p. 264). The omission of the fact that there is pay for this behaviour continues the old unseen power in deceitful fashion. Worse still, in a direct contradiction of the same book’s reprinting of PRSA Code Provisions on “Protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information” (Lattimore et al., 2004, p. 81), the authors note, in what is positioned as a trigger to legitimate PR tactics, that “Journalists report using rumors and hearsay on web chatrooms and online news stories, often without verifying the information with an outside source” (p. 265). In concert, both the transparency and the ethical scrutiny will reduce deception, make PR power seen for what it is, and will therefore provide less for the media to uncover (and be paranoid about), as well as demonstrating behaviour appropriate to “an occupation where taking advantage of the customer is against the rules” (Christensen, 1994, p. 28). A second foundation stone for our community hall construction project concerns jurisdiction, which we see as the key shaper of profession creation, change, and maintenance. Both offensive and defensive measures are required here. PR, as Cheney and Christensen (2006) observe, “has tended to ignore, hold static, or even render invisible the internal affairs of organizations, including the values, opinions and preferences of employees” (p. 101). Traditionally, proactive steps in this area have been left to human relations management. Currently, there is an opportunity for our field to intervene positively by changing its mindset of internal communication to employee engagement (an increasingly hot topic for corporations). In this case the bottom line is in PR’s favour as calculations have been developed to suggest that return on investment (ROI) increases significantly in relation to relatively small improvements in employee commitment. According to Hewitt Associates data, companies with workforce engagement scores “of 60% or higher have an average 5-year total shareholder return (TSR) of over 20%. Those between 40% and 60% have nearly 6% average TSR, and those with an engagement level below 40% have an average TSR of 10%” (Hewitt Associates website, n.d.). These turn the intangibles of enthusiastic workers into bottom line returns. By increasing the happiness of the workforce, PR can be associated with positive social benefits that will spread beyond places of employment. What Barber and Strack’s (2005) Harvard Business Review article calls “The surprising economics of a ‘people business’ ” (p. 88) also provides a formula for valuing those intangible people factors positively and open similar opportunities for PR to profitably occupy territory held by human relations and promote greater enterprise and social responsibility. Specific lessons on employee communication can be taken from Langer and Thorup’s (2006) “Polyphonic storytelling and strategic change communication in an airline company”, which describes an empowering bottom-up programme at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). Formerly a state-owned company, SAS faced severe competition from the rise of low price airlines and embarked on an employee-led change initiative which included a loosely unstructured photography exercise “to open the eyes of the change agents and employees to the

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culture and values that the organization had incorporated into its everyday practice” (Langer and Thorup, 2006, p. 73). Photography was used: to make the employees feel secure about the project, as well as demonstrating that their views would be listened to. Asking all the members . . . to take photographs is also a way of encouraging dialogue between members, thereby encouraging a sense of belonging . . . Humour, self-irony, and creativity were vital elements and driving forces behind the exercise, the aim of which was to allow employees to tell their own stories about the organization instead of disciplining them by telling them a single story from above based on the management’s value statement. (Langer and Thorup, 2006, p. 73) When marketing is this creative and democratic it merits imitation and shows how to activate elements of an enterprise culture as a possible future direction for PR. However, another trajectory of marketing thought, in Hutton’s (2001) perceptive analysis, has been “redefining itself as public relations” (p. 211). Five years on his insight has been further confirmed by the publication of Kotler and Lee’s (2006) Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause. The publisher’s blurb claims that the authors “show business leaders how to choose social causes, design charity initiatives, gain employee support, and evaluate their efforts” (Amazon.com). To stay competitive and to maintain a point of differentiation from marketing, which has a more fully fledged commitment to the visible bottom line, PR CSR initiatives need to be less self-interested, less ethnocentric, and less intensively spun in favour of the corporation. Alongside adopting an attack mode towards human relations territory, PR needs to take defensive action in relation to new incursions by marketing. As internal communication needs to be repackaged into employee engagement as an offensive move, so CSR and traditional aspects need to be reasserted as core PR business to defend them against marketing incursions. In addition, a great opportunity for the profession to earn a positive social reputation and to retain future job opportunities lies in the expanding realm of social marketing. Swift action will be necessary. Andreasen’s (2006) Social Marketing in the 21st Century builds on his formative role in creating a field of social marketing by extending marketing’s already strong grip on it and projecting it into the future. In this new book, Andreasen provides both a guide on how to do social marketing, and a reflection on his long experiences in the field. Beginning with questions on where social problems come, he supplements his answers with the realisation that they do not get tackled “unless they rise on the public agenda to the point where one or more segments of society attempts to address them” (Andreasen, 2006, p. 12). To achieve that, in Toledano’s (2006) interpretation, “social marketers need to employ distinctive public relations tools such as lobbying, community relations, and media relations” but Andreasen “hardly men-

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tions public relations as a relevant discipline, does not suggest employing the expertise of its practitioners to improve social marketing campaigns, or even recommend public relations textbooks as the source of the needed skills” (p. 320). This is in line with the invisible incorporation of PR by the Integrated Marketing Communication movement although it may result from a lack of knowledge about what PR does beyond media relations. Andreasen’s (2006) new shift in thinking moves away from what he calls “downstream applications” (p. 6), and attempts to influence specific audiences who may have anti-social or unhealthy behaviour patterns, but who may be more victims of the system than examples of individual deviance. Andreasen questions the earlier absence of attention “upstream”, and asks if concern “about influencing smokers or would-be smokers” was misplaced “when perhaps we should be paying much more attention to influencing the behavior of the tobacco industry that is creating smokers at the first place?” (p. 7). This willingness to consider a larger social picture includes as part of its domain the following social challenges: Societies are also constantly seeking change – seeking ways to overcome problems both grand and trivial and to make the lives of individuals and their problems both grand and trivial and to make the lives of individuals and their environment significantly (or at least somewhat) better. They seek change through grassroots mobilization efforts such as MADD [Mothers Against Drunk Driving]. They rely on major organisations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), or the Ford Foundation to address problems such as high birthrates in struggling Asian, African, and Latin American economies or finding missing children in the United States. They work through nonprofits or corporations such as Avon to tackle breast cancer. They ask their legislators to pass laws and regulations requiring better product labelling or prohibiting smoking in public places. (Andreasen, 2006, p. 4) We think that this list, and it is accompanied by another on concerns “about preventing change [italics in original]” (Andreasen, 2006, p. 4), might catalyse PR reflections on our social role. We recommend that PR contest the territory currently being staked out by social marketing, especially for environmental, egalitarian, health, and socially beneficial campaigns, and to explore how PR can catalyse social enterprise locally, nationally, and internationally.

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PR history (Ltd) Postmodernising empiricism, selling stories, and telling tales

Hutton (2001) justified his call for identifying PR’s core purpose in order to defend against the encroachment of marketing. Elsewhere, the field’s failure to find a commonly agreed definition for PR has often been seen as a major drawback in its quest for academic and professional legitimacy. Cropp and Pincus, for example, tackle “The mystery of public relations: Unraveling its past, unmasking its future” and what they term “the field’s fuzzy and continually gerrymandered boundaries” (2001, p. 189). Despite such assertions that PR needs a clearer definition to be effective, some confusion in the discipline is partly the result of a fight for its jurisdiction and future. Other confusion is partly a consequence of limited knowledge of the past of PR and of how versions of that past have been deployed by PR practitioners and theorists to serve current ends. Histories involve an account of live struggles. Discussion of PR history, however, has to begin by drawing attention to deficits. Indeed, we not only agree with Miller’s (1999) assessment that “the scholarly record on the history of public relations is . . . slim” (p. 2), but would extend the body metaphor to claim that it is closer to anorexic. This is not to denigrate the efforts of those who are not qualified as historians per se. In fact, because so few qualified historians have been interested in the field, without those less professional attempts, there would be virtually nothing but unread records in archives. Nevertheless, the consequence, which in part stems from the circumstances of the originators, is a need for more histories, and for more professional histories, in terms of quality, range, and theory. There are, as previously illustrated in Chapter 3, gains to be made by drawing from the experiences of international relations as a roughly congruent discipline. Schmidt’s (2002) retrospective chapter “On the history and historiography of IR [International Relations]” has a number of pertinent observations that are transferable. One is the critique with “respect to the existing state of the available literature on the history of the field”, which is “ ‘usually not based on systematic accounts or clear methods’ and . . . [so] amounts to little more than ‘elegant restatements’ of ‘common knowledge’ of our past, implicitly assuming that any good practitioner can tell the history of the discipline” (p. 7). As we shall see, practitioner accounts feature prominently in PR. However, Schmidt (2002) concludes, “while the lack of theoretical sophistication is definitely rooted in the

PR history (Ltd) 119 assumption that practitioners already know the history of the field, additional factors are at work in reinforcing the tendency to simplify, and thus distort, that history” (p. 7). This chapter identifies some of these factors operating in PR history and historiography.

Back to the “new” history: from innocence to interests A primary challenge of PR history is size. As with many relatively recent and relatively small disciplines, its past needs bulking up because too many of its accounts are unique and unchallenged, or under-unchallenged, and in need of pluralising with robust perspectives. This is even more true of the outdated nature of the field’s historiography. It is not just that there is a shortage of material, but that there is not enough material that is reflective in relation to its mode of operation. In this lament, we join others (see Toth and Heath, 1992) in regretting the premature loss of Ron Pearson, whose chapter “Perspectives on public relations history” (Pearson, 1992) set out a preliminary agenda sensitive to postmodern and reflexivity issues and whose analyses exemplified the gains possible in that framework. Perspectives from elsewhere illustrate what the field is missing. We focus on the new history movement at some length. This is not so much for reasons of its intrinsic importance, but more as an example for the kinds of things that are missing and an early form of many of the concerns of history associated with postmodernism. Beginning over three decades ago, ideas historian Haydon White (1973, 1980, 1987) published a series of books proposing what might be called a reformatting of histories in general. The object of White’s (1987) attention was the traditional view that: what distinguishes “historical” from “fictional” stories is first and foremost their content, rather than their form. The content of historical stories is real events, events that really happened, rather than imaginary events, events invented by the narrator. This implies that the form in which historical events present themselves to a prospective narrator is found rather than constructed . . . The story told is a mimesis of the story lived in some region of historical reality, and insofar as it is an accurate imitation, it is considered to be a truthful account thereof. (p. 27) White accumulated evidence to argue that historians need to take into account the role of imagination, metaphor, and narrative as constituent features of all written histories. He attacked the abdication of the discipline to a mere gathering and verifying of facts. His 1970s book, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (White, 1973), for instance, illustrates how linguistic tropes play a key role in the construction of historical consciousness. As a consequence historians can no longer claim innocence in relation to their historical material, because any approach is necessarily structured through

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such already-existing tropes as metaphor and irony. Extrapolating from this to the position that “there is no inherent truth to be found in the documentary materials that constitute it” (White, 1973, p. 397), he poses a radical historical challenge that PR is not currently well placed to meet. Since there is likely to be a time gap before the next generation of histories are elaborated, the field would do well to follow his lead. It might usefully debate what kind of verbal artefacts can best be combined to reveal “additional layers of discursively constructed explanation” (White, 1973, p. 397). These might possibly turn out to be determining the sense being made of the past rather than simply claiming to “record” it neutrally. White was in the vanguard of the post-prefixed side of what historiography theorist Alan Munslow (2000) – characterises as a modernist-postmodernist divide. In Munslow’s (2000) summary, the challenge to modernist history “has been to deprivilege its thinking as the way to knowing about our changing selves over time” (p. 1). The challenge seeks to undermine modernists’ associated attachment to the importance of “empirically derived knowledge of the past” disconnected from theory: “For modernist – unlike postmodernist – history, the written representation of empiricism’s discoveries is an issue less significant than the verification and comparison of the evidence” (2000, p. 1). Postmodernist accounts of the past suggest that the framing of the facts can be more important than the facts themselves. Lacking in numbers of historians, let alone numbers of “professional” historians, existing accounts of the past in PR devote the majority of their space to recording finds from archives, official sources, and interview data (supported often by photographs presented uncritically as evidence without any contextual semiotic considerations). That is to say they align with a modernist emphasis on empirical evidence. Not surprisingly, given its implications, White’s postmodern-style approach had an early impact on historiography. However, while he found forerunners in nineteenth century European writing, no PR historian appears to have acknowledged the shift in focus, let alone applied the techniques, that his work advocated. Accordingly, building on his findings that all historical approaches are necessarily structured through existing tropes, such as metaphor and irony, we explore what can be gleaned from the titles of the major historical works on PR.

Metaphoric titles: (in)visible imaging, sensuousness, and ventriloquist voicing The following eight book-length volumes of PR histories fall into Munslow’s (2000) modernist camp in emphasising “empiricism’s discoveries” (p. 1). Three of the titles signal this explicitly by their inclusion of actual time periods: The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: U.S. Business and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century (Galambos and Pratt, 1988); Public Relations and Business: 1900–1929 (Raucher, 1968); and Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900–1950 (Tedlow, 1979). Despite these auguries of empiricism in the titles, metaphor, as White’s insights would suggest, also carries part of their meaning.

PR history (Ltd) 121 Apart from the metaphor-neutral title of Raucher (1968), and the relatively minor spatial metaphor of “rise” in Galambos and Pratt (1988), we were surprised to find they can nearly all be clustered under the heading of sense or sensuousness. Consider each of following three benchmarks in their respective genres. In the closest the field has to “total” history, Scott Cutlip’s (1994) The Unseen Power: Public Relations, A History (and “unseen” reappears in his two shorter versions of PR history (Cutlip, 1995, 1997)), is focused on sight (or rather its absence). In the field’s pioneering period history, Tedlow (1979) continues the visual emphasis through the final word in the first part of his title, Keeping the Corporate Image (and a fourth historian, Marchand, 1998, also uses “imagery” in his title). Finally, in the third case of corporate PR history, Olasky’s (1987) Corporate Public Relations: A New Historical Perspective, also evokes the sense of sight by its use of “perspective” (although it has become diluted by widespread usage as a metaphor for mental activity). The sensual motif, albeit in more tactile form (or through different sense organs), emerges in two other historical works that appeared in the 1990s. The first is Ewen’s (1996) archive-based and culturally-driven research, PR! A Social History of Spin. Although very different in terms of approach, background, and political position to the others, Ewen maintains a connection with the senses. This too is partly muted by the widespread discursive metamorphosis from the origins of spin as a hands-on activity with a ball into an almost universally accepted synonym for PR and/or its activities. The referencing through sense continues, although the channel shifts from sight and touch in Kathleen Miller’s (1999) The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations. Prior to beginning this exploration, we had neither expected, nor consciously considered, the presence of this metaphoric sensuousness. Nevertheless, titles invoke tangibility through sense perception and may be a conscious, or unconscious (Ewen, after all, is drawing on a common, often pejorative, term in wide circulation), way of bringing PR out of “concealment” and into a more public view. Cutlip’s (1994) conceptualisation of PR as “unseen” consciously bridges the potential gap between tangible and intangible. His evocation of a hidden aspect has connotations of the famous “invisible hand” of Adam Smith’s (1776/1996) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and its antonymic echo in Chandler’s (1977) The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Similarly Ewen’s (1996) adoption of the term spin, while connoting movement or pressure, mobilises associations of being applied out of sight or concealed in some way, and so also involves an “outing” of the discipline’s hidden aspect. Miller (1999) goes a stage further towards positioning at least one major PR consultancy as ventriloquist, or megaphone, for US enterprise: “Hill & Knowlton believed its mission was twofold: to amplify the voice of business when its leaders had specific messages to send, and, at the same time, to educate Americans about the role of big business generally” (p. 189). Although Miller (1999) chooses the term “amplify” and puts her chosen PR firm into an education and transmission role, rather than as an initiator, her book

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reveals the firm’s founder, and its early workforce, as having an almost missionary-style belief in the selling of the US as a capitalist nation to its own citizens, and then internationally. In more critical fashion, Roland Marchand’s (1998) Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business covers similar matters further back in time. On a scale beyond any individual firm, Marchand (1998), as his title indicates, moves to the less tangible concept of soul and sees the PR industry as humanising, deifying, and popularising the “soulless” (p. 7) giants of early twentieth century North American capitalism. Using uniquely religious-inflected discourse, he saw the promotional evangelists of the new high church of capital as aiming for three objectives: to convert public discontent to gratitude; to reimage the big corporate brother as the “good neighbor” (p. 361); and to popularise welfare capitalism. All bar one of these six titles can be classed as having irony deficiencies that indicate a lack of reflexivity. By this we interpret irony as an attitude towards meaning whereby what is said is explicitly not really a representation of what is. Irony therefore suggests a measure of self-reflexivity. For example, Ewen (1996), by the simple addition of an exclamation mark after PR! in his title, signals that the representation is problematic in a way that none of the others does. This opens the way to acknowledging, as in White-influenced “new history” theory, that all histories are someone’s stories: neither an objectively authorised version nor an ultimate truth. In this Ewen differs significantly from the other major PR histories. Olasky’s (1987) use of the indefinite article does allow that historical perspectives (plural) are possible in his Corporate Public Relations: A New Historical Perspective.

(Dis)owning the creation myth: determining Darwinism, evolving ethics, and intelligent design An approach more sensitive to metaphoric shaping, offers one escape route from the currently dominant mode. This we characterise as a kind of determining Darwinism by, appropriately enough, applying evolutionist Stephen Gould’s (1991) observations from “The case of the creeping fox terrier clone” in relation to cloning in textbooks (referred to in Chapter 1). In fact the situation of PR is unusual, if not unique, among communication disciplines, in deriving core historical and theoretical concepts from a textbook, J. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) Managing Public Relations. It is revealing to read this text in hindsight with knowledge of the impact it has had on the field. Re-reading it in 2006, it merely offers a summary and interpretation, of existing material. It does not seem to seek to make any contribution of substance to accounts of the past of PR. Despite, for example, being a textbook rather than a history book, it has been taken up as the major framing, with a distinctive metaphoric embellishment, of the discipline’s past. In effect it forms the basis of an evolutionary narrative, by metaphor, and association with the four models. In this way contemporary PR transcends its murky origins as a crude publicity and

PR history (Ltd) 123 propaganda species in a manner that parallels, in slower motion, two-way symmetry’s break with propaganda. Yet, as a source, J. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) book has to be found wanting in terms of history. This assessment is supported by J. Grunig’s own recent admission that “we are not historians” (Grunig and Grunig, 2003, p. 337) [NB We exclude Hunt from consideration because, after an illustrious entry and a massive afterlife of citations, he appears to have effectively withdrawn from the field]. On the evidence of its citations and reading lists, Managing Public Relations is entirely, apart, perhaps, from material in two Masters’ theses, constructed from secondary sources. Moreover these secondary sources are often extremely self-interested, and seriously incomplete in terms of the then available histories of PR. In an introductory textbook this may not be unusual, but, as it turned into a cornerstone of the discipline, it has consequences. Let us justify these assertions with specifics. The one chapter in the J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) textbook that addresses history, and, which becomes the origin of the species for subsequent textbook histories framed in an unacknowledged Darwinian perspective, is entitled “Origins and contemporary structure of public relations”. It is only 31 pages long, with a further three pages of notes (mainly citation sources), and recommended additional reading of five books (two practitioner autobiographies, one collection of Critical Issues in Public Relations authored by Hill and Knowlton executives, and two biographies), two journal articles (both by practitioner Rex Harlow), and a special issue of a scholarly journal. Readers are guided mainly to read the work of practitioners, either in their own accounts or in biographies, without any caution or annotation as to their possible reliability, lack of academic background, or self-serving nature. For example, the text disregards Bernays’ (1965) self-promotion, evident in his account of how Creel’s US Committee on public information almost won the First World War single-handedly with Bernays playing an inspired role. Not to draw attention to these factors and to proffer them to students as innocent historical sources, without any cautioning annotation, is misleading. While there are one or two references to a wider historical context in the short first chapter, Grunig and Hunt (1984) do not add any further sources of historical substance, although they make extensive use of the intelligent outsider observations of Pimlott (1951). All of their interpretations appear to be totally uninformed by the two more professional histories in print from the two preceding decades: Raucher’s (1968) Public Relations and Business: 1900–1929; and Tedlow’s (1979) Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900–1950. These absences in such a foundational text are particularly significant in a field with limited historical resources. Such scholarly shortcomings are understandable in that J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) were not really concerned with history per se. The chapter’s role, as the beginning of the chapter title, “Origins and contemporary structure”, suggests, is to lend support to the authors’ contentions with regard to best contemporary practice. The chapter acts as a classic myth of origins whose function is less to explain, or record, the past than to legitimise some contemporary, or future,

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activity (in this case best contemporary and future PR practice). It also fits the description of what Herbert Butterfield’s (1959) influential book called The Whig Interpretation of History and its tendency “to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present” (p. v). These kinds of interpretations remain a live issue: The problem of presentism is not that historical analysis is used to make a point about the present, but that history is distorted as it is reconstructed to legitimize or criticize a position that the writer has set out in advance to support or undermine. Whig history “consists in writing history backwards”, whereby the “present theoretical consensus of the discipline . . . is in effect taken as definitive, and the past is then constructed as a teleology leading up to and fully manifested in it” (Collini et al., 1983: 4). (Schmidt, 2002, p. 5) Further confirmation – that the myth-making mattered more than the history – surfaces almost two decades later in the marginalised form of a footnote. In it, L. Grunig and J. Grunig (2003) point to two disputes that threaten the foundations of the four models. One is “the dispute about where public relations got its start – the United States or Germany” (Grunig and Grunig, 2003, p. 337, fn. 14), which is of relevance to the assumption of US primacy and the US as prototype. The second, and more important one for PR history and practice “is the question of whether the field developed as the four models (Grunig and Hunt, 1984) suggest (from publicity . . . to two-way symmetrical) or whether all four models have existed since public relations inception in the late 1800s” (p. 337, fn. 14). L. Grunig and J. Grunig (2003) explicitly acknowledge that these histories are “contested” but that they “choose not to enter the dispute” (p. 337), because they “are not historians”. The fox terriers mentioned in Gould’s chapter are renowned for their tenacity but it is surely time that textbook authors overhauled the four models and tested them for historical veracity and contemporary applicability. Recently Brown (2006) has furnished further support for the idea that the four models at the cornerstone of the J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) history, functioned almost entirely as legitimating moves for the present. Independently of our research, Brown (2006) similarly interpreted the model underpinning twoway symmetry as evolutionary and supporting “teleological agendas” (p. 206). Brown (2006) specifically identifies the source of the PR presentists as “the drive toward professionalization” (p. 207) by means of teleological distortions of history. As with two-way symmetry, these “have advantages in the classroom: they offer undergraduates an historically linear, ethically justified, technologically oriented explanation of public relations” (p. 207). The main purveyors of distortions are textbooks, and they draw their material from J. Grunig and Hunt (1984), who, in turn, were influenced by Bernays: Symmetry theory’s teleological distortion of public relations continues Bernays’ well-known attempt after World War I to cleanse the emerging PR

PR history (Ltd) 125 industry from its damaging associations with wartime propaganda. Using Bernays’ thesis that PR’s history is “evolutionary” (while excluding him from the “ethical and excellent” model of PR), the symmetrists not only distance “evolved” public relations from propaganda but from Bernays [who, after all, published a book called Propaganda (Bernays, 1928)], as well. (Brown, 2006, p. 207) In their first incarnation of the four models, sometimes called stages, as underpinning linear growth in PR history, J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) used a simple age analogy. They described PR as growing up to reach maturity, a metaphor containing meanings that suggest there is no way back, or at least that anyone not practicing the most mature model is caught in a perennial infantile stage. In the only postmodern-influenced PR historiography consideration to date, Duffy (2000) interprets their metaphor tellingly. She begins by citing J. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) description of how some “adults do not make it through all of the developmental stages of a human being and remain in one of the stages of childhood” (p. 14) and then analyses the implications for poor and/or unethical practitioners: Thus, those PR practitioners not practicing more advanced two-way, socially responsible PR are constructed as merely immature, a benign metaphor for the behaviors they describe for press agentry and two-way asymmetric communication. Manipulation and deception are transmuted into youthful indiscretions. (p. 298) The simplistic age analogy, understandably, was not picked up. Instead, textbooks kept the notion of linear progress but made the stages more credible by incorporating them linguistically into the Darwinian language of evolutionary development, which had surfaced periodically in Bernays’ writings. Nevertheless, the linguistic fusion with the four-model hypothesis allowed the field to track the origin of PR as a species through stages from the monocellular, or at least primitive, form in the one-way communication of press agentry and its ascent to the sophisticated heights of two-way symmetry through the other two sub-optimal forms. Couched as evolutionary progress, the positive side of this story has accumulated force for democratic change (in demanding a voice for others outside of organisations), implies an accompanying ethical evolution (by extending democracy), and has been widely adopted. In line with Gould’s observations on the importance of details in cloning, the repetitive signs emerge in titles and headings as well as in metaphor. Kitchen’s (1997) Public Relations: Principles and Practice, uses the heading “Development and Evolution of Public Relations [in capitals in original]” (p. 24). Newsom et al. (1996) This Is PR: The Realities of Public Relations features “PR’s origins and evolution” (p. 30) and Seitel’s (2004) The Practice Of Public Relations devotes Part I of his book to the evolution of PR. Wilcox et al. (2000) Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics has a heading “The evolution of public relations” (p. 26) and supports the metaphor further by the use of “evolving functions” (p. 27).

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Now we are not saying that every use of evolution signaled a Darwinian underpinning; the word also exists more neutrally outside of the biological orbit. However, in the survival of textbook species, its fusion with a PR practice predicated on the four model ascent of the practitioner, provides a comforting historical overview. The field can acknowledge a past that contained manipulation and propaganda, and even that these remain today. Simultaneously, that same field is empowered to a new consciousness through ascending to the superior form of two-way symmetrical practice. Previous unethical incarnations are beyond change and contemporary continuations restricted to genetic throwbacks who, by refusing to make the leap, self-subscribe to unethically persuasive behaviour. However scant the evidence of the new species activity in the field, the superior breed has been observed. All that remains to be done is for the rest to catch up. However historically flawed, J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) author a politically and educationally intelligent design for a discipline seeking respect, and one that allows it to continue behaving badly while still seeking respect. As Brown (2006) says: The symmetrists have even abandoned Bernays’ passing interest in public relations history. The result has been the misappropriation of the concept of evolution. What symmetry offers instead is what the philosopher Michael Ruse (2005, p. 11) calls “evolutionism”. As distinguished from Darwin’s scientific theory of natural selection, evolutionism is a belief system – specifically, a belief that the species don’t merely change, they improve. As the social Darwinists believed, the strong were meant to triumph over the weak. If evolutionism isn’t the same thing as religion, it nevertheless “does all the work of religion” (Shulavitz, 2006, p. 10). Despite its scientific claims, the symmetry theory of public relations is actually an a-historical heuristic that justifies a belief system that legitimizes public relations. (p. 208)

Other histories: researching without the US as prototype From outside the US, it is interesting to observe how many US national events are assumed to be international, global, or universal. World Series Baseball may attract international interest but, despite its title, it is a local North American contest. PR histories display similar unconscious assumptions. Of the books discussed in the previous section, all are essentially on US PR – apart from some mentions of PR precursors before the US came into existence. Only two, Marchand (1998) and Galambos and Pratt (1988), acknowledge they are based on US material. All the other titles seem to assume that their US history is a universal history or that there is no other history. J. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) Managing Public Relations is not called managing US PR although, apart from precursors, that is its focus. Olasky’s (1987) Corporate Public Relations: A New Historical Perspective is a new historical perspective on US corporate PR. Miller’s (1999) The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations does have international PR but is essentially focused on it from the perspective of

PR history (Ltd) 127 American business. Ewen’s (1996) PR! A Social History of Spin concerns a social history of US spin. Cutlip’s (1994) The Unseen Power: Public Relations, A History brings into view a richly textured account of the power in operation in the US and Tedlow’s (1979) Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900–1950 would similarly fail a trade description test for corporate image, PR, and business anywhere in the world except the US. That is why histories of other nations help the field in many ways. They distinguish what is unique in their own lands; they assist the US in realising what might be unique in its experience, rather than assume it is a universal prototype; and they begin the long process of gathering evidence on whether there may be regional or transnational conditions common to PR. For all of those reasons, the more histories, the more detailed histories, and the more diverse histories that are written, the better it is for the field. For similar pluralistic reasons we present different historiographies and methods not in order to establish a one best way. Instead, bearing in mind Waever’s (1996) already cited assessment of paradigm disagreement in international relations becoming less a debate to be won than “a pluralism to work with” (p. 155), we recommend exploring different ways of understanding how PR might be framed in different locations at different times Along these lines, Jacquie L’Etang’s (2004) Public Relations in Britain: A History of Professional Practice in the Twentieth Century is a quiet landmark. She is careful to claim that her book is restricted to Britain, and makes no claim to be a history, let alone the history of British PR. Instead she offers an innovative integration of the historical circumstances with the establishing of the profession. Despite these qualifications, she distils substantial research to make an important contribution to the growing interest in the history and the profession of PR outside of the US. Its publication is roughly contemporaneous with congruent work, albeit on a smaller scale, by a small, but influential, number of scholars – van Ruler and Vercˇicˇ (2004); Sriramesh and Vercˇicˇ (2003a); Sriramesh (2004a); and Tilson and Alozie (2004). Between them, with some overlap, they cover over 60, admittedly short, national (and sometimes regional) histories. However all of the others are multiple-authored collections and none go as deeply into one country as L’Etang’s (2004) sustained focus on Britain. The assertion of the importance of L’Etang’s (2004) book for the field is not just because it is the first large-scale British history. Radical conclusions emerge from her inventive interweaving of disciplines (sociology of professions, imperial projects, and professional files) and her accumulation, through archive and field research, of detailed data on British PR history as specific and unique responses to national needs and influences. In the process L’Etang demonstrates the error of mainstream views that all PR follows the J. Grunig and Hunt (1984) model for the US. By making the case in relation to different PR development in the United Kingdom, she opens the door to extending difference to other parts of the world. The demotion of the US as prototype is conscious, although it is signalled in typically understated fashion by L’Etang’s (2004) rejection of the “assumption in much of the literature that public relations was first developed in the United States and was then exported elsewhere” (p. 5).

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Recent work on Israeli PR history adds supporting evidence from another country. By locating the origins of Israel PR in demarcation disputes with advertising rather than the US turf wars with journalism, or the British experience with the public service, Toledano (2005, forthcoming) similarly undercuts the assumption of American PR as the prototype for export. In addition to the slow accumulation of different national histories, the slow coming to terms with L’Etang’s research is, in part, because the assumption of US primacy is embedded in introductory textbooks. However, as her pioneering work establishes, the field can be freed from seeing the US as the universal model for the world. Her revisionist history opens up the discipline to more diverse territories to explore in the past, present, and future. In less iconoclastic fashion, L’Etang’s (2004) Public Relations in Britain synthesises theory from other disciplines to sustain re-evaluations of both contemporary and historical PR. Alongside her imaginative use of past sources, L’Etang’s nuanced discussion of PR as a profession from a sociological point of view confirms broader perspectives as crucial to understanding the whole professionalisation process and embedding it in its historical context. The book is impressively grounded in a range of empirical research from historical documents drawn from a diverse set of archival sources. These include that of famous documentary maker, and less well known PR exponent, John Grierson, and the Confederation of British Industry records, as well as dusty details from the early days of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR), and 67 interviews with over 60 diverse figures, especially significant practitioners, from the field. On the market, rather than the government side, L’Etang (2004) charts the rise of the PR function in the business sector as a much later development than in North America and identifies the significance of consultancies as a critical stage in the emergence of the profession. Her findings establish the centrality of public administration in national and local government in British society. How PR interacted with public administration, and especially its attempts to be associated with the high status of British bureaucrats, contributed substantially to the profession’s growth, the formation of standards, and the nature of its recruits. Significantly, such interactions occurred in distinctly different forms to the US, which had a substantially deeper, and earlier, integration into the capitalist marketplace. L’Etang (2004) positions the interweaving with the establishment of Institute of Public Relations as parallel to the establishment of the Institute of Administration: not only because there was a line of inheritance in terms of personnel, but also because the organisations were both engaged in defining and formalising an occupation and thus engaging in professionalisation . . . the emphasis on mutuality in the IPR definition has similarities with those of the EMB [Empire Marketing Board] and the British Council. (pp. 65–66) The reference to the Empire Marketing Board is another distinctive British feature to “implement imperial preference through market research, supply chain

PR history (Ltd) 129 management, and publicity” (L’Etang, 2004, p. 35). Her book also observes trends on the other side of imperialism by contending that the “growth of public relations beyond Britain was, in some cases, stimulated by the process of decolonization” (p. 92) and discovering continuities between political colonisation and neo-colonial business, because the decolonising process “required continual government propaganda as well as efforts by companies to protect their overseas interests and investments” (p. 98). Along similar lines, she has co-written pioneering research on Kenya and the neglected area of PR, decolonisation, and democracy (L’Etang and Muruli, 2004). In her own book, another probable uniqueness that emerges is the centrality of the class system, so that one of the main themes of early British PR journals “is that of middle-class manners as an important component of public relations work” (L’Etang, 2004, p. 73). She also discusses the powerful consultant network enmeshed in the hospitality and drinking culture of closed elitist clubs, and observes how such behaviours and values (and certain allied anti-democratic tendencies in the British political and social system from at least the 1920s up to the 1960s), were, to an extent, internalised by the PR profession in defining their role. She openly acknowledges the links between PR and propaganda in Britain. The centrality of such national specificities check tendencies to universalising and invite other researchers to check the cultural textures of their own contexts.

Inclusive historiography: herstories and voices from below Despite its sociological underpinning, L’Etang’s (2004) work is closer to traditional historiography than changes in the field of mainstream history. PR history would do well to follow some of the patterns of its wide range of historiographic revisions. One distinctive pattern marks a movement towards a greater inclusiveness and range of coverage. A useful entry point, and a book that contributed significantly to the trend, is Sheila Rowbotham’s (1973) Hidden from History: 300 Years of Women’s Oppression and the Fight against It. This is concerned with rediscovering women in history from the seventeenth century to the present. Rowbotham’s visual metaphor echoes Cutlip’s (1994) use of unseen in relation to PR. However, unlike Cutlip, Rowbotham’s (1973) use of hidden is a prelude to an analysis of how women have been actively excluded (rather than unobserved, or actively concealing themselves), and advocates action to rediscover their role and the subtitle foregrounds the struggle to emerge against opposition rather than simply to be seen. It is revealing to make a comparison as well as a contrast between her preface and Cutlip’s (1994) equivalent “Prologue” (pp. ix-xxi), about what motivated him to write the field’s largest history. He locates the genesis of his book in a series of discussions, “on the role of public relations in our economic, political and social history” with American historians of the twentieth century, in which he defends the practice against charges that it was “a corrosive element in our society” (p. ix). As “an author and teacher in this field since 1946” (p. x), Cutlip would repeatedly cite chapter and verse to these critics “of the good for society

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that can be accomplished through ethical, effective public relations” and positions his book as presenting “ample evidence of this good”: “I held, and still hold, that only through the expertise of public relations can causes, industries, individuals, and institutions make their voice heard in the public forum” (p. ix). This is clearly setting up the book as an honestly interested, rather than disinterested, account, and not surprisingly leads to a less critical history than a nonbeliever in the virtues of PR such as Ewen (1996), which is why the two are better than one. In the first sentence of the first page of her preface, Rowbotham (1973) similarly acknowledges an explicit biased impetus: “This book comes directly from a political movement” (p. ix). She links her conscious feminism to self-reflection on the nature, and limitations, of her approach, and, in an interesting metaphor, on how contemporary conditions impinge on historical accounts: In writing about such a wide sweep of our past I am necessarily skimming the surface of things, piecing together what I can find from diverse sources, most of them secondary. I am turning the top soil in the hope that others will dig deeper. I know that already the women’s movement has made many of us ask different questions of our past. Despite their conflicting and overlapping intentions, neither Rowbotham nor Cutlip have successors in historical work in PR. Cutlip’s sheer historical range has yet to find a follower in the US never mind outside of it. Rowbotham’s historical soil-turning has not inspired an equivalent movement in women in PR. As Aldoory (2005) recently observed: “very little has been done to uncover the history of women in public relations and the contributions that female figures have historically made to the field” (p. 902) except for “the historical work conducted by Susan Henry, Karen Miller, and Karla Gower” (p. 902). The major recent intervention in gender and PR has been Grunig et al.’s (2001) Women in Public Relations: How Gender Influences Practice. Given the substantial contemporary issues that Grunig et al.’s (2001) book addresses, it would be unfair to require more from it. Nevertheless, the absence of a substantial historical dimension to the coverage of women in PR remains a serious gap. Elsewhere in history, Rowbotham’s (1973) spadework found other followers. Duberman et al. (1990), for example, echo her title and extend its coverage to sexual politics in Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past; and she herself subsequently co-wrote Dignity and Daily Bread (Rowbotham and Mitter, 1994), which, as its subtitle, New Forms of Economic Organising Among Poor Women in the Third World and the First suggests, expands an inclusive outlook across global space with a continuing interest in justice. The growth of similar movements by historians who retrospectively resisted exclusion, became a distinctive pattern in historiography from the 1960s. Its predilections can be gathered from E. P. Thompson’s (1966) justification of history from below, or historical narratives concerning ordinary individuals previously regarded as too low in the social order to be worth historical considera-

PR history (Ltd) 131 tion: “I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’ hand-loom weaver, the ‘Utopian’ artisan . . . from the enormous condescension of posterity” (p. 12). The closest to a successor to Thompson (1966) in PR history would be Ewen (1996) who does for the maligned “muckrakers” what Thompson does for the Luddites. Ewen (1996) restores them to their place as precursors of investigative journalists, who are today lauded as pillars of the fourth estate and supporters of democracy. Postcolonialism has begun to influence history too. Frenkel and Shenav (2006) revisit the history of organisations and management to reveal the exclusion of “the fusion between the colonizer and the colonized and their mutual effects on each other” (p. 855). Their revisionist project goes beyond identifying “the Orientalist assumptions embedded in the writing of management scholars . . . [to] also show that certain texts and practices that emerged during the colonial, as well as neocolonial, encounter were excluded from the field” (p. 855). The research to date tracks what would now be called “blowback” (Hagel and Brown, 2005, p. 6) – to describe how disruptive innovations from emerging markets may blowback quite suddenly into developed markets – from at least sixteenth century Spanish sugar plantation management practices. These practices were subsequently modified by British colonists over the next two centuries, and were ultimately imported back into Britain for implementation. Research on the generation of PR practice in different colonial histories might yield similarly rewarding results. Significantly, the terms diversity and diversification feature prominently in Fulbrook’s (2002) brief summary of noteworthy trends in Historical Theory: it is important simply to note the sheer diversity – and continuing diversification – of historical traditions and approaches. Historians focussing on high politics and international diplomacy were challenged by others seeking to pay attention to labour history, social history, women’s history: these in turn were challenged by those seeking to refocus on issues of mentality or culture. Nationally defined histories were viewed in new ways by those coming from post-colonial perspectives. Differences over subject area were cross-cut by theoretical debates. (p. 15) It may be unduly harsh to judge historical absences in a small field with little of its past covered in the US, and less elsewhere. It nevertheless remains noteworthy that, from the perspective of PR history, few of those trends have entered the historical consciousness of the field. There is equally little concern with the revolutions in historiography as the world is undergoing transformation.

10 Back to futures Losing control and cultivating foresight

In considering what is to come, futures theorists recommend giving up the illusion of control. A good example is Tolstoy’s (1982) War and Peace comment in relation to the failed French invasion of Russia: “while Napoleon thought he was in control of events, the Russian general Kutuzov knew that neither of them were, and so he made fewer mistakes” (cited in van der Heijden, 2004, p. 206). Further affirmation that control is an illusion comes later when “Popper (1988) famously remarked that for radically new innovations to occur at all, the future must be unknowable, for otherwise an innovation would, in principle, be already known and would have occurred in the present [italics in original]” (cited in Tsoukas and Shepherd, 2004b, p. 1). The unknowability extends beyond innovation since any futures, by definition, cannot be reached in the present. Accordingly, “commitment to a particular identity brings with it the danger of losing contact with reality” (van der Heijden, 2004, p. 207). In PR we see that danger magnified as the field largely ignores the connections between previous trends, present trends, and predicted futures. Futures studies and methodologies do not feature much in PR but from Chapter 1 we have argued that reconfiguring the field requires a forward-looking orientation. This final chapter examines future projections and structured approaches to projecting futures. More informed orientations have been made easier by recent developments in the field of futures studies, which itself has undergone a revival and a reframing: “In futures studies we always think of ‘the future’ in terms of plural futures. The objective is not so much to predict the future (a highly hazardous exercise) but to anticipate possible futures and work towards shaping the most desirable ones” (Sardar, 2006, p. 60). Futures studies, especially in their earlier incarnation as futurology (but excluding scenario development), followed a downward trajectory in the second half of the twentieth century until the 1990s. The field receded from a 1960s high water mark of visibility, which was powered by the international profile of the Hudson Institute, and similar future think tanks, and breakthrough considerations of unthinkable futures, including nuclear war (see Kahn, 1961). These impacted strongly on public awareness (especially through film and television representations), and were helped by the 1967 Commission for the Future’s widely publicised speculations on the year 2000 by a range of leading thinkers

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from many disciplines. Recent signs of revivial in futures studies include the reprinting (Bell and Graubard, 1997) of Bell’s (1967) work for the Commission, Toward the Year 2000: Work in Progress, and Ghamari-Tabrizi’s (2005) booklength study on The Worlds of Herman Kahn. Along with the public resurrection of former futurologists, the academic reframing of the field has reinforced, and been reinforced by, the impressive gains of scenario applications (Hammond, 1998; Kahane, 2004; Kelly et al., 2002; Ogilvy, 2002; Schwartz et al., 2000; van der Heijden et al., 2002).

Deploying foresight: from forecasts to future informed insight For over a decade, many in futures studies have been adopting the term “foresight” for their work (see Slaughter, 1995). That term informs Tsoukas and Shepherd’s (2004a) anthology, Managing the Future: Foresight in the Knowledge Economy, which has been a major shaping force in our approach. Following on from Mintzberg’s (1994) analysis of The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Tsoukas and Shepherd’s (2004b) introductory chapter emphasises “the limits of the planning-cum-design approach” that powers their move “from forecasting to foresight” (p. 1). For Tsoukas and Shepherd (2004b), an organisation’s ability to handle “the future depends on how they answer the following two questions: . . . to what extent is there a knowledge base for anticipating important events? And . . . to what extent is there a stock of knowledge on which to draw for taking action?” (p. 3). The answers to these questions shape the choices to be made from four different response modes: 1 2

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“forecasting” techniques based on information extrapolated from past events and a usable store of data; “contingency planning” to deal with situations when knowledge about the extent of anticipation is limited, as in the severity and specific directions of hurricanes in general, and the 2005 Katrina disaster in particular; “analogical reasoning” to draw analogies with similar situations elsewhere to prepare for eventualities that “may be anticipated but a knowledge base on how to deal with them does not yet exist”; “scenario-based learning for unpredictable events such as 11 September, when not only is little available “about the probability of their happening” but “managers and policy makers have very little knowledge about how to deal with them” (Tsoukas and Shepherd, 2004b, pp. 4–5).

Tsoukas and Shepherd (2004b) note that scenario makers are not concerned with attempting “to attach probabilities to a set of events”, but with providing “a process to prepare the organization to see such discontinuities [italics in original]” (p. 5). Instead of trying to eliminate uncertainty, they take that uncertainty only as a starting point to prepare for the future. They do so by moving from the domain of exact science towards imagination-influenced territory. This

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difference is explicit in the 9/11 Commission Report’s (The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004) finding that the failure to imagine passenger planes being used as weapons was partly why the US was not prepared for the World Trade Center attack. The Commission (2004) further observed that “imagination is not a gift usually associated with bureaucracies” and that imagination therefore needs to be “routinised” (p. 344). We suggest that scenario building can enable a level of imagination routinisation by encouraging, and assisting, not only bureaucracies, but also disciplines. It can assist fields, such as PR, to embed creative, forward-looking thinking into their practices and to explore beyond expectations of business as usual. The need for this shift can be found in the restricted planning and limited range of stimulation for the future of PR education. Our critique of PR’s restricted education planning is underpinned by major assumptions. One is that creativity, especially diversity-fuelled creativity (Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, 2000), will be increasingly essential for success in business and organisations (see Kao, 1997) facing ongoing uncertainty. Another assumption is that the Internet, and associated new technology, developments continue to offer opportunities and challenges that PR is only belatedly picking up. The field has still to meet explicit challenges, such as Levine et al.’s (2000) twenty-sixth thesis, in their influential The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual: “Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets” (p. xiv). PR also needs to come to terms with current Internet conditions. They enable an equalisation with consequences for new players in the international business field because “the global deployment of the Internet negated time and distance for transactions that can be done in bits instead of atoms” (Prestowitz, 2005, p. 3). These overlap with our third assumption that The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be (Abrahamson et al., 1998) and that will mean “business as unusual [italics in original]” (Firat and Schultz, 1997, p. 183) with a need to be prepared for radical change, and open to new thinking. This is not just because of major uncertainties, but because of fast-changing business, communication, natural, and social environments, which encompass potentially catastrophic, as well as positive, transformation. Although world opinion may have been thwarted in relation to the invasion of Iraq, it has a historical track record in supporting “the right side in disputes from antislavery through the sweatshop campaigns, and East Timor – that is, for at least two hundred years”, and that “considerable record of moral accuracy” (Stearns, 2005, p. 211) may yet prove right on Iraq.

Futuring in PR and an economic 9/11? An example of the inability of PR to make a transition to the twenty-first century is the third, and latest, of the US Commission on Public Relations Education reports, which is also available as appendix 4 of the Encyclopedia of Public Relations (Heath, 2005, pp. 919–949). The commission’s “1999 report, ‘A Port of Entry: Public Relations Education for the 21st Century,’ had worldwide dis-

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tribution and impact” (Plank, 2005, p. 702). However, we find it to be steeped in quintessentially twentieth century characteristics, described by Rost (1993) as rationalistic, technocratic, linear, quantitative, and scientific in language and methodology. Sriramesh (2002) has already criticised the Third Commission’s failure to live up to its goals in terms of the cross-cultural and global society issues that we see as vital to twenty-first century PR: multicultural PR does not appear to be a high priority for the Commission, despite the stated goal of preparing students to operate in a “multicultural and global society”. In fact, “applying cross-cultural . . . sensitivity”, appeared at the end of the list, almost as an afterthought. The lack of importance given to multiculturalism in the Committee’s deliberations is further affirmed when studying the list of six specific courses the Commission’s recommended for “the ideal undergraduate major in public relations”. There is no mention in this list of a course on multicultural PR or anything remotely connected to international (global) public relations. (pp. 57–58) Sriramesh’s (2002) critique, while also giving credit to the positive role of US PR in educating many Asian scholars, accurately pinpoints its multicultural shortcomings. Despite its good intentions, the Port of Entry report’s shortcomings partially follow from the narrowness of the approach. This surfaces in the choice of the restricted metaphor of “port”. It activates ancient associations with shipping, when even the use of a plural term like “portals” has more up-to-date connotations from ebusiness (where Amazon.com finally turned a profit by selling itself as an electronic gateway to diverse suppliers). Portals also fit better with a view of futures as both open-ended and plural, and it invites forward projections that are less bureaucratic and more imaginative. The Port of Entry report has been singled out as the most coordinated, and thorough, look at the future of education in PR futures. But, even on education it does not attempt to anticipate underlying trends. Writing on 2005 from the same year as the report, futurist Michael Mazarr (1999) proposes that learning for 2005 “must display a number of clear advances from the sort we know today” and become “more holistic, showing the relationships between disciplines and issues; . . . emphasize creativity and participation . . . be characterized by more choice and competition . . . and more than ever before, it must become egalitarian [italics in original]” (p. 285). Neither these emphases, nor other innovations, feature in the strong curriculum focus of the Port of Entry report. In addition to selecting an outmoded metaphor, and not attempting to read trends, the Port of Entry report authors ignore contemporary signals of shifting global market arrangements including the economic rise of nations in the East predicted in the late 1990s by the authors discussed in Chapter 4 (Naisbitt, 1997a, 1997b; Burstein and De Keijzer, 1998). Those movements have accelerated to a widening consensus captured in three recent book titles: Fishman’s (2006) China Inc: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America

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and the World; Shenkar’s (2006) The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job; and Prestowitz’s (2005) Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East. Former Reagan administration trade official Prestowitz (2005) observed the growth of China, India, and the former Soviet Union as especially noteworthy and although their populations “are mostly poor, the number having an advanced education and sophisticated skills is larger than the populations of many first world countries” (p. 3). As Prestowitz (2005) says, the progress of these countries was accelerated because of the Internet-enabled compression of time and space, into the present-day “high-speed capitalist raceway”, where “those 3 billion new people driving on it are, effectively, in your office and living room, and you are in theirs” and all “this has generated a whole new wave and model of globalization that is turning the world upside down” (p. 3). Prestowitz (2005) notes the upheaval of such impacts on the US economy, especially when it is seen in conjunction with the state of his nation across budgets, education, savings (or rather their absence), manufacturing, and lack of investment in R&D infrastructure and personnel, plus a collapsing dollar exchange rate, and a debt-dependency. Prestowitz (2005), in fact, says that all these put the US at risk of what his cover calls an “economic 9/11” if foreign creditors withdraw funds. Moreover, his analysis indicates that possible counterweights, such as high-end entrepreneurship and high-tech invention, are likely to follow low-end manufacturing and services in being outsourced offshore. He supports his thesis with the 2004 assessment of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) that although the US “may still have the best and most flexible R&D, workforce, universities, rule of law, infrastructure, and entrepreneurial business climate, along with the world’s largest market, key elements of this ‘innovation ecosystem’ are eroding rapidly” (Prestowitz, 2005, p. 131). Given that US PR has risen with US business, and that business analysts indicate that the latter is at risk, then those charged with directing the future education of the former need to take note, embed it into their thinking, and make preparations accordingly.

Global opportunities and a brief history of managing alternative futures At the forefront of preparations we perceive the need to consider a new entrepreneurship cluster that is emerging from recent research trends. One example is Hart’s (2005) research on a “more inclusive brand of capitalism . . . that incorporates previously excluded voices, concerns, and interests” (p. xli) where “the corporate sector could become the catalyst for a truly sustainable form of global development – and prosper in the process” (p. xli). Another is Prahalad’s (2005) repositioning of those at the bottom of the global economic pyramid from charity cases to the real growth potential for the expansion of globalisation. The potential in his conclusions is underpinned by the World Resources Institute’s

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(2005) earthtrends data: “Most companies focus on mature and emerging markets, while the huge market of 4 billion people living on less than US$3,360 a year goes largely untapped”. That earthtrends data also informs the final research trend represented by Mahajan and Banga’s (2005) focus on the The 86 Percent Solution, which taps into the additional purchasing power and entrepreneurial talent available in the large and affluent middle classes of India and other emerging nations. Their research provides reasons for corporations to shift their focus from the other, admittedly wealthy, 14 per cent of the planet in the developed world, where the consumers are cynical, benefit from a hypercompetitive business environment, and have a population with a significantly larger, and proportionately fastergrowing, number of older people. All the research trends are further supported by demographic evidence that the developed world’s ageing population, low birth rate, longevity, and large consumption have a reverse mirror image in the developing world’s high birth rate, faster ageing, and low but growing consumption (Mazarr, 1999, pp. 37–42). For Collier and Fuller (2005), global business enterprises face two choices: “either oppress and exploit the peoples whose countries they colonise, or they can see these people as future customers and assume responsibility for improving their education, health, and general welfare”. They will also face this responsibility for “the future and the far-away as well as for the past and present” (p. 111). To open up more future thinking in PR, we advocate scenario planning. The origins of scenarios can be traced to military-oriented organisations in the aftermath of the Second World War, where Herman Kahn was a seminal figure. Kahn had been involved with the US Air Force and the RAND corporation and played a key role in playing war games that refined the scenario process and inserted it into the public consciousness (Ghamari-Tabrizi, 2005). He later adapted scenarios to business, where he won recognition as the first person to alert the US to the growing economic challenge of Japan. Kahn’s trademark slogan was “thinking the unthinkable” which, interestingly, he himself applied to nuclear war (as, he argued, a clear-headed way of avoiding it). Later, scenario-driven preparation gained credence in management in the 1970s through its successful use at Royal Dutch/Shell where it was widely credited with enabling Shell, alone among the oil giants, to react quickly to the oil crisis. During this period Pierre Wack, one of the key Shell theorists and a founding father in the successful corporate use of scenarios (see Jaworski, 1996), pioneered their use as instruments for imaginatively and emotionally preparing for the future. When the 1973 oil crisis broke only Shell was emotionally prepared for the change. It also anticipated the 1986 collapse of oil prices to gain commercial advantage and so move up the global oil giant league table.

Imagined projections: catching the currents of change A concrete idea of what PR might gain, particularly in relation to both local and global contexts, can be gathered from some already existing scenarios.

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Hammond’s (1998) Which World: Scenarios for the 21st Century presents three possible scenario options. The first, Market World, envisages a situation where economic reform along free market lines, combines with technological innovation to fuel rapid growth. In it, developing regions are integrated into the global economy, which brings modern techniques and products to virtually all countries. The result is widespread prosperity, peace, and stability. The second, more pessimistic vision, Fortress World, is based on the failure of market-led growth to address social wrongs and environmental crises. It projects the view that unconstrained markets will exacerbate these problems and lead to the destruction of the environmental and social fabric on which growth depends. The result will be uneven development internationally, and inside nations, as enclaves of prosperity coexist with widening misery and desperation. The third, more visionary and optimistic future, Transformed World, foresees radical social and political change (including cultural values and norms). It predicts that power will be more widely shared and that grass roots will influence governments towards new arrangements to improve society in terms of equality and contentment and to better protect the environment. In opening up these different visions of how different futures are possible, these three scenarios set up distinctly different futures. PR can learn from a range of business and social scenarios, and explore potential alignments. One case where scenarios proved their worth was in the dangerously uncertain arena of South Africa’s transition from apartheid. The four Mont Fleur scenarios were generated to address that massive social change. They cohere creatively around bird imagery and have been credited with assisting in a relatively peaceful changeover to greater democracy: 1 2 3

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Ostrich – which imagined a future where the government refused to face the realities of change; Lame Duck – which imagined a protracted transition like a bird with a broken wing unable to take off properly; Icarus – which saw a popularly elected government trying to achieve too much too quickly and burning in the global economic sun of the new world order; Flight of the Flamingoes – which imagined a peaceful transition where the whole country would take off slowly, fly high, and fly together (DavisFloyd, 1998; Kahane, 2004).

In Jaworski’s (1996) view the remarkable post-Apartheid developments “had, in many important respects, their roots in the discovery by the South African people that the course they were on was unsustainable” (p. 149). As well as providing evidence of past success, the Mont Fleur scenarios offer a rich metaphorical base for stimulating other imaginative approaches. On a more global scale, the four scenarios put up by a Canadian government roundtable (Rosell, 1995) have the requisite richness, through their ship symbolism, to invite participation. Following many of the same drivers of Hammond’s tripartite vision, Rosell’s (1995) four shipping forecasts run as follows:

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Starship Enterprise: as with Market World, the Enterprise vision sees existing capitalism, just like the famous Star Trek spaceship, as going boldly forth and spreading the economic success of the developed world internationally in an ongoing global expansion in which society holds together. Titanic: a more pessimistic forecast than any of Hammond’s three visions. As its title graphically suggests, this projection sees major economic, environmental, and catastrophes. HMS Bounty: close to Hammond’s Fortress World, this scenario draws on the famous mutiny of the lower decks to predict major internal and external conflicts between the haves and have-nots in the framework of Social Darwinism in an economically growing but socially divided world. Windjammer: aligning with Hammond’s Transformed World, this more environmentally friendly sailboat would herald a transition to a friendlier, more equitable world with less of a gulf between the information and technologically rich and the information and technologically poor. It includes an emerging consensus that we can learn to put up with low growth or no growth and stay socially cohesive.

At this point, in the absence of any specific PR scenarios, we offer some provocative prospects to suggest emotional engagements, or to begin strategic dialogues, around different prospects for PR by reworking the Canadian examples: 1

Starship Enterprise: since the majority of PR work involves powerful business and government interests, the field would appear to us to be most comfortable with this future vision. Rather tongue in cheek we would, staying with the Star Trek connotation, propose two probable roles: ii as transporter technicians who would smooth the way discursively for the continuation of business as usual; ii as away teams, who, through developing diversity relationships in new markets, would prepare the way for the orderly passage of the market status quo across the globe.

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Titanic: the obvious role, apart from environmental activist practitioners in organisations such as Greenpeace, is deckchair entertainment. The contemporary equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns is PR renaming global warming as climate change and contesting scientific evidence rather than promoting public awareness of the urgent need to take action. As the scientific evidence of global warming and environmental degradation mounts, the mainstream PR focus is on corporate and government reputations, whether that is greenwashing, or connected to real change. Unless it connects to real change, the already low reputation of business in general (in the wake of Enron and other corporate crashes), and PR in particular, will stay down. The probable causes will remain unaddressed until it is too late. Large scale loss of confidence in the system of business, and/or of the integrity of media channels, could have catastrophic

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Back to futures consequences for economic trade, public trust, and for the functioning of civil society. HMS Bounty: in this projection too, PR has become so welded to its management function that the roles of paid rhetoricians to the lower decks, or global others, or dominant coalition mouthpieces, seem the most likely. Against that activist practitioners engage in an increasingly vital struggle as the end of oil precipitates tough choices not just for resource allocation but for globalisation concerned with the transport of material goods. Such globalisation is competitive only while oil is relatively available and relatively cheap. Windjammer: this possibility, of a more equitable, and environmentally sound future, offers attractive roles for the transformative possibilities of PR as the source of radical imagineering. At present it is proponents of ideas akin to Dobson’s (2000) “ecologicalism” (p. 2), or Connelly and Smith’s (2003) “ecological democratization” (p. 361), mainly from the economic, political, and social fringe, who provide most impetus to fresh visions. If PR can generate, or align with, feasible visions of business-driven global transformation, win mainstream assent for them internally in organisations, and gain acceptance for them as possible realities externally, then the transition to sustainability could be accelerated.

Marchand (1998) has written on how early twentieth century PR and advertising aimed to stop US citizens from hating large corporations by converting “public discontent to gratitude”, reimagining “the big corporate brother as the ‘good neighbor’ ” (p. 361) and popularising welfare capitalism. But welfare capitalism had to provide material change as well as perceptual change. His pessimistic conclusion foreshadowed the present vacuum, and opportunity, in PR: “Corporate America, by the mid-1940s, was certainly addicted to the rhetoric of paternal neighborliness and democratic modes. But the giant corporations were willing to fulfill that rhetoric only through limited gestures”, and so “only raised new questions about its future social and political station” (Marchand, 1998, p. 363). Now, as radical imaginers inside and outside traditional power, PR practitioners and academics are well positioned to attempt the reshaping of the perceptions and realities of the new millennium.

Waving or drowning? Generation MM, poetry, and business In advocating what business will have to do to gain “the millennium edge”, Australian Noel Turnbull (1996) offered a creative vision for PR in engaging with a new twenty-first century generation of customers. This group, whom he terms “generation MM” (Turnbull, 1996, p. 21), will demand that business demonstrate that it is motivated by community interest rather than self-interest and supports the case with data from research finding in the US showing that: •

84 per cent of adult Americans believe that cause marketing creates a positive company image;

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66 per cent would switch brands and 62 per cent wanted to switch retailers to support a cause they care about; 54 per cent would pay more for a product in support of a cause; 78 per cent are more likely to buy something associated with a cause; 62 per cent are impressed by a company that commits to a cause for more than a year (Turnbull, 1996, p. 137).

His recommendations, arrived at after collating consumer surveys with corporate actions, come down in favour of future success for those “altruistic companies [who] . . . balance the interest of all their stakeholders and see profit as a result of a company’s total goals rather than as an end in itself” (Turnbull, 1996, p. 138). Similar findings have been confirmed in other countries. A Millennium poll of 1,000 citizens on each of 23 nations on six continents found 49 per cent citing corporate citizenship factors such as business ethics, environmental practice and labour management issues as the most significant determinant of their impressions of companies (Marlin, 2000). Only 32 per cent were most influenced by basic business investment factors such as finance, management or size. There is also supportive evidence for this trend from the US where well over one trillion dollars or one in every eight investment dollars is managed in social responsibility investment vehicles (Marlin, 2000). In Europe too, three of the four scenarios outlined by the corporate consulting giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), for example, suggest that ethical issues, especially those relating to the environment and genetics, will have a major influence on future prosperity. This bears on the central issue for an expanding ebusiness economy: the trust necessary for further development in the businessto-consumer sectors (Handy, 1995). The question – waving or drowning? – in this section’s title is taken from the PWC scenarios for Europe. Its origin is Stevie Smith’s (1957/1975) poem, Not Waving But Drowning, which concerns a swimmer seen to be moving his arms energetically above the water. At one level, this can be interpreted as attempting to attract attention positively by waving – to contact friends or to show he is having a good time – or to signal that he is having trouble in staying afloat and needs help. While Turnbull (1996) can be seen as waving to attract positive attention to future prospects, the PriceWaterhouseCooper scenarios take a more pessimistic tack that is closer to the poem’s fatal conclusion: Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. (Smith, 1957/1975, p. 303) In PriceWaterhouseCooper’s integrated vision, three of their four scenarios present business as far from usual. In line with the proportions in Hammond (1998) and Rosell (1995), this is a typical scenario proportion where two out of

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three, or three out of four scenarios entertain extreme visions to encompass a wide spectrum for optimism to pessimism and guard against assuming a linear continuity with no more than a single version visioning more of the same, or business more or less as usual. The first PWC scenario, as its name, Golden Triangle, suggests, is the most optimistic. It envisages prosperity and improved public services that promote harmony through prosperity based on rapid technological advances in ICT and biotechnology, with the European Union enlargement proceeding unabated. Economic growth remains strong amid open markets in a stable world order with no serious environmental problems. In the second scenario, On the Edge, economic growth is also strong but unstable, with boom and bust cycles, very little “trickle down”, and chaotic technological advances. There are unsettling changes in the world leadership, fragmentation in EU power and environmental concerns. In the third scenario, The Last Castle, the welfare state is alive but unwell. It has become an increasing burden as the European population increases. Technological regulation, due in part to environmental concerns, stifles and slows advance and growth in technological development throughout the EU with an expansion in politicallypowerful losers. These trends result in the formation of rival power blocs, US and EU protectionism, and mounting worries about immigration into the EU. The fourth scenario, Drowning Spires, foresees the Greens as ascendant politically. Severe climate change is wrecking the EU economy and contributing to increasing food shortages and famines. Unrest is widespread with major population migrations as rival power blocs remain and the search for technological solutions becomes increasingly desperate. Clearly three of the four scenarios position undesirable business as usual.

Enterprising solutions: the creative class and PR For the EU to continue that kind of activity, it needs to continue to be economically successful. It recognised as much in the statement of the European Council in Lisbon in March, 2000: “Europe must become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy in the world, in which sustainable economic growth leads to more and better jobs and a more cohesive society” (cited in Bakas, 2006, pp. 180–182). Equity and enterprise are linked indissolubly, although we would like to see explicit acknowledgement of the environment as part of a troika. Moves toward social cohesion and equity can be helped by economic success. So how is Europe to attain that entrepreneurial success, especially in the face of long US ascendence, as outlined above in the PCAST assessment of its resources and “innovation ecosystem” (Prestowitz, 2005, p. 131), and, also as outlined above, the rise of China and India as potential economic superpowers? We suggest that the study of entrepreneurism, the conditions that foster it, and the role of PR in the process, needs to be at the core of PR education. The interconnectedness between entrepreneurism and PR can be seen through the work of Richard Florida. From a base in regional economic development, Florida (2002) has built an international reputation around what he calls The Rise of the Creative Class: And How

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It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life and, more recently, the potential loss of that class to the US, in “America’s looming creativity crisis” in the Harvard Business Review and in the subsequent book on the same topic, The Flight of the Creative Class (Florida, 2005). The essence of the first book’s assertion can be captured by a quote from the Harvard Business Review article: There’s a whole new class of workers in the U.S. that’s 38 million strong; the creative class. At its core are the scientists, engineers, architects, designers, educators, artists, musicians, and entertainers, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, or new content. Also included are the creative professions of business and finance, law, health care, and related fields, in which knowledge workers engage in complex problem solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment. Today, the creative sector of the U.S. economy, broadly defined, employs more than 30% of the workforce (more than all of manufacturing) and accounts for nearly half of all wage and salary income (some $2 trillion) – almost as much as the manufacturing and service sectors together. (Florida, 2004, p. 123) Florida (2004, 2005) argues that a lack of diversity poses a risk to US competitiveness. Like Prestowitz, he too uses a 9/11 reference by suggesting that over “time, terrorism is less a threat to the United States than the possibility that creative and talented people will stop wanting to live within its borders” (Florida, 2004, p. 134), and gives examples of potential loss, “high-tech luminaries Sergey Brin, the Moscow-born cofounder of Google, and Hotmail cofounder Sabeer Bhatia, who grew up in Bangalore” (p. 124), as an incentive for the government to follow his advice and “act in concrete ways to reassure people – both Americans and global citizens – that it values openness, diversity, and tolerance” (p. 134). It is not necessary to be a citizen of the US to learn from Florida’s observations. His analyses can be interpreted as an incentive for other nations and he himself notes that a “host of countries – Ireland, Finland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, among them – are investing in higher education, cultivating creative people, and churning out stellar products, from Nokia phones to the Lord of the Rings movies” (Florida, 2004, p. 122). Although, as he also notes, if “even a handful of these rising nations draws away just 2% to 5% of the creative workers from the U.S., the effect on its economy will be enormous” because, although the US “may well have been the Goliath of the twentieth century global economy . . . it will take just half a dozen twenty-first-century Davids to begin to wear it down” (2004, pp. 122–123). PR workers not only belong to the creative class, but can also contribute substantially in attracting and retaining these creatives at an organisational and national level, not just in the US but elsewhere in the world as well. Florida (2004) adds specificity to calls for allowing international labour to flow as freely as international capital:

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Back to futures Today, many international organizations, from the International Monetary Fund to the World Bank, are concerned with investment, trade, and competitiveness, while the United Nations and the other groups tackle policy, security, or equity. Left out are the crucial dimensions of the new creative age, the other two Ts, talent and especially tolerance, which are important engines for common prosperity. What we need more than anything now is a focal point for the discussion of global talent flows, for someone to make the case for a fair and equitable global framework for managing the flow of people worldwide . . . Perhaps it’s time to establish something like a Global Creativity Commission . . . It’s time for the advanced nations to consider what Martin Kenny of the University of California at Davis calls a “Global New Deal”. (pp. 267–268)

Afterword: context, foresight, and conclusion Chapter 2 offered our assessment of shaping features of these powerful and transformational times. In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, we argued for a mismatch between central PR theory and its context in terms of globalisation and pluralism and suggested postcolonial guidance to find a better way forward. Chapter 6 looked back to the pre-history of PR excellence and developments in leadership and Chapter 7 sought a PR value proposition for changing socioeconomic circumstances. In Chapter 8 we attempted a fresh perspective on professionalism to foreground PR’s challenge as an identity crisis rather than an image problem. In the penultimate chapter we looked at history and historiography to demote the current myth of origins and find ways forward by going back. In Chapter 1 our stated aim was to reconfigure PR to fit with contemporary conditions in ways that can catalyse human enterprise and equity globally. Our Muppet imagery sought to make clear that we had no illusions of controlling the field or taking more than a stab at conveying the changing characteristics, challenges, opportunities, tendencies, and potential of the global situation. Our first page cited van der Heijden’s (1996) strategic conversations as a model. We conclude with later van der Heijden (2004) suggestions for minimising the risk of illusions of control by breaking up the environment into three parts with differing degrees of belief in control: the contextual, the transactional, and the organisational. In the contextual – the whole environment in which we operate – we have the least control and influence. So, although we may have a huge personal stake in the world economic system continuing to function and not collapse, our personal efforts, e.g. high interest savings, can have only a minimal impact. This does not mean we ignore the contextual as a “crucial contribution from foresight is to help us appreciate what is going on there” (van der Heijden, 2004, p. 208). The aim is “to explore an as yet unexplored problematic situation” (van der Heijden, 2004, p. 209). In PR this is what we have tried to do by interpreting a context that means trouble for the discipline unless it makes changes that align with it.

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In the transactional environment, in which we do interact with potential impact, the method is instrumental foresight, where the “purpose is to set direction and help in decision-making” (van der Heijden, 2004, p. 209). In attempting to reconfigure PR we have intervened to the best of our ability to “act on the ‘playing field’ toward winning the game” (p. 210). The game, in our definition, is enlarging the discipline’s strategic conversations, reducing some dominant voices, and introducing fresh contributions, especially those that accelerate its movement from the unseen to the seen with a creative new transparency. Our hope is to encourage others to “decide to what extent they wish to take on future commitments, and where they need to invest in flexibility to be able to deal with the fundamentally unpredictable” (van der Heijden, 2004, p. 210). In the organisation environment, the tool is value foresight whose “purpose is to bring groups of people together in a process of consensus building on ‘the future of desire’ ” by “strengthening future orientation, challenging groupthink, team building and language creation, bridge building with others, increasing common ground, and culture change” (van der Heijden, 2004, p. 210). Obviously, not all are as appropriate to PR as a field, but we hope to spark desires to develop the discipline away from insularity and in the direction of environmental improvement, inclusive egalitarianism, and sustainable enterprise.

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Index

Abrahamson, V. 134 academia 108–9 academic texts 83–4 ACID test 104–5, 106, 107–9 activism 97–9 Adeola, F. 66 Agee, W. 51–2, 125 Agenda 21 101 Ahlstraand, B. 89 Aldoory, L. 130 Allen, B. 55 Alozie, C. 70, 71, 127 Andreasen, A. 116–17 Andriessen, D. 93 Annan, Kofi 26, 27 antecedents, acknowledgement of 13–15 Appadurai, Arjun 24–5 Argenti, P. 6–7 Arnoff, C. 106, 107 Ashby, W. Ross 48–9, 54 Ashcraft, K. 55 Asia 86–7 Asia-Pacific Cooperation (APEC) 59 Athanasiou, T. 13, 110 Ault, P. 51–2, 125 Austin, N. 88 Australia 110–11 Ayottee, K. 42 Babik, K. 63, 70 Bakas, A. 73, 142 Bakhtin, Mikhail 85 Balmer, J. 104, 107 Banga, K. 27, 53, 137 Banks, S. 50–1 Barber, F. 115 Barbie dolls 97–9 Barbie Liberation Organization 98 Baskin, O. 51, 95, 106, 107, 114–15

Bayoumi, M. 62 Beck, U. 57, 58, 59 Beder, S. 23, 99–100 Belch, G. 113 Belch, M. 113 Bell, D. 133 Bennis, W. 89 Berg, P. 77 Bernays, Edward 12, 102, 103, 123, 124–5, 126 Bhabba, H. 63 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 74 Bhopal disaster 66–7, 72 Biodiversity Convention 67–8 Blamphin, J. 10 BLS 99 BMW 78 Boettcher, J. 3 Boff, L. 65 Boje, D. 77, 84–5, 86–7 Booth, K. 46 Borkowski, M. 31, 96 Botan, C. 28–9, 42, 43, 47, 49, 73 Boyatzis, R. 89 bp 99–100 Bradbury, H. 89 Bradfield, R. 133 Brin, Sergey 143 Britain 4–5, 127, 128–9 British Nuclear Industry Forum 69 Brockbank, W. 93 Brockway, G. 77 Broom, G. 53, 102 Brown, J. 131 Brown, Stephen 15, 37, 109, 124–5, 126 Brunig, S. 104 Brunner, B. 48, 50, 68 Buffington, J. 45 Burnett, J. 111, 113

174

Index

Burrell, G. 81 Burstein, D. 57, 135 Burt, G. 133 Burton, B. 23, 66 Bush, M. 53 business texts 83–4 Butterfield, Herbert 124 Byrne, C. 82 Cairns, G. 133 Cameron, G. 36, 105 Campbell, Alistair 13 Cancel, A. 36 Carden, A. 34 Carlsnaes, W. 40 Carroll, D. 82 Carty, F.X. 105–6, 108 Center, A. 53, 102 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 10, 63, 68–9 Chambers, Samuel 107 Chandler, A. 121 change, catching current of 137–40 Chauncey, G. Jr. 130 Chavez, Cesar 97 Chen, N. 50, 70 Chen, Y. 57 Cheney, George 15, 39, 41–2, 62, 115 Chia, R. 74 Christensen, B. 103, 115 Christensen, Lars 15, 39, 41–2, 62 Clarke, J. 44 Cleveland, R. 20 Coca-Cola 52, 98 Cockburn, A. 8 Cockerell, M. 4, 13 Collier, J. 137 Collins, J. 89 colonisation 112–14 Commission for the Futures (1967) 132–3 communicated identity 105–7 Confederation of British Industry (CBI) 128 Connelly, J. 100–1, 140 Connor, T. 67 context-relevance 28–31 contradictions: acknowledgement of 15–17; continuing 86–7 Cook, S. 64 Coombs, W.T. 13, 36 Cooper, R. 81 Coren, Alan 1 Cornelissen, J. 38 corporate choices 26–8 corporate games 82

Cox, John 22 Crainer, S. 85 creative class 142–4 Cropp, F. 102, 118 CSC Index 83 culture, crossover 83–4 customers, demands of 140–2 Cuthbertson, H. 48, 50, 70 Cutlip, Scott 4, 20, 31–2, 42–3, 53, 102, 103, 121, 127, 129–30 Czarniawska, B. 16 D’Aveni, R. 77 Damasio, Antonio R. 32–3 Darwinism, determining 122–6 Davidson, Hugh 112 Davis-Floyd, R. 138 De Keijzer, A. 57, 135 Dee, J. 36 Deleuze, G. 3, 9, 32, 73–5 demand 92–5 demarcation disputes 109–11 democracies, new 57–9 democracy 24–6 Dennehy, R. 77, 84–5, 86–7 Derrida, J. 3, 16–17, 24, 26 Dery, M. 91 design, intelligent 122–6 Dicken, P. 56 discipline 92–5 disciplines, competing 112–14 diversity 67–8 Dobson, A. 100, 140 Dozier, D. 2, 29, 35, 36, 46, 50, 51, 52, 67 Dreher, D. 86 Drucker, Peter 19, 76, 109, 110 Duberman, M. 130 Duffy, N. 125 Dunlap, R. 22 ecology 21–4 Edelman PR Worldwide 103, 111 education 134–6 Edwards, L. 53 Egelhoff, W. 66, 67 Ehling, W. 35, 36, 46, 50, 109–10, 112, 113 Eisenberg, E. 78, 80 Elkind, P. 92 Elton, B. 111 emotional matters 31–3, 89–90 Empire Marketing Board, Britain 128–9 empires 45–7 empiricism 44–5

Index 175 employee communication 115–17 Enron 64 enterprise 26–8 entrepreneurism 142–4 environmental matters 99–101 environmentalists 38 equity 24–6, 39–40 Esser, F. 40 ethics, evolving 122–6 ethnicity 51–5 ethnocentrism 49–51 Eurocentrism 68–70 Europe 141–2 European Council (Lisbon 2000) 142 evolution 122–6 Ewen, Stuart 5, 13, 20, 21, 76, 110, 121, 122, 126–7, 130, 131 “faddishness” 82 Fairclough, N. 4–5, 64 Federal Association for Wind Energy, Germany 99 Filler, L. 105 films 106 Firat, A. 134 Fishman, T. 135–6 Fleisher, C. 41 Florida, R. 142–4 Foley, S. 93 Foong, W.F. 86 Ford 13 foresight 144–5; deployment of 133–4 Forest Stewardship Council 23 Forman, J. 6–7 Franken, Michael 99 Fraser, Nancy 69, 73 Frenkel, M. 131 Friedman, T. 8, 71 Fukuyama, F. 58, 74–5, 77 Fulbrook, M. 131 Fuller, T. 137 futures: managing of alternative 136–7; planning 107–9, 134–6 Galambos, L. 120, 121, 126 Galloway, C. 23 Gandy, O. Jr. 36 Gazzaniga, M. 32 General Mills 53 Gephart, R. Jr. 84–5 Gergen, K. 79 Germany 99 Ghamari-Tabrizi, S. 133, 137 Ghosh, A. 82

Giblett, R. 27 Giddens, A. 57, 58–9 Gillette 113 global (im)balances 24–6 Global Alliance 23 Global Compact 26 Global Environment Facility 23 global opportunities 136–7 global relations 70–3 global theory 56–7 Goldman Sachs 73 Goldman, R. 111 Goleman, D. 32 Goodall, H. Jr. 78, 80 Gould, Stephen 11, 12, 122, 124 Grameen Bank 27–8 Graubard, S. 133 Greenspan, Alan 93 Grierson, John 128 Grunig, J. 2, 12, 29, 32, 34–5, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43–4, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 59, 67, 75, 76, 88, 108–10, 112, 113, 122–4, 126, 127 Grunig, L. 2, 12, 29, 35, 36, 37–8, 39, 46, 51, 52, 59, 67, 124, 130 Guattari, F. 3, 9, 32, 73–5 Guha, R. 62 Guth, D.W. 44 Hagel, J. 131 Hager, N. 23 Hajer, M. 100 Hall, S. 77 Hallinan, C. 8 Hamel, G. 49, 52 Hames, T. 69, 87 Hammond, A. 133, 138, 139, 141 Hampden-Turner, C. 15, 44–5, 53–4, 134 Handy, C. 141 Hardt, N. 60 Harris, P. 41 Harris, Thomas 112 Hart, Stuart 20, 26–7, 53, 99, 136 Harvey, D. 72 Haywood, R. 69 Hazleton, V. 28–9, 42, 43, 47, 49 Heath, Robert 15, 28, 36, 42, 62, 66, 112, 119, 134 Hebdige, D. 11–12, 77, 85 Hegde, R. 61, 62, 68 Heiman, S. 51, 95, 106, 107, 114–15 Held, D. 77 Henderson, A. 15 Henley Centre, UK 109

176

Index

Hertz, N. 56, 87 Hewitt Associates 115 Hiebert, R. 20 Hill & Knowlton 121–2 historiography 119–20; inclusive 129–31; outside US 126–9 Hobsbawm, J. 16, 28, 30–1, 93–4, 96, 114 Hofstede, G. 59 Holman Jones, S. 82 Holtz, S. 41 Holtzhausen, D. 46–7, 77 Hon, L. 48, 50, 68, 130 Huang, C. 57 Hunt, M.L. 110, 111 Hunt, T. 12, 34–5, 41, 49, 50, 53, 63, 70, 75, 110, 122–4, 125, 126, 127 Hussein, A. 62 Hutton, J. 109, 112, 113–14, 116, 118 Hyatt, J. 90, 133 Iaccoca, L. 82 IBM 69, 81 Ice, R. 66, 72 identity testing 104–5 identity: communicated 105–7; desired 107–9 In Search of Excellence 79–89 inclusion 68–70 “India Shining” campaign 74–5 inequalities 56–7 Infact 96–7 integration, intimations of 109–11 interdisciplinary texts 84–6 Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility 96–7 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 22, 23 International Communication Association (ICA) 14 Internet 134 interventions 8–10 Israel 127–8 Ivry, R. 32 Jablin, F. 41 Jagtenberg, T. 77 Jaworski, J. 137, 138 Jeffers, D. 48, 50 John, S. 17 Johnson, H.F. 26 Jones, C. 3 Jonge Oudraat, C. de 23 Jowett, G. 34 Jue, R. 1

Kahane, A. 133, 138 Kahn, H. 132, 137 Kaid, L. 41 Kalafut, P. 91, 92, 93 Kao, J. 134 Karagianni, K. 38 Karlberg, M. 36 Karliner, J. 87 Kellerman, B. 89 Kelly, E. 21, 23, 42, 133 Kent, M. 37 Keohane, Robert 47 Kersten, A. 9 KFC 17, 87 Kim, W. Chan 89 Kitchen, P. 67, 70, 125 Klein, Naomi 7, 37, 56, 67 Kleiner, Art 77, 79, 83 Kluger, R. 104 knowledge 45–7; relocation of 59–60 Knudsen, C. 16 Korten, D. 20 Kotler, Philip 109–10, 112, 113, 116 Kouzes, J. 89 KPMG 92–3 Kraft 96–7 Kruckeberg, D. 51, 56, 102–4, 108–9, 125 Kunczik, M. 59–60, 61 Kurian, P. 15, 60, 65 Kurtzman, J. 77 L’Etang, J. 15, 28, 29, 44, 108, 127, 128–9 Lampel, J. 89 Langer, R. 115–16 Lao Tzu 86 Lapierre, D. 66 Lash, S. 58 Lattimore, D. 51, 95, 106, 107, 114–15 Lauf, E. 9 Lauzen, M. 36, 46 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 29 Lawson, H. 78, 79–80 Leadbeater, C. 92 leadership: new developments in 88–9; with emotion 89–90 Ledingham, J. 104 Ledlow, G. 42 LeDoux, Joseph 32 Lee and Parker 110 Lee, Ivy 20–1, 104, 105, 110 Lee, N. 116 Lee, Spike 51 Leichty, G. 36

Index 177 Leitch, S. 15, 50, 62, 103 Levine, R. 134 Levitt, Arthur 93 Leyden, P. 90, 133 Liddle, R. 4 Lipman-Blumen, J. 89 Lipschutz, J. 67 litigation 97–9 locations 2–5 Locke, C. 134 Low, J. 91, 92, 93 Lubbers, E. 3, 23, 37 Luce, E. 74 Lynas, Mark 22 Lyotard, J.-F. 79 McClintock, Anne 64 McCright, A. 22 McElreath, N. 10 McGrew, T. 77 McKee, A. 89 Mackey, S. 104 McKie, D. 5–7, 8–9, 13, 15, 17, 23, 57, 62, 106, 107, 110, 111 McLean, P. 92 Macnamara, J. 54, 55 Mahajan, V. 27, 53, 137 Makower, Joel 19–20 Mandelson, P. 4 Mangun, G. 32 Marchand, R. 121, 122, 126, 140 marketing matters 109–11 marketing offensives 112–14 marketing, social 114–17 markets 26–8 Marlin, A.T. 141 Mathias, B. 69 Mattel 97–8 Mattinson, Deborah 98 Mauborgne, R. 89 May, B. 22–3 May, S. 5, 15 Mazarr, Michael 135, 137 Mazur, L. 72 mechanistic models 51–4 media coverage 106–7 Meehan, M. 134 Mercer, D. 57, 109 metaphor banks 79–81 metaphoric titles 120–2 methodologies 88–9 Michie, David 30 Micklethwait, J. 82, 83–4, 88, 91–2 Mill, John Stuart 69

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) 22 Miller, G. 36, 52 Miller, K. 118, 121–2, 126 Mintzberg, Henry 40, 89, 133 Mitbrook, M. 36 Mitter, S. 130 modernism, marketing after 109–11 modernity, leading change after 77–9 Mohanty, C. 63 Moloney, K. 2, 3, 15, 28, 30, 34, 35, 39–40, 42, 114 Monbiot, G. 38 Mont Fleur scenarios 138 Montenegro, S. 43, 71 Moore, S. 52 Moriarty, S. 111, 113 Morley, D. 52 Moro, J. 66 Motion, J. 15 Mulvey, Kathryn 96–7 Mumby, D. 5, 15 Munshi, D. 7–9, 15, 27, 55, 57, 62, 65, 107 Munslow, Alan 120 Murdock, G. 77 Murphy, P. 36 Muruli, H. 129 Naisbitt, J. 57, 135 National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) 20 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004) 134 Negri, A. 60 Neilson, D. 50, 62, 103 New Labour 4–5, 13 New Zealand 54, 106, 108 Newsom, D. 51, 125 Nicholas, Kate 95 North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) 59 Novak, W. 82 O’Donnell, V. 34 O’Dwyer, J. 103 O’Hair, F. 42 O’Toole, J. 89 Ogilvy, J. 133 Ohmae, K. 8 Olasky, M. 121, 122, 126 Omerod, P. 77 Orbanes, P. 13–14 other: Bhopal disaster and 66–7; phobia of 54–5

178

Index

Owen, S. 69 Papson, S. 111 Parker, M. 3 Paul, Diane B. 11 Pavicic, J. 56 peace propaganda 31–3 Pearson, R. 107, 119 Peart, J. 54 PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) 17, 87 Petelin, R. 9 Peters, Claudia 82, 84, 85, 86, 99 Peters, T. 76, 79–81, 82, 83, 86, 88 Petersen, B. 46–7 Pfetsch, B. 40 Philip Morris 96–7 photographic metaphors 49–51 Piezcka, M. 15, 28, 29, 46, 108 Pimlott, J.A.R. 34, 102, 123 Pincus, J. 102, 118 Pirsig, R. 86 Plank, B. 135 Plumwood, V. 60 pluralisation 28–31 pluralism 45–7 political economy 8–10 Pompper, D. 50, 53, 68 Popcorn, F. 110 Popper, K. 132 Porritt, J. 26 Port of Entry: Public Relations Education for the 21st Century 134–6 Posner, B. 89 postcolonial perspectives, overview of 63–6 postcolonialism, influence of 131 postmodernists 77–9 Prahalad, C. 27, 49, 52, 53, 54, 136–7 Pratt, J. 56, 120, 121, 126 President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST), US 136 Prestowitz, C. 134, 136, 142, 143 PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) 141–2 Pristop 38 Pritchett, Betty 71, 72 professional identity 104–7 professionalism 103–4 propaganda for peace 31–3 public diplomacy 31–3 Public Relations Education, Commission on, US 102–3, 134–5 Public Relations, Institute of 128

Public Relations Institute of Ireland 105–6 Publicity Bureau, The 110 Putnam, L. 41 Rampton, S. 36, 110 Raucher, A. 20, 120, 121, 123 reality checks 79–81 Reason, P. 89 Rees, Martin 22 Reich, Robert 91 requisite varieties, law of 48–51 Reuters 71 Rheingold, H. 14, 25 Richardson, L. 16 Ries, A. 111 Ries, L. 111 Rifkin, J. 92 Rihani, S. 50 Risse, T. 40 Ritzer, G. 43 Roberts, P. 77 Robertson, K. 106 Robins, K. 52 Roper, J. 15, 46 Rose, M. 78 Rosell, S. 138–9, 141 Rosenau, P. 78 Rost, J. 135 Roth, N. 63, 70 Rowbotham, Sheila 129, 130 Rowe, J. 26, 67 Royal Dutch/Shell 137 Rubin, A. 62 Ruggie, J. 23 Ruse, Michael 126 Ryan, Chris 44 Sabeer, Bhatia 143 Said, Edward 10, 61, 63–6 Sainath, P. 8, 74 St. Pierre, E. 16 Sallot, L. 105 Samuel, L. 134 Sardar, Z. 132 Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) 115–16 scenario-making 133–4, 137–40, 141–2 Schiffrin, Anna 30 Schmidt, B. 118–19, 124 Schoenberger-Orgad, M. 13, 15 Schrage, M. 14 Schultz, C. 134 Schwartz, P. 90, 133 Scott, W. 12 Scully, J. 82

Index 179 Searis, D. 134 Securities and Exchange Commission, US 92 Seitel, F. 24, 125 Semler, Ricardo 81 Sen, F. 66, 67 Senge, Peter 78, 79, 86 sense-making 90 sensuousness 120–2 Sha, B. 54–5 Shannon, C. 52 Sharpe, Melvin 71, 72 Shenhav, Y. 45–6, 131 Shenkar, O. 136 Shepherd, J. 90, 132, 133–4 Sherwood, A. 93–5, 114 Shiva, Vandana 67–8 Shome, R. 61, 68 short-termism 112–13 Sidky, M. 9 Simmons, B. 23, 40 Sims, B. 57 Slack, J. 9 Slaughter, R. 133 Smith, Adam 121 Smith, D. 69 Smith, G. 100–1, 140 Smith, S. 46, 47, 141 Snow, Nancy 33, 34 social marketing 114–17 Soenen, G. 104, 107 Spivak, Gayatri 10, 63–6 Springston, J. 36 Sriramesh, K. 1, 10, 24, 44, 45, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 72, 127, 135 Stahl, B. 101 Starck, K. 56 status 11–13; changes in 70–3 Stauber, J. 36, 110 Stavropoulos, M. 63, 70 Stearns, P. 19, 71, 134 Stiglitz, J. 24 Stone, D. 48, 50 Strack, R. 115 Strangelove, M. 97–8 strategic ambiguity 80–1 strategic amnesia 44–5 Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPPS) 98–9 strategy 72–3 Sun Tsu 86 Sutcliffe, K. 41 symmetry: interpretations of 36–40; testing 40–3

Tallens, S. 64 Taylor, M. 37 Tedesco, J. 41 Tedlow, R. 120, 121, 123, 127 television 106–7 Tellis, Gerard 113 ten Boss, R. 3 ten Brink, P. 69 terminology 11–13 Terrell, M. 48, 50 Tetra Park 99 textbooks 10–13 Thatchenkery, T. 84–5 theory geography 8–10 Thompson, E.P. 130–1 Thompson, S. 17 Thorup, S. 115–16 Tierney, W. 108 Tilson, D. 70, 71, 127 Tindall, N. 46–7 Tissen, R. 93 Tkalac, A. 56 tobacco 96–7 Toledano, M. 9, 15, 44, 110, 116, 128 Toth, E. 28, 29, 42, 46, 51, 95, 106, 107, 114–15, 119, 130 transparency 114; costs of 96–7 Traverse-Healy, Tim 70–1 Tremaine, M. 54 Trompenaars, F. 15, 44–5, 53–4, 134 Trout, J. 111 Tsoukas, H. 16, 90, 132, 133–4 Turk, J. Donald 51, 125 Turnbull, N. 110, 140–1 Ulrich, D. 93 Union Carbide 66–7, 72 university curricula 108–9 US: assessment of 31–3, changing status of 70–3, creative class in 143, futuring 134–6; military 42–3; primacy of 43–4; research findings 140–1 value propositions 92–5 Van der Heijden, Kees 2, 132, 133, 144–5 Van Leuven, J. 51, 95, 106, 107, 114–15 van Ruler, B. 127 Vasquez, G. 36 Ver_i_, D. 10, 37–8, 43–4, 55, 56, 59, 60, 127 Verma, P. 74 Vervoon, A. 10, 56, 60 Vicinus, M. 130

180

Index

Vonnegut, Kurt 16 Voto, R. 77 Wack, Pierre 137 Waever, O. 47, 127 Waikato Management School, New Zealand 3 Waitangi, Treaty of (1840) 54 Wakefield, R. 44–5 Walker, G. 90 Walshok, M. 108, 109 Waterman, R. 76, 79–81, 82, 83, 86, 88 Weaver, W. 52 Weaver-Lariscy, R. 105 Weber, M. 44 Wedemeyer, R. 1 Weick, Karl 16, 47, 49, 50, 80, 90 Weinberger, D. 134 Wells, W. 111 Wernick, A. 15, 96 Western PR 73–5 Whitaker, B. 69

White, Haydon 119–20 White, J. 72, 109–10, 112, 113 White, L. 96 Whitney, D. 79 Wiener, Norbert 48 Wilcox, D. 51–2, 125 Williams, Patrick 61 Wolf, M. 14 women 129–31 Wooldridge, A. 82, 83–4, 88, 91–2 World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) 26 World Resources Institute 136–7 Worldwatch Institute 21 Wright, G. 133 Yalewski, M. 46 Yeomans, L. 32 Yunus, Muhammad 27–8 Zand, D. 87, 111