Rupturing Public Relations Metanarratives: The Example of India

Bardhan, Nilanjana

doi:10.1207/s1532754xjprr1503_2

Cited by 35 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Increasingly, public relations is a tool for influencing public opinion and policy, playing an active role in shaping society and culture (Banks, ); as such, it can offer insights for scholars and practitioners outside of traditional strategic communication disciplines. Although scholars in strategic communication have discussed how public relations can contribute to the facilitation of social change (Bardhan, ; Hodges & McGrath, ; Pal & Dutta, ), little work in communication for development and social change (CDSC) draws from public relations theory. This research is a response to Hemer and Tufte's call to refocus attention on “deliberative, non‐institutional citizen‐driven change processes” (, p. 234), conceptualizing public relations with regard to its strategic capacities for social change.…”

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confidence: 99%

Activist Strategic Communication for Social Change: A Transnational Case Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Activism

Ciszek

2017

J Commun

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This study explores activists as producers of strategic communication for social change, suggesting communication for development and social change (CDSC), activism, and public relations are not antagonistic but rather occupy a fluid space informed by cultural-economic forces. This article presents a model of cultural intermediation for social change, arguing that activism is a form of strategic communication embedded in micro, meso, and macro levels. Through a case study of transnational LGBT activism, this research demonstrates how activists function as cultural intermediaries, playing a mediating role that is often concerned with (re)producing and challenging cultural meaning.communication. This research takes a transnational 1 approach to strategic communication for social change, requiring attention to the flows of people, goods, and knowledge and how this flow produces relationships and linkages between and among disparate people and places (Valentine, Vanderbeck, Sadgrove, & Andersson, 2013). Rather than emphasizing outcomes or effects, the focus of this study is an examination of how activists come to describe, explain, and account for the world in which they live and the processes through which activists bring about and contribute to shared understandings. This study explores how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT 2 ) activists engage in public relations, operating as cultural intermediaries (Bourdieu, 1984) to make, remake, subvert, communicate, and circulate cultural identities, representations, and imaginations by way of strategic communication for social change. Through a consideration of transnational activism, this research works to show that public relations research can productively inform existing interdisciplinary research on communication for social change.

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confidence: 99%

Activist Strategic Communication for Social Change: A Transnational Case Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Activism

Ciszek

2017

J Commun

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“…Another characteristic of international comparative PR research is the strong dominance of English language contributions, which may also add to the large number of studies in this field (Bardhan, 2003;McKie & Munshi, 2007;Sriramesh, 2004). Consequently, focus of research of international PR in the Anglo-American world differs from the approaches taken by German-speaking scholars.…”

Section: International Comparative Pr Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, the aforementioned influence factors on PR practices are said to be plausible, but not derived from theory, and partly even contradictory to social theory (Klare, 2010, p. 17). Other researchers criticize the Excellence-in-Global-PR-Theory's strong normative character leaving too little room for cultural differences beyond the Western world which still need to be considered in international communication (Bardhan, 2003;Holtzhausen, Petersen, & Tindall, 2003). Kent and Taylor (2007) point out that the theory's general variables offer good opportunities to describe the general conditions of international PR.…”

Section: Excellence-in-global-public-relations-theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

International public relations: A synopsis of German-speaking and Anglo-American research approaches

Ingenhoff

Ruehl

2013

Studies in Communication Sciences

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“…Gilpin and Murphy, 2008;McKie, 2000;Murphy, 1996) and postcolonial approaches (e.g. Bardhan, 2003;Dutta, 2009;Munshi, 2005) have enriched this perspective. Some branches of third-wave feminism fall within the postmodern paradigm, such as Pompper's (2007) work on standpoint theory, although public relations scholars have yet to embrace queer theory, with its emphasis on continuums.…”

Section: Dimensions Of a Multi-paradigmatic Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If we are to truly study global practice, however, we need to be inclusive of eastern thought, the worldviews of indigenous peoples, and other cultural perspectives. Bardhan (2003;Bardhan and Patwardhan, 2004) makes this argument in her work on public relations practices in India; theory to guide practice differs in many ways that are not transferable when developed from within a paradigm consonant with the host culture. Chung and Ho (2009) provide an Eastern paradigm using the I-Ching, which informs Taoist, Buddhist and Confucianist thought, and the notion of chi/qi/ki, the basic life force or energy.…”

Section: Ramifications and Incommensurabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public relations and philosophy: Parsing paradigms

Curtin

2012

Public Relations Inquiry

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This philosophical article examines how public relations researchers have engaged with Kuhn's concept of a paradigm and have used it to set a research agenda for the field. I argue that Kuhn believed the social sciences to be inherently multi-paradigmatic, making the quest for a single, overarching paradigm for public relations research misguided. Instead, I lay out a four-paradigm schematic for the field, examining issues of semantic and cultural incommensurability and consequences for language use and research method and values. The article questions the definition of a mature discipline as often found in public relations literature and proposes that we might be more mature than we think if we are willing to accept a diversity of perspectives and their concomitant research values. Keywords paradigm, public relations research, semantic incommensurability theory, Thomas KuhnIt's not safe to assume you know what philosophy is, even if you have studied a good deal of it already. The reason is that there is nothing like consensus among philosophers about exactly what their subject is. (Rosenberg, n.d.: 1) This article, more philosophical argument than social scientific research in content and structure, examines the often uneasy relationship between public relations scholarship and Kuhn's (1996) notion of paradigm. Since the early 1980s, many public relations scholars have been on a quest to distinguish a singular, overarching paradigm for the field. Such a quest, I argue, is based on a faulty understanding of Kuhn and does little to advance our body of knowledge. Of more benefit to practice and theory would be to embrace the inherently multi-paradigmatic nature of public relations, rather than searching for the one 'correct' approach. My point is not simply philosophical. What we believe to be the object of study (ontology) guides how we know it (epistemology), study it (methodology) and ultimately what we value about it (axiology). What we value in public relations scholarship is the issue at the heart of this article.

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Rupturing Public Relations Metanarratives: The Example of India

Cited by 35 publications

References 14 publications

Activist Strategic Communication for Social Change: A Transnational Case Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Activism

Activist Strategic Communication for Social Change: A Transnational Case Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Activism

International public relations: A synopsis of German-speaking and Anglo-American research approaches

Public relations and philosophy: Parsing paradigms

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