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1993 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr0502_02
This article addresses the role of the concept of image in the ethics of international public relations. It argues that the right to construct mental images is fundamental to the human experience and that ethical international public relations can enhance this right. The article identifies two diametrically opposed approaches to image in public relations. The first view uses instrumental or "i images" in an attempt to manage publics by managing the organization's communication with them. This instrumental approach is essentially one-way and monological, which is inviting for many practitioners and clients. I images are usually unethical, however, because they reduce the public's chance to use symbols and images rationally and to make informed choices. The second approach uses "h images" for the humanitarian view of images. With this approach, practitioners and their clients use two-way dialogical communication and accept the ethical responsibility to enhance, not degrade, the humanity of all parties involved in public relationships. Dialogical communicators assume that their publics have as varied and valid interpretations of the world as do their clients. They assume that the goal of public relations is not reducing publics to the service of clients but joining with publics in the process of interpreting the world together. The h image approach is especially important in international public relations, which can be understood as the attempt of one culturally bound community to deal with the interpretations of another. Based on the humanitarian approach, the article proposes five tests that international public relations practice should pass to be ethical.
1993 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr0502_03
This article reviews the concept of images in marketing. The marketing literature identifies two levels of images: brand images and corporate images. At the brand level, corporations address the extent to which each marketing instrument contributes to the brand image and the extent to which that image enhances desired economic behavior of markets. Corporate images include brand images, but they also consist of factors such as the quality of management, corporate leadership, and employee orientation. Corporations must harmonize their brand and corporate images. They also must bring their perceived self-images into harmony with those of all relevant publics. To harmonize these images, the planning of marketing and public relations should be integrated at the level of strategic management. Corporate leadership can detect the overlapping requirements of the market and society only by combining marketing and public relations under the common roof of strategic corporate planning and by making them equal instruments of management.
1993 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr0502_04
Through an exploration of the scholarly and professional literature, this article investigates the concepts of symbolic leadership and organizational image. A critical analysis of the literature establishes that symbolic leaders, especially chief executive officers (CEOs), may operate either symmetrically or asymmetrically. As leader and spokesperson, the CEO personifies the company to its key constituencies. Effective leaders give people power. This empowerment of strategic publics, both external and internal, suggests a symmetrical world view. It replaces the asymmetrical assumptions more characteristic of the autocratic leadership espoused in the management theory of the 1950s. A modest case study of focus group research illustrates the role of public relations in exploring, defining, and communicating image. This counseling or managerial role is critical in helping the organization be, rather than seeming to be—a key philosophical tenet of contemporary public relations. The theoretical frame for this article is Dervin's (1983, 1990, 1991) gap perspective, which suggests that such discontinuities are inherent in human interaction. Because focus groups also may provide insight into how to reconcile any gaps employees or other publics perceive between the image and the reality of the organization, it suggests more of a symmetrical than asymmetrical model. Senior management's role is to personify the organization externally to customers & others—but also internally to the "family." (pr reporter, 1991)
1993 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr0502_05
In German-speaking countries public relations scholars emphasize the role of public relations (PR) in society in their theorizing. These scholars seek to understand PR as a macro-level, or sociological, phenomenon in contrast to the micro-level, or management, emphasis of scholars in the United States. This article builds a sociological theory of PR by comparing it with the practice of symbolic politics as conceptualized in political science. The theory states that both PR and symbolic politics develop and use symbols—signs that influence and guide conceptions—to achieve their purposes. They also rely heavily on journalistic media. Media reality, however, frequently departs from extramedia reality. The difference between these two types of reality makes it possible for symbolic politics and PR to influence the gap and perhaps to separate the symbolic world from the external world. On the other hand, attention is a scarce resource, and increased activity in PR and symbolic politics eventually will have a declining marginal social utility.
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