journal article
Download Only Collection
Home
2011 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2011.605972
This study explores the discursive identities constructed by Harvey Company personnel around American Indians in their tourist promotional literature and practices, merchandising, and employee relations practices. The study disputes the dominant narrative that the company promoted only cultural imperialism and commodification, using the cultural–economic model of public relations practice to provide a more nuanced lens that reveals varying, and sometimes conflicting, discourses used to achieve and legitimize organizational objectives. The findings suggest ways in which public relations, tourism, and ethnicity form interrelated areas of study that deserve further theoretical development.
2011 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2011.605975
This article examines approaches to race in public relations and seeks to reframe them through the work of Zygmunt Bauman. After a brief survey of recent race-concerned interventions in the literature, I contend that the mainstream field still tends to avoid anxieties around race in 3 main ways: by considering race from a functionalist business orientation rather than a social equity perspective; by embedding, or freezing, race in relatively static, quantitative, and unemotional conceptualizations of culture and ethnicity; and by acting as if race is no longer an issue in a multicultural, or postrace society. I find these approaches inadequate to the task of comprehending a swift-moving and unsettled present characterized by massive population movements. To improve the field's engagement with the cultural and demographic fluidity of contemporary conditions, especially in relation to race, I open up possibilities for public relations by drawing from Bauman's concept of liquid society and his methodological creativity.
2011 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2011.605973
This article addresses the need for more critical work in identifying the relationship between public relations and race. I used the concept of Whiteness to question how women publics have perceived race portrayals in public health messages. Women reported that campaigns have disembodied race, perpetuated reductionist assumptions, and fetishized racial diversity. I interrogated my assumptions and methods as a White researcher to elucidate agency, vulnerability, and performance issues specific to public relations researchers and communicators. I suggest strategies for reflecting upon and situating racial discussions with research participants.
2011 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2011.605974
This article introduces the theoretical concept of the White leader prototype through an analysis of race in the public relations field. Critical race, Whiteness, ideological, and public relations theories are united to explicate the White leader prototype as a theoretical concept able to account for racial imbalance at leadership levels in public relations. A descriptive case study illustrates that race may be the most salient factor influencing leadership ascension in public relations. Although the White leader prototype is theorized in the context of the United States, the concept has global significance because it is applicable to other circumstances where diverse groups of people coexist.
2011 Journal of Public Relations Research
doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2011.605971
Race has been, and continues to be, one of those topics that is timely, current, and highly relevant in contemporary society; however, discussion and problematizing of race in public relations (PR) scholarship has been mostly absent (Edwards, 2010; Pompper, 2005). This study continues to address this void by exploring how some faculty perceive the role of race in PR, as well as how they approach race in their curriculum. This article, using a mixed-method design of the e-mail interview method (Hunt & McHale, 2007) and an autoethnographic analysis (Ellis & Bochner, 2000) of the first author's PR experiences, demonstrates the challenges that some faculty members face, as well as the opportunities that they have undertaken to integrate race into the PR curriculum in meaningful ways.
Showing 1 to 6 of 6 Articles