Journal of Public Relations Research

Miño, Pablo

2023 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2023.2205651

Public relations scholars have advocated for a functionalist outlook on nation branding, focused on the effectiveness of campaigns that promote diverse national identities and cultures abroad. However, power imbalances to such approach have been largely neglected in the literature. A critical-cultural approach to these issues is explored in this study, by placing emphasis on the cultural-economic model (CEM) of public relations. Through in-depth interviews with 25 informants involved with nation branding campaigns on behalf of different Latin American countries, this study advocates for an interpretive approach to this subject, by understanding that national identities are nuanced, reflect power imbalances between different actors within a society, and are in constant conflict with each other. This study calls to place more value on the contested notions of the nation that such campaigns represent in the promotion of a country abroad.

Ashby-King, Drew T.; Anderson, Lindsey B.

2023 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2023.2198238

The way organizations communicate about socio-political issues, such as racism and diversity, has become increasingly visible following the racial reckoning of 2020. This study examines the diversity discourse presented in the strategic plans from 37 of universities that comprise three major academic conferences (BIG10, Southeastern Conference (SEC), and PAC-12) in order to understand how they crafted an ethos that serves as the foundation these institutions use when later communicating about socio-political issues. To do so, we draw on social issues management, neoliberalism, whiteness, and ventriloquism to underscore the complexity of crafting an organizational ethos that features a stated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We argue that these organizations’ ethos were simultaneously ventriloquized by larger socio-political discourses while also ventriloquizing diversity in ways that made their discourse about diversity speak in ways that forwarded neoliberal and whiteness ideologies that operated to maintain the status quo.