Globalization and Public Relations in Postcolonial Nations: Chal ...

Public Relations Practices and Social Justice

Those seeking to narrow the disparities often disagree on whether economic or social change is the better remedy, but one point of consensus is that nothing will be achieved without an emphasis on transparency, communication, and effective lobbying. Rather than allowing developed economies to set the agenda, efforts need to be made to talk to the people most affected and allow them to define and prioritize the issues. Those issues then need to be clearly communicated to those in power, and legislation must be passed to address human rights issues. This need for listening, partnering, communication, and political action would seem to clearly lead to public relations action, yet seldom is public relations theory or practice linked to issues of social justice.

The gap between the perceived need for public relations action and the lack of discussion regarding how public relations is engaging the social justice issues raised by globalization leads one to ask what the role of public relations has been in defining these issues. How has public relations discourse legitimized the advancement of globalization as an agenda for Western financial interests? How has it created competing discourses designed to address growing social inequities? What actions and policies has public relations discourse written into and out of consideration in the nations most affected by globalization?

Those are the questions that drive this book. Most often, scholars examine the role of public relations practice within a neoliberal economic model, demonstrating the ways it fosters democracy and development (Curtin & Gaither, 2005). Within this model, public relations is defined as a managerial function serving organizational—often corporate—goals and objectives. The Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) 2012 definition of public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics” is exemplary of this approach. PRSA stated that “as a management function,” public relations supports and enables a number of organizational goals (see www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/PublicRelationsDefined).