While public relations practice has become increasingly globalized, scholars are still behind in theorizing about the intersections of culture, communication, and power at this level of practice. This volume emphasizes theories and concepts that highlight global interconnectedness through a range of interpretative and critical approaches to understanding the global significance and impacts of public relations.

Providing a critical examination of public relations’ contribution to globalization and international power relations, the chapters included here explore alternative paradigms, most notably interpretive and critical perspectives informed by qualitative research. The volume encourages alternative ‘ways of knowing’ that overcome the shortcomings of positivist epistemologies. The editors include multiple paradigmatic approaches for a more complex understanding of the subject matter, making a valuable contribution toward widening the philosophical scope of public relations scholarship.

This book will serve well as a core text in classes in international public relations, global public relations, and advanced strategic public relations. Students as well as practitioners of public relations will benefit from reading the perspectives included here.

Contents

1. Introduction: Public Relations in Global Cultural Contexts

Nilanjana Bardhan and C. Kay Weaver

2. Critical Perspectives in Global Public Relations: Theorizing Power

Lee Edwards

3. How Intercultural Communication Theory Informs Public Relations Practice in Global Settings

Michael Kent and Maureen Taylor

4. Culture, Communication, and Third Culture Building in Public Relations Within Global Flux

Nilanjana Bardhan

5. Intercultural Typologies and Public Relations Research: A Critique of Hofstede’s Dimensions

Jeffrey Courtright, John Baldwin, and Rachel Wolfe

6. The Need for a Postmodern Turn in Global Public Relations

oltzhausen

7. Critiquing the Generic/Specific Public Relations Theory: The Need to Close the Transnational Knowledge Gap

Robert Wakefield

8. Public Relations and Marginalization in a Global Context: A Postcolonial Critique

Mohan Jyoti Dutta and Mahuya Pal

9. Chi-Based Strategies for Public Relations in a Globalizing World

Jensen Chung

10. Public Relations, Globalization, and Culture: Framing Methodological Debates and Future Directions

C. Kay Weaver

Author Bio

Nilanjana Bardhan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, USA. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of public relations (especially in global contexts) and intercultural/international communication. She has practitioner experience in India and in the US, and her scholarship has appeared in a number of edited book collections and journals such as the Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal...