Public relations is one of the fastest growing -and fastest changing -professional practices, with jobs expanding in many countries. For example, on the corporate side in the United States, » employment of public relations specialists (non-managers) is expected to grow 24 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011). Corporate public relations trends in most of the EU have followed the same course as in the U. S. over the last few decades.Governments all over the free world run public relations campaigns within their own as well as other countries in attempts to influence the governments of those countries (called public diplomacy), to try to attract investment dollars (called development public relations) and even to attract tourists (marketing public relations). Large corporations, activist groups, local theater troupes, political parties, the EU, terrorists, comedy clubs, neo-Nazis, and religious groups all depend on public relations to communicate with their internal -often for fundraising -and external publics.Public relations practitioners work on both sides of every major economic, social, political and religious issue. This is because public relations is neither inherently good or bad but it is powerful; so people on one side of an issue cannot afford to let the other side be the only ones using it. Terrorists use public relations to push their views and those they seek to hurt turn right around and use it to fight back. For example, the first author has been involved in research projects studying both how terrorist websites seek to present their arguments to mostly younger audiences and how social media are sometimes used in campaigns to slip pro-terrorism arguments into public discourse, again focusing on mostly younger audiences. Companies use public relations to enhance their marketing function, and consumer groups use it to expose excesses or wrongdoing by those same companies. Christians use public relations to advocate Christianity, Moslems to advocate for Islam, and atheists to advocate that both are wrong. It is little wonder, then, that public relations theory is not only fast growing but that it is used for different tasks at different levels, from the smallest neighborhood shop to world-spanning political and economic issues. Who, for example, could argue that the
As environmental public participation has become increasingly mandated worldwide, its advantages and disadvantages have been widely documented. This article uses qualitative analysis of documentation and interviews with 40 participants in a US-Canadian International Joint Commission water management controversy. It demonstrates how ambiguity and diffuse power-that is, two characteristics of organizational pluralism-revealed in communication and governance contribute to the challenges of resolving the 13-year controversy. The article adds to the literature that has largely focused on power disparities between governing or managing organizations and stakeholders and makes recommendations for addressing situations involving organizational and scientific ambiguity as well as relatively equal distribution of power.
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