Editor’s essay: Identity and/in/of public relations

Abstract

In this themed issue, the Journal looks at the intersection of public relations and identity, which has been part of my academic research agenda for decades, inasmuch as the concept of identity has been an area of personal interest for me since childhood. Even before I knew any words to attach to the concept of identity, my lived experiences etched the importance of identity into my mind and thus into my intellectual journey. As one example, in my kindergarten class at Morningside Elementary in Salt Lake City, Utah, students returned from Thanksgiving break to report on what they had eaten the past Thursday with their families. Feeling very embarrassed and out of place, I shared that my (immigrant) family had eaten noodles; all my classmates, one after another, recounted turkey-centered meals accompanied by various side dishes (none of which were noodles). As a college junior studying in France, I was publicly accosted by a White Frenchman who screamed at me (in French) that France was not a Japanese colony and that I should "go home," never mind that my heritage is Chinese (not Japanese) and that my home was (and remains) the United States, not anywhere in Asia.

All creatures great and small: Faith, spirituality, environmental-animal rights activism and public relations as covenantal stewardship

“…Public relations has long been considered a “management of communication” (Grunig and Hunt, 1984: 4, cited in Sha, 2018: 130) as defined by the field’s standard textbooks. Moreover, public relations societies themselves have similarly described the nature of the profession.…”

“…Even more recent definitions that suggest that public relations should foster “mutually beneficial relationships” qualify such behavior with only those publics “on whom its [the organization] success or failure depends” (Sha, 2018: 130), a rather self-serving view of relationships.…”

The Effect of Identity Salience on Residents’ Engagement with Place Branding during and Post COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The concept of identity salience is driven from the social identity theory, which posits that identities are the consequence of the process of self-categorization through which individuals categorize themselves on different levels of abstraction [18], and each individual processes many different identities over time [19,20]. Indeed, identity is fluid and impacted by contextual cures, rather than being unchanging and stable [21].…”