Imperializing spin cycles: A postcolonial look at public relations, greenwashing, and the separation of publics

Munshi, Debashish; Kurian, Priya

doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2005.08.010

Cited by 124 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Such scholarship recognizes, however, that "mainstreaming" within extant capitalism may dilute the transformative potential of sustainability and sustainable development. Scholars have thus highlighted the prevalence of greenwashing, or inauthentic communication with stakeholders on sustainable practices, and examined how unscrupulous organizations and managers might appropriate long-term and stakeholder oriented language without requisite steps on the ground -especially when they are dealing with marginalized stakeholders, located in the global South, or otherwise underprivileged populations (Munshi & Kurian, 2005). Critical researchers have noted the tensions between symbolic sustainability (or the "talk" of "being green") and substantive sustainability (i.e., the "walk"), and the temptation for corporations to focus on the former while ignoring the latter, in an effort to save costs (Walker & Wan, 2012).…”

Section: Sustainability As Corporate Communication Of Environmental Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability and Sustainable Development

Mitra

2016

The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication

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Sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without jeopardizing future generations' growth and prosperity, and involves the consideration of social, environmental, and economic resources (Brundtland, 1987). By extension, sustainability may be conceived of as ongoing processes of organizing across government, nonprofit, and for-profit entities to enable sustainable development. Conceptually, then, sustainability and sustainable development are concerned with the long-term management of human and nonhuman resources, rather than short-term priorities (e.g., shareholder returns), and provide an alternative organizing framework to mainstream capitalism. Whereas "soft" versions of sustainability envision an inclusion of long-term logics in mainstream capitalism, more "radical" versions argue that extant political economic systems of organizing are severely flawed and need to be revised entirely.The issue of sustainability is both old and new in organizational communication scholarship. On the one hand, the field has long centered the complex relations between organizations and their impacted societies as one of its key problematics. Over the years, organization-society relationships have been probed in different ways, such as through corporate social responsibility (CSR), employee/labor relations, worker participation, and work-life balance issues. Nevertheless, organizational communication research has rarely embraced the term "sustainability" itself, even when studying the management of scarce resources for organizing systems. Recently, however, as interdisciplinary attention has settled on the issue of sustainable development with some fervor -given the ongoing complexities of climate change, global pollution, and population shifts, among others -the role of communication (and organizational communication in particular) has reached center stage in the meaningful implementation of sustainability. Sustainability in organizational communication researchFour broad areas of organizational communication research highlight sustainability: long-term organizational viability given the existence of multiple tensions, environmental CSR practices, corporate communication on broader environmental impacts, and resilience of complex adaptive systems. Research in these areas is published not just by communication scholars in the field's traditional journals (e.g., Management

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Section: Sustainability As Corporate Communication Of Environmental Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability and Sustainable Development

Mitra

2016

The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication

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“…Greenwashing is generally defined as a way advertisers intend to influence consumers on firms' public reputations and socially responsible images by advertising misleading, deceptive or unsubstantiated green messages (Beder, 2002;Laufer, 2003;Munshi and Kurian, 2005 (Cone, 2009). A more recent survey by Cone Consulting shows that 80% of Americans do not believe companies are disclosing all of their environmental impacts, and 56% do not trust companies' green claims.…”

Section: Greenwashingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Content Analysis of Green Advertising in China

Dai¹,

Goh

Si³

2014

JMRCS

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“…But even these studies, its critics say, reinforce hegemony as least as much as they challenge it, by accepting the 'Excellence Matrix' and its 'western' context of pluralism as reference points, thereby rendering other forms of public relations as different or peripheral (Edwards, 2011 andMcKie and. Critical scholars also contend that mainstream public relations scholars (by erroneously assuming universal pluralism and opportunity for dialog) downplay and thus perpetuate the hegemony of corporations over their environment and of 'western' forms of corporate capitalism over other parts of the global economy (Leitch and Neilson, 1996, L'Etang and Pieczka, 1996, L'Etang and Pieczka, 2006and Munshi and Kurian, 2005. The meaning of symmetry thus becomes inverted because it serves hegemony which "is constantly challenged […] and the only way it can be maintained is through the making of concessions at key areas of contestation" (Roper, 2005, p. 70).…”

Section: Globalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divided we stand: Defying hegemony in global public relations theory and practice?

Gregory

Halff

2013

Public Relations Review

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The last decade has seen the world becoming increasingly complex. One way of dealing with complexity, according to Schwab (2010a), is to look for certainties or solutions that impose order by simplifying. The authors contend that this is a risk in public relations practice and the academy. While recognizing their benefits they warn against attempts to produce global models which also seek to impose hegemony and argue for maintaining a diversity that reflects reality. They take the cases of the UK and Singapore as respective exemplars where hegemony has arguably occurred and where it can still be resisted. They call for a professional and epistemological stand against hegemony.

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Imperializing spin cycles: A postcolonial look at public relations, greenwashing, and the separation of publics

Cited by 124 publications

References 6 publications

Sustainability and Sustainable Development

Sustainability and Sustainable Development

A Content Analysis of Green Advertising in China

Divided we stand: Defying hegemony in global public relations theory and practice?

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