Institutional Racism in Cultural Production: The Case of Public Relations

Edwards, Lee

doi:10.1080/15405702.2013.810084

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(24 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Using CRT (see Delgado and Stefancic, 2012) as a theoretical lens, we seek to understand the important aspects in young, diverse, public relations professionals' collegiate (social and public relations coursework) development. AS Pompper's (2005) seminal publication introducing CRT to the study of public relations, a small but growing cadre of scholars have used race and/or CRT as a guiding framework for scholarly inquiry (Edwards, 2012(Edwards, , 2013Logan, 2016;Waymer, 2010, 2012a, 2012b, Waymer and Heath, 2016. It is via this CRT lens that we explore the challenges of creating and stocking a pipeline of diverse students for industry.…”

Section: Statement Of Purpose For Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Significance of race in the US undergraduate public relations educational landscape

Waymer

Brown

2018

JME

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The purpose of this study is to address a practical question and problem: what can explain the small number of underrepresented racial and ethnic practitioners in the public relations industry? By placing race at the center of this study via critical race theory, the authors sought to answer the previously mentioned practical question. The authors focused on the undergraduate environment as a pipeline to the profession. The goal was to determine whether issues of race in the undergraduate public relations environment played a role in students’ ability to succeed in their public relations coursework and in their ability to secure internships, network with professionals, etc. Design/methodology/approach The authors interviewed 22 practitioners with five or fewer years of industry experience. The authors used email interviews to gather data from young professionals. Although email interviews are impersonal in nature, because of a lack of the use of social cues and non-verbal communication (Hunt & McHale, 2007), email interviews are more cost-effective, expand the range of participants that one could interview, and this method allows participants to reflect longer on their answers, which could result in more detail – whereby participants might share information they would not normally share face-to-face. Findings The findings reveal that half of the Latina, African American and Asian American participants noted that being underrepresented was not necessarily a hindrance to their academic success; rather, being underrepresented was uncomfortable for them at times, as they believed they had to prove themselves more than whites. Additional findings reveal that in terms of developing social skills for the profession, participants did not experience negative or positive effects of race. Findings are used to gain insight into how to increase diversity in the profession and to gauge the extent to which racial identity plays a role in public relations students’ collegiate development. Originality/value This study asks racially and ethnically underrepresented applied communication students to reflect on their experiences as undergraduates as a means of refining the undergraduate educational experience to make that experience more attractive for and conducive to academic success for current and future underrepresented applied communication undergraduate students. It's a first of its kind in that regard.

show abstract

Section: Statement Of Purpose For Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Significance of race in the US undergraduate public relations educational landscape

Waymer

Brown

2018

JME

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite its origins in cultural studies, the Circuit of Culture has been widely applied within the context of public relations (e.g. Al-Kandari & Gaither, 2011;Ciszek, 2015;Edwards, 2013;Han & Zhang, 2009;Schoenberger-Orgad, 2011;Terry, 2005;Toledano & McKie, 2007), most notably by Curtin and Gaither (e.g. 2006;, who have used the circuit as a base to develop their cultural-economic model (2005), as well as a practice matrix (2007).…”

Section: The Circuit Of Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking the circuit of culture: How participatory culture has transformed cross-cultural communication

Tombleson

Wolf

2017

Public Relations Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores the influence of digital communicationand in particular social mediaon cross-cultural communication, based on the Circuit of Culture model. Scholarly literature supports the notion that social media has changed the speed at which we communicate, as well as removed traditional (geographical) boundaries around crosscultural campaigns. Since the introduction of digital media, the role of the public relations practitioner has become more strategic in order to maintain relevance with even more diverseand dispersed-audiences. Large scale campaigns, like the Human Rights Campaign to support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights, have seen messages spread far beyond the country of origin, and with that, demonstrate the ability to affect advocacy campaigns in other countries. The authors argue that instead of acting as cultural intermediaries, public relations practitioners must become cultural curators, with the skills to create meaning from audiences, who are now content creators in their own rights, and encourage a true participatory environment that sees cultural values shared as part of an organic exchange process.

show abstract

“…It is worth noting that the Caribbean nations as former British colonies are also included in this volume. We would argue that the structuring experience of a range of colonial experiences is not sufficiently highlighted or nuanced as an overall driver for PR practices, given critical race and postcolonial scholars argue PR is institutionally racist due to its historical roots in colonial structures and capitalism (Edwards, 2013; Munshi and Edwards, 2011).…”

Section: Common Ground Ambiguities and Contradictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Other voices? The state of public relations history and historiography: Questions, challenges and limitations of ‘national’ histories and historiographies

Fitch

L'Etang

2017

Public Relations Inquiry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay offers an overview of public relations history and historiography, using a review of a recently published book series as a starting point. In offering sometimes previously undocumented national histories and regional and non-US perspectives, National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices opens up the field. However, the series also raises philosophical and methodological issues regarding the role of history, the positioning of public relations, tensions within the field and public relations’ relationship to societal communication and powerful strategic interests. Scholars have not always grounded their histories within wider historical literature that contextualises the public relations occupation and its role in a particular societal context. We argue that a renewed focus on historiography is needed to better address the influence of US progressivist accounts, the scientisation of western public relations and the narrow confines of the public relations discipline.

show abstract

Institutional Racism in Cultural Production: The Case of Public Relations

Cited by 13 publications

References 35 publications

Significance of race in the US undergraduate public relations educational landscape

Significance of race in the US undergraduate public relations educational landscape

Rethinking the circuit of culture: How participatory culture has transformed cross-cultural communication

Other voices? The state of public relations history and historiography: Questions, challenges and limitations of ‘national’ histories and historiographies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About