Postmodern Culture and Public Relations: An Analysis through Campaigns

Abstract

Despite the diversity of paradigms in the field of public relations, it is evident that the dominant paradigm in the field is the functional paradigm, which defines public relations as a "management function". It leads to the ignorance of "cultural function" of public relations and becomes an obstacle to the development of the field. By establishing a relationship between public relations and culture, this article addresses public relations as a "cultural intermediary" profession that is influenced by the postmodern culture and (re)produces postmodern culture.In the article, three public relations campaigns determined by purposive sampling were analyzed using critical discourse analysis within the framework of multiple case analysis. How postmodern cultural features do public relations campaigns (re)produce; how they (re)produced the postmodern understanding of consumption, whether they reproduce the concepts of polyphony, equality and freedom by deconstructing modernity was analyzed. As a result, it is found that campaigns re(produce) the individualization, modular identity, spectacle, and simulation features of the postmodern culture of the campaigns and, the postmodern understanding of consumption by attributing "new meanings" to organizations and products. At the same time, it is found that they do not ensure polyphony, equality, and freedom by deconstructing modernity and resisting metanarratives, but rather "pretends" to reproduce them.

Global Capabilities Framework: Perspectives of Public Relations Practitioners in Malaysia

“…[4, p. 64] suggested that public relations is "the active participation in social construction of meaning". In addition, [6] proposed the 'sociocultural approach' as an alternative paradigm in the field, in which public relations would both affect and be affected by culture, thus, it is viewed as a profession that alters the structure of society through producing, maintaining and organising cultural meanings. Albeit with the emergence of various definitions in defining the public relations profession as a whole, the modern definition by the Public Relations Society of America which defines public relations as "a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organisations and their publics" remains its relevance [7, para.…”