Editorial

Citation

Gregory, A. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcom.2007.30711aaa.002

Editorial

One of the significant issues of public relations writing about theory and practice is that the vast majority of it has a western orientation. We read a great deal about the differences in business around the world, yet almost unbelievably the body of knowledge about different public relations theory and practice remains sparse.

Indeed, the ethnocentricity of public relations research, scholarship and writing is a deep and lasting concern of our Regional Editor for Asia, Dr Krishnamurty Sriramesh. Recognising this problem, the Journal of Communication Management was the first communication journal to appoint an Asian Regional Editor in order to encourage colleagues from that part of the world to share their thinking and work with the wider public relations community.

In many ways, the western orientation of public relations is perfectly understandable. After all, public relations in its current, western liberal capitalist form is often thought to originate in the USA, closely followed by the UK. Being first in the field gives a head start. Add to that the fact that English is the predominant language of business and the default second language for many of the most populous nations in the world, and you get a compelling reason why Western theories and examples of public relations pervade.

Furthermore, most of the acknowledged and widely read journals and books of public relations and communication are published in English and this inevitably restricts publication opportunities to those who cannot write fluently in English.

It is important to acknowledge too to recognise the contribution of significant public relations scholars who have built the extant theoretical frameworks that dominate the academic discourse – most of them come from the western nations, or at least, the English speaking ones.

However, things must and will change. It is estimated that in the not too distant future there will be 1 million public relations professionals in China. There are growing numbers in Africa, South America, the nations of Asia and the Middle East.

The culture, country infrastructure and world view of public relations practitioners in these parts of the world are very different from those in the west. Professor James Grunig has argued very cogently that there are a number of generic principles of public relations which have global relevance but need local application. The 11 generic principles include public relations being a strategic management function, a two-way and symmetrical activity and that public relations professionals are ethics councillors and advocates of social responsibility.

Numerous scholars including Dr Krishnamurty Sriramesh have sought to test the voracity of Professor Grunig's propositions, while maintaining that there are distinctive ways of practising public relations in different parts of the world that are quite distinctive from the Anglo-American way.

Much more needs to be done to build the body of knowledge of public relations practice around the world and to build theories that seek to underpin and explain those practices. Thankfully, there are growing number of books on this topic and the Global Alliance of Institutes of Public Relations and Communications Management (www.globalpr.org) is making a solid contribution.

It is gratifying to see in this edition of the journal that there are significant contributions from and about the southern hemisphere. They are all informative and accessible and indeed they add to our knowledge and perspective on public relations around the world. However, there remains a significant challenge for this journal and indeed public relations scholarly publications in general, how do we engage with non-English speaking, non-western world view colleagues and bring their perspectives, theories and experiences to the wider public relations community?

Anne Gregory