Public Relations in Multicultural Singapore

This assignment analyzes the influence of cultural aspects on public relations planning in Singapore. It emphasizes the need to address health concerns while being sensitive to the diverse cultural backgrounds within the country. The document delves into the importance of considering Singapore's multicultural nature when formulating and executing PR strategies.

Running head: CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON PUBLIC RELATIONS
CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON PUBLIC RELATIONS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Introduction
The role of the cultural values is considerably high in terms of influencing the Public
Relations practice in Singapore. It can be presumed that the Singaporean culture is a mixture and
the outcome of hybridization of different cultural attributes, which in turn is influential in the
manipulation of the Public Relation activities and campaign that is conducted in the same chosen
country (Graham & Avery, 2013).
This report details the various cultural aspects of Singapore and explains how the cultural
attributes play a pivoting role in the determination and the planning of the PR campaigns that are
held in the selected country. The thesis statement, as per the assignment can be stated, as the
cultural aspects of Singapore are influential in the formulation of the Public relations planning
in Singapore. The country chosen for this report is Singapore due to its vastness and
diversification in the cultural attributes. This essay also elaborates the role of individualism and
collectivism in the communication with relation to the Public Relations practice in Singapore.
This report further details about the health-related PR campaigns in Singapore.
The main purpose of this essay is to help explain the cultural factors that are responsible and
influences in the planning of the Public Relations activities.
Cultural Background Analysis
This above thesis statement can be justified by the fact that Singapore is an intriguing
example of a multicultural country that is comprising of Chinese around 76.7%, Malay about
14%, Indian about 7.9% and others being 1.4%. The religions prevailing in Singapore comprises
of Buddhist (Chinese), Muslim (Malays), Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, and Confucianism. It

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can be further added that Singapore has endeavored to promote its national identity as a land of
immigrants since its independence in the year of 1965. As part of this effort, Singapore has four
national languages consisting of Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English. However, for the
business and political purpose, English is the preferred language (Guide, 2018). It can be stated
that the Chinese, Malays, Indians and Other have been widely criticized and as the compelling
Singaporeans to fit into the ideal characterization of their individual ethnicities, but it has been
mostly convinced by the critics that the diversification of the ethnicities is one of the essential
elements to unify the society. On facing with globalization and capitalism, the focus has shifted
towards the creation of a hybrid ethnic-centric society. The Singaporean identity that preserved
traditional cultures has united the Singaporeans in a network of shared culture, so that they are
well equipped to appreciate, understand, and accept the other cultures without any conflicts.
Based on the same it can be stated that the multiculturalism is thus functioned as the codes for
inter-cultural interactions that has been established in the specific social setting.
On further addition, it can be conveyed that the consistent and the dominant national
narratives advocated by the leaders was that multiculturalism was not a social phenomenon,
which is determined by the ethnic majority but a political necessity in the sustenance of
Singapore’s sovereignty. In simple words, the racial harmony was synonymous with and a
necessity for global survival. For instance, it can be argued that the government’s restraining
approach in the democracy, joined with the practical and circumstantial judgments, resulted in
multiculturalism to come in practice, which facilitated the evasion of social chaos while enjoying
the economic intensification. However, the time when English became the official language and
the other languages such as Chinese, Malay and Tamil were made second languages, it helped in
the unification of everybody as Singaporeans. This is because it was a neutral language spoken

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and written universally and by allowing it, the acceptance and appreciation of other cultures have
been triggered. Thus, it can be stated that this played a strong role in the integration of
Singaporeans under the standard of multiculturalism and secondary functions in influencing of
the economic quality of lives.
Influence of the Cultural Communication in Public Relation practice
Based on the analysis that has been done on the cultural attribute by the use of secondary
research it can be found that the cultural dimension that comes into role is individual and
Collectivism, based on the Hofstede Model (Venaik & Brewer, 2013). The individualism and
collectivism dimension of this model is helpful to analyze the cultural influence within the
society. The collectivism refers to an individual’s emphasis on independence, self-reliability and
self-promotion, whereas collectivism refers to the understanding of the significance of
interdependency, in-group loyalty and promotion. It can be argued that the individualism and
collectivism perspectives regarding the cultures and communication can have a direct influence
on the communication. On a further note it can be added that the communication framework by
Gudykunst has identified seven dimensions of communication that can be classified as self-
disclosure, Uncertainty, Rules for Communication, face-negotiation, individualism and
collectivism, use of appeals and final being conflict management (Bernays, 2015). However, it
can be argued that most of the PR practitioners mostly retort to the cultural values when devising
a PR campaign. The PR practitioners take into consideration about the multicultural target
audience addressing them (Coombs & Holladay, 2013). For example, some of the practitioners
carefully sort their words while devising a PR campaign so that it does not exhibits biasness to
any of the ethnical group and in the course appears to be culturally offensive, resulting in any
kind of conflicts. This needs to be taken care of since Singapore is a multicultural country with

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diversified ethnicity. The second concern that comes up, whenever the practitioners are devising
a PR campaign, they need to take care of four ethnic faces and only one language cannot be
taken into consideration while devising the same since, Singapore consists of four segments of
ethnicity as previously mentioned. In this aspect, it can be considered that cultural values and
aspects do influence the Public Relations campaigns. In addition, Nolte (2016) argued that
culture is an essential way to manage the communication since different individuals perceive
every message differently. In this context. Morris & Goldsworthy (2015) states that the selection
of the easy and understandable language is utmost needed because, one message which is easy
for an individual to perceive might not be easy for another individual to receive the same
message in the same way as the previous one.
On the other hand, it can also be agreed that the message can be understood by an
individual of a different ethnicity to understand a message, which is allowed under the dimension
of uncertainty. However, it can be considered safe to use the four most used languages in the
propagation of the campaign when addressing to the citizens of Singapore. Based on secondary
research, it has been found that most of the PR practitioners find it difficult to work and address
the diversified target audience since the cultural values are highly influential in the impact of the
practice (Bochner, 2013). Furthermore, Davis (2013) adds that the practitioners working in the
government and public-funded institutions have expressed the significance of making sure that
the cultural values are sensitively addressed in all the proposed communication to avert any kind
of collateral damage. This is because of the fact that multiculturalism is currently an official
guideline, which all civil staffs are anticipated to carry out. In case the same is not abided by, the
backfire would be comprised of the people’s discontentment due inequality and biasness
regarding any certain ethnic group. However, this is regardless of whether of the majority or

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minority in the ethnic groups in Singapore. Hence, all racial representations that is included in
the translation of languages should take precedence even over the success and effectiveness of
the intended message to persuade the target audience (Levy & Sidel, 2013).
For the PR professionals, the rationale for the cultural values playing a significant role
was a little different, as it had more to do with everyday communication in carrying out every
task effectively. For the same, the differences in the cultural values can disrupt and hamper their
communication workings, ultimately leading to misinterpretation and misunderstanding among
the diverse ethnic groups trying to work in collaboration and harmony (Gordon, 2013). PR
activities not only involve the passing of the information or indirectly influencing sales, but these
activities also involve the gathering of feedbacks to facilitate the improvement of the services in
the future. Based on the self-disclosure dimensions, some of the PR companies encourage the
audience to share their feedbacks, to effectively note down and observe their experiences, share
any concern, which is a transparency to manipulate the audience with better service in the future.
In a multicultural setting like Singapore, it is obvious that the cultural aspects would be
influential in the PR practice where English remains to be the common tool of propagation in the
communication. This can be assumed by the operations of the cultural attributes in Singapore
that permeates through all levels and structure of life, including business and commerce. In
addition, the Singaporean leaders have also constantly cultivated a sense of nationhood and
mainly focused on the necessity for the unification of the diverse ethnicities for their nation’s
prospect and potentiality.
With relevance to the Public Relation activities in Singapore regarding the health issues
such as diabetes, it can be stated as one kind of health and social marketing campaign. In
accordance to the same and the concerns related to the topic, it can be stated that the PR

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campaign is a social marketing that applies the marketing principles and techniques to create,
communicate and deliver a valuable message in order to influence the target audience behavior,
which would, in turn, benefit them as well as the society (Schiavo, 2013).
In the PR campaign, the PM in the national rally has imparted speech on various issues.
However, the main health issue that has been discussed is related to diabetes. Singapore has been
addressed to be the fourth diabetes-affected country in the world. Thus, this kind of social PR
campaign is somewhat related by the fact that the fast moving lifestyle and the culture of the
country enforce the society to adapt to the same lifestyle, which can have an adverse effect on
the health of the citizen (graphics.straitstimes.com, 2018). This PR campaign has been conducted
to spread awareness of the deadly disease and not only discuss its causes and effects but also
impart awareness about the initiatives that the government would be taking to help cure and
eradicate this disease (Hong, 2013). Singapore is a diversified cultural country and here the
cultural factors mainly influence the PR campaigns. The food customs and lifestyles vary
differently in the different cultures and based on the same this campaign addresses all the people
in the rally (Lefebvre, 2013). During the speech, PM Lee has broken down the segregation of
diversity in explaining their vulnerability to this disease. With this, it can be stated and perceived
that cultures have an even role in this social awareness PR campaign and to explain the social
and health benefits, PM Lee has used the good influence of breaking down the cultures to
facilitate and help understand the gravity of the situation.
The good use of incentives such as gifts, by the Health Promotion Board, has been used
to motivate the audience for being self- health conscious since this is one of the customary ways
to show respect to the people of Singapore as well as respecting their effort of adapting to a
healthy lifestyle. Citing of live examples to adopt a healthy lifestyle has been put to use during

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the meeting in the rally since people of Singapore and genuine and tend to listen more to live
example rather than focusing on fictitious facts and point of view. It can be considered as one of
the aspects and adopted the persona of the people, falling under their respective cultures. As
previously states, the information and pieces of advice that has been imparted to put a strict
restriction in the diet and lifestyle of the people since, these are interrelated and varies from
culture to culture (Adams, 2013).
Conclusion
With the help of this essay, it can be concluded that the cultures do have an immense impact on
the planning and the execution of the PR campaign. It can be stated that PR campaigns are
usually the activities that are done without hindering any of the ethnical diversity within the
country and usually done for the benefit along with the awareness of the target audience.
Conducting of PR campaign by being biased is thus of no use if it fails to address and reach all of
the target audience. It can be considered that PR activities are one of the challenging tasks for the
PR practitioners since they have to take many factors into consideration since this society is itself
influenced by the cultures and in this manner, it invisibly influences the PR activities. The social
marketing PR campaign that been discussed in the essay also adds to this fact by the justification
that PM Lee has used the cultural attributes and influences to address the health concern and
discussion. The detailed elaboration of the diversity within the country indicates the fact
Singapore is a multicultural country that is severely affected by the disease and needs to be
addressed in such a technique that it does not hurt or hinders the sentiments of any of the
cultures. On a final note, it can be stated that the cultural aspects of Singapore are influential in
the formulation and execution of the Public relations planning in Singapore.

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