Diversity in Public Relations: Implications for Cross-Cultural Communication

Cross-culture communication
Diversity in the Public relations context
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Cross-culture communication
Introduction
Diversity has always been associated with the terms tolerance and respect. It is regarded
with the social and political policy that aims at encouraging tolerance and respect for other
people’s ethnic backgrounds and culture1. As we all know, in any social setting, and then there
exists people from different backgrounds and ethnicity. Diversity is all about accepting and
respecting these differences that exists among these different people.
Public relations (PR) are regarded as the deliberate practice of managing the spread and
dispersion of information. This spread can be between individuals or between an organization
and vice versa. Some of the most common practices in public relations comprises of designing
various communication campaigns, working hand in hand with the press among others.
This report aims at looking at diversity in a much broader perspective and why it is highlighted
as crucial within a public relations context.
Australia is a multicultural country2. Practitioners in public relations are working day in day out
to ensure that diversity is fully inculcated into public relations. As a matter of fact, diversity
should be a part of public relations and not a supplement of it and time again, diversity has
proven to be playing a very significant role in peoples careers, this is both positively and
negatively. However, a research conducted shows that 78% of the working population in
Australia has been positively affected by diversity.
1 Carbaugh, Donal, ed. Cultural communication and intercultural contact. Routledge, 2013.
2 Dozier, David M., Larissa A. Grunig, and James E. Grunig. Manager's guide to excellence in public
relations and communication management. Routledge, 2013.

Cross-culture communication
Implications of diversity in the Public relations context
It is diversity that makes individuals stand out in any social setting. Diversity has proven
to have very tremendous implications in public relations. It is regarded to be a very crucial
component that has facilitated the transformation of various institutions. Below are some of the
implications that diversity has played in public relations;
Diversity has played a very big role towards improving the performance and delivery of various
individuals in terms of their professionalism and social outreach. A study conducted has proven
this. When respondents were asked what the reason behind their improved productivity was, they
did not hesitate, diversity was the answer3. Their argument was that diversity has made them to
be much more empathic and the possibility of using their traditional native language and
practices to be even much better practitioners.
Despite all positive implications there were some challenges that they encountered. For
instance, they had insufficient ‘local experience’. Diversity has made public relation practitioners
experience some kind of barriers characterized by discrimination that ranges from cultural, racial
and gender. Diversity is a complex term, and with it comes various challenges such as language
issues among other4. In Australia for instance, for a person who English is not their first
language, then they are likely to experience some considerable amount of difficulties. This
would be brought about by their accent when they publicly address people or on one on one
conversation with people in their field of interest.
3 Edwards, Lee. "Diversity in public relations." In Public Relations, Society & Culture, pp. 87-101.
Routledge, 2011.
4 Grunig, James E. Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge, 2013.