A Report on the Role of Public Relations in Contemporary Society

This report delves into the evolving landscape of public relations within a globalized and multicultural society, drawing on three key articles. The first article highlights the impact of globalization on public relations, emphasizing the need for cross-cultural understanding and the challenges multinational companies face in managing relationships with diverse stakeholders. The second article explores the role of cultural values in shaping public relations practices, particularly in Singapore, underscoring the importance of understanding multiculturalism for effective communication and stakeholder management. The third article examines the influence of social media on public relations, analyzing successful campaigns and emphasizing the need for resourceful and engaging content to build relationships and manage brand reputation. The report synthesizes these perspectives to provide a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities facing public relations professionals in today's interconnected world, emphasizing the critical need for cultural sensitivity, strategic communication, and effective use of social media.

Running head: PUBLIC RELATIONS IN SOCIETY
Public Relations in Society
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Article 1: Sriramesh, K,. Rhee, Y. & Sung, M. (2013). Aligning public relations with the
demands of globalization: Conceptual foundations for a theory of global public relations
in Public Relations and Communication Management: Current Trends and Emerging
Topics. pp. 108-125.
This article by Sriramesh, Rhee and Sung (2013) has shed light on the increased
significance of globalisation in the field of public relations, particularly in terms of cross-
cultural and cross-national levels. According to the authors, globalisation has changed the
public relation scholarship and practice in a way to prepare the industry for global or
international practice. It has provided it new opportunities while posing immense challenges.
Gregory (2015) too in this context has claimed that globalisation has imposed certain
challenges in public relations management. On one side, it has brought groups, individuals
and organisations closer and on the other, the field is rapidly turning into being influenced by
the global theories and practices from diverse international cultures due to globalisation and
internationalisation. It is globalisation for which majority of the organisations today are
required to effectively develop and maintain a productive relationships with their foreign
stakeholders.
Like what is claimed in the article, Dandy et al. (2017) too have opined that a key part
of several public relation professional’s job is communicating with many stake seekers and
stakeholders. Communication with different public is quite difficult in a region or a nation
when the practitioner shares the same type of overarching cultural background with the
public. It becomes more complicated when companies seek engaging in relationships with
international publics who live and work in different boundaries. There are many practitioners
who are especially being called for building relationships in such complicated cultural
environments.

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Furthermore, along the lines of Sriramesh, Rhee and Sung (2013), the article argues
that multinational companies must not only seek their clients and benefactor the stakeholders
globally today, they must also be prepared to manage the possible resistance from the host
countries and their cultures upon setting up their branches, outlets or subsidiaries outside the
nation of their headquarters. After analysing the article, I have realised that it is high time to
globalise our conceptualisations and reflect on the present evidences while using our
knowledge to make sure that the public relations practice aid even more towards the
development of our country and world as a whole. It is very important for public relations
practitioners that they develop their skills, knowledge and sensitivity while conducting the
Public Relations work in the international settings in effective manner. Also, I feel that the
key substance of this article is that it is due to globalisation that has allowed the movement of
public relations body of knowledge towards increased cultural relativism.
Article 2: Yeo, S.L., & Pang, A. (2017). Asian multiculturalism in communication:
Impact of culture in the practice of public relations in Singapore. Public Relations
Review 43(1). p. 112-122.
Yeo and Pang (2014) in this article have explored the role of cultural values in
influencing the public relations practices in Singapore. According to them, culture is an
essential factor behind the formation of PR planning in any country. Cultural values, cultural
dimensions have a great impact on public relation practices and on communication process in
organisations. Pang and David (2017) too have opined that cultural values are always
reflected in communication practice. It is very important for the Public Practitioners to
operate in the current multicultural environments so that they can understand how the
organisation should manage the diversity in place and with the external and internal
stakeholders to ensure that the business runs smooth (Pand & David, 2017). If multicultural
publics face any kind of issues, it can have a significant impact of the business and the

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reputation of the company. Therefore, I think it is very important for the practitioners to
become competent enough to make solutions for the communication related problems that
would be both creative and effective.
Furthermore, the article has also suggested that while managing the stakeholders, the
potential of recognising and being acquainted with the audiences who are with multicultural
minds or the ones who belong to different multicultural groups like religion, race or ethnicity
all at the same time are likely to equip the PR practitioners to find out the other dimensions of
diversity in better manner (Zerfass et al., 2018). It has become an important part of Public
Relation practice so that organisation can be successful in the field of multiculturalism and
globalisation.
It is clear from the article that to ensure our businesses run smooth, we, as PR
professionals or practitioners must operate in the current multicultural environments in a way
that we can understand how our organisation should manage the diversity in place and with
the external and internal stakeholders (Pang & David, 2017). We need to make significant
efforts to decrease ethnocentrism, the tendency of human beings to consider one’s culture to
be superior than others, while operate in the modern multicultural and globalised business
market. Furthermore, the study has also suggested that to effectively practice in the
multicultural business environment, PR professionals are required to multiculture themselves
for being able of communicating with the different stakeholders along with multicultural
minds like it is there in Singapore and many other parts of the world.
Article 3: Allagui, I., & Breslow, H. (2016). Social media for public relations: Lessons
from four effective cases. Public Relations Review, 42(1), 20-30.
Allagui and Breslow (2016) in this article has used collective case studies approach to
examine certain popular PR campaigns conducted in different social media platforms for

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determining the best practices, trends etc. in the usage of social media for PR. According to
the authors of this study, social media is changing the public relations industry and is also
playing a significant role in the process of business planning in the same field. It has resulted
in some practices that have enabled better communication, engagement and interaction
among the global companies as well as their target customers. A range of case studies on the
advantages and benefits of social media campaigns on the PR industry including- “The
scarecrow”, “Dumb ways to die”, “No rights, no women”, “You can still dunk in the dark”
are used in this paper to demonstrate how they have shaped the PR practices in modern era.
The article has also argued the importance of resourceful campaigns claiming- “the more
resourceful a campaign is, the more likely it will be to engage its audience and build a
conversation”.
The contemporary PR industry makes use of social media in many ways to develop
relationships, pitching the idea to the target customers or clients or creating interesting
contents (Allagui and Breslow 2016). It is increasingly helping the PR and team in fulfilling
a more nuanced role by means of assisting in relationship management while identifying the
threats in the brand and engaging the influencers. In earlier days, PR professionals used to
give a statement on radio or release them in print or publish them online. In modern days,
social media has completely disrupted the PR field while making it a faster-paced and more
delicate matter of concern.
From the analysis of the article I have understood that it is very important for the
modern PR professionals to effectively balance the engaging content and be careful about the
same and the reaction of the public on the same. For the purpose of brand reasoning, crisis
response and explanations, the contemporary PR professionals need to look towards social
media as first line of defence in the modern highly connected world. It is very important to

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ensure that the campaign that is shared in the social media platform is resourceful so as to
ensure long term growth and growing reputation of the organisation.

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References:
Allagui, I. and Breslow, H., 2016. Social media for public relations: Lessons from four
effective cases. Public Relations Review, 42(1), pp.20-30.
Allagui, I., & Breslow, H. (2016). Social media for public relations: Lessons from four
effective cases. Public Relations Review, 42(1), 20-30.
Dandy, N., Marzano, M., Porth, E. F., Urquhart, J., & Potter, C. (2017). Who has a stake in
ash dieback? A conceptual framework for the identification and categorisation of tree
health stakeholders. Dieback of European Ash (FRaxinus Spp.): Consequences and
Guidelines for Sustainable Management, 15-26.
Gregory, A. (2016). Public relations and management. In The public relations handbook (pp.
76-100). Routledge.
Pang, A., & David, C. R. (2017). Cultural Impediment or Reflection of Global Phenomenon:
State of Social Media Crisis Preparedness in Singapore. Culture and Crisis
Communication: Transboundary Cases from Nonwestern Perspectives, 209.
Sriramesh, K,. Rhee, Y. & Sung, M. (2013). Aligning public relations with the demands of
globalization: Conceptual foundations for a theory of global public relations in Public
Relations and Communication Management: Current Trends and Emerging Topics.
pp. 108-125.
Yeo, S.L., & Pang, A. (2017). Asian multiculturalism in communication: Impact of culture in
the practice of public relations in Singapore. Public Relations Review 43(1). p. 112-
122.

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Zerfass, A., Verčič, D., Nothhaft, H., & Werder, K. P. (2018). Strategic communication:
Defining the field and its contribution to research and practice. International Journal
of Strategic Communication, 12(4), 487-505.