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The Effects of Globalization on Public Relations Essay

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Globalisation has resulted in public relation industries to struggle in cultivating culture in their practices as they are now constantly dealing with an intertwined global flow of people, technology, finance, ideas and images internationally (Appadurai, 1990) (Sriramesh, 2007). This has pushed them to sensitise the concept of public relations towards a more culturally inclined approach (Pal & Dutta, 2008, 161). With its increased demand as a communicative tool to the public, the concept of public relations has shifted beyond its functional process which dominance the organisation’s interest to being a socio-cultural activity that positions public relation practitioners in the society (Edwards & Hodges, 2011). Hence, public relations …show more content…

As a carrier of traditions and transformations, understanding of culture is important as it is influential. Within this grey area, meaningful identities and relationships can be formed which is suggested as a necessity in public relations framework (Pal & Dutta, 2008). Understanding culture also shapes a society to a certain extent (Hodges, 2006, 83). According to Wakefield (2010), culture has the ability in effecting the type of public relation activities carried out in a particular society or even country (Wakefield, 2010, 665). With this, public relations practitioners are commonly identified as “cultural agents” for their need to monitor the societal and cultural progressions in a society, community or country (Banks, 2000, 3).
As a result of this shift, public relation practices are more interactive instead of passive. It looks beyond the functional process as they are now engaging with a more diverse audience. With the knowledge of anthropology, it enables practitioners to be more aware and attuned to the different cultural practices and values associated with a specific country. From here, practitioners would gain the advantage of foreseeing the organisation’s culture traits and practices. This will enable them to plan the public relation activity that best suits the organisation. For instance in Brazil, it is expected for ladies to have well-manicured nails for business

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