Fringe public relations: How activism moves critical pr toward the mainstream

    Authors

    W. T. Coombs;S. J. Holladay

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Public Relat. Rev.

    Keywords

    Activist; Persuasion; Excellence Theory; Critical; SIERRA CLUB; RESPONSIBILITY; INTERNET; Business; Communication

    Abstract

    The dominance of Excellence Theory in public relations theory and research may be eroding as contemporary issues in corporations, including the concern with activist challenges to reputation management and corporate social responsibility, increase in visibility and demand explanation. We argue that Excellence Theory's seemingly reluctant evolution has provided unsatisfactory treatments of concepts like power and activism, even though it has attempted to address some limitations of the symmetrical model's efficacy in responding to activist challenges. Excellence Theory's acknowledgment of once-vilified concepts like persuasion and power sets the stage for critical public relations theory and research to emerge as significantly more capable of addressing activist advocacy and concomitant issues. The paper argues that critical theory, buoyed by acceptance of its key concepts, its increasing access to presentation venues and journals sympathetic to once-marginalized, alternative perspectives, is poised to infiltrate the public relations orthodoxy. This possibility offers hope that once marginalized pluralistic approaches, especially critical public relations, may disrupt the colonization of the orthodoxy and infiltrate mainstream public relations. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Public Relations Review

    Volume

    38

    Issue/Number

    5

    Publication Date

    1-1-2012

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    880

    Last Page

    887

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000311766400028

    ISSN

    0363-8111

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