Carl H. Botan

International public relations: Critique and reformulation

Abstract Public relations is growing rapidly but unevenly with the U.S. and EC showing the greatest development. Multinational corporations based in the U.S. and EC often engage in public relations practices in less developed countries, but often do so based on ethnocentric assumptions about public relations that limit both effectiveness and understanding of other cultures. Results of a literature search conducted as part of a multi-year project intended to compare approaches to public relations from around the world are reported in this article. One conclusion reached is that international public relations is also intercultural public relations so practitioners and scholars naturally approach it from their own ethnocentric models unless a perspective not limited to business practices is specifically adopted. Dr. Botan is an associate professor and area head for public relations in the Department of Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

A Semiotic Approach to the Internal Functioning of Publics: Implications for Strategic Communication and Public Relations.

Abstract Employing public relations as a paradigmatic instance of strategic communication, this article challenges the prevailing view of publics as reactive entities. The article briefly reviews the two primary schools of semiotics, Saussurean and Peircean, and argues for the utility of the latter for building a language-centered understanding of publics. The Peircean ideas of unlimited semiosis, semiotic rhetoric, and community are employed to argue that publics ought to be understood primarily as self-actuated and interactive social entities with values and internal dynamics at least as complex and important to communication campaigns as are message content or client/practitioner intentions. The article concludes that we can best understand a public as an ongoing process of agreement upon an interpretation, and that during this process a public may well develop an interpretation that is more sophisticated, insightful, and socially linked than the understanding with which the practitioner/client started. As a result, we argue, publics should be accorded the preeminent position when studying or practicing any form of strategic communication, including public relations. Carl Botan is Associate Professor at Purdue University. Francisco Soto (MA, Purdue, 1995) is an Account Director for Aleph Communicacion, a public relations firm in Madrid, Spain and lectures at several higher education institutions.

Do workers trust labor unions and their messages

This study investigated differences between workers’ attributions of trustworthiness toward their labor union and its messages, as influenced by affiliation behavior and several demographic variables of interest. A complete metropolitan postal district open shop, numbering 4,225, was surveyed. Results demonstrated significant differences between workers’ trust of their labor union and their labor unions messages, favoring the union over its messages. In addition, results demonstrate that affiliation behavior, race, age, and seniority significantly affect perceived trustworthiness of the labor union and its messages. Finally, regression analyses found differences between union and non‐union members on several demographic variables as predictors of trust. The implications of these results for organizational communication research in general, and research on labor unions specifically, are discussed.