After first reading Curtin and Gaither (2013) dive into the Circuit of Culture I had hoped to be able to use its five moments as the lever for bringing in the balance of the readings. I was only partially successful.
Page 38 from International Public Relations: Negotiating Culture, Identity, and Power
Most of this week’s readings come under the two moments that Curtin and Gaither (2013) spend time on, namely regulation and identity. Those that concern themselves with ethics fall under regulation for the most part and those that have to do with cultural differences tie into identity, although they also touch on consumption, since the way different cultures are acknowledged and addressed in any work product still must be perceived by the different publics. This intertwining makes sense, as aspects of public relations can simultaneously fall under multiple moments; at the same time, each moment is relevant, essential and always changing, never fixed.
The scholars responsible for the Circuit of Culture concept actually devised it in 1997 after studying the Sony Walkman; in 2013 they updated their iconic book; their model stood the test of time. Click on the graphic for LSE Review of Books's review of the second edition.
Identity
Alaimo (2017) first focused on the facets of what public relations professionals ought to take into consideration when beginning to do business in places outside of the United States. As noted last week, his book is geared towards being put into use. He takes theories and models, offers real life examples, and then offers succinct checklist-style guidance for beginning practitioners. This week in chapter two, he does just that. When a public relations professional determines how different cultural dimensions apply towards his or her international publics, be they colleagues, clients or end users, he is defining for himself their identity. Alaimo (2017) is careful to indicate that these dimensions, though useful, cannot be considered an end all, because nothing is monolithic, not countries, regions nor individuals. George (2003) makes the same point, although the tack he takes is to launch a discussion on why it is important to understand different cultures is by looking at the tragedy of September 11. The strategies he offers teachers mimic some of the advice we saw in previous readings for this class, that is, do research, ask questions, learn about other cultures, understand how your message will be understood. These are basic but important because they tell students to try not to only see things from their own perspective. But when George (2003) advises students to develop a global attitude, he diverges from what we saw Chilean companies do in the study presented by Labarca and Ruiz (2020). This was interesting because the Chilean companies did not prepare themselves specifically for the Chinese market. They neither tailored messages for audiences nor even prepared content in Chinese. Instead, they focused on guanxi, which helps us segue into the next discussion on regulation.
Valérie Hoeks, a co-founder of China Inroads, speaks on guanxi and "provides a strong foothold for innovative companies that want to expand their business to the Chinese market."
Regulation…and identity
Before we analyze Labarca and Ruiz (2020), though, one note on the study from Choi and Cameron (2015), which looked at how multinational corporations operating in Korea may allow fear to dictate how they behave when in the face of conflict. From an identity standpoint, this indicates they may not have done their public relations homework and have not prepared sufficiently for working in a country with a strong national identity. From a regulation standpoint, it may mean that conflict may impact how the multinationals would have otherwise behaved elsewhere. While accommodating local cultural norms may not impact ethical decisions, the very fact that conflict has dictated behavior speaks to self-imposed controls on cultural activity, the cornerstone of regulation.
Labarca and Ruiz (2020) found that executives at Chilean companies realized they needed to bolster interpersonal connections in order to manage relationships with Chinese executives or governmental decision-makers; they did this primarily because the individuals learned it was the only way to advance their business, not because of a corporate policy towards stakeholders. The concept of guanxi relies on networking to an extent that trust is built because friendship is cultivated. If a public relations practitioner is cultivating friendships in order to advance business, then building trust becomes a tactic. While the study did not mention gifts, other readings have, and motives, authenticity and perhaps gifts would all fall under the moment of regulation.
When we have companies that modify their behavior not because they’ve taken a strategic approach to public relations in other cultures, but as a reaction to local circumstances, there is a question about preparedness, motivation and even credibility.
As we’ve discussed in previous weeks, this is also true in the area of corporate social responsibility. Chapter Four in Alaimo (2017) again offers a practical checklist of questions a public relations practitioner can ask to judge the appropriateness and sincerity of activities and Wakefield (2008) explores how the generic/specific theory really needs to be expanded in light of social media and activism. When publics judge multinational corporations as disingenuous players in the local ecosphere, global online responses can be deafening and very harsh.
In all of these, how any entity responds to issues or how it prepares for them in the first place has to be with a deep cultural understanding of the places where it is embedded, and this speaks to regulation. But it also has to be with an introspective look as to what they are in the first place. And this is identity.
The more that I think about the two moments of identity and regulation, the more I realize that identity has to be woven into regulation. Curtin and Gaither (2013) made it clear, in fact, that all five of the moments (regulation, representation, identity, production and consumption) are interwoven. And this is true. How these companies’ actions represent the companies matters. How the public perceives the companies as a result of their actions matters too. And how much they put their money where their mouth is matters.
Though I did not take each of the five moments and use them as lenses for each reading, I do believe that they are useful tools for viewing public relations activity and thought my attempt at using two of them for this week's readings worked fairly well.
A bit more on Sony Walkman standing the test of time:
Alaimo, K. (2017). Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication. New York: Routledge.
Choi, Y., Cameron, G.T. (2005). Overcoming Ethnocentrism: The Role of Identity in Contingent Practice of International Public Relations. Journal of Public Relations Research. 17(2). 171-189.
Curtin, P. A. & Gaither, T. K. (2013). International Public Relations: Negotiating Culture, Identity, and Power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
George, A.M. (2003). Teaching Culture: The Challenges and Opportunities of International Public Relations. Business Communication Quarterly. 66(2). 97-113.
Labarca, C. and Ruiz, P.A. (2020). Cultural and Global Perspectives to Relationship Management in International Public Relations: The Sino-Chilean Case Study. The International Communication Gazette 0(0) 1-23.
Wakefield, R. I. (2008). Theory of International Public Relations, the Internet, and Activism: A Personal Reflection. Journal of Public Relations Research. 20(1). 138-157.