 What is Public Relations? › “the management, through communication, of perceptions and strategic relationships between an organization and its internal and external stakeholders, aligned and coordinated with other communication to contribute to the corporate brand.” (Du Plessis, 2006:193) › Centrality of COMMUNICATION

 All humans + all human organizations are located within particular cultural frameworks  We need awareness and understanding of the relationship between these cultural frameworks and the nature and processes of communication  Key Issue: conceptions of communication are culturally based

  Individualised, linear, information dominant  “Communication is the management of messages with the objective of creating meaning.” (Griffin, 2003)

 Confucian understanding: › “infinite interpretive process where all parties are searching to develop and maintain a social relationship” (Jandt, 2008) › Relationship dominant › Controlling element of family relationships encompass community and nation › Ideal attitudes: family loyalty + respect; subordinates honoring + obeying superiors + meeting demands of elders

 Terms: › jiao liu – to exchange › Chuan bo- to disseminate › Gou tong - to connect among people  Maintaining harmony, balance – people, family, universe  Ritual model: primary focus – sustaining of society over time, construction of commonly held beliefs

 Dangerous to assume our understandings of communication itself are culturally universal  Need to develop heightened awareness of ourselves, our own cultural assumptions and constructedness, as first step to inter-cultural sensitivity

 We are all located within specific cultures  Our culture is our socialization – the social ‘air’ that we breathe  We are UNCONSCIOUS of much of our culturally shaped assumptions, beliefs + practices  INVISIBLE dimensions of culture – most likely source of ICC difficulties

 The evolving way of life of a group of persons, consisting of a shared set of practices associated with a shared set of products, based on the world (Moran, 2001)

 Culture is dynamic, changeable (evolving) – thus variable  Culture is social (rooted in shared phenomena) – much cultural knowledge exists between people, so is socially distributed – mind-body-action-setting  Culture is COGNITIVE – product of learning (facts + processes: thinking patterns, world views, beliefs

 Culture is also material – products, artefacts – from nail-clippers to poetry, rap, opera, hip-hop to ballet, boiled eggs to Eggs Benedict  Culture is language, language is culture Different languages ‘cut up’ and organize the world for us in different ways from each other Primary language community socialises us very deeply

 Culture involves symbols › People use their symbols to frame their thoughts and expressions in ways intelligible to other members of their culture › Symbols make culture possible, reproducible and readable › Culture is rooted in both our conscious and sub-conscious selves, involving taken-for- granted beliefs, values, norms, basic assumptions

 Assumptions: › culture is fixed and firmly bounded › all members of one culture operate according to cultural ‘type’ › culture is fairly simplistically associated with a particular group, language, nationality › Homogenised, stereotyped responses to members of other cultures are acceptable

 Aim to develop a deep, non- essentialised awareness of one’s own and other cultures  Consciously build awareness that many things we take for granted in our own culture are not universal  Work on increasing sensitivity to cultural differences along with sensitivity to how individuals may differ from cultural stereotypes

 If an intercultural communication interaction feels difficult, avoid assuming it’s a personality problem of the other communicator; ask yourself questions about possible sources of cultural misunderstanding  Strive to avoid depending on cliched cultural stereotypes in mass communication campaigns