Culture, Social Class, and Race in Public Relations

Perspectives and Applications

Edited by Damion Waymer

Publication date:

27 September 2012

Length of book:

262 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739173404

Culture, Race, and Class-Based Perspectives in Public Relations, edited by Damion Waymer, covers timely and understudied topics in the field of public relations (PR). Via research, case analysis, and theoretical discussion, the contributors to this volume explore the ways that scholars can address issues of voice (or the lack thereof) that marginalized publics have encountered in the past or are currently encountering in regard to matters of culture, race, and class. A central question this book asks is what role can and does a greater understanding of culture, race, and class play in helping scholars, teachers, students, and practitioners to aid in society becoming a better place to live and work? Culture as well as other divisive social constructs such as race and class must be unpacked, problematized, and considered carefully before the fully functioning vision of society can be deemed possible. Some topics included are the Black Panther Party and Native American Activist rhetorical PR, risk equity, critical race theory, and pedagogical approaches to teaching culture, race, and class. This edited volume serves an important early step by scholars—via the context of public relations—in this process of advocating social justice as well as organizations' role in helping society achieve these ends.

Part 1. Theoretical Discussions of Culture, Social Class, and Race in Public Relations
Chapter 1. Culture, Social Class, and Race-Based Perspectives in Public Relations: An Introduction
by Damion Waymer
Chapter 2. Culture as "Traveling" Variable in Transnational Public Relations: A Dialectical Approach
by Nilanjana Bardhan
Chapter 3. A City Divided: Understanding "Class Issues" in Government Public Relations
by Damion Waymer
Chapter 4. The Corporation-as-Middle-Class-Person: Corporate Social Responsibility and Class
by Josh Boyd
Chapter 5. Critical Race Theory and Public Relations
by Lee Edwards
Chapter 6. Two Unreconciled Strivings: Racial Constructionism and Eliminitivism in the Philosophy of Race and its Relevance to Public Relations
by Jacoby A. Carter
Part 2. Questions of Pedagogy and Practice: Exploring Topics of Culture, Social Class, and Race in Public Relations Education
Chapter 7. Human Trafficking in the PR Classroom: Raising Awareness for a Cause, Creating More Ethical PR Practitioners
by Sarah Hagedorn Van Slette
Chapter 8. Expanding the Spectrum of PR and Race: Lessons from European Theorists, Media Critiques, and Catalan Programming
by Jordi Xifra and David McKie
Chapter 9. Higher Learning: Rethinking Crisis Communication in Response to Racial Incidents on Campus
by Marlo Goldstein Hode and Rebecca J. Meisenbach
Chapter 10. Broaching an Uncomfortable Subject: Teaching Race in an Undergraduate Public Relations Classroom
by Damion Waymer
Part 3. Culture, Social Class, and Race in Public Relations: Applications and Implications
Chapter 11. Decolonizing Occupy Oakland: Listening for Native American Voices in a Struggle against Social Inequality
by Jackson B. Miller and Janelle Davis
Chapter 12. Speaking with and for Those Beyond the Margins: Outcast Advocacy Relations (OAR) in Public
by Damion Waymer
Chapter 13. Right to Know and Risk Communication: Implications of Risk Equity
by Michael Palenchar
Chapter 14. Was Black Rhetoric Ever Anything but Race in Public Relations? The Challenge of the Rhetoric of Identity
by Robert L. Heath
Afterword
by Damion Waymer

Damion Waymer has compiled a much-needed and long overdue examination of public relations as a cultural practice and social institution. The wide-ranging perspectives contained in this edited volume provocatively engage with the diversity and disjunctures that inform and shape 21st-century multicultural public relations theory, practice, and education.