Anne Surma

The sophistication of new communication technologies continues to grow, and allied industries such as marketing, advertising and journalism are trying to keep pace. But what about public relations? How should the field evolve to take advantage of the unprecedented access to communities on the Internet, which in the past would have been too remote, expensive or marginalised to communicate with? Social media challenges the way public relations is conceptualised, approached and practised. However, while there is much discussion about the increase in interactivity, and mutual exchange between organisations and stakeholders, there is little hard evidence to support the 'view that communication via online channels is increasingly dialogic or collaborative (Pieczka, 20 II). With a persistent emphasis on the normative approach to public relations, that of the organisation working to establish mutually beneficial relationships with publics (Grunig and Dozier, 1992; Grunig, Grunig and Dozier, 2002), rather than a critical approach, in which the 'public' is considered central to the success of such relationships, not as a receiver of carefully conceived messages (Surma 2006), the dominant paradigm is not conducive to understanding the nature of relationships and dialogue in the online public sphere. However, websites and social media do present real and accessible platforms for those organisations determined to develop and extend authentic and reciprocal relationships with stakeholders, with the Internet providing a platform for large-scale communication activities and a testing ground for online engagement. We want to illuminate and illustrate this critical approach in public relations by conceiving of the organisation as establishing and developing a community through an ongoing process of what we have coined storybuilding. Importantly, this term suggests the way in which the most effective public relations communications are not composed of discrete 'messages' 'delivered' by one entity to another but, rather that such communicative processes embed, and are embedded in, the stories that give our lives meaning (and see Petraglia, 2007), and that enable our relationships to be reciprocal. Moreover, this approach both highlights the significance of narrative in constituting, shaping and negotiating human experience, and it pays attention to the connections between both the agency and the interdependence of community members and the organisation involved-that is, their mutuality.

The potential for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) to spread worldwide is immense. Geographical boundaries can be uncertain and management of disease crises, biosecurity and health risks is a huge task that requires cooperation and understanding from many parts of the public and private sectors. A glimpse of this has been seen over the years during epidemics, including the bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease outbreak in the United Kingdom, Hendra virus outbreaks among horses in Australia, Nipah virus spread in Malaysia and Singapore, and the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreaks in Asia. In the last decade, highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 (HPAI H5N1), or ‘bird flu’, outbreaks have also been a focus of global attention. These zoonotic EIDs have predominantly affected countries in South-East Asia. Why is this so? One obvious factor is the way animals are raised, slaugh¬tered and prepared for food consumption. There are certain animal-rearing practices and human health beliefs in countries in the region that need to be recognised before control programs can be designed. Governance and institutional systems also function differently in countries in the region, affecting the enactment of policies to support biosecurity risk management and preparedness. International non-government organisations, donor agencies and other humanitarian organisations have supported countries in the region to help eradicate HPAI H5N1. Assistance is given through technical and funding support necessary to build local capacity for disease control, as well as to institute prepared¬ness plans and manage health and biosecurity risks. Resources are poured into the establishment of emergency plans and protocols to prepare for a possible influenza pandemic to minimise global catastrophe.

One symptom of the knowledge economy characterising contemporary, developed society is the blurring of the once-clear demarcations between work and home, labour and leisure, and economic and cultural value. Individuals increasingly cross borders that are not only physical and technological but also emotional, psychological, relational and temporal. We are interested in understanding the ways in which public relations practitioners, as knowledge workers, are positioned as individual, gendered subjects responding to the pressures induced by this shifting, complex relational landscape. Therefore, in this study we explore the ways in which public relations practitioners improvise, communicate and negotiate their personal–professional identities and the tensions inherent in the encounter between self and other, private and public, economic and cultural. We interviewed women of different ages, in various stages of family life, and at different levels in their professional careers: unmarried, married, with and without children, in junior and senior roles, working in consultancy and in-house. The rich descriptions we gained of the ways in which the women invest their professional and personal experiences with meaning reveal how they constitute the work–life interrelationship discursively; how they navigate these tensions and make sense of them reflexively; and their impact on the practice of public relations. We posit that public relations is a profession whose resources and focus resemble those with which the notion of identity and the negotiation of work–life balance are themselves preoccupied: the relationships between people, time, space and communication technologies. Thus, recognising the importance of personal–professional identities coupled with the notion of who does public relations work, what it involves, and how it is accomplished becomes central to any understanding of knowledge production and individual wellbeing in the contemporary knowledge economy.

Recent public debates suggest that literacy is largely a matter of standards and expedient economic outcomes. Given the debates swirling around, where does the discipline of Writing position itself? Are academics of Writing outside the debate because we believe matters of literacy are dealt with elsewhere (schools, the vocational education and training sector, university teaching and learning centres), or because we see literacy differently, or because we refuse to engage in discourses that would reduce creative endeavours to a crude instrumentalism? This paper works from the premise that, alternatively, we and the discipline are necessarily inside the debate. Literacy (broadly defined) is central to Writing’s raison d’être, as the field claims a space that asserts and nurtures diverse writing activities. Moreover, university Writing programs’ imaginative concentration on textual matters enables students and teachers alike to take the time to reflect not only on the significance and value of written language but on our accountability for its impacts. I argue that this is an ethics of temporality, and illustrate how various approaches to writing, as represented by skills, creativity and genre discourses, are embedded in ethical-temporal concerns. My hope is that this paper extends discussions about the development of the discipline.

The increasing reach and power of multinational corporations raises important questions about the tensions between local and global interests, values and practices. If the corporate social responsibility (CSR) theoretical 'debate' is articulated through two key discourses: broadly speaking, economic / commercial and moral / ethical, then how is it perceived by communication professionals in Southeast Asia with responsibility for CSR in their organisations or for their clients? Those two broad strands can be teased out to highlight the role of specific discourses that determine approaches to CSR in particular contexts. This paper is based on interviews conducted with public relations professionals in Singapore and Malaysia in 2006.

Western models of public relations tend to dominate the discipline, but the efficiency of such models in light of global public relations and the richness of alternative – particularly South East Asian – approaches will be interrogated in this paper. There are few scholars who take a critical approach to public relations practice, or consider the significance and practice of public relations in non-Western and developing nation contexts. Those who do tend to approach international public relations as an opportunity that offers the multinational company competitive advantage and sound image management in international markets, rather than as the potential for developing ethical and reciprocally meaningful communication practices. This paper aims to address issues of globalisation and the demands of ethical approaches and social responsibility by developing a context-sensitive orientation to the discipline. The complexities resulting from the internationalising of the field, specifically in terms of education and professional practice, will be explored and illuminated through reference to case studies in SE Asia and Australia.