Editorial

Citation

Pieczka, M. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 11 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcom.2007.30711baa.001

Editorial

It is a truism to say that communication managers, like other professionals, operate in an increasingly complex world driven by contradictory forces of globalization and fragmentation. The articles collected in this issue of the Journal of Communication Management address, in their different ways, some of the specific aspects of this complexity in order to examine how they may be implicated in contemporary public relations.

We open the issue with Horst Avenarius’s “German experiences with codes and their enforcement” which offers a fascinating insight into the self-regulation of German public relations. The article presents a thorough explanation of the local, German answer to a question which public relations practitioners all over the world have been asking: How should we conduct ourselves? Ethics can be seen as a key element in professional self-definition and, therefore, a constant factor in the worldwide professionalisation of the occupation. Ethics can also be understood with reference to moral philosophy and the search for universal principles. However, the most common arrangements made to try and ensure ethical behaviour – the articulation of codes, the extent to which they are binding for practitioners, as well as their enforcement – tend to spring from national traditions. Here the local perspective is injected into the explanation by situating public relations in the context of other communication professions, such as advertising or journalism, and by comparing German with American ways of pursuing the goal of professional ethics.

The theme of the global vs. local is continued by Chiara Valentini in “Global versus cultural approaches to public relations management: The case of the European Union”. The article offers a careful critique of the concept of “the global public” as a basis for international public relations. The author builds her argument through an extensive discussion of the literature on relationship management set against the backdrop of, on the one hand, the globalisation of communication, and on the other, the need for cultural sensitivity in communication strategies. Through consideration of examples drawn from European practice, Valentini successfully combines the well-established typology of publics, defined by their levels of awareness and involvement, with sensitivity to strategic communication aims and the importance of the cultural context.

Jian Wang and Zhiying Wang’s article “The political symbolism of business: Exploring consumer nationalism and its implication for Corporate Reputation Management in China”, continues the same theme by applying the concept of nationalism to the politics of consumption. By reviewing three crisis cases in which consumer and public criticism mobilized references to popular nationalism, the authors offer an intriguing contribution to our understanding of the Chinese consumer market, and beyond that, to Corporate Reputation Management. “The salience of consumer national advocacy”, they argue, “underscores the tensions and contradictions in China’s encounter with globalization.”

The two following contributions present case studies of aspects of communication management in specific contexts: the high risk chemical industry, and a public transport company.

Paul Capriotti’s article, “Risk communication strategies in the chemical industry in Spain: An examination of the web content of companies on issues related to chemical risk”, deals with the medium of global reach – websites – while cautiously limiting the relevance of the study to the Spanish national context. This detailed study of chemical risk communication, based on content analysis, is valuable in a number of ways. As a snapshot of public relations practice at a particular point in time, it could be used for tracking developments or, in a comparative approach, to learn about what happens in other geographic and legal environments, or types of industry. Finally, the methodology of this study itself may well prove to be adopted and adapted in the future by practitioners, researchers and students alike.

“Performance communication of the Belgian Railway” by Dave Gelders, Jan Pieter Verckens, Mirjam Galetzka, and Erwin Seydel presents an exploratory qualitative study of performance communication by a large, state-owned company providing a vital public service. The authors make it clear that there are a number of factors of particular interest in this case, such as the changing political-economic climate of liberalization and marketization, which has been sweeping across Europe and various industries ever since the 1980s; the growing importance of transparency in corporate and public communication; the complexity of structure and mutual dependencies among the companies providing the service and the impact this has on communication; and, finally, the question the research raises about “the effects of counter-balanced communication of performance measures on corporate reputation and brand equity in order to examine the mediating role of corporate credibility and trust in the company.”

The article closing this issue, “Emerging metaphors in brand management: Towards a relational approach” by Pekka Tuominen offers a discussion of approaches to brand management that is bound to resonate in particular ways with readers familiar with public relations literature and theory. For example, Tuominen’s plea for the recognition of the key importance of relationship and dialogue for the understanding of service branding will be welcome. The concept of the brand itself will evoke terms routinely used in public relations, i.e. corporate identity and corporate image. Finally, readers may find it hard to stop drawing comparisons between the metaphors chosen to illustrate the four branding paradigms and the classic four models of public relations. One could argue that the monologue, listening and adaptation, and dialogue metaphors can be compared respectively and unproblematically with the public information, one-way asymmetrical and two-way symmetrical models. The silence metaphor, however, is nothing like press agentry. The point here is different: focusing on product communication is compared to silence. Indeed, meaning, understanding, and action are not properties of objects or symbols but arise in the process of communication and the accompanying relationships.

I hope you will find enjoyment and stimulation in the work presented on the pages of this issue of the Journal.

Magda Pieczka