What comes after Grunig? Take a look at these two documents before you reply…
Most visitors of this blog are well aware of Jim Grunig, if not for other reasons, because they remember an extensive interview he gave us almost a year ago.
Since then, while visiting colleagues, speaking with students or professional associations around the world, I often am asked a question which seems to be looming about out professional body of knowledge.
What comes after Grunig?
Now, for the exclusive curiosity of cherished visitors, take a look at these two links which give, I believe, a forceful and convincing answer to that query.
The first pr under digitalization is a power point presentation Jim gave in Hong Kong last Saturday at this conference, and concerns pr under digitalization.
The second brazilian chapter grunig is instead the english (original) version of the first chapter of a recent book published in Portuguese, together with Brazilian scholar Maria Aparecida Ferrari.
Both documents, highly diverse, are an excellent demonstration that -in the company of an impressive array of quality contributions coming from many other scholars and researchers around the world- the answer to that looming question is that after Grunig…comes Grunig.
I think we first ask what comes with Gtrunig before asking what caomes after Grunig
Grunig’s works should be considered simply as public relations of the public relations industry; Grunig’s ideas on communication in organisations and role of public relations are mostly baseless justifications for the promotion of public relations business. How can a person think of a two-way of communication (a symmetrical communication) within a business environment and between an organisation and potential buyers? Two-way of communication requires all of the followings: Rights and means to be able to (a) initiate a communication, (b) fill the content of communication, (c) change the subject of communication during the interaction, (d) stop an ongoing communication, (e) decide on (or significantly influence on) where to produce, how to produce, where and how to distribute and how to share the outcomes. There can be no two-way democratical or symmetrical relationship if any of the above requirements is missing. Stuart Ewen’s book Pr: A Social history of Spin is an excellent source if you really want to know the real nature of the public realtions beyond the prevailing mystifications and factoids.
I suggest that (a) we should critically read Grunig’s Model and (b) develop theories that is not geared toward the justifications, marketing and promotion of public relations business, but geared toward to understand and explain the nature of public relations in a society.
I have often written highly of Stuart Ewen’s book as it is one of the landmarks of our body of knowledge.
I defintely agree with and endorse your suggestion that, before expressing opinions or interpretations, one should read critically Grunig’s books.
I wish you had also…
In any case, teo minor points:
1.
I do not see a direct relationship between the concepts of two way and that of symmetrical communicationM and certainly is no relationship between the concepts of democratical and symmetrical communication;
2.
your points a,c,d and e -with the sole exception of b- all point to the development of an effective relationship between any social, public or private organization and its stakeholders. This has been going on for centuries and what Jim says, after having dome extensive descriptive research in hundreds of organizations way back in the late eighties (long before social media….), is simply that the more the relationship is balanced between the subjects the more effective is the communication process.