Do It For The CULTURE

Public relations professionals are increasingly being asked to develop campaigns that span multiple countries and cultures. You will need to answer one of the first questions about whether you will use a single PR strategy globally (a global approach) or craft different strategies for other countries and cultures (an international approach). The word of the day is "culture." Culture refers to the learned and shared patterns of behavior and beliefs of a specific social, ethnic, or age group. It can also be defined as a complex whole of collective human views with a structured stage of civilization that is specific to a country or period. Humans, in turn, use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live.

International VS Global

First, let's clarify some of the characteristics that differentiate international and global public relations. To begin, in international public relations, PR practitioners implement distinct programs in multiple markets, with each program tailored to meet the, often acute, differences of the individual geographic market. This relates to the local approach, which states that different countries and cultures are so different that strategies tailored to local opportunities and challenges are required. Second, global PR superimposes an overall perspective on a program in two or more national markets, recognizing audience similarities while adapting to regional differences. This is related to the global approach, in which practitioners believe that certain best practices and messages are universally successful across countries and cultures.

Understanding Is Key

PR professionals must gain a solid understanding of a communication model or process that goes beyond simply sending and receiving messages and avoiding noise. In addition to the message's content, the message's intent must be understood. This becomes even more important when communication occurs between people from various nations and cultures. Frequently, the intended meaning is lost or simply misunderstood. These strategies can help young public relations professionals become more effective intercultural and international communicators:

1. PR Professionals should understand their cultural values and assumptions about other cultures.

2. PR Professionals should develop competence in the language, business protocol, social relationships, and respect for other cultures.

3. PR Professionals should be guided to understand the nonverbal cues and the cultural context in which communication unfolds.

4. PR Professionals need to realize that developing a global attitude is imperative.

5. Audience research is crucial in any communication campaign.

6. Awareness of how your host culture would understand your message is imperative.

7. Understanding the media market in the culture or country that you want to reach is vital.

The cultural circuit comprises five stages in a process: regulation, production, consumption, representation, and identity, all of which work together to produce a shared cultural environment where meaning is formed, shaped, modified, and recreated. The circuit has no beginning or conclusion; the moments work together to produce meaning. Each instant, on the other hand, provides a unique component to the total.

1. Regulation

- Comprises controls on cultural activity, ranging from formal and legal controls, such as regulations, laws, and institutionalized systems, to the informal and local controls of cultural norms and expectations that form a culture in the more commonly used sense of the term.

- It’s in the moment of regulation that meanings arise governing what’s acceptable, what’s correct.

- In simplistic terms, it helps form the context in which public relations activities take place.

2. Production

- Outlines the process by which creators of cultural products imbue them with meaning, a process often called encoding.

- In public relations terms, we can think of this as the process of planning and executing a campaign.

3. Representation

- The form an object takes and the meanings encoded in that form.

- Producers encode meaning into a cultural artifact, often with a specific target audience in mind.

- They hope to convey a specific meaning through all aspects of how they present the artifact. The content, the format, and even the method of distribution communicate intended meaning.

- Practitioners encode meaning into campaign materials by delineating particular target publics, scripting key messages, picking specific channels of communication, and so on.

4. Consumption

- When audiences decode messages.

- More commonly spoken of as target publics in public relations, consumers bring their semantic networks of meaning to any communicative exchange.

- They are active creators of meaning, putting issues and products to use in their everyday lives in their ways.

5. Identities

- Meanings that accrue to all social networks, from nations to organizations to the public.

- During production, practitioners encode organizational texts with the dominant identity they want to convey, around which they attempt to structure subsequent discourse.

So... High School Part 2

Continuing with our "This Is So…. High School" saga, we have already noted some of the nuances of high school pertaining to international/global pr and culture. To recap, let's remember that high school comprises a vast number of social groups. Think of each group as a different country. Although each group is formed of teenagers, one cannot hope to relate to each group in the same manner. One must gain an understanding of the culture of a particular clique. Let's continue with our "Mean Girls" reference. In the film, Cady and her newfound associates set out to start a smear campaign against the school's most popular student, Regina George. To accomplish this, Cady must immerse herself into the culture of the elite socialites of the school, the plastics. She goes undercover and begins to learn everything it takes to be "Plastic."

During this espionage act, Cady begins to understand that not all high school teens are the same. As a scholar herself, she realizes that even that is not acceptable if she hopes to be "Plastic." This is very similar to the conversation surrounding the international vs. global PR approach debates. In a global sense, Cady could have taken what she knew about being a teen and began making her way through life; however, this was an entirely different jungle. In this jungle, one wrong move could lead to social suicide. To gain the trust of her new “friends,” Cady imbodied the international pr approach. She listened before leaping into the sea of the unknown. This is essential when a company wants to do business in a new environment.

Because PR involves negotiating cultures and crossing boundaries both online and offline, it requires cultural competence. Practitioners must be adaptable and understand the cultural principles that support the industry, as well as their own cultural heritage. PR work also necessitates both global and local knowledge in order to effectively communicate with people from various cultures. Above all, public relations professionals should focus on developing and maintaining positive multicultural relationships and communities.