Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Although public relations practice is slightly ahead of the public relations body of knowledge, both have developed ethnocentrically in the twentieth century, based predominantly on experience and research from the United States and to a lesser extent from some countries in Europe ( Sriramesh & Vercic 2003 ; Van Ruler & Vercic 2004 ). However, public relations practice, or many of the publicity activities that we have come to characterize as →  Public Relations today, took place in pre-biblical times in many ancient cultures. There is evidence of such communication practices in ancient civilizations in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and China, among others ( Sriramesh & Vercic 2003 ; Sriramesh 2004 ). However, in its “modern” avatar (incarnation), public relations practice is perceived around the world to be a western (predominantly American) phenomenon (→  Communication Modes, Western ). The body of knowledge of public relations is relatively young and ethnocentric. Grunig and Hickson (1979) concluded that of the 4,141 books and articles on the subject of public relations prior to 1976, only 63 had some research component, a clear sign of the lack of development of the “science” of public relations by that time. Although there has been a noticeable spurt in public relations scholarship in the last 30 years (→  Communication as a Field and Discipline ), it is only ... log in or subscribe to read full text