Public Relations Research - European and International Perspectives and Innovations

Introduction (p. 9)

Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, Betteke van Ruler &, Ansgar Zerfass

One could make a reasonable argument that public relations is an ancient practice (going back millennia) although it has been popularly perceived as a 20th century phenomenon. Scholarship in public relations, however, is more recent in origin with a history of less than four decades. During these formative years, the body of knowledge has expanded significantly, which is laudable. However, there is potential for growth and improvement in many areas of the public relations literature.

Over the decades, among other things, public relations scholarship has largely remained parochial to specific regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Latin America, German speaking Europe, etc. as evidenced in the bibliographic references of many essays in this volume itself where authors predominantly cite work from their own regions. This is often necessitated by linguistic differences with only English serving as the "universal" language that helps permeate knowledge through most regions.

Pedagogical and methodological factors also have played a role in the "regionalization" of the body of knowledge. However, we believe that knowledge flourishes most when it is shared across different kinds of barriers. Globalization has made it essential for us to recognize this reality more than ever. This volume tries to bridge the gap and presents theories and concepts from researchers around the world.

1 Stimulating the Debate on Public Relations Theory

Although there has been an increase in cross-national and cross-cultural knowledge sharing especially in the past decade, we deem this only as a good beginning that has great potential for exponential growth. It is with this broad goal in mind that we envisaged this book pooling the wisdom and perspectives of fertile minds from different parts of the world on various aspects of public relations and communication management.

Whereas knowledge sharing itself might have been a laudable reason to launch such a worthy project, we had another happier reason to envisage this volume – dedicating the book to celebrate a milestone in the life of a valued and renowned colleague. As a result, we have brought together scholars from around the world to share their perspectives in this compilation to mark the 60th birthday of Günter Bentele, the most renowned German-speaking scholar and researcher in public relations.

Unlike a traditional Festschrift, we refrained from asking the most important fellows of Günter Bentele’s career to contribute to this volume preferring instead to also foster research in public relations by gathering concepts advocated by those who are shaping the future of the field. This mirrors Bentele’s aspiration to bridge the gap between research traditions in different cultures and disciplines, and to support fresh thinking by younger scholars.

Bentele, whose curriculum vitae and impressive list of publications is presented in the appendix, has published almost 40 books and more than 200 articles or book chapters. He also has conducted numerous empirical studies and delivered speeches at conferences in many countries. He has served as president of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) and president of the German Association of Communication Science (DGPuK).