Diversity in PR

Multicultural public relations can be defined as management of formal communication between an organization and their relevant publics to create and maintain communities of interest and action that favour organization. Diversity speaks to the inclusion of ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, elderly, customers etc. Zena Martin in her lecture outlined that companies in the United States have embraced diversity more than their counterparts in the UK. The argument then is why is diversity so important especially for the public relations practitioner? Firstly our society is rapidly changing and so includes people of various backgrounds, race, creed, sexuality etc. Also according to Banks (1995) by not including diversity into practice it is potentially filled with missed opportunities and inadequate performances that can result in misunderstanding cultural differences.
Colin Bryne (2008) outlines that many companies have embraced diversity but their PROs need to reflect this. In his article he focuses on diversity within the workplace. However as Zena Martin outlined in her lecture it extends to include customers. As with all aspects of PR, integrating diversity involves researching and understanding audiences.
Although more needs to be done to integrate diverity into public relations there has been strides by the CIPR via their website " Diversity Matters" which is designed to help their members tackle this issue.

Class Exercise

The class exercise for attracting men to the public relations profession for our group was somehow challenging. We sought to concentrate on messages that would attract more men. We identified that messages would speak to their ego and include words such as macho, strong and prestigious. We were influenced from the previous lecture on feminization of PR and thought that only specific areas of PR would appeal to men. The outcome from the class is that implementing diversity can be complex from the employees to the customers/ clients. The important point is to know the audience and this has to be based on research.


References

Banks, S. (1995) Multicultural Public Relations: A Social – Interpretive Approach.
Sage Publications
Byrne, C. (2008) PR WEEK Opinion: Industry needs to reflect social diversity. [Online] Available at: http://www.prweek.com/uk/home/article/789078/ [Accessed March 2008]
CIPR available at: http://www.cipr.co.uk/diversity/ [Accessed March 2008]