Postmodern Culture and Public Relations: An Analysis through Campaigns

Abstract

Despite the diversity of paradigms in the field of public relations, it is evident that the dominant paradigm in the field is the functional paradigm, which defines public relations as a "management function". It leads to the ignorance of "cultural function" of public relations and becomes an obstacle to the development of the field. By establishing a relationship between public relations and culture, this article addresses public relations as a "cultural intermediary" profession that is influenced by the postmodern culture and (re)produces postmodern culture.In the article, three public relations campaigns determined by purposive sampling were analyzed using critical discourse analysis within the framework of multiple case analysis. How postmodern cultural features do public relations campaigns (re)produce; how they (re)produced the postmodern understanding of consumption, whether they reproduce the concepts of polyphony, equality and freedom by deconstructing modernity was analyzed. As a result, it is found that campaigns re(produce) the individualization, modular identity, spectacle, and simulation features of the postmodern culture of the campaigns and, the postmodern understanding of consumption by attributing "new meanings" to organizations and products. At the same time, it is found that they do not ensure polyphony, equality, and freedom by deconstructing modernity and resisting metanarratives, but rather "pretends" to reproduce them.