The changing demographics of the United States demonstrate the need for public relations to become a diverse profession that understands and practices multicultural communication and provides equal opportunities for minorities and women. In an organizational context, diversity in public relations is essential as organizations function in multicultural environments.
A diverse organization can benefit from the multiplicity of experiences, backgrounds, attitudes and networks that their employees bring to the organization. Practitioners should advocate for diversity of all types in the PR function and in the organization.
As practitioners work for diversity and equity in the organization, they should also examine the products and messages that they produce — looking at the text and images, becoming reflexive throughout the process, and disengaging any biases, stereotypes and misconceptions from the work.
For the profession to succeed, according to academics Dr. Bey-Ling Sha, APR, and Dr. Rochelle Ford, APR, “all of us must learn to consider multiple diversities as constituting integral and integrated aspects of the field rather than as ‘Others’ that are somehow different and separate from ‘mainstream’ public relations.”
And in her University of Maryland thesis regarding multicultural communications, Virginia Sheng concluded, “Membership in a specific group does not — by itself — determine the effectiveness of one communicator over others.”
Read the entire article by Natalie T. J. Tindall, Ph.D at PRSA.