ABSTRACT
In his introduction to the Handbook of Public Relations, Heath (2001) listed 20 words and phrases that he identified as constituting an “emerging vocabulary” representative of the “heart and soul of current intellectual ferment” in the discipline (p. 2). The terms included relationships, shared control, trust, social capital, shared meaning, argumentativeness, openness, multiple publics (stakeholders and stakeseekers), legitimacy gap, power, and collaborative decision making, among others. Heath continued his introductory essay by suggesting that “no term is more important to understanding relationships than is community” (p. 3, italics in original). It is the concept of community as stakeholder that this current chapter addresses.
