ABSTRACT

What is international public relations? Curtin and Gaither (2007, p. 4) describe public relations as “a form of strategic communication directed primarily toward gaining public understanding and acceptance and the process of creating a good relationship between an organization and the public, especially with regard to reputation and to communication of information.” International public relations is “a title that denotes the practice and study of public relations across international boundaries and cultures” (Curtin & Gaither, 2007, p. 19). The key distinction is that the practice must occur across national borders. For example, a person from Benin who moves to Brazil to work for a Brazilian firm is not practicing international public relations unless (s)he is interacting on behalf of the firm with publics outside of Brazil. When an organization and the publics with which it attempts to build relationships are located in different countries, then the organization’s public relations activities are said to be international (Wakefield, 2008, p. 140). The

Copyright: Maksim Kabakou

key difference between local and international public relations campaigns is that international campaigns must take account of cultural differences. Banks (1995, p. 42) defines effectiveness in multicultural public relations as “the successful negotiation of multiple meanings that result in positive outcomes in any communicative activity.”