ABSTRACT
Unprecedented changes in communication technology during the past 10 years have had an extraordinary impact on the way in which public relations practitioners interact with their organizations’ stakeholders. On a global level, new media have opened up a plethora of opportunities for public relations practitioners, together with greater challenges in constructing and sharing messages. However, the worldwide proliferation of communication technology is just one part of the process of globalization. Scholars such as Sklair & Miller (2010) theorize that both the transnational aspects of globalization, of which technology is a chief driving force, and the so-called capitalist or neoliberal economic aspect of globalization, have produced a global crisis of class polarization and ecological unsustainability. Sklair & Miller (2010) argue that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was born of this crisis, because of CSR’s potential to mitigate some of the damages that irresponsible corporate behavior has caused to social and environmental life. Public relations scholars such as Prasad (2011) have identified both environmental and social issues as key to the emerging interest in CSR in Oman and elsewhere in the Middle East. His study also found that new media play an essential part in facilitating communication and understanding between organizations and their stakeholders. Hence, constructing and sharing messages are relevant for social media, where emphasis is not simply on the media, but also on the social aspect that is crucial for building relationships and communities with organizations’ publics (Drury, 2008).
