ABSTRACT
The community paradox for public relations emerges from the contradictory views of community relations and the very nature or our relationship with communities. Practitioners have traditionally viewed community relations as a strategic process for advancing organizational interests in their virtual and geographic communities. Though communities may mutually benefit from the organization’s success, the act of using these close relationships to serve self-interests may morally detach an organization from its community. Contemporary conceptions of community have been influenced by the ancient Greeks and early Christian theologians. Aristotle’s view of people being bound by what they had in common influenced subsequent conceptions of community. The Stoics promoted an elite community of the wise; the Christians envisioned a universal community of the faithful. Enlightenment thinkers believed “community expressed the bonds of commonality and sociality”.
