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Engagement as dialogue: presenting a pragmatic perspective

Engagement as dialogue: presenting a pragmatic perspective. Anne Lane School of Advertising, Marketing, and PR Queensland University of Technology Australia. Engagement . The concept of engagement has been – and remains – under-theorized

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Engagement as dialogue: presenting a pragmatic perspective

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  1. Engagement as dialogue: presenting a pragmatic perspective Anne Lane School of Advertising, Marketing, and PR Queensland University of Technology Australia

  2. Engagement • The concept of engagement has been – and remains – under-theorized • The types of communication labelled ‘engagement’ in the literature demonstrate a range of forms and functions, and occur across a number of contexts • Civic governance and public administration (Boxelaar, Paine, and Bellin, 2006; Escobar, 2011) • CSR (Greenwood, 2007; Manetti, 2011; Pedersen, 2006) • Education (Bender and Bender, 2008; Bruning, McGrew, and Cooper, 2006) • Health communication (Parker et al., 2009; Petraglia, 2009) • Science communication (Robinson et al., 2014, van der Sanden and Meijman, 2008)

  3. Perspectives on engagement • Relational • Foster and Jonker, 2005; Johnston, 2010; Lawrence, 2002 • Dialogic • de Bussy, 2010; Heath, 2007

  4. What is dialogue? • “Primitive term” (Chaffee, 1991) – everyone ‘knows’ what it means • “Public relations scholars have referred to dialogue as “dialectic”, “discourse”, and a “process” with little consistency in its usage” (Kent and Taylor, 2002, p.21). • Like engagement, dialogue is a term that has eluded universally-accepted definition (Bokeno, 2007)

  5. What is dialogue? • Kent and Taylor (2002) articulated a set of principles by which dialogue could be defined and identified • Mutuality • Propinquity • Empathy • Risk • Commitment

  6. Dialogue is… An orientation of participants towards BOTH • each other • Positive, trusting, demonstrating mutual respect and empathy AND • the process of two-way communication involved • Inclusive, wide-ranging, not pre-determined • Leading to mutual understanding, co-creation of decisions

  7. Engagement-as-dialogue-as-engagement • Civic governance and public administration (Cronin, 2008) • CSR (Burchell and Cook, 2006; Pedersen, 2006) • Education (Cunningham, 2003) • Health communication (Parker et al., 2009; Petraglia, 2009) • Science communication (Bennett, Kemp, and White, 2006; Davies, 2009; van der Sanden and Meijman, 2008)

  8. Engagement as dialogue: the (re)search • Qualitative, interpretive methodology • In depth interviews with contemporary public relations practitioners in Queensland, Australia • Looking for indications of the practitioners’ perceptions of the orientations of the participants in engagement (organizations, stakeholders, and the practitioners themselves) towards each other and to the processes of two-way communication involved.

  9. Engagement as dialogue: the findings Orientations of participants to each other • Lack of empathy • Organizations and stakeholders expect to be able to benefit from participating in engagement, regardless of the consequences for others • Other participants are problematized • Power struggles

  10. Engagement as dialogue: the findings Orientations of participants to the process of two-way communication • All participants seek to control the communication process • The term ‘dialogue’ is co-opted to cover pragmatic forms of two-way communication • Ticking the box • Closing the loop • Consultation on the tactical implementation of organizational decisions • The forms of communication in engagement do not demonstrate the principles of dialogue Continued…

  11. Engagement as dialogue: the findings • Organizations were perceived as using two-way communication to discuss the tactical implementation of strategies rather than to make strategic decisions. • Organizations were seeking stakeholders’ • Acquiescence • Acceptance • Agreement

  12. Engagement as dialogue Why? • Because of the constraints within which engagement is undertaken • Power • The instrumentalist perspective is still pervasive

  13. What do these findings mean? Either • Dialogue has a set and specific meaning, and this has little or no relevance to public relations practice generally and engagement in particular • Use the term ‘dialogue’ more appropriately • Acknowledge its relevance is as a normative ideal only

  14. What do these findings mean? Or • Accept that dialogue is acquiring a new and more pragmatic meaning in practice, and adjust the theorizing of engagement to accommodate this • Compromise on the concept of dialogue as it is understood elsewhere

  15. What do these findings mean? • The achievement of agreement between organizations and stakeholders through consultation is – pragmatically speaking – the highest form of engagement practitioners can achieve.

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