Public Relations As Activism

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POWER AND THE PUBLIC RELATIONS FUNCTION

Make rhizomes, not roots, never plant! Don't sow, grow off shoots! Don't be one or multiple, be multiplicities! Run lines, never plot a point! Be quick, even when standing still! Don't bring out the General in you! Don't just have ideas, just have an idea.

(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 24–25)

Public relations practitioners like to think of themselves as the or a con-science of the organization (Holtzhausen & Voto, 2002) but events during the past decade, and particularly those that resulted in the scandals of indulgence in financial organizations after the U.S. government bailed them out financially, are proof that public relations practitioners are not fulfilling that role. These incidents are indications ...