Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity

11 The authenticity managers

Post-modern public relations practice in the digital age

Brand worlds

This book has considered how brands attempt to confer legitimacy, and how they are themselves subject to processes of critique and justification within a legitimised structure in order to achieve authenticity. Earlier it was noted how Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) developed a justificatory framework comprising of six different ‘common worlds’: 1) Inspired World, 2) Domestic World, 3) World of Fame, 4) Civic World, 5) Market World, and 6) Industrial World, each of which was argued to represent common orders of worth which support judgement and justification narratives and positioning. It is possible to take these worlds and identify links to some ...