Confucian Values and Their Contemporary Relevance to Public Relations: Exploring a Chinese Theory on Public Relations Education?

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  In Roundtable Session: Confucianism and Its Implications for Equality, Democracy, and Critical Thinking

Abstract

This paper examines core Confucian values and discusses its relevance to Chinese public relations education, which is still at a developing stage. One challenge that Chinese public relations education facing is that most public relations educators have not received any formal training in the field. As a result, most textbooks are adopted from the West, particularly the US, identified as the leader in public relations. The present study takes a qualitative approach by interviewing 49 public relations educators, practitioners, and students to identify the ways in which they have localized the borrowed theories based on the unique Chinese context. Confucian values emerged as a natural gateway to bridge in Western public relations theories.

Author

• Ai Zhang, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey