Bibliographical Exploration of Public Relations and Diplomacy: Public, Organisational, and Civil Society Perspectives

Реторика, публична и академична комуникация

Rhetoric, Public and Academic Communication

DOI 10.55206/NYJY5440

 

Anca Anton

University of Bucharest, Romania

E-mail: anca.anton@fjsc.ro

Anne-Marie Cotton

Artevelde University of Applied Sciences, Belgium

E-mail: am.cotton@arteveldehs.be

Eugen Glavan

Research Institute for the Quality of Life, Romanian Academy, Romania

E-mail: eugen@iccv.ro

 

Abstract: This paper aims to describe, infer and interpret the corpus of references extracted from the book “Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective” (Sebastião & Spínola, 2022), a collective volume published as an output of a three-year research and educational project exploring the intersection of public relations with public, organisational and civil society diplo­macy, from a European perspective. A mixed methods approach of quantita­tive and statistical techniques in conjunction with social network analysis (SNA) was applied to a corpus formed out of 785 unique entries corresponding to the book references. Borrowing from bibliometric approaches, the techniques of di­rect citation networks, co-citation networks, and topic networks were used to map perspectives used in the book. Results point to a clear linguistic preference for English, to a saliency of journal articles overlapping with the increase in re­search accessibility through digitalisation, to a clear dominance of a few journals coming from the fields of public relations and public diplomacy, and to a clear alignment of the perspectives on public, organisational and civil society diplo­macy at the intersection of public relations and diplomacy, albeit from a debatable European perspective. The research is relevant to any scholar or practitioner in­terested in how public relations and the democratised forms of diplomacy intersect and influence each other. It can also serve as a roadmap to how the explo­ration of the bibliographical universe of a research project can be used as a self-reflection and evaluation tool.

Keywords: public relations, public diplomacy, organisational diplomacy, civil society diplomacy, bibliography, social network analysis.

 

Introduction

Developing a European perspective in public, organisational and civil society diplomacy has been a long journey for the MARPE Network consisting of academics – researchers and professors – from 5 universities: Université de Lorraine (France), Artevelde University of Applied Sciences (Belgium), Univer­sity of Bucharest (Romania), University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Universidad Cardenal Herrera Valencia (Spain). This aim goes back to the roots of the net­work, mid-eighties of last century, aiming to establish institutional coopera­tion to develop and ensure excellence in Public Relations (PR) education and research throughout Europe. After offering a comprehensive educational pro­gramme in PR from a European perspective over two decades (1992-2014), the MARPE partners decided to become a pan-European network of academics and profes­sionals being “innovative in its flexible structure, cross viewing content and pedagogical approach” (MARPE Network 2022). [1] A first step in this repo­sitioning were three Erasmus Intensive Programmes (IPs) organised in 2012, 2013 and 2014 on the topic of “Public Relations: Government Relations and Lob­bying in a European perspective”.

The next step was a self-reflective exercise on the results of these three years of Intensive Programmes. Following this self-assessment, the network moved from a tactics-focused perspective (on government relations and lob­by­ing) to a strategy-focused perspective (on public, organisational and civil society diplomacy) with two constants: the PR approach and the European orienta­­tion, both reflecting the academic profile and the schools of thought specific to the network members. However, in this new step a question arose: how to determine that the perspective on public, organisational and civil society diplomacy is PR-driven and “European”? Answering this question is relevant to the advancement of knowledge for two reasons: 1) while there is a growing body of knowledge on the role of communication in diplomacy and public diplomacy, more research is needed on the intersection of public relations and public diplo­macy and 2) the exploration of a European perspective on democratised forms of diplomacy would contribute to the balancing of an US perspective that dominates both prac­tice and research.

We decided to analyse this research question by applying a bibliographical study on one of the most comprehensive outputs of the 2018-2021 project “MARPE Diplo: Developing a European Higher Education curriculum in public, corporate and civic diplomacy”, the book “Diplomacy, Organisations and Citi­zens. A European Communication Perspective” (2022). [2]

The book is organised in three parts: Part I – the exploration of PR, diplo­macy and their intersection (chapters 1, 2, 19), Part II – the conceptualisation of the three pillars of the project, namely public diplomacy (chapter 3), or­ganisa­tion­al diplomacy (chapter 4) and civil society diplomacy (chapter 5), and Part III – the applications of these concepts in a wide range of case studies (chapters 6 to 18).

Theoretical framework

Contextualisation

The reconstruction of the successive steps the MARPE Network partners – from the evaluation of the Intensive Programmes on ”Public Relations: Govern­ment Relations and Lobbying in a European perspective” (2011-2014) to the evaluation of the MARPE Diplo project on public, organisational and civil so­ciety diplomacy (2018-2021) – makes us acknowledge path dependence as an “all-encompassing theoretical mechanism” (Dobush & Kapeller 2013). [3] Our theoretical framework is going beyond the three-phase model (Sydow et al. 2009) [4] which distinguishes contingency, self-reinforcement and lock-in as its major components and emphasises the role of patterns of behavioural practices as an empirical anchor for analysis. Our approach implies that while we recognise “the merits of idiographic approaches”, we also accept the idea of nomothetic knowl­edge, i.e. that “knowledge takes the form of theoretical mechanisms or proposi­tions [which] carry explanatory power or (equivalently) empirical con­tent” (Dobush & Kapeller 2013, p. 291) [5], mixing ontologies (Garud et al. 2010). We agree with Bunge who stated: “the nomothetic/idiographic dichotomy is a philo­sophical artefact, for every science is both nomothetic and idiographic.” (Bunge 1999, p. 33) [6]

While we critically and systematically analysed and evaluated our MARPE projects to explain them as social phenomena by identifying the processes through which they were generated (Davis & Marquis 2005) [7], research carried by external actors also helped us “to improvise and bricolage [our] ways through an emergent process” (Garud et al. 2010, p. 764). [8] Our path creation was influenced by Signitzer and Coombs (1992) [9], l’Etang (1996) [10], Van Dyke and Verčič (2009) [11], Hayes (2012) [12], Macnamara (2012) [13], Fitzpatrick, Fullerton and Kendrick (2013) [14], who analysed the conceptual and practical convergences between PR and public diplomacy. We experienced positive feedback nurturing the self-reinforcement step via public diplomacy literature (Cull 2010 [15]; Lequesne 2012 [16]; Lord 2008 [17]; Pamment 2014 [18]; Simons 2014 [19]; Zong & Lu 2013 [20]) and the MARPE Diplo Talks (MARPE Network 2019-2021). [21] Using both modes of inquiry allowed us to define a state of lock-in crystallised in the book “Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective” (2022). [22]

The aim of the book is to “be comprehended as part of a growing body of interdisciplinary work where communication research has reached out to other disciplines to inform the development of theory and practice [encouraging] new actors and organisations to move into an expanded public sphere space alongside governments and international organisations” (Phillimore, 2022 pp. v-vi). [23] By focusing its exploration of public, organisational and civil society diplomacy from the perspective of public interest, the book claims a communication ap­proach. We agree with Dacheux (2009) [24] that this approach serves the diplo­macy goals in its search for understanding and peace, as well as the transparency ideal of PR by aiming the nullification of the manipulation that erodes democra­cy. As stated by Sebastião: “diplomacy is constituted and organised by com­muni­ca­tion” (Sebastião 2022, p. 5). [25]

The project is developed from a broader communication perspective, defined by Sebastião in the book Introduction (Sebastião 2022 p. 1): “Commu­nication is the human activity that constitutes Man’s relationship with the world. It is the basis for creating and maintaining relationships between individuals. Communication also allows the constitution of organisations, other collective forms of association and academic fields. This is why a communication per­spective becomes vital given that it focuses on and explains organisational and organising activities”. [26] This approach is positioned within the perspective of PR defined as “the (maintenance of) relationships (with) publics (by) commu­nication (in order to) establish mutual understanding” (van Ruler & Verčič 2002 p. 13). [27] Therefore, the theoretical framework of the MARPE project is com­mu­nication sciences and the approach to analyse diplomacy(-ies) is PR-driven.

By supporting the European agenda since its start in the 1980s, the MARPE partners emphasise the specificities of a European approach compared to the dominant US-driven research production. Although they do not deny the impact of global agendas as “a feature of global society” (Phillimore 2022 p ix) [28], they recognise the impact of the cultural nuances which strongly influence Euro­pean academics and their research. It is therefore relevant to investigate if this recognition was implemented in referencing European literature.

Conceptualisation

The European perspective, the PR perspective, and the diplomacy per­spective are the inspiration and the core concepts behind the three Pillars on which knowledge was advanced and an epistemic community was developed within the MARPE Diplo project, as reflected by the book. The three Pillars are public diplomacy, organisational diplomacy, and civil society diplomacy.

Public diplomacy was the first conceptual pillar of the MARPE Diplo project, defined as the state actions seeking “to win the goodwill of foreign publics on behalf of the state” (Cotton et al. 2021 p. 34). [29] It therefore focuses on creating and maintaining relationships with the general public in foreign societies and more specific non-official groups, organisations and individuals rather than relationships between the representatives of states (Melissen 2005 p. 5). [30] The focus on the shifting nature of relationships and the actors involved warranted a PR perspective. The third chapter of the book therefore emphasises the link between public diplomacy, PR and international PR (Cotton & Sebastião 2022) [31], crossing six periods, from the concept of diplomacy to the current concept of public diplomacy in a European Perspective: (1) path-dependence diplo­­macy, (2) resource-dependence diplomacy, (3) the societal injunction to trans­parency, (4) public diplomacy and soft power, (5) public diplomacy and communication, and (6) diplomacy in the digital age.

The term corporate diplomacy was initially considered the second pillar of the MARPE Diplo research. An exploration of the way the term “corporate” was used in different European countries, as well as the reality that in the public sphere not only companies are non-state actors, but also other types of organisa­tions, such as NGOs, generated a shift from corporate diplomacy to organi­sa­tional diplomacy, developed in chapter 4. Organisational diplomacy is considered to be “the role that formal transnational organisations play in advancing the interests that arise from their statutes by negotiating and creating alliances with key external players including governments, analysts, the media, non-govern­mental organisations, and companies, to obtain social acceptance and create an area of public influence. This is how they can achieve the legitimacy to accom­plish their mission and vision abroad” (Spínola & Cotton 2022 p. 75). [32]

The democratisation of diplomacy (Verčič, 2022) [33] in terms of access, soft power and processes grounds the third pillar, conceptualised in chapter 5 and reflected in several case study based chapters. “Civil society diplomacy is carried out by civil society organisations (CSOs), transnational civil society networks, transnational movements and/or individuals emerging from civil society for so­cietal interests, causes and issues and acting across borders“ (Anton, 2022 p. 92). [34] Therefore, civil society diplomacy is a counterbalance to public diplo­macy, enabling action and research carried out from a civil society driven perspective. “It can be seen as the equivalent of state public diplomacy, but originating in the public sphere, performed by civil society agents and serving the (global) public interest that is not conditioned by the state-defined national interest” (Anton 2022 p. 93). [35] This counterweight perspective has significant implications from a PR point of view: while strategic aspects such as actors, interests, legitimacy change, tactical aspects can be interchangeable and used in both types of diplo­macy according to the interests that are in play. This fluidity echoes and mirrors recent research on EU public diplomacy calling for a “tailor-made approach” (Fanoulis & Revelas 2022). [36]

Operationalisation

To foster a better understanding of the body of knowledge, we identified the domains from which the various types of texts emerged and the institutional and cultural influence that define the conceptual origin of the titles in the bib­liographical list. We then cross-referenced them with the three pillars men­tioned in the previous section by referring to the open-source MARPE Diplo Glossary (2021) [37], a document that accompanies the book and presents the opera­tionalisation of all core and relevant concepts used in it, underlining their inter­section:

  1. public diplomacy is the contribution of a PR way of thinking to diplo­macy,
  2. organisational diplomacy is the contribution of a diplomacy way of think­ing to PR,
  3. civil society diplomacy is the combination of PR and diplomacy driven by the non-state actors of civil society and reflecting not only a public-centric perspective specific to PR, but also a democratised, society-driven per­spective on diplomacy.

The Domains

The MARPE Diplo Glossary showcases the operationalisation of these three pillars while also providing insight into a fourth dimension present in the MARPE research: the convergence of PR with diplomacy. The conceptual scheme developed in the Glossary is both co-creational and multidisciplinary (Cotton et al. 2021 p. 6) [38]; it underlines relevant key concepts identified by the academics, students and professionals forming the MARPE epistemic com­munity and used in the chapters of the book, while organising them according to four dimensions (see the colour clusters in Graph 1): PR and diplomacy as core concepts, on the one hand, and the three pillars, on the other (MARPE 2021 p. 8). [39] Our paper uses this conceptual distribution as a starting point for the identification of the Domains associated with the References/Bibliographical list of the chapters in the book. Therefore, the Domains are: Civic/Social movements, Civil society diplomacy, Communication (sciences), Digital diplomacy, Diplo­macy, Ethics, Organisational diplomacy, Public diplomacy, (International) PR, Science diplomacy, and Strategy/Strategic studies; we also included as Domains several fields that are not part of the four dimensions of the Glossary, but inform the MARPE research: economy, business, management, law, pedagogy, soci­olo­gy, and social sciences.

Looking at the domains from which the references used in the book origi­nate will enable us to test the extent to which the MARPE exploration of public, organisational and civil society diplomacy is PR-driven.

Graph 1. MARPE Diplo Glossary network of concepts according

to the four dimensions

 

Institutional and cultural influences

The MARPE epistemic community is international. In the book this is re­flected in the institutional affiliation of the (co-)authors of the chapters and in their selection of references, both relevant to the influence that cultural spaces and pedagogical traditions have on the way authors understand and use concepts in their research. For this paper, in order to correlate references with culturally-influenced schools of thought, we looked at 1) the first author as (arguably) the conceptual driver of each material, not necessarily the most influential in their field (Persson 2001) [40]; (Tscharntke et al. 2007) [41]) and at 2) institutional affiliation as the indicator of the location of the scientist in the academic strati­fica­tion system and in the social structure of science itself (Crane 1967). [42]

Looking at the institutional and cultural influence of the first author of each reference will enable us to develop a more nuanced understanding of the knowl­edge sources and academic perspectives that inform and influence the MARPE epistemic community, while also analysing the extent to which the book proposes a European perspective.

Methodology

We aim to describe, infer and interpret the corpus of references extracted from the book “Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communica­tion Perspective” (Sebastião & Spínola 2022) [43], providing insights into the bibliographical dimension of research.

Given 1) the international nature of the epistemic community, 2) the focus on the convergence of diplomacy and PR, as well as 3) the European dimension of the project, we formulated the following research questions:

RQ1. What are the characteristics of the corpus of references generated by the book?

RQ2. Do the references reflect a PR-driven perspective on public, organi­sational and civil society diplomacy?

RQ3. Do the references reflect a European perspective on public, organi­sational and civil society diplomacy?

We used a mixed methods approach, bringing quantitative and statistical techniques in conjunction with social network analysis (SNA). Borrowing from bibliometric approaches, we employed the techniques of direct citation networks, co-citation networks, and topic networks to map perspectives used in the book. The direct citation method identifies the similarity pairs, calculates similarities, and assigns attributes (characteristics of references) to clusters or communities using the similarity values (Boyack & Klavans 2010). [44] The co-citation analy­sis provides a method for tracing the knowledge structure in science and is based on the frequency with which two scientific sources are cited together in a later work.

We generated the database by extracting the bibliographical metadata of all the references from the 19 chapters of the book, written by 21 (co-)authors from different academic fields, affiliations, and geographical locations.

Author Chapter(s) Country Academic field(s)
Sandra Femenía Almerich 11 Spain Advertising, Public Relations, Sponsorship, Corporate communication
Anca Anton 5*, 12*, 13* Romania Public relations, Communication
Jorge Aranda 10* Portugal Diplomacy, Public diplomacy, Science diplomacy
Bruno Asdourian 14 Switzerland Organisations, Transparency, Open innovation, Public relations, Communities
Sandra Rodrigues Balão 2* Portugal Strategy, Geopolitics, Arctic, Multilevel globalisation
Wilfried Bolewski 8* Germany Conflict Resolution, Law and Legal Studies, Legal Theory
Hélène Boulanger 16*, 18 France Communication, Strategic communication
Manuel Chavez 11 USA Journalism, Media studies, Security, Crisis
Camelia Cmeciu 14* Romania Public relations
Anne-Marie Cotton 3*, 4, 6, 16, 17, 18 Belgium Public Policy, Higher Education, Teaching Methods
Teresa de Almeida e Silva 2 Portugal International relations, Security studies, Middle East Studies
Susana Spínola 4* Portugal Public relations theory, PR strategy, Public diplomacy, Public affairs, Lobbying
Amos Guiora 6* USA Diplomacy, Law
Mara Lăcătuș 12 Romania Public relations, Communication
Juan-Luis Manfredi-Sánchez 7* USA Jounalism, Cities, Public Diplomacy
José Martínez-Sáez 11* Spain Advertising, Audiovisual, Branding
Alastair McCapra 9* UK Public relations
Raluca Moise 13 UK Communication, Academic Writing, Content Analysis
Samuel Nowakowski 17* France E-earning, Pedagogy, Pedagogics
Sónia Pedro Sebastião 1*, 3, 6, 15*, 18* Portugal Strategic communication, Public relations, Evaluation, Citizenship, Cultural studies
Dejan Verčič 19* Slovenia Public relations, Communication management, Strategic communication, Corporate communication

Table 1. Authors, the chapter(s) they (co-)authored (*=first author), country,

academic fields based on their Google Academic and ResearchGate profiles

The bibliographical information that we extracted included (co-)author names, journal names or publishing houses, article, chapter or book titles, type of material (academic article, book, chapter, encyclopaedia article, magazine article, master or PhD thesis, online publication, proceeding, research report, website, and working paper), languages (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian, and Romanian), years (from 1513 to 2021), and links, if applicable (Boulan­­ger et al., 2021). [45] The final database contained 785 unique entries which correspond to the book references. If the same reference appeared in dif­fer­ent chapters, it was recorded separately for each chapter. The 785 entries rep­resent the corpus of the research.

We supplemented the bibliographical metadata of references by technical and derived data such as chapter number (1-19), domains (sociology, law, science diplomacy, strategic studies, digital diplomacy, civic movements, economy & business & management, pedagogy, civil society diplomacy, ethics, communica­tion sciences, organisational diplomacy, international relations, social sciences, public diplomacy, diplomacy, and PR), and 1st author affiliation (Europe, US, in­­­ter­­na­tional). The 19 Domains, detailed in the MARPE Glossary, include a dif­ferentiation between international relations and PR. They were later in­de­pen­dent­ly applied onto the corpus of references by four of the team members, followed by what O’Connor and Joffe call “a phase of informal intercoder comparison and discussion [that] fosters reflexivity and dialogue within the research team”. [46]

The first step of the analysis was to calculate the absolute or relative frequencies or percentages of the characteristics relevant to the research. De­scriptive data gives us a picture of the attributes (characteristics of references) identified in the database, helping us to summarise the content and structure of the three pillars. However, as description and summary of bibliographical data is considered too superficial to provide answers to research questions (Block & Fisch 2020) [47], we processed the data into networks using the Gephi applica­tion (Bastian et al. 2009). [48]

In the second step we considered the information contained in the database compatible with the transformation of the attributes into nodes and the links between them into edges. In this way, we obtained a relational informational field that constitutes the knowledge base of the book and that can benefit from the investigative capacities of social networks. By using co-occurrence, we built sev­er­al collaborative networks which consist of sets of nodes (authors, types, chapters, domains, years) connected by an edge (undirected link) if they produced a joint work (book, article, report, etc.).

We identified prominent entities based on the weight or degree of the edges. Using community detection techniques such as modularity and statistical in­ference, we observed the structure of networks. Modularity (community detec­tion) is a measure of network structure. It was designed to measure the strength of division of a network into modules/clusters. In some cases, the number of detected communities is very small, so we chose to calculate statistical inference, given the weaknesses of community detection methods based on assortative communities (Zhang & Peixoto 2020). [49]

Using the networks as a starting point, we generated several graphs based on the MultiGravity ForceAtlas 2 layout, which is force-directed (the nodes repulse and the edges attract). The process depends only on the connections between nodes. Eventual attributes of nodes are never taken into account (Jacomy et al. 2014). [50] The colours of the graphs are random, reset for every graph and serve to distinguish the different communities/clusters within the networks. The size of the nodes is based on the frequency or degree.

Findings and discussion

The following findings reflect results obtained through frequency analysis, statistical analysis and social network analysis (SNA). Frequency analyses were carried out for all the bibliographical data (informing RQ1). Several graphs were generated through SNA using both modularity and statistical inference in order to visualise the networks created by chapters and author affiliation (RQ3), chapters and authors (RQ1, RQ2), domains and author affiliation (RQ2, RQ3), domains and authors (RQ1, RQ2), domains and chapters (RQ2), domains and language (RQ1), types of material and language (RQ1), types of material and chapters (RQ1), and types of material and domains (RQ1, RQ2). An additional graph was created for the visualisation of the network of concepts included in the MARPE Diplo Glossary (Graph 1). For this section, we had a descriptive approach to RQ1, using both frequency analysis and SNA. For RQ2 and RQ3 we included two graphs per RQ in order to illustrate the most important findings coming out of the data and contextualised them through the descriptive presenta­tion of results coming from other graphs relevant for the respective RQ.

RQ1. What are the characteristics of the corpus of references generated by the book?

Language

There is a clear linguistic preference: 85% (n=669) of the corpus is written in English, while 15% is written in French (n=61), Portuguese (n=34), Spanish (n=15), Romanian (n=3), Dutch/Italian/German (each n=1). This is consistent with the language distribution based on 1st author affiliation (73% of references published by a 1st author affiliated with a European organisation or coming from a European cultural background are in English, 100% in the case of US 1st authors, and 93% in the case of international authors); however, in the case of European authors, we see a push for diversity of references, particularly from Romance languages (no Slavic languages are present). The same distribution of language preference is visible when looking at the dominant types of references, academic articles and books: 90% and 75% respectively are in English. In addition, SNA points to French as a relevant language for the domain of Peda­gogy (associated with chapter 17 (Nowakowski & Cotton 2022) [51], “Students’ engagement and the ISP as a micro-world and a window on the educational world”, written by a Belgo-French duo of academics, while Public relations, Diplomacy, and Public diplomacy are domains situated in the English cluster. These distributions confirm 1) the predominance of Anglo-Saxon literature in this research field although only 2 authors of the book out of 21 are native speakers and author or co-author 2 chapters (Guiora, Cotton & Sebastião 2022) [52]; (McCapra 2022) [53]); 2) the influence of the mother tongue, as well as that of the cultural and professional affiliation for complementary references in building the body of knowledge: perspectives from different cultural and epistemological origins are brought together and sometimes even confronted, enhancing the richness of the content.

Publication context

When looking at the context of each reference, we took into consideration the year of publication, the type of material, and, depending on the latter, the journal or the publishing house. The last two decades dominate the time distribution of the references, 84% being published either between 2011-2021 (59%) or 2000-2010 (25%). 784 out of the 785 titles were published after WWI, with the exception of Machiavelli’s 1513 Il Principe.

Table 2. Chronological distribution of main reference types (articles and books)

after 1900

The main types of materials are represented by articles in academic journals (49%) published after WW2 and books (24%) published after WW1. There is a visible switch related to the use of materials published before and after the late 2000s: books published until this tipping point are the predominant type of ref­erence used by authors, but after that we observe an increase in the use of (online) academic articles. 70% of journal articles and 40% of books used as refer­ences were published between 2010 and 2021 with a quasi-100% presence of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). This correlates not only with the move to digital and online of the dissemination of research, but also with the fact that the MARPE book was written (2020-2021) and published (2022) during the COVID-19 pan­demic. Therefore, while the books act as conceptual anchors, the academic ar­ti­cles link the book to current trends and research, supporting the mix of ontologies (Garud et al., 2010) [54], reflecting science is both nomothetic and idiographic (Bunge 1999). [55]

The 12 most frequently used journals (n=228) amass 31% of all academic articles referenced in the book and reflect the fourth dimension present in the MARPE research: the convergence of PR with diplomacy. Each domain is repre­sented by reputed journals: Public Relations Review (n=35), International Jour­nal of Strategic Communication (n=12), Journal of Communication Manage­ment (n=6), American Behavioral Scientist (n=6), Hermès, la Revue (n=5), Interna­tional Journal of Communication (n=5), and Journal of Public Relations Re­search (n=5) on the one hand, and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (n=14), Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (n=9), Science & Diplomacy (n=8), The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (n=7), and The International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy (n=5), on the other hand. All are English language journals with the exception of Hermès, which is bilingual, French-English.

The publishing houses dimension reflects two realities: 1) the predominant English language publishing houses remain the same as 36% out of book references point to either Routledge (n=31), Palgrave Macmillan (n=23), or Sage (n=12), and 2) publishing houses of big universities benefit from having in-house academic writers (Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Harvard University Press).

 

RQ2. Do the references reflect a PR-driven perspective on public, organisational and civil society diplomacy?

Looking at the SNA-generated graphs of the Domains-Authors (see Graph 2) and the Domains-Chapters networks (see Graph 3), we can develop a more nuanced understanding of:

  • What domains are represented in the knowledge structure of the book and influence the perspective that drives the conceptual and applied development of the three pillars,
  • What authors exert the most influence on the development of this perspective,
  • How the references coming from various domains influence the approach in each chapter and whether certain chapters are informed by spe­cific domains.

Graph 2. Domains – Authors network (top authors selection based on frequency)

Domain clusters

The Domains-Authors network showcases the domains from which ref­er­ences originate and the academics who authored them. Centrality and marginali­ty are key to understanding which domains are at the core of the MARPE book. We observe three central clusters: 1) the MARPE pillars cluster, formed out of Pub­lic, Organisational, and Civil society diplomacy, 2) the PR cluster, formed out of the PR and Ethics domains, and 3) the Diplomacy cluster, formed out of the Diplomacy, Digital diplomacy, International relations, and Science diplomacy domains. The MARPE pillars cluster is flanked by the PR cluster and the Diplo­macy cluster, with public diplomacy occupying the central position not only of its cluster, but of the entire network. This correlates with public diplomacy being the starting point of the project, paving the way for the development of Organi­sational diplomacy and Civil society diplomacy. A fourth cluster brings together sub-clusters representing the domains that feed into and influence the knowledge universe of the book, but do not drive it: Social sciences, Communication sci­ences, Pedagogy, Economy, Business, Management, and Law. The network cre­ated by the three clusters shows that the MARPE perspective is not necessarily PR-driven, but actually situated at the convergence of PR and diplomacy. This points to a real integration of the two domains instead of two separate, competing perspectives: while the project entered this research endeavour through the field of Public relations, it managed to reach its interdisciplinary objective and use both perspectives (a PR one and a diplomatic one).

Centrality-driven perspective

Several domains occupy a position between domains situated in different clusters, pointing to a particular approach in their conceptualisation: Public diplomacy lies between PR and Diplomacy, but its closeness to the former points to a PR-driven perspective; Organisational diplomacy is less central, but similarly connected to both PR and Diplomacy, pointing to a convergence-driven per­spective; Civil society diplomacy lies between PR and International relations (from the Diplomacy cluster), while also being positioned halfway between Pub­lic diplomacy and Civic movements. This confirms the puzzle approach included in the MARPE Diplo Glossary: that public diplomacy is the contribution of a PR way of thinking to diplomacy, that organisational diplomacy is the contribution of a diplomacy way of thinking to PR, and that civil society diplo­macy is the combination of PR and diplomacy driven by the non-state actors of civil society.

In addition, Digital diplomacy occupies a central position between Diplo­macy and Public diplomacy, pointing to digital as one of the main drivers behind the democratisation of diplomacy into public diplomacy and confirming this approach among the authors of the MARPE epistemic community involved in the development of the book.

The graph also showcases a selection of authors (25/969) based on the frequency with which they were referenced (>3). These authors are the most influential in their clusters and their materials are employed in three ways: 1) to discuss concepts associated with the domains they are traditionally associated with (e.g.: Verčič, Sriramesh, Zerfass for PR; Fitzpatrick for Ethics; Cull, Snow for Public diplomacy), 2) to discuss the correlation/convergence of two domains (e.g.: Nye, Melissen, Hocking, Manor for Diplomacy and Public diplomacy; Bernays, Bowen, Grunig, Tench, van Ruler, Verhoeven for PR and Economy & Business & Management), and 3) to explore a domain through a different domain- driven perspective (e.g. Bourdieu, Castells – Diplomacy through Social sciences; Cotton – Communication sciences through Pedagogy).

Graph 3. Domains – Chapters network

The Domains-Chapters graph shows that the sourcing of references and their use in chapters move along the same lines. Therefore, we observe similar clustering as in the Domains-Authors network, with one exception: Organisa­tional diplomacy forms its own cluster alongside Economy & Business & Man­a­gement, connecting to chapters 4 – From corporate to organisational diplomacy (Spínola & Cotton 2022) [56], 7 – Corporate Diplomacy in a post-COVID-19 World (Manfredi-Sánchez 2022) [57], and 8 – Corporate Diplomacy Compass for public-private management in turbulent times (Bolewski 2022). [58] This points to a business-dominant perspective on organisational diplomacy: the conceptual chapter acknowledges this and pushes for a broadening of the domain from cor­porate to organisational diplomacy, therefore contributing to the development of this research dimension.

Public diplomacy and Civil society diplomacy form their own cluster with Digital diplomacy, including two conceptual chapters, 3 – From Diplomacy to (New) Public Diplomacy: A Communication Perspective (Cotton & Sebastião 2022) [59] and 5 – Conceptual Pathways to Civil Society Diplomacy (Anton, 2022) [60], and three practical chapters, 12 – Digital Diplomacy: The Case of the Embassy of Sweden in Bucharest (Anton & Lăcătuș 2022) [61], 13 – The Citizen Diplomats and Their Pathway to Diplomatic Power (Anton & Moise 2022) [62], and 16 – Cross-Fertilisation Between MARPE Diplo Methodology, Citizen Sci­ence Methods, and Public Diplomacy Studies (Boulanger & Cotton 2022). [63] This last chapter occupies a central position in the network while also being the chapter that showcases the MARPE methodology regarding research in public diplomacy.

Chapter author identity is the strongest influence on reference selection and use, as the clustering of chapters and domains follows similar patterns. We can also see shared reference pools between the conceptual chapters (3, 4, 5), while each conceptual chapter shares its own reference pool with practical chapters situated under its umbrella: 5 with 12 and 13, 3 with 6 and 18, 4 with 7 and 8.

RQ3. Do the references reflect a European perspective on public, organi­sa­tional and civil society diplomacy?

Graph 4. Domains – 1st author affiliation network

The international affiliation covers a variety of geographical and cultural spaces, but there are some countries that stand out (based on frequency analysis): Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, and South Korea. This places the international affiliation in the same cluster as the European one, itself defined by cultural diversity. Therefore, based on the Domains-1st author affiliation network, we have two clusters: 1) a European-International cluster, and 2) a US cluster. The first is diverse in terms of institutional affiliation and apparent nationality of the author, but converges towards a quasi-universal use of English language refer­ences and research dissemination outlets (journals, books, online publications), as we previously mentioned for RQ1. The second is monolithic in terms of language and institutional affiliation, but retained the diversity specific to the US cultural space. The European-International cluster is dominated by the European dimension due to the former’s network marginality and the latter’s network cen­trality.

When we look at domains, we observe that there is less convergence be­tween PR and Diplomacy, as the authors and references used to address these domains come from different cultural spaces: PR, Ethics (Sebastião 2022) [64], Social sciences, Communication sciences, and Civic movements (Cmeciu & Asdouri­an 2022) [65] are conceptualised using references authored primarily by US scholars, while Diplomacy, International relations (Martínez-Sáez, Chavez & Femenía Almerich 2022) [66], Strategic studies (Balão & Silva 2022) [67], Pedagogy (Sebastião, Cotton & Boulanger 2022) [68], Economy & Business & Management, Science diplomacy (Aranda 2022) [69], Law and Sociology are anchored in European research. The three pillars of the MARPE project, while being in the Europe-dominant cluster, are situated closer to the International node – with the exception of Public diplomacy, centrally positioned between the Europe and International nodes.

The strongest edges in the network point to an interesting divergence: the perspective on Diplomacy is Europe-driven, while the perspective on PR is US-driven. However, when we go beyond the first author and look at the references with multiple authors, we see that we can often find a mix of US and European scholars authoring materials, particularly in the case of the PR domain.

Graph 5. Chapters – 1st author affiliation network

In Graph 4, the Public diplomacy domain is in the Europe cluster, but has a strong edge (connection) with the US cluster. This is confirmed in Graph 5 by the Chapters-1st author affiliation network, where we see the conceptual chapter addressing Public diplomacy in the US cluster, pointing to a PR-driven per­spective enabling this switch while still maintaining a strong edge with the Eu­rope cluster. The conceptual chapters addressing Diplomacy and Strategic studies (Balão & Silva 2022) [70] and organisational diplomacy (Spínola & Cotton, 2022) [71], namely 2 and 4, occupy a central position in the Europe cluster. In the case of Civil society diplomacy, the conceptual chapter (Anton 2022) [72], namely 5, and the practical ones (Anton & Lăcătuș 2022) [73]; (Anton & Moise 2022) [74], namely 12 and 13, are in the Europe cluster, but closer to the inter­national and US affiliations, pointing to a wider pool of references as reflected by the transitional position of chapter 14 addressing social movement (Cmeciu & Asdourian 2022). [75]

Conclusions

This paper set out to determine the characteristics of the corpus of ref­erences generated by a comprehensive research project output, a book bringing together the work of an epistemic community. It also sought to determine whether the authors’ perspective regarding public, organisational and civil society diplo­macy was PR-driven and European.

The body of work is very clearly the result of an interdisciplinary approach, a reflection of the hybrid nature of the field of Public relations, itself informed by numerous other disciplines. The data shows that, while the epistemic com­munity used PR as an entryway for the exploration of public, organisational and civil society diplomacy, it developed its own blended approach. Therefore, the perspective from which the book was written and the research project developed is not necessarily PR-driven – to some extent contradicting expectations. What we see is the emergence of a negotiated space in which democratised approaches to and forms of diplomacy can easily incorporate the public interest dimension so central to PR and reflect it into their diplomatic agendas, processes and struc­tures. This arguably defines the European perspective: democratised forms of diplomacy center around non-state actors, departing from a more state-centric, US approach to public diplomacy, in particular.

The results show a clear linguistic preference for English, while also point­ing to the integration of a limited body of work written in other languages and coming from particular fields, like pedagogy or strategic studies. This salience carries through into other dimensions of the bibliographical corpus, such as journal or publishing house selection or the geographic area associated with the first author. As the dominant type of source used in the book, the journal articles confirm the importance and positive impact of digitalisation on research accessi­bility, as well as the salience of particular (English language) journals coming from both Public relations and Diplomacy, confirming their intersection as the perspective of the MARPE epistemic community on public, organisational and civil society diplomacy.

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[65] Cmeciu, C., & Asdourian, B. (2022). The Internationalisation of Civic National Movements. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective (pp. 255–272). Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_14.

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[67] Balão, S., & Silva, T. A. (2022). Diplomacy in the Context of Political Science, International Relations and Strategic Studies. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Per­spective (pp. 15–38). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_2.

[68] Sebastião, S. P., Cotton, A.-M., & Boulanger, H. (2022). Higher Education for Public and Organisational Diplomacy in the Contexts of Communication Sciences. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective (pp. 329–348). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-81877-7_18.

[69] Aranda, J. (2022). Science Diplomacy: Knowledge Is Power. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Commu­nica­tion Perspective (pp. 165–176). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_10.

[70] Balão, S., & Silva, T. A. (2022). Diplomacy in the Context of Political Science, International Relations and Strategic Studies. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Per­spective (pp. 15–38). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_2.

[71] Spínola, S. C., & Cotton, A.-M. (2022). From Corporate to Organisational Diplomacy. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective (pp. 63–80). Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_4.

[72] Anton, A. (2022). Conceptual Pathways to Civil Society Diplomacy. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A Euro­pean Communication Perspective (pp. 81–98). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-030-81877-7_5.

[73] Anton, A., & Lăcătuș, M. (2022). Digital Diplomacy: The Case of the Embassy of Sweden in Bucharest. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective (pp. 199–218). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_12.

[74] Anton, A., & Moise, R. (2022). The Citizen Diplomats and Their Pathway to Diplomatic Power. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organi­sations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective (pp. 219–254). Sprin­ger. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_13.

[75] Cmeciu, C., & Asdourian, B. (2022). The Internationalisation of Civic National Movements. In S. P. Sebastião & S. C. Spínola (Eds.), Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens. A European Communication Perspective (pp. 255–272). Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_14.

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Anca Anton is senior lecturer and vice-dean of research at the Faculty of Jour­nalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest, Romania, where she teaches marketing communications, media marketing, (corporate) public relations, busi­ness communication and digital writing. Her research interests cover several fields: the intersection of communication and democratised forms of diplomacy, with a focus on public diplomacy, civil society diplomacy, and digital diplomacy; the transformation of the PR/comms profession and industry and their intersection with digital and social media; marketing communication; digital governmental commu­nication. She is a mem­ber of several academic associations: EUPRERA, ICA, ECREA, EMMA. In EUPRERA she is a member of the Board and co-leader of the Public Relations Education Network.

Anne-Marie Cotton is lecturer at Artevelde University of Applied Sciences, Ghent. She teaches communication management, public relations and reputation man­age­ment and is a member of the MARPE Network. She was president of EUPRERA (1999–2000) and EUPRERA secretary general (2001-2009). She graduated from the University of Ghent in Roman Philology and holds a DESS from lAE Université de Lille3, an MBA from the Vlerick Management School Leuven-Gent and a PhD in Com­munication from the Université de Bordeaux-Montaigne. Prior to lecturing, she was an account manager in advertising agencies (Grey Belgium, JWT and Mirror GGK). She is an editorial board member of the Journals Communication & Organisation and Com­munication & Professionnalisation, is managing editor of Scientia Paedagogica Experi­mentalis, is a member of several scientific committees, and is invited expert on the NQA (Na­tional Quality Agency Netherlands) and AEQES (Agence pour l’Evaluation de la Qualité de l’Enseignement Supérieur, Région Bruxelles-Wallonie) for accredita­tions and publishes in the fields of communication, public relations and education.

 

Eugen Glăvan is a scientific researcher at the Research Institute for Quality of Life, Romanian Academy, and a research fellow at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest. His research interests are in the fields of digital sociology, social networks, visual sociology, and social change. He has published recently on topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home, and migration. He is project manager at the Virtual Library of Sociology, the largest repository of digital content that offers free access to specialised materials in the field of sociology and related fields from Romania. Currently, he is also an associate lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest, where he teaches the Sociology of Journalists course.

Manuscript was submitted: 16.08.2024.

Double Blind Peer Reviews: from 17.08.2024 till 17.09.2024.

Accepted: 18.09.2024.

Брой 61 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“ (октомври 2024 г.) се издава с финан­совата помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП5/65 от 08 декември 2023 г.

Issue 61 of the Rhetoric and Communications Journal (October 2024) is published with the financial support of the Scientific Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP5/65 of December 08, 2023.