Cultural Identity in the Segmentation

of Publics: An Emerging Theory

of Intercultural Public Relations
Bey-Ling Sha
School of Communication
San Diego State University
Framed by literature in strategic management and cultural identity, this article asserts
that, in situations where avowed cultural identity is salient, differences in identifica-
tion with a cultural group will predict differences in the variables of the situational
theory of publics. Survey data showed that routinely avowed cultural identity signifi-
cantly affected problem recognition, level of involvement, information processing,
and information seeking. Canonical correlation showed respondents avowing a non-
White racioethnic identity to be significantly more likely to become active on
racioethnic issues, suggesting cultural identity as an antecedent variable in the situa-
tional theory.
The United States has become increasingly diverse in the racial and ethnic
make-up of its people (Gibson & Jung, 2002; Ward & Anthony, 1992), and re-
cent projections from the U.S. Census Bureau (2004) show that, by 2050, the
country will be fairly evenly divided between White, non-Hispanics (50.1%,
compared to 69.4% in 2000) and demographic groups currently called minori-
ties. For instance, African Americans, who in 2000 constituted 12.7% of the
population, will comprise 14.6% in 2050; Hispanics in 2050 will be 24.4% of
the U.S. population, compared to 12.6% in 2000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).
Consequently, organizations must determine whether cultural identities serve
as valid criteria on which to base the segmentation of organizational stakeholders
in ways that extend communication practice beyond ethnic marketing efforts. In
this study, I examined links between cultural identities and the variables of the sit-
JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH, 18(1), 4565
Copyright 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Correspondence should be sent to Bey-Ling Sha, School of Communication, San Diego State Uni-
versity, San Diego, CA 921824561. Email: bsha@mail.sdsu.edu
uational theory of publics, the latter of which has been used to segment organiza-
tional stakeholders (cf. J. E. Grunig &Childers, 1988; J. E. Grunig &Hunt, 1984),
which is a practice identified with the strategic management of public relations
(Dozier, L. A. Grunig, & J. E. Grunig, 1995; J. E. Grunig & Repper, 1992).
This research advances the public relations body of knowledge because the
bulk of academic literature published to date does not address racioethnic diversity
among organizational publics, examining primarily the importance of communi-
cating with publics in other national cultures (e.g., Botan, 1992; Epley, 1992;
Sharpe, 1992; Sriramesh, 2004; Sriramesh & Vercic, 2003; Sriramesh & White,
1992). Furthermore, public relations scholars tend to emphasize diversity primar-
ily as it relates to gender diversity within an organization (e.g., J. E. Grunig, 1992;
Hon, L. A. Grunig, &Dozier, 1992; L. A. Grunig, Toth, &Hon, 2001). Finally, the
few extant studies dealing with race and public relations have examined the expe-
riences of minority practitioners in the field (e.g., Kern-Foxworth, 1989c; Len-
Rios, 1998; Zerbinos & Clanton, 1993), rather than the concept of race as a vari-
able affecting public relations theories and their applicability to the practice.
CONCEPTUALIZATION
This article offers a first look at intercultural public relations, an emerging the-
ory of our practice in which the importance of cultural identity permeates the
communication process. As explained by Littlejohn (1999), the term theory is
used in its broadest sense as any conceptual representation or explanation of a
phenomenon (p. 21). As a theory, then, intercultural public relations represents
an attempt to explain and account for the influence of cultural identity on the
public relations behaviors of organizations and their publics and may be summa-
rized in this theoretical proposition:
P: In situations where the avowed cultural identity is salient, differences in
identification with a cultural group will predict differences in problem
recognition, level of involvement, constraint recognition, and type of
communicative behavior; therefore, if an organization and its public hold
different avowed identities salient to the situation, intercultural public re-
lations becomes a necessary aspect of excellent public relations.
This emergingtheoryof intercultural publicrelations is framedbyconcepts fromthe
strategic management of public relations and from cultural identity theories.
Strategic Management of Public Relations
The strategic management of public relations involves identifying organizational
stakeholders, segmenting them into relevant publics, and communicating with
46 SHA
these groups (Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 2000; Guth & Marsh, 2006; Hendrix,
2004; Wilcox & Cameron, 2006; Wilson & Ogden, 2004), preferably before
they can become active against the organization (cf. J. E. Grunig & Repper,
1992). One way to segment stakeholders is by using the situational theory of
publics to determine whether people are likely to become active communicators
in a given situation (cf. J. E. Grunig & Hunt, 1984).
Decades of research using the situational theory has shown that people are
likely to communicate actively in situations where they perceive a pertinent prob-
lem, feel sufficiently involved with the problem, and feel unconstrained in at-
tempting to resolve the problem (J. E. Grunig & Childers, 1988; J. E. Grunig &
Hunt, 1984; Sha & Pine, 2004). Some researchers (e.g., J. E. Grunig & Childers,
1988; Sha, 1995) also have distinguished between the internal and external dimen-
sions of problemrecognition, level of involvement, and constraint recognition. For
an overview of the development of the situational theory and explanations of vari-
ous studies employing it, see J. E. Grunig (1997).
The power of the situational theory lies in its ability to predict which issues
within a specific set of issues are likely to create active publics. According to J. E.
Grunig (1997), four types of publics have consistently emerged in his research, us-
ing a variety of issues. An all-issue public is one that is active on all the issues of
the situation set, whereas an apathetic public is active on none of these issues. A
single-issue public is active on either a single issue within the set or on a subset of
issues. Finally, a hot-issue public is similar to a single-issue public, except in this
case the issue is one that has received widespread media coverage and is well
known in general. In short, the situational theory of publics uses three variables
problem recognition, constraint recognition, and level of involvementto predict
communicative behavior. The four kinds of publics defined by the theory are use-
ful for public relations practitioners attempting to segment their publics according
to likelihood of active communicative behavior.
Human behavior, however, is complex and results from much more than prob-
lem recognition, level of involvement, or constraint recognition. Scholars in
intercultural communication, for instance, would argue that culture is a critical as-
pect of communication (e.g., Samovar & Porter, 2003). Nevertheless, the influ-
ence of culture and cultural differences on communication behaviors has not yet
been accounted for by the situational theory of publics. Therefore, this study
breaks new ground in our theoretical understanding of how cultural identity may
affect individuals communicative behaviors and thus the communicative behav-
iors of organizations.
Culture and Public Relations Scholarship
The inclusion of culture as a variable in public relations scholarship has centered
largely on international aspects of the practice, as researchers examined the ex-
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 47
tent to which public relations theories are applicable to other nations, given dif-
ferences in those societal cultures (e.g., Sriramesh, 1992; Sriramesh & White,
1992). Also, researchers have considered the extent to which characteristics
unique to various national societies affect the practice of public relations in
those cultures (e.g., Culbertson & Chen, 1996; Moss & DeSanto, 2001;
Sriramesh, 2004; Sriramesh & Vercic, 2003). This usage of the term culture is
consistent with cross-cultural research in organizational management (e.g.,
Gannon & Associates, 1994; Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993; Hofstede,
1980; Nally, 1990; Tayeb, 1988), in which culture specifically denotes charac-
teristics at the national level.
Although the definition of culture at the level of national societies is useful for
global or international public relations, such a definitional limitation could hinder
the field if public relations scholars and practitioners forget that publics within a
national society are not culturally homogeneous, as we know to be true given the
demographic shifts in the United States and other countries. In other words,
intranational public relations still may be intercultural in nature, and I believe that
effective intercultural public relations within one country must logically precede
attempts to practice public relations across national boundaries.
For this reason, this article examines cultural groups within a single country.
Although Hofstede (1980) used the term culture to designate national societies, he
also pointed out that the termmay be applied equally to other human collectivities
or categories (p. 26) including organizations, professions, families, and ethnic or
regional groups. Literature in intercultural communication uses culture in refer-
ence to a multitude of groups within a national society, including groups defined
by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic standing, occupa-
tion, and physical ability or disability, among other distinguishing variables (Col-
lier, 2003; Cupach & Imahori, 1993; Lustig & Koester, 1993; Martin, 1993;
Samovar & Porter, 2003).
In this study, I delimit culture to those groups defined by race and ethnicity be-
cause, first, these areas represent two of the most likely sources of the increasing
cultural diversity in the United States (cf. Johnston, 1987; Ward &Anthony, 1992)
and, second, these areas are those with official government statistics (cf. U.S. Cen-
sus Bureau, 2004). In addition, this delimitation is appropriate because in discuss-
ing cultural identity (see later), I cite the research of others whose
conceptualizations of identity deal specifically with race and ethnicity. Although
their work may be extrapolated to other types of cultural groups, these authors did
not explore identity concepts beyond those dealing with race and ethnicity.
Finally, although scholars may include gender, profession, or sexual orientation as
broad definers of cultural groups, the phrase cultural diversity in popular usage has
become a politically correct way to say racial and ethnic differences. For all
these reasons, it is appropriate for a study on cultural groups in public relations to
at least begin with groups defined by race and ethnicity.
48 SHA
Race and Ethnicity in Public Relations
Most studies published to date of race and public relations in the United States
have concentrated on the experiences of minority practitioners in the field (e.g.,
Kern-Foxworth, 1989a, 1989b, 1989c; Kern-Foxworth, Gandy, Hines, & Miller,
1994; Len-Rios, 1998; Zerbinos & Clanton, 1993), although there is some trade
literature on diversity efforts within organizations (e.g., Moore & Lindenmann,
1994). With the notable exceptions of Banks (2000) and Motion, Leitch, and
Cliffe (2003), few scholars have taken a theoretical, rather than descriptive, ap-
proach to underscoring the need for public relations to deal with different cul-
tures within a national culture. Thus, this study also breaks new ground in its in-
clusion of race and ethnicity as components of a theory, rather than as
descriptive elements of practitioners and organizations experiences in the field.
In the simplest terms, race refers specifically to color of skin, whereas ethnicity
refers to country or place of origin. For example, Italian Americans are ethnically
Italian and racially White. Members of a single race (e.g., White) may have differ-
ent ethnicities (e.g., British, French, Irish). Conversely, members of a single eth-
nicity (e.g., Hispanic) may manifest different races (e.g., Black, White, Asian).
Spencer and Markstrom-Adams (1990) defined ethnicity as a characteristic of
unique cultural traditions and a heritage that persists across generations (p. 292).
I must point out, however, that the terms race and ethnicity often are used politi-
cally, rather than objectively, and that their connotations often are evaluative,
rather than descriptive (Begley, 1995; Montagu, 1974; Morganthau, 1995). Comas
(1951) noted that although race as a linguistic term refers exclusively to a descrip-
tive biological factor, its meaning often is defined politically, rather than biologi-
cally. As he illustrated, Whites and Asians, by virtue of their skin colors, clearly
belong to different races. Nevertheless, Nazi propagandists, for political reasons,
asserted that their Japanese allies were really part of the Aryan race, possessing the
same superior intellectual and moral qualities as the German people themselves
(Comas, 1951).
Similarly, Punjabi Mexican Americans, originally from southern India, identi-
fied themselves as ethnically Indian until Pakistan won its independence from In-
dia, at which point some Punjabi Mexicans began to identify themselves as
ethnically Pakistani (Leonard, 1992). These examples of the changing definitions
of race and ethnicity are consistent with the assertion that cultural identities
change because of economic, political, social, psychological, and contextual fac-
tors (Collier, 1994, p. 42).
Even official government statistics are not immune to such factors, as illus-
trated by continuous changes in the racial categories used in the U.S. decennial
census (cf. Bennett, 2000; Gibson &Jung, 2002). Furthermore, the concept of eth-
nicity has been defined since the 1970 census as whether an individual is of His-
panic origin (cf. Gibson &Jung, 2002). The most recent U.S. census of population
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 49
and housing, conducted by the Census Bureau in 2000, offered respondents, for
the first time, the option to select more than one race. This modification in the col-
lection of race data followed a policy change that directed federal agencies to be-
gin collecting multiple race responses by 2003 (cf. U.S. Office of Management and
Budget, 1997). Therefore, given that Americans now haveofficiallythe op-
tion to identify with as many cultures as they wish, the need for public relations
scholarship to incorporate cultural identity as a theoretical construct has never
been greater.
Cultural Identity and Intercultural Public Relations
The question of cultural identity is important for organizations seeking to im-
prove their communication with stakeholder publics, and not merely in the do-
main of ethnic marketing (cf. Davila, 2001; Morris, 1993; Tharp, 2001; Woods,
1995). As mentioned earlier, strategic public relations management involves not
only segmenting stakeholders into publics, but also communicating with those
publics once they are identified. If, in a given situation, an organizational public
identifies with a cultural group different from the cultural group identity of the
organization, then the communication between the organization and this public
would be intercultural in nature.
For example, university development and fundraising offices strive to establish
strong ties with school alumni, often invoking memories of a shared college expe-
rience or a sense of shared pride in campus achievements. However, many univer-
sities also have alumni groups based on race and ethnicity (e.g., the Black Alumni
Society), largely in recognition of the unique concerns of these groups of individu-
als. There are occasions when the university identity of the organization and its
alumni publics may be sufficient, as when, say, the school encourages the purchase
of season tickets for a winning football team. However, on other occasions, the
cultural identity of organizations and publics may become more important than
their shared sense of university identity, as when, for example, Arab alumni ex-
press to White school administrators their concerns about negative stereotyping on
campus following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Thus, intercultural public relations differs from regular public relations in
the salience of cultural identity in a given situation. What, exactly, is cultural
identity?
There are two research perspectives that seek to explain the concept of cultural
identity: the social psychological approach and the communication approach (Col-
lier, 1994). The traditional perspective, that of social psychology, holds that iden-
tity is a personal characteristic that affects the self in its relation to society (cf.
Collier, 1994; Erikson, 1968; Waterman, 1985). Researchers in this approach at-
tempt to find the components of this personal characteristic. For example,
50 SHA
Rotheram and Phinney (1987) asserted that ethnic identity includes several con-
cepts, such as ethnic awareness, ethnic self-identification, ethnic attitudes, and
ethnic behaviors.
In addition to operationalizing components of racioethnic identity, much re-
search using the social psychological approach to identity focuses on the processes
by which these components are acquired or developed (cf. Helms, 1992; Rotheram
& Phinney, 1987). For example, Cross (1987) emphasized that ethnic identity is a
process of ego development rather than merely the acquisition of ethnicity con-
cepts. In addition, Spencer and Markstrom-Adams (1990) defined ego identity as
being characterized by the attainment of an ever-revised sense of psychological
reality that is supported by a social reality (p. 291, emphasis added). Although
this definition points to a linear process of identity attainment, the mention of so-
cial reality relates to the communication perspective on identity.
Whereas the social psychological perspective views identity as an ego develop-
ment process, the communication perspective considers identity as the enactment
of cultural communication (Hecht, Collier, &Ribeau, 1993). In other words, a cul-
tural identity is created by the exchange of messages between interactants; it is
the particular character of the group communication system that emerges in the
particular situation (Collier, 1994, p. 39). In this view, communication is the
means by which individuals and groups negotiate, cocreate, reinforce, and chal-
lenge cultural identity. Furthermore, cultural identities emerge in communication
contexts (Collier, 1994). When cultural identities are enacted, patterns of commu-
nicative conduct become evident, and these patterns may vary according to the cul-
ture of the communicator.
Because public relations is concerned with the communication between an orga-
nization and its publics, the communication perspective on cultural identity would
appear to be the more appropriate one in which to ground this study. However, the
social psychological approach offers public relations scholars an important distinc-
tion between personal identity and group identity, just as the communication ap-
proach is useful for its distinction of avowed and ascribed identities.
Personal and group identities. According to Cross (1987), an individuals
self-concept actually is a combination of personal identity (PI) and group identity,
which he termed reference group orientation (RGO). The PI sector of an individ-
uals self-concept deals with characteristics of persons as individuals; these charac-
teristics exist in all humans universally. PI variables are the building blocks for all
personalities, with culture, class, race, ethnicity, and gender mediating how
much of the variable is present across cultures or different groups of people
(Cross, 1987, p. 121). In other words, PI research examines universal components
of human behavior and analyzes differences in behavior in light of race or ethnicity.
In PI research, racioethnicity thus is treated as an independent variable and ex-
cluded from stimulus conditions or dependent measures.
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 51
In this article, however, cultural identity is used not as PI, but as RGO, a term
that Cross (1987) finds more accurate than group identity because the latter may be
confused with the concept of the identity of a group, whereas RGO deals with the
identity of an individual in relation to a group. Specifically, this study examined
cultural identity as the identity of individuals in relation to a racial or ethnic group.
Avowed and ascribed identities. The act of asserting or enacting an iden-
tity forms the basis for the communicative perspective on cultural identity (Hecht et
al., 1993). When an individual avows a cultural identity, he or she identifies with a
cultural group and asserts that membership. As Rotheram and Phinney (1987) as-
serted, a reference group [is] the group that one chooses consciously to imitate (p.
24). On the other hand, an ascribed cultural identity is the reference group assigned
to a person by another person and may not be the same as the persons avowed cul-
tural identity.
The distinction between these two kinds of cultural identity, that which is de-
clared by an individual and that which is assigned to himor her by another, appears
often in the literature on cultural identity, although various researchers have as-
signed different terms to these concepts. For example, Cross (1987) distinguished
between personal and ascriptive reference group orientation; Grotevant (1992)
pointed to assigned and chosen identity. Hecht et al. (1993) discussed avowed
identity as being internally defined whereas ascribed identity is externally im-
posed. For Rotheramand Phinney (1987), the performance criteria of ethnic iden-
tity refers to the extent to which one feels and acts like a group member (p. 16),
whereas the ascribed criteria refers to how others see the individual.
All of these distinctions parallel Colliers (1994, 2003) avowed and ascribed as-
pects of cultural identity, which are the terms used to maintain consistency in this
article because they are the most intuitively understandable. Furthermore, I distin-
guished in this study between routine avowal and spontaneous avowal of cultural
identity, with the former being racioethnic identity asserted in response to some
routine prompt, such as completing paperwork, and the latter being an identity as-
serted without any particular stimulus related to race or ethnicity. Conceptually, a
spontaneously avowed identity is stronger than one that is evoked only in response
to routine questions about racioethnic background.
Identity salience. Racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States
have been referred to as subcultures, a termI dislike for its implication that one cul-
ture is less important than another. I also dislike the term coculture because it im-
plies that multiple cultures exist at the same level of pertinence all the time, which I
believe is impossible, in either a society or an individual. Thus, I prefer to use the
terms dominant culture and recessive culture. The dominant culture in a heteroge-
neous societylike the UnitedStates is that culture towhichthe majorityof the mem-
bers of that society subscribe and that which is generally reflected in the mass me-
52 SHA
dia of the society (Samovar & Porter, 2003). Taking the dominantrecessive
terminology fromgenetic research, I contend that a heterogeneous society, in addi-
tion to having a dominant culture, also may have recessive cultures that are present
in the society, but not always manifested, just as the recessive genes for blue eyes
may be present in the DNA of a brown-eyed person.
Just as a country can have many recessive cultural groups that come to promi-
nence in given situations (e.g., Japanese Americans being detained during World
War II or Muslim Americans being subject to racial profiling in the post-
September 11 age), each person is comprised of a myriad of cultural identities, any
one or combination of which may become relevant in a given situation.
Indeed, of the three identity dimensionsscope, salience, and intensityiden-
tified by Collier (1989), salience has received the greatest amount of attention in
the literature (cf. Cupach & Imahori, 1993). Identity salience is the relative im-
portance of a particular aspect of identity in a specific situation, relative to the
other aspects of ones total identity (Cupach & Imahori, 1993, p. 114). This defi-
nition is consistent with the poststructuralist view asserting that an individuals
identity at a given point is dominated by certain constructs of the total identity
(e.g., Ang & Hermes, 1991).
Cupach and Imahori (1993) further asserted that identity salience is situational
in nature (p. 115). Similarly, Rotheram and Phinney (1987) pointed out that the
importance and meaning of ethnic identity varies with the specific context and
will be more salient in some situations than in others (p. 16, emphasis added).
Some scholars have even suggested that a particular identity becomes more salient
when it makes an individual stand out in a particular situation (cf. McGuire,
McGuire, Child, &Fujioka, 1978); this distinctiveness postulate would suggest,
for example, that a womans gender identity is more salient in a room full of men
than in one full of other women. The situational nature of the salience of
racioethnic identity (cf. Cupach & Imahori, 1993; Leonard, 1992; McGuire et al.,
1978) further supports the need for public relations scholars to investigate the links
between the situational theory of publics and racioethnic identity.
Defining Intercultural Public Relations
The existence of many cultures implies a need for public relations practitioners
to acknowledge the possibility of differences in salient cultural identities and the
need to communicate with internal and external publics whose cultural identifi-
cations may differ from those of the practitioner or the organization. Cupach and
Imahori (1993) considered intercultural interactions as a special case of interper-
sonal communication. They further asserted that intercultural and interpersonal
communication share the same processes and that the two phenomena are distin-
guished only by the salience of cultural identity.
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 53
Extrapolating this argument to public relations, I assert that intercultural public
relations may be a special case of public relations in which the salient cultural
identity avowed by the organization differs from the salient cultural identity
avowed by the public. I report here findings from the first part of the theoretical
proposition set forth in this article, that differences in cultural identity predict dif-
ferences in the variables of the situational theory. Specifically, the study sought
answers to the following research questions:
RQ1: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to the recognition of racioethnic
problems?
RQ2: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to level of involvement?
RQ3: How, if at all, is cultural identityrelatedtothe recognitionof constraints?
RQ4: How, if at all, is cultural identityrelatedtocommunicationbehaviors?
RQ5: How, if at all, is cultural identityrelatedtomembershipinanactivepublic?
METHOD
Answers to the research questions posed in this exploratory study were based on
a mail survey of a systematic random sample of 632 undergraduates at a large
public university on the east coast. I selected college students as the study partic-
ipants because previous literature suggested that college is a time when students
often renegotiate their racioethnic identities (cf. Alvarez & Helms, 2001; Jack-
son, 1998; Lewis, 2003).
The sample was disproportionately stratified to include even percentages of stu-
dents who had routinely identified themselves in the university computer systemto
be either Caucasian, White, or Euro-American; Black or African American; Asian,
Asian American, or Pacific Islander; or Latino or Hispanic American. Variables of
the situational theory of publics were operationalized using a standard set of items
that had been validated extensively through several decades of earlier research, as
reported by J. E. Grunig (1997). The situation set developed for this study included
five issues common to U.S. college campuses: alcohol abuse, lack of financial aid,
academic dishonesty, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment.
Ninety usable questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 14.3%.
Wimmer and Dominick (2006) indicated that, in more than 20 years of communi-
cation survey research, their response rate range for mail surveys averaged 1% to
4%. These authors further noted that no matter what sampling design researchers
might begin with, the sample they end up with still may be considered a volunteer
sample because there is no way to force potential respondents to participate in re-
search. Hence, the sample used in this study might be considered a nonprobability,
volunteer sample, which is not inappropriate for a pilot study such as this one (cf.
Wimmer & Dominick, 2006).
54 SHA
More than two thirds of the respondents were female (68.9% or 62 respon-
dents), compared with 31.1% male (28 respondents). More than three quarters of
the respondents (76.7%or 69 respondents) were between the ages of 18 and 20 (in-
clusive), whereas only 7.8% (7 respondents) were 17 years old or younger, and
15.6% (or 14 respondents) were 21 years of age or older. Nearly three quarters of
the respondents were underclassmen (46.7% or 42 freshmen; 27.8% or 25 sopho-
mores), and the remainder were upperclassmen (13.3% or 12 juniors; 12.2% of 11
seniors). In terms of respondents routinely avowed racioethnic identities, 25.6%
(n = 23) were African American, 22.2%(n = 20) were Asian American, 16.7%(n =
15) were White, and 35.6% (n = 32) were Hispanic American.
FINDINGS
In short, respondents who routinely avowed a non-White racioethnic identity
were more likely to recognize racioethnic problems, to feel personally involved
with those problems, and to engage in communication behaviors about those
problems. Constraint recognition was not affected by racioethnic identity in this
study.
Problem Recognition
RQ1: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to the recognition of
racioethnic problems? Respondents who avowed a minority identity were sig-
nificantly more likely to recognize racioethnic problems on campus. Analysis of
variance (ANOVA) indicated that problem recognition of racial discrimination was
related significantly to respondents routinely avowed identities for both external, F
= 3.603, p = .016, and internal, F = 10.440, p = .000, dimensions of this variable.
Furthermore, the Scheff test, one of the most conservative tests for signifi-
cance between means, indicated that, on the external dimension, African Ameri-
cans were significantly more likely than Whites to recognize problems related to
racioethnicity (p = .050). On the internal dimension, African Americans, Asian
Americans, and Hispanic Americans were all significantly more likely than White
Americans to recognize racioethnic problems, and African Americans also were
significantly more likely than Hispanic Americans to recognize such problems (p
= .050).
Level of Involvement
RQ2: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to level of
involvement? ANOVA indicated that both external and internal levels of in-
volvement with racioethnic problems were significantly related to respondents
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 55
routinely avowed identities, F = 5.972, p = .001 and F = 4.185, p = .008, respec-
tively. Furthermore, the Scheff test showed significance in the external and inter-
nal levels of involvement between African American and White respondents (p =
.050).
Constraint Recognition
RQ3: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to the recognition of
constraints? ANOVA indicated that students routinely avowed racioethnicity
was not significantly related to either external or internal constraint recognition, F
= .928, p = .430 and F= .166, p = .918, respectively, and the Scheff test did not in-
dicate statistical significance for constraint recognition among the different iden-
tity groups.
Communication Behaviors
RQ4: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to communication
behaviors? ANOVA showed significance in the relation between routinely
avowed racioethnicity and the processing of information about racial violence, F =
7.903, p = .0001. In addition, the Scheff test showed significant differences in the
processing of racioethnic information between African Americans and White
Americans as well as between African Americans and Asian Americans (p = .050).
Similarly, ANOVA indicated a significant relation between routinely avowed
racioethnicity and the seeking of information on cultural diversity, F = 7.334, p =
.0002. The Scheff test indicated that African American and Asian American stu-
dents both were significantly more likely than White Americans to seek informa-
tion about cultural diversity (p = .050).
Cultural Identity and Activism
RQ5: How, if at all, is cultural identity related to membership in an active
public? The answers to this research question go to the heart of this study. In
short, canonical correlation identified two active publics: a youth public and a mi-
nority public. Respondents who avowed a minority cultural identity were signifi-
cantly more likely to be members of the latter, whereas cultural identity had no
bearing on whether respondents were members of the youth public.
As shown in Tables 1 and 2, factor analysis of the five issues resulted in three
factors, the first of which consistently related to racioethnicity and sex; that is, ra-
cial discrimination and sexual harassment loaded onto one factor for all the inde-
pendent variables of the situational theory. For problem recognition, information
processing, and information seeking, financial aid also loaded onto the first factor.
A second factor was related to alcohol abuse, which loaded onto the same factor
56 SHA
TABLE 1
Factor Loadings of Issues for Communication Predictors
External Internal
Predicting Issue F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3
Problem recognition
Alcohol abuse .14 .95 .09 .09 .91 .15
Lack of financial aid .87 .01 .14 .80 .25 .16
Academic dishonesty .10 .09 .98 .16 .16 .96
Racial discrimination .69 .54 .08 .78 .27 .03
Sexual harassment .85 .22 .02 .70 .38 .21
Eigenvalue 2.5 .91 .81 2.2 .99 .71
% of variance explained 51.3 18.3 16.3 45.4 19.9 14.2
Level of involvement
Alcohol abuse .17 .84 .31 .66 .43 .28
Lack of financial aid .73 .48 .08 .17 .03 .91
Academic dishonesty .10 .22 .95 .06 .96 .06
Racial discrimination .78 .12 .19 .71 .02 .35
Sexual harassment .85 .27 .02 .82 .05 .17
Eigenvalue 2.1 1.3 .59 1.9 1.1 .75
% of variance explained 42.8 26.6 11.9 39.9 22.6 15.1
Constraint recognition
Alcohol abuse .37 .76 .22 .59 .62 .18
Lack of financial aid .15 .06 .92 .26 .21 .91
Academic dishonesty .04 .82 .36 .12 .93 .18
Racial discrimination .88 .08 .02 .89 .15 .22
Sexual harassment .67 .27 .23 .66 .18 .54
Eigenvalue 2.1 .96 .78 3.0 .75 .50
% of variance explained 42.2 19.3 15.7 60.9 76.1 86.2
TABLE 2
Factor Loadings of Issues for Communication Behaviors
Information Processing Information Seeking
Predicting Issue F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3
Alcohol abuse .05 .07 .96 .13 .94 .07
Lack of financial aid .81 .03 .13 .75 .19 .27
Academic dishonesty .11 .97 .06 .18 .08 .96
Racial discrimination .78 .10 .15 .81 .31 .01
Sexual harassment .65 .33 .25 .77 .21 .15
Eigenvalue 1.9 1.0 .83 2.3 .95 .75
% of variance explained 40.0 20.5 16.7 46.1 19.0 15.2
57
for all the variables except for internal level of involvement; nevertheless, on that
factor, alcohol abuse had a high secondary loading. Academic dishonesty and lack
of financial aid tended to load onto either the second or third factors. In short, racial
discrimination and sexual harassment, both of which consistently loaded together
on the first factor, appeared as the strongest predicting issues.
As shown in Table 3, canonical correlation revealed that the factors correlated
with two canonical variates that identified two publics. The first variate identified
what I called the minority public because problem recognition, level of involve-
ment, and communicative behaviors all correlated strongly with this variate on is-
sues related to racioethnicity and gender. Although the correlations for constraint
recognition for these issues were weaker, they still were higher for this variate than
for the second.
Internal and external problem recognition of alcohol abuse and academic dis-
honesty correlated with the second variate, as did external level of involvement for
these issues. This variate identified what I called the youth public because these is-
58 SHA
TABLE 3
Canonical Correlation of Communication Predictors and Communication Behaviors
Variables Minority Variate Youth Variate
Independent Variables
Racial discrimination and sexual harassment
External problem recognition .804 .098
Internal problem recognition .937 .008
External level of involvement .811 .016
Internal level of involvement .417 .231
External constraint recognition .214 .066
Internal constraint recognition .385 .036
Alcohol abuse and academic dishonesty
External problem recognition .062 .500
Internal problem recognition .122 .596
External level of involvement .186 .562
Internal level of involvement .204 .178
External constraint recognition .101 .209
Internal constraint recognition .061 .105
Dependent variables
Racial violence and sexual assault
Information processing .776 .006
Information seeking .879 .301
Alcohol abuse and academic dishonesty
Information processing .042 .615
Information seeking .328 .642
Canonical correlation .899 .773
Note. n = 83. For all variates, p = .000.
sues were likely to concern first-year students and those students under the legal
drinking age. Financial aid did not load significantly onto either variate.
Overall, ANOVAshowedthat routinelyavowedracioethnicidentitywas signifi-
cantly related to membership in the minority public, F= 6.339, p = .0007, but not to
membership in the youth public, F = 1.010, p = .392. Furthermore, the Scheff test
indicated that African American students were significantly more likely than both
Whites and Hispanics to be members of the minority public (p = .050).
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
The results of this study indicate the importance of cultural identity in the devel-
opment of organizational publics, at least on issues related to race and ethnicity.
As indicated earlier, ANOVA showed that routinely avowed cultural identity
or the racioethnic identity one gives in response to the prompt of completing
routine paperwork that asks for race and ethnicityis significantly related to
problem recognition, level of involvement, passive communication, and active
communication.
The emergence of a minority public in this study may be explained by the high
percentages of minorities (83.4%) and women (68.9%) in the questionnaire sam-
ple. Likewise, the emergence of a youth public may be explained by the large per-
centage of first- and second-year students (74.5%) and of respondents less than 21
years of age (84.5%). Those students under the legal drinking age logically would
be concerned about issues related to alcohol, such as alcohol abuse by their peers,
many of whommay be drinking illegally. For practical purposes, this methodolog-
ical limitation suggests that organizations should pay special attention to publics in
which those of certain cultural identities constitute large numbers.
The findings of this study have implications for the continued development of
the situational theory of publics as well as for the segmentation of stakeholders and
the management of activist publics.
Developing the Situational Theory
Because racioethnic identity was found to predict variables of the situational
theory (except for constraint recognition), the data imply that racioethnic iden-
tity may precede, and thus influence, the independent variables. In the conceptu-
alization, I discussed research by Cross (1987) referring to racioethnic identity
as RGO. Although RGO is not the same as referent criterion, originally a fourth
independent variable in the situational theory defined as a solution carried from
previous situations to a new situation (J. E. Grunig, 1997, p. 11), the findings of
this study seem to indicate that the two variables may be related, at least when
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 59
the reference group in question is a racioethnic one and the situations, old and
new, involve racioethnicity.
According to J. E. Grunig (1997), referent criterion was dropped fromthe situa-
tional theory because studies showed it to have little effect on communicative be-
havior. He later reconceptualized referent criterion as two separate variables:
schema and cross-situational attitude. The findings of this study also could suggest
a relation between cultural identity and each of these two concepts. Because cul-
ture influences the way a person sees the world, if schema is conceptualized as
worldview, an individuals cultural identity logically may affect the manner in
which that person views different situations and the problems found in those situa-
tions. Likewise, Rotheram and Phinney (1987) asserted that culture, through its
definition of social rules, predicts individual behaviors regardless of situation. In
other words, if a person identifies with a given culture, he or she may behave ac-
cording to that cultures rules regardless of the situation at hand. This seems simi-
lar to the cross-situational attitude discussed earlier, although Grunigs (1997)
concept refers to attitude, rather than to behavior.
Thus, the findings of this study imply a connection between cultural identity
and referent criterion, schema, or cross-situational attitude. Consequently, this
study has a major implication for the situational theory of publics in that it supports
the existence of a fourth independent variable that must either precede problem
recognition, level of involvement, and constraint recognition, or operate with them
to affect communicative behavior. More research is needed to establish a valid and
reliable operationalization of cultural identity that would be applicable across cul-
tural groups and communication situations.
This study found that cultural identity influenced four of the five variables in
the situational theory of publics; the exception was constraint recognition. The
lack of statistical significance in this case actually poses tantalizing questions
about this particular construct in the theory. Logically, one would assume that cul-
tural identity affects the recognition of constraints; much research has been done in
various disciplines suggesting that members of some cultural groups (e.g., Asians)
are unwilling to communicate actively about some issues for culture-related rea-
sons (e.g., face-saving measures). Perhaps the lack of significance vis--vis con-
straint recognition in this study is related to problems in the operationalization of
this variable, as other studies have found lowCronbachs alphas for items measur-
ing constraint recognition (cf. Aldoory & Sha, in press). Further development of
this aspect of situational theory may yield productive insights into the question of
how cultural identity may affect constraint recognition.
Segmenting Stakeholders
An understanding of culture and cultural identity is important for public rela-
tions because they affect the manner in which an individual behaves and com-
60 SHA
municates. In other words, if members of an organizational public identify with
a certain cultural group, they may communicate differently from the manner in
which the organization communicates. Consequently, public relations practitio-
ners will need intercultural communication competencies. Although an in-depth
treatment of intercultural communication competence (cf. Lustig & Koester,
1993; Martin, 1993) is far beyond the scope of this article, it is important to
point out that public relations scholarship and practice would have much to gain
from research in this area.
Intercultural public relations also facilitates the process of stakeholder segmen-
tation because organizations are encouraged to learn the salient cultural identities
avowed by the publics, rather than merely ascribing identities to various publics.
By acknowledging and incorporating the importance of cultural identity,
intercultural public relations improves the ability of organizations to communicate
in a culturally sensitiveand hence, more effectivemanner, which was the pur-
pose of segmenting stakeholders into different kinds of publics.
Managing Activist Publics
Another primarycontributionof this worktopublicrelations theoryandpracticelies
in the implication of cultural identity for the formation of activist publics. The real
significanceof cultural identityfor publicrelations maylieinthecapacity[of refer-
ence group orientation] to bring about consensus, unity, or a sense of peoplehood
amongagroupof people(Cross, 1987, p. 126). Becauseactivismis inessenceacol-
lectivestruggle, publicrelations practitioners shouldnot overlooktheimportanceof
cultural identity in bringing the collective together.
A refined version of the situational theory that included efficient measures of
cultural identity would help organizations determine which stakeholder groups are
likely to become active publics. With this ability to predict active communication
behavior, public relations practitioners could plan communication programs to
prevent or hinder the rise of activist publics or to encourage groups likely to be-
come active in support of the organization, particularly in situations dealing with
cultural issues. This would be especially useful for multinational corporations in
the management of grassroots activist groups because their communication with
diverse local stakeholders should already be intercultural in nature.
CONCLUSIONS
In this study, differences in routinely avowed racioethnicity predicted significant
differences in problem recognition, level of involvement, and levels of passive
and active communicative behavior. Racioethnicity was a salient factor for Afri-
can Americans more than for any other group. Although a larger sample size and
INTERCULTURAL PUBLIC RELATIONS 61
higher response rate might increase the generalizability of these results to the
population, the findings nevertheless permit generalizations to an emerging the-
ory, supporting the proposition set forth in the conceptualization: In situations
where cultural identity is salient, differences in identification with a cultural
group predict differences in the variables of the situational theory of publics.
These findings suggest that intercultural public relations, being grounded in the
salience of cultural identity to communication, is a timely and useful concept as
the United States, as well as other countries, continues to face the challenge of in-
creasing diversity within its national borders. Intercultural public relations is im-
portant, not only as a conceptual framework within which to structure public
relations efforts, but also as a moral responsibility, as issues of culture and identity
become increasingly prominent throughout the world.
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