Communitarianism

Chiara Valentini, Dean Kruckeberg, and Kenneth Starck (2012) argued that 20th-century public relations theories failed to peel back essential layers of inquiry. Questions about society itself were rarely explored, with little critical examination of predominant forms of democracy and capitalism.

Also neglected, they reasoned, was a corollary criticism of the concepts on which public relations paradigms were built.

Such neglect has certainly been true of “communitarianism,” an underappreciated and often misunderstood concept, ideology, and body of literature that offers considerable heuristic value to 21st-century public relations scholarship and practice. Picking up that theme, Jacquie L'Etang (2008) argued that communitarianism has significance for several areas of public relations, notably “internal PR, organizational culture and corporate social responsibility” (p. 255). Hugh M. Culbertson and Ni Chen (1997) and Roy V. Leeper (2005) have emphasized the importance of communitarianism as a foundation for two-way symmetry, that is, James E. Grunig and Todd Hunt's (1984) well-established and widely accepted normative model of public relations. Leeper added that communitarianism has implications for the way in which publics are defined, in the concept of stewardship, in the role of public relations in nonprofit organizations, and in communitarianism's perspective on public relations ethics.

The concept, ideology, and literature of communitarianism has a long and complex history and remains somewhat amorphous. Communitarianism, of course, is predicated on and begs definition and description of “community.” The preeminent communitarian Amitai Etzioni (1995) said “community” is a shared set of social bonds or a social web that is distinct from one-to-one bonds. These social bonds are morally neutral but nevertheless possess a set of shared moral and social values. Etzioni argued that true communal values cannot be imposed by an outside group or by an internal elite or minority but, rather, they must be generated by community members through dialogue. However, such communal values must not be in tension with overarching core values. Etzioni further maintained that “new communities” are part of a pluralistic web of communities and that people today are members of several communities. Noting that several critics argue that the concept of community has no identifiable designation, Etzioni (2000) used this definition:

The concept of communitarianism is most often framed in its opposition and antithesis to classical liberalism. As a philosophical tradition, communitarianism emerged from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, but in its modern interpretations, communitarianism has been theorized as a critique of individualism. Avital Simhony (2001) observed,