Public relations and strategic communication often sit at the intersection of power, ethics, and inclusion. Around the world, widening gaps in wealth, voice, and representation shape who gets heard and how institutions and organizations are held to account. This preconference invites scholarship and practice that examine how public relations and strategic communication can help bridge inequality gaps, as well as what role they play in reproducing them across organizational, community, governmental, and transnational contexts. We welcome conceptual and empirical work as well as practitioner‐academia collaborations that surface actionable insights for practice and policy.
We especially encourage contributions that:
- Shed light on power dynamics (agenda‐setting, visibility regimes, “strategic silence”, influence industries) and their consequences for equity and justice; Advance ethical frameworks for practice under uncertainty, polarization, and AI‐mediated communication;
- Move beyond diagnosis and into actionable research through workable tools, interventions, and partnerships that demonstrably improve inclusion and accountability in/through public relations and strategic communication.
- Suggested topics (but not limited to)
- Inequality as a communication problem: who benefits/loses from current communicative arrangements?
- Organizational responsibility, legitimacy, and trust in divided societies (CSR/ESG, stakeholder capitalism, social license)
- Activism, advocacy, and coalition‐building; tensions in corporate/NGO/grassroots collaborations
- Ethics in practice: competing accountabilities, dilemmas, and decision‐making models
- AI, datafication, targeting, and automation: risks/opportunities for inclusion, transparency, and participation
- Publics, counter‐publics, and audience segmentation beyond the “usual suspects”
- Internal communication, voice at work, and equitable change from within organizations
- Crisis, disaster, health, and environmental communication through an equity lens
- Measurement beyond media hits: evaluating social impact and equity outcomes
- Pedagogy and professional formation: curricula, credentialing, and pathways that reduce (not widen) inequality
