- "Postmodern Values in Public Relations"
- "Towards a postmodern research agenda for public relations"
- "Resistance from the Margins: The Postmodern Public Relations Practitioner as an Organizational Activist"
and now the extensive look into the subject, Public Relations as Activism: Postmodern Approaches to Theory and Practice.
To be an an organizational activist, one must be ready to help define change and grasp the situations that make change possible. Consider the Occupy Wall Street movement described earlier. While demonstrations are taking place in public; behind the scenes, in organizations around the world, there are millions of individuals identifying with their cause. An organizational activist can be aware and sensitive to their plight, and ready to open a discussion with these individuals and employees in order to facilitate change at work and in their local community.
To be a public relations activist, Holtzhausen emphasizes the need for participatory democracy. The US is established on representative democracy. Persons are elected to represent the views of others. Taking another look at Occupy Wall Street, one can see participatory democracy in action. There is engagement and confrontation taking place in public.
The public relations activist will also recognize that knowledge is limited. Everyone possesses a limited knowledge and no overarching narrative can take the place of the small stories that create our existence. A public relations activist must continually provide transparency, expose these differences, and encourage "confrontational intolerance of injustice."*
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Derina R. Holtzhausen, Public Relations as Activism: Postmodern Approaches to Theory and Practice, p. 239.
