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Authenticity
Edited by Alison Henderson and Lee Edwards
Introduction
The construct authenticity should become central to the study and practice of public relations and communication management and their specialised functions because organisations are progressively being pressured by stakeholders demanding greater transparency, openness, and responsibility. From the practitioner's perspective, "[a] good test for authenticity is whether the practitioner is willing to openly, publicly and personally be identified as the persuader in a particular circumstance" ([3] Baker and Martinson, 2002, p. 17). Moreover, the authors also argued that "[a]n individual who willingly disseminates a communication for which she/he would not want to assume personal responsibility is not behaving with integrity and authenticity" ([3] Baker and Martinson, 2002, p. 18).
[11] Cook (2007), writing for the trade publication of the Public Relations Society of America (The Public Relations Strategist ), introduced future trends to better understand the issues facing practitioners, organisations, and clients. [11] Cook (2007, p. 33) stated:
We're at the start of an era where people want authentic stories about authentic people. PR [public relations] professionals are the storytellers. It's our job to help find the authenticity at the core of our companies and clients, and to tell those stories to the world in words that will truly be heard.
It is not only that practitioners should be responsible for the persuasive public relations and communication efforts and techniques they carry out, but also to keep their organisations and clients faithful to their true self and the core values embedded in the corporate identities, offerings, and promises they make to targeted stakeholders. The search for, and identification of, real stories and people within organisations and clients is part of the critical job that practitioners must perform; this job should also entail the questioning and perhaps rejection of ideas, decisions, actions, and messages that do not have solid foundations and are not backed by the organisational management philosophy, policies, and norms.
This article draws definitions and contributions from scholars of a variety of disciplines: advertising, communication, marketing, and public relations. This is relevant because we are in an era in which interdisciplinary knowledge is preferred to understand the greater complexity of our societies and segmented audiences, vis-à-vis public relations and communication studies and the ever-changing...