Public relations by newly privatized businesses in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Public relations as a communication function is emerging as an important organizational process in many parts of the world. This paper examines the development of public relations in a transitional economy: Bosnia-Herzegovina. Data from 38 newly privatized organizations show the perceived potential for public relations as these organizations attempt to communicate with new publics and gain market share in a difficult business environment. The results suggest that Bosnian public relations managers understand public relations as a relationship building function but are constrained from fulfilling this function by the realities of a transitional economy.     

The “Mainstreaming” of Halal: Muslim Consumer-Citizenship in Australia

Abstract

The expansion of halal commodities globally reveals how Muslims are an object of increasing commercial interest. In Australia, despite a hostile political context, the recognition of Muslims as consumers, captured by the growing availability of halal goods, is providing alternate modalities of belonging. Drawing on fieldwork from Melbourne, Australia, this paper illustrates the ways halal consumption works to produce local, national and global orientations in citizenship and belonging for Australian-Muslims. By paying close attention to ethnographic encounters, the paper demonstrates how participation in the research process played a significant role in shaping the way participants defined, delimited and expanded the meanings of halal and its relationship to identity claims and ethical consumption. The paper argues that the concept of consumer-citizenship offers an important prism for understanding these experiences and for challenging prevailing binaries of minority and mainstream belonging in a consumer society.