Ethnographic Communication Analysis: Researching Professional Culture, Power and Practice in Public Relations

Abstract

Public relations research continues to privilege survey-based, experimental, and textual methods that emphasize managerial frameworks, message effects, and attitudinal outcomes. These approaches provide limited access to how public relations work is accomplished in the lived flow of interaction, particularly in Global South contexts where professional practice is shaped by culturally specific communicative norms. This article introduces Ethnographic Communication Analysis (ECA) as a methodological framework that addresses this limitation by integrating video ethnography, Conversation Analysis, gesture analysis, and Critical Discourse Studies. ECA treats public relations as situated communicative action and examines how power, professionalism, and organizational culture are enacted through talk, gaze, posture, spatial arrangement, and tool use. Empirically, the article draws on fieldwork in two Indian public relations departments and illustrates the framework through a routine content-creation episode between a manager and practitioner. The analysis shows how the methodology can be used to make contributions towards public relations theory concerning organizational hierarchy, gender, and regulated workflows, performed in real time.