دانلود رایگان مقاله واسطه های فرهنگی و مدار فرهنگ: پروژه سفیران دیجیتال در ژوهانسبورگ، آفریقای جنوبی

abstract

The question raised by Cheney and Christensen (2001) as to “what a non-Western, nonmanagerial and non-rationalist form of public relations will look like” (p.182), together with the call made by Gregory (2014) for public relations practitioners (PRPs) to be active social change agents, motivated this paper. The aim of this research is to follow a culturecentred approach and apply the circuit of culture (Curtin & Gaither, 2005) to investigate the meanings that young people (aged 18 to 34), as cultural intermediaries, ascribe to their participation in a digital empowerment project implemented by the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. This research forms part of a larger, ongoing multi-disciplinary research project.

8. Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to investigate the meanings created by cultural intermediaries involved in the Digital Ambassadors project in Johannesburg, South Africa. A culture-centred approach was followed in order to identify meanings, as created from the bottom-up, and to contribute to the development of theory with respect to cultural intermediaries in developing, diverse and complex situations. The circuit of culture (Curtin & Gaither, 2005) and qualitative content analysis provided valuable research methods that assisted in the identification of moments and themes related to the meanings created by the digital ambassadors and their mentors during their participation in the WiFi rollout project.