Public relations in New Zealand - the missing pieces

Abstract

Modern practitioners of public relations in New Zealand work in diverse areas of communication (PRINZ, 2006, 2011) but the different areas of practice and the skills that each area employs have developed from the early years of public relations activity; from its origins in the two separate yet related strands of tikanga Māori and press agentry. The press agentry strand has been documented by Trenwith (2010) as the occupation emerged from its war time press agentry and propaganda practices to that of the more modern public relations practices. But missing from the New Zealand public relations history discourse is representation that addresses and integrates Māori and Pacific Island public relations ontological and epistemological assumptions.