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pressure frequently leads to collective, group
action by like-minded individuals to promote
and defend their choices. In this way, increased
pluralism of values and groups has
been associated with social movements, e.g.
feminism, gay rights, environmentalism, consumerism,
multiculturalism. These movements
are often distinguished by ‘contentious
collective action’ (Tarrow, 1994), such as sitins,
media events, petitions, demonstrations,
all designed to influence public opinion and
government. Stonier (1989: 31) argues that
‘Social movements are of prime importance
to the PR practitioner’ and therefore her alter
ego, the corporate communicator.
Voluntary associations springing from social
movements have a long history in the United
Kingdom and it would be wrong to argue that
vigorous representation of group interests is
new. There were the radical political clubs of
the late eighteenth century and Chartism in
the early nineteenth century. Trade unions,
co-operative societies and leisure groups such
as association football and the allotment
movement grew throughout that century and
into the twentieth. They also used techniques
which we today would call corporate communication
or public relations. The Chartists
collected millions of signatures in a petition to
parliament and organized a mass demonstration
at Kennington, London, in the 1840s.
Two hundred unemployed shipyard workers
from Jarrow organized an early special event
by marching three hundred miles to 10
Downing Street. It was organized by the
National Unemployed Workers’ Movement.
See Black (1973) for the major involvement of
the National Union of Local Government
Officers in the 1948 foundation of the
Institute of Public Relations. What happened
in the 1960s, however, was new: it was not so
much that there were further public expressions
of unconventional, dissident values and
behaviours, but that these were publicized by
the new mass medium of television in a
decade when social deference declined.
But what is the connection of this accelerated
pluralism with more communication,
and with government The link lies in the
need of individuals for their new values and
behaviours to be accepted or at least tolerated
by society, and in the pressure on government
to react to these changes in civil society.
One cannot be gay in an open way if homosexuality
is illegal: government is challenged
to make same sex legal. One cannot be a
sovereign consumer without knowing, say,
food ingredients: one would be a dead sovereign
consumer unless the government regulates
for food safety. One cannot be an
informed citizen about the environment if
levels of river pollution are not monitored and
then published. Employees want workplace
rights on health and safety, and on pensions:
only government can enforce minimum standards.
Individuals and groups, in these examples
and in numerous others seen each day in
the media, urge involvement by government,
and representative, accountable government
responds in a liberal democracy. In this way,
communication between organizations and
groups, and government express the concerns
and hopes of the former and the policy
responses of the latter. They are the conversations
of a liberal democracy. This shift in UK
society to more expression by individuals of
different values and behaviours via voluntary
groups is identified here as value pluralism
and group pluralism of a civic kind. Brought
together, they will be called civic pluralism.
In addition to this kind, a commercial variant
of pluralism has come to the fore in the
United Kingdom in approximately the same
period. From the middle of the 1970s, it was
noticeable that the climate of ideas about
markets and business was shifting away from
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors