Symmetrical Communication

Symmetrical Communication:

Excellent Public Relations or a Strategy

for Hegemony?

Juliet Roper

Department of Management Communication

University of Waikato

This article examines the process of symmetrical communication, as described by J.

E. Grunig, through the critical lens of the concept of hegemony. The practice of sym￾metrical communication is commonly considered to be the model for excellent and

ethical public relations. However, this article questions the ethics of a process that is

often one of compromise to deflect criticism and maintain power relations rather than

one of open, collaborative negotiation.

Two-way symmetrical communication, as conceptualized by James E. Grunig, is

said to form the basis of excellent public relations practice. From this perspec￾tive, symmetrical communication is characterized by a willingness of an organi￾zation to listen and respond to the concerns and interests of its key stakeholders:

“Excellent organizations ‘stay close’ to their customers, employees, and other

strategic constituencies” (J. E. Grunig, 1992, p. 16). What is key here is that the

response of the organization will be a substantive one, not just a discursive shift.

At the other end of the spectrum of public relations practice lies what J. E.

Grunig termed two-way asymmetrical communication, whereby organizations

listen to their stakeholders but use the information thus obtained to tailor their

communication to allay the concerns of stakeholders, but do not make a corre￾sponding alteration to their behavior.

In a later reflection of his four-part model of public relations, J. E. Grunig

(2001) aligned Murphy’s (1991) description of a mixed-motive model with his

own original conceptualization of the symmetrical model. That is, he acknowl￾JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH, 17(1), 69–86

Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Juliet Roper, Department of Management Communication,

University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand. Email: [email protected]