20 April 2013.
Dear Mr Harrison,

This communication is a PR tale of ECU study I respectfully present to you.

In semester 2, 2013, I studied my first editing unit, WRT3123, Production, Editing and Design.

Assessment 2 Activity 8 was to copy-edit, format, and proofread approximately five pages of manuscript to be published in 2013 as a book, The Common Heritage of Mankind.

Unit WRT3123 was complicated and convoluted. PR, and its valuable pro-active role did not feature in the unit.

The ethnicity of the author, Douglas Randall, was not disclosed. Marketing and readership was not disclosed.

The lack of PR in WRT3123 particularly concerned me.

The Common Heritage of Mankind manuscript was an approach to some extremely important, complicated, diverse – and sensitive – concepts.

If fully realised, these concepts will extend infinitely into the future and their reality will ultimately concern every human.

This author also attempted to apply these sophisticated concepts to a huge body of extremely important natural, and cultural, artefacts, of many types. Each unique artefact is of inestimable value.

The writing appeared startlingly limited, dated and colonial, uncaring, non-inclusive, deeply superficial, trivial and lacking in empathy.

It seemed possible that the author’s work was at a formative stage and not ready for publishing.

From a PR point of view, it seemed to me, as student studying to gain a PR major:

• the author might not have considered any PR-consequences of his handling of the subject matter

• the author may not be conscious of the vitality and sensitivity of the material

• the author may not perceive how in diverse ways the concepts and subjects were important – to diverse people.

• the subject of the manuscript, and the written language of the manuscript, separately and together, carried potential for substantial and negative, even angry, reader-response

• The Common Heritage of Mankind author Douglas Randall’s ideas, if carefully presented, may be of real interest and enduring value to many readers

Douglas Randall’s manuscript may eventually be published, may thus become a public communication, possibly, as Tomlinson (cited in Pickering, 2001, p. 51) describes, a “cultural transmission [that] involves an interactive process of negotiation, incorporation and resistance”.

Writings of Jonathon Pickering kept coming back to mind, along with other writers, such as Mark Nolan and Kim Rubenstein, who, in 2009, described relevant issues including “the relationship of mutual influence” between “citizenship law and psychological identity” (p. 39).

One primary focus of Nolan and Rubenstein’s 2009 paper is the production of “a strong sense of who we are”. This seems to have a strong relationship to the subjects of The Common Heritage of Mankind manuscript, especially as Nolan and Rubenstein explain the “psychological experience of blended identities can often be in tension” (p. 39).

Yet currently The Common Heritage of Mankind manuscript could be described, using other words of Nolan and Rubenstein’s, as “a suffocating… parochial cultural paradigm” (2009, p. 40).

Exposure to the work of Nolan and Rubenstein, and other theorists like Pickering (2001), who then analyses some effects of globalisation, may assist Douglas Randall develop effective tone and style tools.

For example, by considering Nolan & Rubensteins’ 2009 discussion of how individual “relevant self-definitions [are] shaping social existence and belonging… [and how] single national identification sits uneasily… in diverse societies” (p. 29), Douglas Randall may find ways, say, to give to his writing a more sensitive, attuned rhythm to today’s diverse global society.

Thus, in describing his complex subjects this author may be guided by Nolan and Rubenstein, together with Pickering, who cites Tomlinson in saying “there are many aspects of culture that remain highly resistant” (cited in Pickering, 2001, p. 51).
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From a ECU-learned PR-perspective, with theoretical assistance the author might consider how in The Common Heritage of Mankind manuscript the massive subject is set – within and between two major and “contradictory” characteristics of globalisation, as described by Manuel Castells (2004, p. xv).

These characteristics are globalisation’s “cultural identity” and “programmed networks”. Castells and other writers may assist the author perceive how, as presented, the subject of his proposed book, and also his manuscript, may separately and together actually be capable of creating substantial conflict.

The short, sad and cautionary book by Albert Memmi,(1990), may also provide to Douglas Randall, for his consideration, a powerful and relevant image of colonisation’s “unbearable relationship”.

Also useful may be the introduction of Memmi’s book. There Liam O’Dowd describes Memmi as issuing challenges to “collective amnesia” and the associated dangers of “global interdependence”.

In addition, by reading Flavia Monceri’s 2003 philosophical paper “The Transculturing Self”, in conjunction with Memmi’s book, Douglas Randall may perceive some of the dangers in the current form of his The Common Heritage of Mankind manuscript.

The Monceri (2003) theories may show the WRT3123 manuscript author, how, in today’s Western culture, “the ‘Other’ is [still] needed to properly define the ‘Self’ (p. 108). In particular, Monceri describes how the ‘Self’, as ‘subject’, views the ‘object’.

In the case of The Common Heritage of Mankind the ‘objects’ are the natural and cultural artefacts Douglas Randall discusses and deals with. Monceri’s (2003) description may provide knowledge of how the ‘Self’, in viewing the ‘object’ ” explicitly individuate[s the ‘object’] in the reconstruction and explanation of the ‘truth of the object’… attempt[ing] to grasp… [the ‘object’s’] essential nature once and for all” (p. 108).

With assistance of access to these theorists and others, and professional PR guidance, Douglas Randall’s ideas and short manuscript may be a grand scale, on-going with extendable vitality.

Below are further, related, PR thoughts

• The author may see benefit in the Nolan and Rubenstein thesis; “that true recognition of blended identity may sometimes reduce social tension” (2009, p. 39)

• the manuscript’s author could construct and present his subjects to the public, the community, in ways that create “stronger awareness of the cultural ties that bind humanity together” (Pickering, 2001, p. 55)

• An actively positive aspect to the author’s work may be achieved by considering and exploring how Nolan and Rubenstein say “true celebration of blended identity could create stability in a diverse society” (p. 39)

• Perhaps this author’s ideas could become a major and positive project, one that may be capable of achieving what John Urry describes as “seem[ing] to take the ‘whole world’ into a different dimension” (2002, p. 57)

• Douglas Randall’s manuscript is already involved in the “global complexities” of John Urry’s “‘material worlds’ implicated in the apparent ‘globalisation’ of economic, social, political, cultural and environmental relationships” (2002, p. 58)

• Perhaps in turning the manuscript into a larger project positive metaphors could be sought – of the type Urry (2002) discusses – so the community may examine, in a uplifting framework, what is in effect a truly global undertaking

From the Australian-born, white, English-as-native-language, old, female student perspective.

Yours truly
Susanne Harford
Your M35 Batchelor of Communications student number 10043898
Reference

Castells, M. (2009). The Information Age: Economy, Society & Culture. Vol. 11. The ​power of identity. (2nd. Ed. ). Maldon, USA: Blackwell Publishing.

Commonwealth of Australia. (2002). Style manual. (6th. Ed.). Canberra: John ​Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Memmi, A. (1990). The Coloniser and the Colonized. London: Earthscan ​Publications Ltd.

Monceri, F. (2003). The Transculturing Self: A Philosophical Approach, Language and Intercultural Communication, 3: 2, 108-114
DOI: 10. 1080/1470847038668094

Nolan, M. and Rubenstein, K. (2009). Citizenship and Identity in Diverse Societies. Humanities Research Vol XV. No. 1. 2009

Pickering, J. (2001). Globalisation: A threat to Australian culture? Globalisation and Australian culture. pp. 46-59.
Journal of Australian Political Economy No. 48

Urry, J. (2002). The Global Complexities of September 11th. Theory Culture Society 2002: 19:57-69
DOI: 10. 1177/0263276402019004004
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Student 10043898 Susanne Harford