| My dissertation challenges conventional public relations by examining alternative public relations for Thai community-based organizations. It argues that Thai public relations practices in general lack an insight of social organizations in which small communities are their integral parts. This study views the conventional public relations practices in Thailand as simply following western paradigms, often found unfit in the Thai contexts.;The study first examines how mainstream Western and Thai public relations are implemented, then offers explanations, and further proposes an alternative public relations for the Thai society. The alternative model is reconceptualized within the Buddhism-based buranagarn framework, which embraces the understanding of complexity, plurality, interrelatedness, and interdependence of social reality. In an attempt to examine the interplay of the Buddhism-based buranagarn framework and the Western qualitative perspective, the term "relational integration" is introduced. Within the relational integration framework, my dissertation integrates the Buddhist way of thinking into the critical public relations theory and research, and coins this new concept as "Buddhist public relations.";My dissertation develops the experiential knowing of public relations as community-building and co-operative learning process for community-based organizations from the particular locales in Bangkok metropolitan and the North-East region of Thailand. It is found that to facilitate the Buddhist public relations for community-based organizations, three major approaches needs to betaken into consideration.;First, community-based organization should recognize Buddhist public relations as a process to sustain the "middle path" of "threefold training development" wherein the proper behavior, mental training, and spiritual accomplishment are encouraged. Second, community-based organizations develop the true societal justification of Buddhist public relations by facilitating the reciprocal relationships, which foster the healthy environment, mutual caring, loving families, vibrant cultures, shared values, and self-reliance and self-development. Third, community-based organizations should bring forward three important forces to the Buddhist public relations process: (1) indigenous knowledge, such as local wisdom and community culture, (2) relationship management, such as moral leadership, communities of choice, valued-transferred process, and sustainable market, and (3) dhamma force, such as self-awareness, insight or wisdom, and moral society. |
