Abstract

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 2019, VOL. 31, NOS. 3–4, 71–83 https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2019.1679436 EDITORIAL Although origins of public relations can be traced to ancient times in regions across the world, its academic study has been associated with twentieth century United States of America (Broom & Sha, 2013). Ethnocentricity characterizes much of public relations theorizing, which does not capture the broader gamut of the global enactment of public relations (Sriramesh & Vercic, 2009, 2019). This special issue aims to situate research in a non-Euro-American context and to offer richly textured, contextual understandings of public relations in the Middle East. A region steeped in history; one that gave the world its first system of writing; the cradle of three world religions; producer of a substantial share of world oil – the Middle East in recent times has gripped the world’s attention not only with issues of grave importance in conflict-ridden countries, but also with transformative economic growth, especially in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Significant political, economic, social, and cultural similarities and differences among countries in the region imply the need to examine specific contextual factors that could impact the