What does this research mean for the field?

In Indian political public relations, everyday communicative routines fuse organizational goals with cultural logics of duty, hierarchy, and obedience, transforming professional practice into a culturally situated infrastructure of power. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.NOVEL_FINDING. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.CHALLENGES_CONSENSUS.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine how power is enacted, moralized, and reproduced through cultural logics in political public relations practice in India.

August 29, 2026Public Relations ReviewOpen Access

Politics, power, and professional practice: Cultural control in an Indian political public relations department

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Authors

MRMark Rasquinha DMDebashish MunshiUniversity of Waikato

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Implication

Ethnographic study reveals how cultural norms enforce hierarchy in an Indian political PR department, highlighting culture as an infrastructure of disciplinary power.

Key Points

To examine how power is enacted, moralized, and reproduced through cultural logics in political public relations practice in India.
Conducted 56 hours of video ethnography within a political public relations department during the 2019 Indian General Election.
Applied multimodal analysis to workplace interactions, examining spatial arrangements, dress codes, gestures, tone, linguistic registers, and visual design practices.
Professional public relations objectives, including narrative control and message localization, intersected with cultural logics of duty, hierarchy, obedience, and moralized authority.
Routine managerial interactions and workplace design physically and visually reinforced symbolic and disciplinary power, establishing loyalty and moral obligation as central to professional conduct.

Cite This Study

Rasquinha et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a92995f8e5d7d1fc0c1146c https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2026.102756

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Implication

Ethnographic study reveals how cultural norms enforce hierarchy in an Indian political PR department, highlighting culture as an infrastructure of disciplinary power.

Politics, power, and professional practice: Cultural control in an Indian political public relations department

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Politics, power, and professional practice: Cultural control in an Indian political public relations department

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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