ABSTRACT
With the backdrop of China as the rising global superpower, this chapter discusses the development of public relations theories concerning dialogic communication, crisis management, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication in the social context of China. The chapter first describes China’s political, economic, media, and cultural factors that have shaped the development of public relations in the country. It then introduces the directions and assumptions of theoretical developments in public relations in China in the areas of dialogic communication, crisis communication, and CSR communication and explicates how these contextual factors have shaped these directions and assumptions. It finally concludes with a proposal for research directions that would test the identified directions and assumptions to build public relations theory in China.
