Spinning climate change: Corporate and NGO public relations strategies in Canada and the United States

This article examines the role of PR in the debate about global climate change. Seeking to move beyond a focus on PR as just the handmaiden of corporate power, the article documents the fluid role of professionalized communication in terms of its impact on both corporate and NGO actors and their activities, focusing on communication tactics and the influence of PR consultancies. Drawing from the debates around the transformation of the public sphere, the article argues that the climate change issue illustrates not only structural change but also a wider cultural transformation marked by the emergence of promotionalism as the dominant communicative logic of both powerful and institutionally weaker players. It is argued that although existing political and economic resources provide certain actors with significant advantages, these assets and the structural advantages they tend to accrue cannot alone determine the outcome of struggles over climate change policy and public opinion.