Abstract

Engineers and public relations writers must cooperate to write public relations releases in a manufacturing firm. These releases represent the firm rather than any individual writer. An ethnographic study shows, however, that both engineers and public relations writers see at least some aspects of the releases as representing themselves personally. They therefore try to control content, wording, and authorship of the documents. Despite the difficulties they have in achieving such control, writers invest in corporate texts just as they do in personal ones.