More public than relations

Public relations — or simply ‘PR’ — in the Middle East reminds one of New York’s Madison Avenue on Friday afternoon: a one-way artery pushing traffic north with no escape from the congestion.  Like traffic in Manhattan, PR in the Middle East is a choking congestion of information flows. Managed mainly from Dubai by a number of multinational communications firms and directed into the inboxes of information multipliers — meaning mainly publishers, journalists, and editors across the region — the production of what passes itself off as PR in this part of the world has been swelling into a relentless torrent of product announcements and event promotions.  The stream of information pollution may have helped some PR clients boost visibility or even reputation, but what it  did was raise the question: is PR just another imported scourge on the region or does it have a useful purpose? When Dubai hosted