CONSTRUCTING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN AMBIGUITY: THE 'SHAPESHIFTER'.

The article explores the construction of professional identities in ambiguity by public relations (PR) practitioners. Ambiguity in professional identities involves those work of the practitioners with ambiguous definition and those which do not operate as an identity anchor. Interviews with PR practitioners show that PR is an occupation that is surrounded in ambiguity concerning what it achieves and what it constitutes. Practitioners are noted to construct the shapeshifter, someone who can shift identities to fit the various audiences encountered by the PR practitioner, identity to cope with the ambiguity.