ABSTRACT

Experiencing Public Relations examines the everyday experiences of PR practitioners in order to better understand how public relations is perceived by those outside and within the field. The book aims to provoke debate around the nature of public relations by looking at how it is defined at a theoretical level, compared to how it is lived and represented in the real world.

Chapters feature work from some of the world’s leading public relations scholars. They cover a diverse range of subjects, such as representations of PR in fiction and film, terrorist use of public relations, the impact of social media on this medium and a study of ‘dirty work’ within the PR industry. The book also explores international PR practices, presenting analysis from contributors based in Australia, Germany, India, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, UAE, UK, USA and Venezuela.

Experiencing Public Relations goes beyond the ‘frontstage’ scholarship of public relations to bring together stories of PR in daily life, revealing how influential theories work out in practice and translate into different cultural and social contexts. This book will provide researchers, professionals and students with a vital perspective on the inner workings of public relations today.

chapter |5 pages

Introduction

Experiencing public relations

chapter |20 pages

Experiencing public relations as an academic discipline

What do scholarly views and published research tell us?

chapter |13 pages

Dealing in facts

chapter |12 pages

Confessions of a public relations practitioner

Hidden life in the open plan office

chapter |15 pages

Personality in practice

chapter |14 pages

The anatomy of a spokesperson in South Africa

Sometimes a lie is kinder than a truth (African proverb)

chapter |10 pages

‘Can you see me?’

Images of public relations in Babylon

chapter |18 pages

Public relations in fiction

chapter |14 pages

Social media and the rise of visual rhetoric

Implications for public relations theory and practice

chapter |15 pages

From propaganda to public diplomacy

The Chinese context

chapter |9 pages

Fanning the flames of discontent

Public relations as a radical activity

chapter |20 pages

Subversion practices

From coercion to attraction

chapter |15 pages

Analysing terrorist use of public relations

ISIS and Al Qaeda

chapter |8 pages

EPILOGUE: How people experience public relations

Applying Martin Buber’s phenomenology to ‘PR tree’