ABSTRACT

This book brings together a broad and diverse range of new and radical approaches to public relations focussing on the increasingly vital role that visual, sensory and physical elements factors play in shaping communication. Engaging with recent developments in critical and cultural theories, it outlines how non-textual and non-representational forces play a central role in the efficacy and reception of public relations.

Challenging the dominant accounts of public relations which center on the purely representational uses of text and imagery, the book critiques the suitability of accepted definitions of the field and highlights future directions for conceptualizing strategic communication within a multi-sensory environment. Drawing on the work of global researchers in public relations, visual culture and communication, design and cultural theory, it brings a welcome inter-disciplinary approach which pushes the boundaries of public relations scholarship in a global cultural context.

This exciting analysis will be of great interest to public relations scholars, advanced students of strategic communication, as well as communication researchers from cultural, media and critical studies exploring PR as a socio-cultural phenomenon.

chapter 1|9 pages

Visual and spatial public relations

Strategic communication beyond text

part 1|72 pages

Visual dimensions of public relations

chapter 4|30 pages

Picturing statistical narratives

A century of data visualisation in public relations practice

part 2|58 pages

Spatial dimensions of public relations

chapter 5|22 pages

Limits or opportunities for strategic communication?

The role of space and place in mediating #Demo2012

chapter 7|18 pages

A time and place

The Las Vegas Mob Museum’s experiential public relations

part 3|58 pages

Researching visual and spatial public relations

chapter 9|16 pages

Environmental multi-modal communication

Semiotic observations on recent campaigns

chapter 10|15 pages

Exploring visual experiments

Measuring multi-modal messages in laboratory research