Power, Diversity and Public Relations addresses the lack of diversity in PR by revealing the ways in which power operates within the occupation to construct archetypal practitioner identities, occupational belonging and exclusion. It explores the ways in which the field is normatively constructed through discourse, and examines how the experiences of practitioners whose ethnicity and class differ from the ‘typical’ PR background, shape alternative understandings of the occupation and their place within it. The book applies theoretical perspectives ranging from Bourdieuvian and occupational sociology to postcolonial and critical race theory, to a variety of empirical data from the UK PR industry. Diversity emerges as a product of the dialectics between occupational structures, norms and practitioners’ reactions to those constraints; it follows that improving diversity is best understood as an exercise in democracy, where all practitioner voices are heard, valued, and encompass the potential for change. This insightful text will be essential reading for researchers and students in Public Relations, Communications, Media Studies, Promotional Industries, as well as all scholars interested in the sociology of race and work relations.

Critical theory has a long history, but a relatively recent intersection with public relations. This ground-breaking collection engages with commonalities and differences in the traditions, whilst encouraging plural perspectives in the contemporary public relations field. Compiled by a high-profile and widely respected team of academics and bringing together other key scholars from this field and beyond, this unique international collection marks a major stage in the evolution of critical public relations. It will increasingly influence how critical theory informs public relations and communication. The collection takes stock of the emergence of critical public relations alongside diverse theoretical traditions, critiques and actions, methodologies and future implications. This makes it an essential reference for public relations researchers, educators and students around a world that is becoming more critical in the face of growing inequality and environmental challenges. The volume is also of interest to scholars in advertising, branding, communication, consumer studies, cultural studies, marketing, media studies, political communication and sociology.

This book argues that we are witnessing the emergence of ‘commercial democracy’ in which public relations, promotional culture and the media play a new, central role. As the conventional democratic promise of political representation loses traction with the public in many countries, commercial culture steps into this vacuum by offering mirror forms of democracy. Commercial democracy promises representation, voice and agency to the public and in doing so creates new forms of social contract. Based on empirical material, this book examines the Public Relations (PR) produced by corporations and communications produced by charities in an intensely mediatized society. It presents a novel analysis of the shifting significance of brand and reputation. It analyses the ascendancy of commercial speech, PRs’ relationship to post-truth politics, and the transformation of cultural intermediaries into ‘social brokers’. As PR and promotional culture come to inhabit the realm of the social contract and new forms of politics, ‘the public’ and the very idea of ‘publicity’ are transformed.

Lisa Dühring reconstructs the relationship between public relations and marketing research on a metatheoretical level. She presents a concise systematization of the theoretical discourse in both disciplines since the beginning of the twentieth century by differentiating key phases of development and evaluating current research approaches. This study argues for a stronger connection of both disciplines and a better profiling within the mother disciplines of communication and business studies by fostering critical and interpretative approaches. This book is strongly recommended to everybody interested in the history and epistemology of marketing and public relations theory and the relationship between both fields.

Public Relations and Social Theory: Key Figures, Concepts and Developments broadens the theoretical scope of public relations studies by applying the work of a group of prominent social theorists to make sense of the practice. The volume focuses on the work of key social theorists, including Max Weber, Karl Marx, John Dewey, Jürgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault, Ulrich Beck, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Robert Putnam, Erving Goffman, Peter L. Berger, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Bruno Latour, Dorothy Smith, Zygmunt Bauman, Harrison White, John W. Meyer, Luc Boltanski and Chantal Mouffe. Each chapter is devoted to an individual theorist, providing an overview of that theorist’s key concepts and contributions, and exploring how these can be applied to public relations as a practice. Each chapter also includes a box giving a short and concise presentation of the theorist, along with recommendation of key works and secondary literature.

This book examines how public relations might re-imagine itself as an instrument of "sustainable citizenship" by exploring alternative models of representing and building relationships with and among marginalised publics that disrupt the standard discourses of public relations. It argues that public relations needs to situate itself in the larger context of citizenship, the values and ethics that inform it and the attitudes and behaviours that characterize it. Interlacing critical public relations with a theoretical fabric woven with strands of postcolonial histories, indigenous studies, feminist studies, and political theory, the book brings out the often-unseen processes of relationship building that nurtures solidarity among historically marginalized publics. The book is illustrated with global cases of public relations as sustainable citizenship in action across three core elements of the earth – air, water, and land. In each of the cases, readers can see how resistance movements, not necessarily aligned with any specific organization or interest group, are seeking to change the status quo of a world increasingly defined by exploitation, overconsumption, sectarianism, and faux nationalism. This challenging book will be of interest to students and scholars of not only public relations but also the broader social and management sciences who are interested in issues of environmental and social justice.

Public relations is a uniquely pervasive force in our modern economy, influencing every aspect of our lives from the personal to the political. This comprehensive volume provides an expert overview of current scholarship, reflecting the impact of technology, society, and demographic shifts in a complex global environment. The last century saw the emergence of the public relations discipline. This expertly curated collection explores the dynamic growth in thinking about public relations’ role in our changing global society, now and into the future. It reflects the challenges and perspectives of postcolonial, postmodern, feminist, critical race theory, social responsibility, sustainability, activist standpoints, as well as the profound and unpredictable impact of technological change and social media. Each chapter provides an overview of current knowledge and its roots, while engaging with emerging new directions and old debates – and advocates for where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. This unique Companion will be an essential resource for students and researchers in public relations, communication, marketing, media, and cultural studies. It provides an authoritative reference for educators and a one-stop repository of public relations knowledge, scholarship, and debates for the enquiring professional.

This important book chronicles, responds to, and advances the leading theories in the public relations discipline. Taking up the work begun by the books Public Relations Theory and Public Relations Theory II, this volume offers completely original material reflecting public relations as practiced today. It features contributions by leading public relations researchers from around the world who write about new developments in the field. Important subjects include: a turn to more humanistic, social, dialogic, and cocreational perspectives on public relations; changes in the capacity and use of new information technologies; a greater emphasis on non-Western international and intercultural public relations that considers an increasingly politically polarized culture; and issues of ethics that look beyond how clients and the traditional mass media are treated and into much broader questions of voice, agency, race, identity, and the economic and political status of publics. This book is a touchstone for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations theory and a key reference for researchers.

Inextricably linked to neoliberal market economies, public relations’ influence in our promotional culture is profound. Yet many aspects of the professional role are under-researched and poorly understood, including the impact on workers who construct displays of feeling to elicit a desired emotional response, to earn trust and manage clients. The emotionally demanding nature of this aspirational work, and how this is symptomatic of "always on" culture, is particularly overlooked. Drawing on interviews with practitioners and agency directors, together with the author’s personal insights from observations in the field, this book fills a significant gap in knowledge by presenting a critical-interpretive exploration of everyday relational work of account handlers in PR agencies. In underscoring the relationship-driven, highly contingent nature of this work, the author shows that emotional labour is a defining feature of professionalism, even as public relations is reconfigured in the digital age. In doing so, the book draws on a wide range of related contemporary social and cultural theories, as well as critical public relations and feminist public relations literature. Scholars, educators and research students in PR and communications studies will gain rich insights into the emotion management strategies employed by public relations workers in handling professional relationships with clients, journalists and their colleagues, thereby uncovering some of the taken-for-granted aspects of this gendered, promotional work.

This text introduces a socio-cultural approach to public relations as a way of analysing the growing importance of public relations in its social, cultural and political contexts and brings theory to life with a range of case studies, including YouTube vlogging, the global fair trade movement and the 2016 EU referendum in the UK.