Frank Capra's Why We Fight and film documentary discourse in public relations

This article analyzes the influence of Archibald MacLeish's “strategy of truth” and the principles of the Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry in the production of Frank Capra's documentary series Why We Fight. One of the main contributions of this research is to show how this series is the most important example of the application of the strategy of truth and, at the same time, one of the main examples of public relations audiovisual product realized to be addressed to American Army as well to the American public opinion. It is argued that Capra's Why We Fight made a substantial and long-lasting contribution to public relations, particularly in terms of its discourse and the use of analepsis has PR narrative resource. Overall, the article positions Why We Fight as one of the greatest efforts ever made in the history of military public relations.     

From knowing to doing: Reflexivity,leadership and public relations

This article argues that little is known in public relations (PR) about the experience of leadership and, more specifically, the challenges associated with enacting desired leadership behaviours in the work place. The study focusses on the personal experiences of PR leaders and considers how exploring the interplay between a leader and their context enhances understanding of the conditions under which knowledge is enacted, or rather not enacted, in different leadership situations. The discussion is informed by perspectives from organization and leadership studies which highlight the importance of reflexivity to leadership learning. In addition to applying a reflexive lens to leadership practice in public relations, the study addresses a lack of empirical research focussing on the situated experiences of PR leaders. It considers the reflexive potential of a programme of interviews with PR practitioners providing examples to illustrate the role this form of research can play in leadership studies. The context investigated concerns the work place experiences of senior PR executives who claim to be ‘empowering leaders’. The discussion of the findings focuses on how organizational power relations distort the practitioners’ espoused leadership values and engages in a process of problematization designed to challenge the uncritical promotion of normative and decontextualised approaches to leadership. The article highlights the benefits of a reflexive orientation to PR leadership research and pedagogy, while calling for the promotion of a particular form of contextual intelligence to help practitioners confront the organizational conditions which specifically impact on their ability to lead others.     

Saints and sinners: Competing identities in public relations ethics

Public relations ethics is confused and often superficial in its approach, relying heavily on traditional theory, with only occasional reference to more recent developments in professional ethics, particularly feminist and global ethical perspectives.     

话语权的回归:论网络语境下的青年影像

在传统媒介环境下,青年影像主要从内容和接受者两个角度界定。年轻人是被叙述者,而不是叙述者。传统媒介环境下的青年影像是一种"伪青年"文化。网络激发了人们特别是年轻人的参与热情。年轻人作为自为者,而不是他为者或为他者而存在。网络青年影像是一种真正的青年文化,可以粗略地分为校园和后校园影像。网络青年影像的意义在于它的不确定性,由此呈现出向未来开放的文化特性。     

Social construction of public relations knowledge by academic institutions worldwide: A bibliometric network analysis

This VOSviewer-enabled bibliometric study examines scientific knowledge construction in public relations research since 1955. A co-citation analysis indicates that while sustaining its cross-disciplinary nature, public relations increasingly relies on scholarship generated within its own discipline, with Public Relations Review, Journal of Public Relations Research and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly most cited academic sources. A citation analysis of author affiliations revealed a number of findings, including universities with the highest count of publications, university pairs that tend to cite each other, as well as regional university groups and large clusters within a broader, citation-based network. Among the 108 most productive academic institutions from four continents included into the study, U.S.-based universities produced the highest number of publications in nine peer-reviewed journals. Cross-referencing citation relationships among university clusters in different world regions illustrates an ongoing pattern of globalized construction of public relations knowledge.     

Arabs, the west and public relations: A critical/cultural study of Arab cultural values

Using a critical/cultural perspective to examine Arab culture, this study tests the cultural-economic model of international public relations to identify cultural value orientations that influence Arab culture. These orientations include commitment to religion, devotion to the group, resistance to change/attachment to history and recognition of hierarchal order. Based on an initial review of these orientations, the study identifies guiding principles exhorting practitioners to carefully consider the nature, function and purpose of public relations practice in the Arab world and the relationship among cultural value orientations. The study concludes with useful implications and guidelines sensitive to Arab culture for public relations professionals and scholars.     

Finding the path beyond reputation repair: A structural topic modeling analysis of the crisis communication paradigm in public relations

This research utilizes computational methods to examine crisis communication scholarship from 2010 to 2020 in two studies with a census of all articles in Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research (n = 1293 articles, 7400,685 words). Results indicate crisis scholarship has expanded beyond its prior focus on reputation repair. Situational crisis communication theory and image repair are compared in volume of scholarship and methodological affinity. Social media, SCCT, and media relations are identified as central topics within crisis communication scholarship.     

The public relations paradox of erasure: Damnatio memoriae as public relations strategy and tactic

Public relations scholars study how organizations co-create meaning with engaged stakeholders. Not well understood is how and why such co-creation modifies shared meaning, amplifies change, and even “erases” some piece of memory from the public record with the purpose of redirecting and redefining societal narratives. To help establish erasure as a concept for studying public relations, we draw from Freud’s theory of memory to establish a foundation upon which to critique strategic erasure. We adapt Freud’s theory of memory into the intersecting critique of visual rhetoric as public relations by analyzing, via narrative inquiry, remnants of Imperial Rome that have been modified, amplified, but even erased to present Rome’s modern identity. For centuries, even during Imperial Rome, leaders practiced damnatio memoriae —a modern Latin phrase that means “condemnation of memory.” We use this concept to interrogate the public relations identity process Rome’s leaders have used to modify for emphasis and even obliterate Roman elites’ names and images from the texts of public records by destroying, mutilating and modifying statues and monuments as a means for co-creating new public memory. Such analysis reveals how damnatio memoriae helps elites to redefine the “memory” of the Eternal City.     

Qualified privilege: A defense for the public relations function

Technology continues to challenge the public relations practitioner to find ways to inform key constituents. The new technology has given rise to the “new journalism” that includes a declining traditional media and exploding internet media filled with websites and bloggers. The question posed by this research asks: Does the public relations practitioner inherit the same protection offered by “qualified privilege” that is most often associated with the traditional “press” or “reporter?” The research lays a foundation with an examination of defamation and the defense of qualified privilege. The research concludes that if information gathered by the public relations practitioner meets the “intent” and “content” tests, the information qualifies as news. Passing the “news” test, the defense of “qualified privilege” also attaches to the public relations practitioner.     

To be,or not to be: Paradoxes in strategic public relations in Italy

There is a paucity of empirical studies of public relations in Italy. This study sought to assess whether public relations departments are managed strategically in Italy and whether public relations contributes to the strategic management of organizations. Using the four generic principles that deal with strategic management, this study gathered data from public relations professionals working in the three major types of organizations: corporations, government agencies, and non-profits. The study found that regardless of the type of organization, few public relations practitioners are represented in the senior management of their organizations. Senior managers of non-profits tended to value public relations more than the other two sectors. Symmetrical communication again proved to be normative. By using a conceptual framework and research instruments that have been employed in studies conducted in other parts of the world, this study has generated data that can be used to compare strategic public relations in different socio-cultural environments – thus contributing to building a global theory of public relations.     

The processes-to-end(s) paradox of public relations

Public relations researchers, theorists, and practitioners should integrate professional practice with research topics, themes, concepts, theories, contextual intelligences, strategic processes, moral judgment, and functional practices by addressing the end(s) that public relations serves in community. Disciplinary intelligences feature outcomes that yield to specialized knowledge-based, processually achievable, intellectually justifiable, strategically valuable, and morally serviceable practices that constitute culture, society, and community. In that communitarian spirit, this paper draws on established research streams and strategic process-to-ends paradigms to argue that unique knowledge serves to collaboratively assist the constitution of community as place in search for order. Public relations’ unique knowledge, constantly refined and critically guided, adds strategic, emergent force to human’s communitarian imperative. This communitarian rationale for the constitutive paradigm reasons that as individuals, organizations and communities engage to communicate they communicate to organize through narrative continuity. Organizations, individuals, and groups engage on the winding path of agonistic, emergently epistemological and ontological cultural and societal moments to seek order in the public interest. Reputations (identities), complexes of relationships (institutionalized identification) and textuality of narrative continuity empower community members co-manage resources in service of shared interests’ license to operate.     

Anticipatory socialization in the use of social media in public relations: A content analysis of PRSA's Public Relations Tactics

This article examines one issue in how public relations students are socialized in their understanding of the value and power of social media in the practice of public relations. The public relations academic research about social media is explored, as well as the professional claims about the value of social media as a public relations tactic. The researchers conducted a content analysis of 1 year of Public Relations Tactics issues. The data are viewed through the theoretical frame of the socialization literature ( Jablin, 1987). The results suggest that claims of social media power far outweigh evidence of social media effectiveness as a communication tool. A disconnect exists between what authors of Public Relations Tactics pieces view as the potential for social media and the research findings about the effectiveness of social media. The final section of the article discusses the implications for public relations educators, professional associations, and practitioners as they consider social media tactics in public relations strategy.     

Blog power: Examining the effects of practitioner blog use on power in public relations

While blogs are not yet a standard public relations tool, practitioners use blogs to enhance their power within their organizations. Using an online survey of public relations practitioners, this pilot test examined the relationship between power and blog use. Three factored categorizations of blog use among practitioners emerged: routine information and research, interactive blog communication, and issues identification. Results showed differences based on power, between blog users and non-users, owner-practitioners and non-owners, among others.     

The status of the school public relations practitioner: A statewide exploration

A study was conducted which focuses on public relations practitioners in school districts in South Carolina. The study utilized survey research to investigate several questions relating to public relations role enactment, hierarchical level of the public relations function, salary, job satisfaction and encroachment into public relations. The research found that school public relations practitioners fulfill both the manager and technician roles equally, although it is responsibilities relating to the management function that provide the most satisfaction. Women tend to be less active in the manager role. The public relations function reports directly to the school superintendent. There is a relationship between sex and salary in school district public relations and, with women, experience is negatively correlated with salary. Finally, there is a high level of encroachment by educators into the public relations function in school districts.     

A reappraisal of Delphi 2.0 for public relations research

This paper introduces, analyzes, and explains the Delphi method of research, particularly as it applies to the public relations industry. The Delphi technique became known some 50 years ago when the RAND Corporation used it for forecasting. Since then, scholars and forecasters have used it periodically for qualitative explorations into complex issues or domains. The overall purpose of the Delphi is to facilitate formal discussion among selected experts in a given domain around a particular topic; it is particularly useful when those experts cannot easily gather in one place. The method encourages the sharing of diverging worldviews over a few “rounds” or iterations in the hope that the views may converge into some direction around the given topic. For this reason, the Delphi has often been used in situations or environments that tend to be somewhat ambiguous and where interviews and surveys are neither timely nor appropriate.     

Workplace adversity and resilience in public relations: Accounting for the lived experiences of public relations practitioners

Public relations practitioners face workplace challenges as they cultivate public relationships, resolve conflicts, and manage crises. Odds of adversities may be high in this role, requiring practitioners to be resilient. This qualitative study explores workplace adversities in public relations from a practitioners’ perspective, and examines how they enact resilience. By asking current practitioners about their lived experiences, we found workplace adversities occurred on multiple levels and ranged from mundane to life-altering events. Patterns of resilience were, metaphorically, bouncing forward, bouncing up, bouncing back, and bouncing around. This study contributes to public relations and resilience scholarship by (1) uncovering workplace adversities and resilience enactment in public relations, therefore connecting practice with scholarship, (2) extending the “bounce back” metaphor in the resilience literature, therefore making resilience more inclusive, and (3) exploring the connections of multi-level resilience, and suggesting the complex and negotiated nature of resilience among individuals embedded in collectives.     

Metabolife's meaning: A call for the constitutive study of public relations

Studies of public relations (PR) are usually instrumental in nature, with scholars seeking to explain how organizations employ PR techniques to meet goals. The impact of PR practices on the broader realm of public discourse and deliberation is less often the focus of scholarly attention, although it plays an increasing role in shaping public understanding of political, social, and cultural issues. This article argues that disciplinary scholarship needs constitutive analyses that understand how PR strategies help to create discursive norms. That is, when an organization successfully employs a given PR tactic, other organizations follow suit and audiences can come to expect the use of similar techniques. Through a case study of Metabolife International and 20/20, a constitutive approach illustrates how PR encourages audiences to expect and incorporate discursive speed, to understand how communication forums are created and maintained, and to substitute gestures of corporate transparency for honesty and goodwill.     

The Background of Discourse Analysis: A New Paradigm in Social Psychology

This article traces the historical developments that lead up to Discursive Social Psychology, eventually resulting in the Hermeneutic—Dialectic Mode. A critical differentiation between Logical Empiricism (LE) and Hermeneutic—Dialectics (HD) is drawn to emphasize the subjective nature of the latter. While HD is not the only approach to Discursive Social Psychology, its subjective nature makes it possible to more deeply explore human behavior.     

Laying the foundation for a global body of knowledge in public relations and communications management

An internationally recognised body of knowledge is both possible and necessary for the future success and professionalisation of public relations. Through extensive content analysis of 31 credential schemes, education frameworks, and scholarly articles produced across six continents, the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management has developed a foundational list of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours (KSABs), which entry and mid/senior-level practitioners across the world should possess. This study and list of KSABs is laying the foundation for development of an internationally accepted framework which professional associations and academic institutions across the world will be able to use to benchmark professional credentials and curriculum outcomes.