1st Edition
Pathways to Public Relations Histories of Practice and Profession
Over the centuries, scholars have studied how individuals, institutions and groups have used various rhetorical stances to persuade others to pay attention to, believe in, and adopt a course of action. The emergence of public relations as an identifiable and discrete occupation in the early 20th century led scholars to describe this new iteration of persuasion as a unique, more systematized, and technical form of wielding influence, resulting in an overemphasis on practice, frequently couched within an American historical context.
This volume responds to such approaches by expanding the framework for understanding public relations history, investigating broad, conceptual questions concerning the ways in which public relations rose as a practice and a field within different cultures and countries at different times in history.
With its unique cultural and contextual emphasis, Pathways to Public Relations shifts the paradigm of public relations history away from traditional methodologies and assumptions, and provides a new and unique entry point into this complicated arena.
Introduction - Realizing New Pathways to Public Relations History (Burton St. John III, Margot Opdycke Lamme, and Jacquie L’Etang) Part I: Public Relations History and Faith 1. The Strategic Heart: The Nearly Mutual Embrace of Religion and Public (Robert Brown) 2. State and Church as Public Relations History in Ireland, 1922-2011 (Francis Xavier Carty) 3. The Public Relations and Artful Devotion of Hildegard Von Bingen (Cylor Spaulding and Melissa D. Dodd) 4. An Alternative View of Social Responsibility: The Ancient and Global Footprint of Caritas and Public Relations (Donn James Tilson) Part II: Public Relations History and Politics/Government 5. The Coercion of Consent: The Manipulative Potential of FBI Public Relations During the J. Edgar Hoover Era (Matthew Cecil) 6. Forgotten Roots of International Public Relations: Attempts of Germany, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to Influence the United States during World War I (Michael Kunczik) 7. Government is Different: A History of Public Relations in American Public Administration (Mordecai Lee) 8. Building Certainty in Uncertain Times: The Construction of Communication by Early Medieval Polities (Simon Moore) 9. I, Claudius the Idiot: Lessons to be Learned from Reputation Management in Ancient Rome (Christian Schnee) 10. The Utilization of Public Relations to Avoid Imperialism During the Beginning of Thailand’s Transition to Modernization (1851-1868) (Napawan Tantivejakul) Part III: Public Relations History and Reform 11. Between International and Domestic Public Relations: Cultural Diplomacy and Race in the 1949 ATMA "Round-the-World Tour" (Ferdinando Fasce) 12. Shell Oil as a Window into the Development of Public Relations in Nigeria: From Information Management to Social Accountability (Ismail Adegboyega Ibraheem, Abigail Odozi Ogwezzy-Ndisika, and Tunde Akanni) 13. The Intersection of Public Relations and Activism: A Multinational Look at Suffrage Movements (Diana Knott Martinelli) 14. Ubuntu, Professionalism, Activism, and the Rise of Public Relations in Uganda (Barbra Natifu and Amos Zikusooka) 15. Sarah Josepha Hale, Editor/Advocate (Erika J. Pribanic-Smith) Part IV: Public Relations History and the Profession 16. The Historical Development of Public Relations in Turkey: The Rise of a Profession in Times of Social Transformation (A. Banu Bıçakçı and Pelin Hürmeriç) 17. An Agent of Change: Public Relations in Early-20th Century Australia (Robert Crawford and Jim Macnamara) 18. The "New Technique": Public Relations, Propaganda, and the American Public, 1920-1925 (Margot Opdycke Lamme) 19. Arthur Page and the Professionalization of Public Relations (Karen Miller Russell) 20. The Good Reason of Public Relations: PR News and the Selling of a Field (Burton St. John III) 21. Defining Public in Public Relations: How the 1920s Debate over Public Opinion Influenced Early Philosophies of Public Relations (Kevin Stoker)
Biography
Burton St. John III is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Old Dominion University, USA.
Margot Opdycke Lamme is an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama, USA.
Jacquie L’Etang is Chair of Public Relations and Applied Communications, Queen Margaret University, Scotland.
Pathways to Public Relations: Histories of Practice and Profession sets its scope broadly to examine what its authors document as the historic presence of public relations. It goes beyond the notion that one model defines the practice or that research should be limited only to practices that are defined specifically as public relations. Readers are left to decide those matters for themselves, given the abundant documentation and definition that the authors bring to bear on the matter. Pathways, in that regard, gives insights into a discourse practice that seems inherent in the human condition.
Robert L. Heath, University of Houston, USA
What more needs to be said about public relations? Well plenty, if you want to understand how it critically influences society. Pathways to Public Relations is an edited volume that is rich with fascinating new viewpoints and historical research. By revealing PR’s often hidden and complex relationships with religion, civil society, government and corporations - and its own professional project - this book provides compelling evidence that PR’s socio-cultural significance is 'only just beginning to surface'.
Kristin Demetrious,
Deakin University, AustraliaPathways to Public Relations rips up the standard historical narrative of public relations and rids it of a narrow focus on corporations, professionalism and biographies of father figures. The result is a wildly diverse and fascinatingly rich volume.
Øyvind Ihlen, University of Oslo, Norway
Pathways to Public Relations: Histories of practice and profession' builds on the success of the International History of Public Relations Conference and offers a broad range of recent scholarship from around the world. It is a very welcome scholarly addition to the expanding field of public relations history.
Tom Watson, Bournemouth University, UK
