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Removing the Spin: Toward a New Theory of Public Relations History
... Psychology is also considered a relatively new discipline, which emerged in 1880 as an independent derivation of philosophy and physiology (White, 2008). The literature notes informational gaps in creating a general theory of the history of PR, as well as of PR psychology itself, despite the success of studies such as Castillo (2009), Van Ruler andVerčič (2004) and Opdycke and Miller (2009), which focus on a selection of relevant milestones in the history of the pragmatic and feasible evolution of both. ...
... Most relevant works were then selected because of their relevant contributions. Lastly, a final criterion to prioritize key outputs of each period was primarily based on the historical studies of Van Ruler and Verčič (2004), Opdycke andMiller (2009), andCastillo (2009). ...
... Most relevant works were then selected because of their relevant contributions. Lastly, a final criterion to prioritize key outputs of each period was primarily based on the historical studies of Van Ruler and Verčič (2004), Opdycke andMiller (2009), andCastillo (2009). ...
The study provides a chronological review of public relations (PR) analysed from the perspective of psychology, highlighting milestones, concepts, theories and models. It offers a synthesis of its origins in Europe and how it was imported to the United States, where it was strongly implemented at the academic, political and business levels. The foundations of the emergence and development of PR have psychology as a fundamental pillar (Bernays, 1928) in understanding the propagandistic effects on people’s social behaviour. Therefore, it seems that it would be practically impossible to understand and apply this construct throughout history without this joint interdisciplinary work, both in explaining individual and collective response and in diachronically changing behaviour in organizations (Grunig, 1976). An in-depth exploration is carried out of the international manuscripts published to date which highlight the interactions of PR with psychology in terms of public behaviour, leadership and behaviour within organizations. The results bring to light an international perspective of basic contributions and some historic gaps along the way. The identification of several key events from the past helps to understand better the general conceptual framework that connects PR and psychology. The research reveals that there is still a gap regarding the existence of a general theory to explain the history of PR psychology. Nevertheless, from a PR perspective, its psychological influence on the behaviours of the population and the persuasion of stakeholders seems indisputable.
... Some of the earliest forms of public relations techniques can be attributed to religious institutions and figures, but scholars suggest modern public relations began in the early 1900s with the Publicity Bureau, the first public relations agency in the U.S. (Lamme & Russell, 2009). Though this roughly indicates the establishment of public relations as a formal profession, researchers suggest that this neglects contributions from areas like religion and politics (Lamme & Russell, 2009;Myers, 2021). ...
... Some of the earliest forms of public relations techniques can be attributed to religious institutions and figures, but scholars suggest modern public relations began in the early 1900s with the Publicity Bureau, the first public relations agency in the U.S. (Lamme & Russell, 2009). Though this roughly indicates the establishment of public relations as a formal profession, researchers suggest that this neglects contributions from areas like religion and politics (Lamme & Russell, 2009;Myers, 2021). To understand the field's development prior to institutional public relations practices, scholars increasingly study history prior to 1900. ...
... Finally, this study highlights the value of understanding the historical use of public relations in interdisciplinary contexts (Lamme & Russell, 2009;Myers, 2021). Adding to the growing body of religious public relations literature, this study provides a modern example of how a religious organization intentionally used public relations practices to grow its following (Spaulding & Formentin, 2017). ...
Scientology’s public relations function is based on research and writing by L. Ron Hubbard, who studied public relations and drafted documents directing Church communication strategies. Hubbard annotated the textbook Effective Public Relations, which was reprinted for Church practitioners. Textual analysis shows Hubbard was particularly interested in redefining key concepts, emphasizing interpersonal communication strategies, and selectively adopting media relations strategies. The findings suggest that he used the annotations to appropriate the text and position himself as a communications expert. Evidence suggests Church communication practitioners continue to follow Hubbard’s recommendations.
... However, as a government employee tasked with communicating about one of the most important public health issues at the time, Koop's efforts demonstrate the importance of media relations, or more specifically media advocacy, in communicating with the public about a health issue. Other political and government figures have been studied for working with media; U.S. presidents, in particular, have been recognized for understanding the power of the press for extending their influence (Lamme & Russell, 2009). However, Koop was effective because he combined many of the elements considered most important in evaluating credible health information sources -e.g., expertise, transparency, knowledge, years of experience (Avery, 2010); yet in many ways he went against the president and others in that administration at the time because he communicated clearly and openly about a health issue that was considered controversial. ...
... In terms of public relations history, this study contributes by focusing on non-corporate communication. While presidents and other politicians have been studied extensively (Lamme & Russell, 2009), the U.S. Surgeon General and other government individuals or entities that influence public health are less present in existing literature. This paper fills a gap by focusing on government communication about a public health issue, which was influenced by public relations in the form of media advocacy. ...
... This study employs what some historians have called "content assessment," a method involving "reading, sifting, weighing, comparing and analyzing the evidence in order to tell the story" (Marzolf, 1978, p. 15). In terms of analysis, the researcher relied on the process of emergence (Lamme & Russell, 2009;Startt & Sloan, 2003), looking for themes that emerged across the materials, keeping in mind "the concept of time and the notion of change in relation to larger processes of transformation" (L'Etang, 2008, p. 321). Research focused primarily on documents and media coverage produced between 1986 and 1988, although additional materials help provide context. ...
Public Relations Quarterly recognized Surgeon General C. Everett Koop as "Communicator of the Year" in 1988 for his work to inform the public about HIV/AIDS and reframe a then politically charged issue to focus on public health and education. Using a historical perspective, this study examines Koop's communication about AIDS during the 1980s, including press conference remarks, reminiscence notes, and an unprecedented mailing sent to all U.S. households. This study also explores media coverage at the time and framing throughout these materials to determine what lessons can be learned for today’s communication efforts. Two lessons relate to the importance of leadership in media advocacy and prioritizing public health over politics. Parallels are drawn between public relations and health and science communication practice and scholarship, and future research is suggested related to recent government communication surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
... Other scholars have reinforced the importance of this type of research as a way to build a fully-informed history of public relations. While not using the term "proto-public relations," Lamme and Russell (2010) and Cutlip (1995) have similarly addressed the importance of understanding the history of the field, acknowledging that this requires an analysis of historical activities within the framework of currently understood public relations practices, which Cutlip (1995) refers to as "antecedents" to the current public relations industry. Other researchers (Wilcox, Ault, & Agee, 1992) have similarly noted that while none of these historical communications practices were labeled public relations, their ultimate goal and outcome were the same as current equivalent activities. ...
... 21-22). Existing research of public relations history before 1900 C.E. identifies religion, reform, education, and nonprofit as four key areas public relations activities that have played a role in other than political/government and corporate (Lamme & Russell, 2010). In a further breakdown of all the available historical research, Lamme and Russell (2010) also determined that profit, recruitment, advocacy, legitimacy, and agitation were all key reasons for engaging in public relations activities throughout history, and they documented religious organizations as engaging in these activities for all of these reasons except agitation (though future research may be able to find evidence of agitation as a motive for religious public relations activities). ...
... Existing research of public relations history before 1900 C.E. identifies religion, reform, education, and nonprofit as four key areas public relations activities that have played a role in other than political/government and corporate (Lamme & Russell, 2010). In a further breakdown of all the available historical research, Lamme and Russell (2010) also determined that profit, recruitment, advocacy, legitimacy, and agitation were all key reasons for engaging in public relations activities throughout history, and they documented religious organizations as engaging in these activities for all of these reasons except agitation (though future research may be able to find evidence of agitation as a motive for religious public relations activities). This analysis demonstrates the pervasiveness of public relations throughout many historical eras. ...
The reign of England’s Mary Tudor has long been examined by historians for her regime’s extensive use of propaganda to attempt to convert her populace from Protestantism to Catholicism. These explorations, however, ignore the regime’s employment of other
communications strategies, particularly public relations, as key components of its conversion efforts. This paper furthers the discussion of how propaganda and public relations are differentiated and examines and reinterprets the Marian government’s activities from a public relations perspective with the goal of continuing to establish a more comprehensive history of public relations and to explore the impact of public relations activities versus pure propagandistic techniques.
... Such conferences effectively debunked the notion that the U.S. invented and corporate board rooms incubated public relations and gifted it to the world. As Lamme and Russell (2010) conclude "the international practice of public relations is at least 2000 years old" (p. 354). ...
... Advocating the propagation and defense of the faith and national identity "legitimacy for the Church and by association for the state" (Lamme and Russell, 2010, p. 291), such initiatives, characterized as "devotional-promotional communication," are intended "to inspire allegiance to an individual, political entity, or religion" (Tilson, 2006). Faith also has rallied support for political and social justice (Hon, 1997;Kern-Foxworth, 1992;Lamme and Russell, 2010;Waymer and Van Slette, 2021). The civil rights movement in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s was led largely by individuals of faith who believed that racial discrimination was morally wrongthe Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend Ralph Abernathy, and Reverend Jesse Jackson, among others (Kern-Foxworth, 1992). ...
This study extends the historical record of faith/spirituality-inspired social activism, an under-explored area of advocacy, by examining such campaigning for environmental and animal rights and the worldview and model of public relations that guide such efforts. A combination of qualitative methods was used to obtain data on public relations as conceptualized and practiced including a textual analysis of historical material and institutional media. Throughout history faith/spirituality has inspired Indigenous peoples, governments, and individuals to advocate for environmental and animal rights, playing a central role in the formation and practice of a worldview, caritas, embracing an approach to relationship-building – covenantal stewardship – that guides behavior in a pro-social manner toward an inclusive set of “publics” – humans living, unborn, and ancestral, animals, and the natural world as well as alternative views of public relations. Moreover, individuals of faith/spirituality have created NGOs to institutionalize such activism. The influence of faith/spirituality upon environmental and animal rights activism points toward a re-thinking of the nature of public relations and its “publics” given emerging sensitivities to the principles of inclusion necessary for the harmonious functioning of society and requires a new definition, worldview, and model of practice.
... PR in Great Britain was developed as part of its development as a colonial power, notably in attempts to associate diplomacy with community relations in a number of international contexts (L'Etang, 2008b). These instances demonstrate the existence of the concept of PR with specific purposes existing across cultures and nations prior to the advent of the term (L'Etang, 2008b;Lamme and Russell, 2010;Watson, 2014b). ...
... The strategy of presenting King Rama V as the nation's representative with a visible public personality thus led to wide press coverage, created a positive national image, and had a beneficial impact on Siam's stance in global politics. Lamme and Russell (2010) suggested that PR with specific purposes existing across cultures and nations existed before the 20th century. This article details Siam's PR efforts under the leadership of King Rama V at the end of the 19th century, which were similar in design and purpose to those of modern PR. ...
Purpose
This research aims to identify the use of the public relations (PR) methods implemented by King Rama V and his administration to counter the threat to Siam of imperialism in the late 19th century. It also seeks to demonstrate the interplay of the communication strategies used in international diplomacy to enhance Siam's visibility among major European nations.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a historical study using both primary and secondary sources. It is a development of the national PR history methodology using a descriptive, fact-based and event-oriented approach.
Findings
The main findings are that (1) a PR strategy drove international diplomacy under the administration of Siam's monarch incorporating strategies such as governmental press relations activities; (2) the strategy in building Siam's image as a civilized country was successfully communicated through the personality of King Rama V during his first trip to Europe; (3) with a close observation of the public and press sentiments, the outcome of the integrated PR and diplomatic campaigns was that Siam defended its sovereignty against British and French imperialists’ pressures and was therefore never colonized.
Research limitations/implications
This research adds to the body of knowledge of global PR history by demonstrating that PR evolved before the 20th century in different countries and cultures with different historical paths and sociocultural, political and economic contexts.
Originality/value
This study from an Asian nation demonstrates that PR was being practiced in the late 19th century outside the Western context, prior to the advent of the term. It is a rare example of PR being developed as a part of an anti-colonization strategy.
... Crystallizing Public Opinion", and other publications that greatly contributes to the PR field (Harlow, 1977 (Lamme & Russell, 2010). In 1955, in his edited book Engineering of Consent, Bernays said, "Public Relations is the attempt, by information, persuasion and adjustment, to engineer public support for an activity, cause, movement or institution" (Hutton, 1999, p. 20). ...
... According to the period Bernays tagged the EOC period 1910's-1920's, Bernays mentioned that the desire to engineer and to manipulate public's consent started to rise following new theories developed by psychologist Sigmund Freud who appeared later as the core of the EOC (Lamme & Russell, 2010;Tanoue, 2000). Edward Bernays was also was the "double nephew" of Sigmund Freud. ...
The present study seeks to investigate the Israel-Zionist Lobby's Facebook pages’ discourse in the U.S. in 2018. This study examines the Lobby discourse in terms of engineering the American consent process regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, discourse construction (language, power, and ideologies usage within the Lobby's discourse), themes that emerged from the discourse and media representation of the conflict and all its components.
The present study adopts Critical Discourse Analysis and NVivo program to analyze sixty most interactive Facebook posts of the most popular Israel Lobby's Facebook pages in the U.S. (StandWithUs, United with Israel, Stand for Israel, Christians United for Israel, and The Israeli Project). The posts include texts, images, and videos. In terms of the theoretical framework, the study examines the Engineering of Consent approach, and the Discourse Theory within the Israel Lobby's discourse on Facebook pages.
Findings show that the Israel Lobby applied Bernays’s eight-steps system of the engineering of consent for their discourse. In addition, the study detects abuse of power within the discourse and, the discourse was constructed in a biased, ideological, and hegemonic way, that only serves the interests and narrative of the Jews and Israel, the powerful side of the conflict. The themes that were identified are; terrorism and anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, religious and national occasions, Israel and the U.S. relationship, world silence and support for Israel, humanization, Israel in the victim's status.
Additionally, on one hand, the discourse represents and reflects the in-group (Jews, Israelis, Americans) in a positive manner and on the other hand, it also represents and reflects the out-group (Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians) in a negative manner.
... Third, the press coverage demonstrates that by the 1880 s press agentry had extended well beyond entertainment to other businesses and industries, political parties and individual politicians, social organizations and individual people like authors and society matrons. Thus, there is evidence that press agentry operated in the same four sectors that Lamme and Russell (2010) found in scholarship about public relations history. The notable lack of mentions of education, nonprofit and reform organizations suggests that the press did not apply the term press agentry to them, since previous scholarship has indicated that many such organizations did use publicity strategies and tactics (Myers, 2015a). ...
... In terms of motivations, however, this sample differs from the scholarship on public relations reviewed by Lamme and Russell (2010). Motivations simply were not discussed in the press coverage. ...
Analysis of press coverage of nineteenth century American press agents indicates that, although press agents worked in a variety of sectors, their primary motivation was profit, their main strategy was media relations, and their tactics often relied on hype or outright lying. These characteristics would appear to support previous descriptions of press agentry, yet the research also shows that the press was more ambivalent toward press agents than previously assumed and that press agents’ strategies and tactics may have been more sophisticated than previously understood. A number of early practitioners of press agentry are identified for further study.
... ). Dans les années 1980, Marvin Olasky a commencé à remettre en question certains des récits sur le développement des relations publiques d'entreprise. Il a notamment affirmé que les relations publiques d'entreprise n'étaient pas une amélioration des relations publiques et qu'elles n'apportaient pas le type de légitimité que les relations publiques se cherchaient en tant Dans les années 1990, les études visant à examiner des aspects spécifiques de l'histoire des relations publiques ont été plus nombreuses(Lamme et al., 2010). Les plus connues sont sans doute les deux ouvrages de Scott Cutlip, le coauteur original de Effective PublicRelations(Cutlip et al., 1985).Cutlip, un des premiers éducateurs en relations publiques, a écrit deux histoires des relations publiques. ...
À l’ère de l’interconnexion, l’activité et la présence des organisations ne sont pas
des composantes autonomes, indépendantes du tissu socio-économique dans lequel les organismes évoluent. Les organisations ne peuvent pas exister sans reconnaître la réalité de leur environnement et la nécessité de l’interaction avec cet environnement.
Aujourd’hui, comme le Web 2.0 s’est imposé comme un égal, parfois surpassant même les médias traditionnels, car il facilite la communication entre les individus, les organisations, et les organisations avec les individus. Dans cette optique, la pratique des relations publiques doit s’adapter et prendre une nouvelle forme pour accommoder les nouvelles technologies et en tirer parti au profit des organisations.
Les organisations à but non lucratif occupent une place particulière dans ce contexte, car elles sont constamment entravées par un manque de ressources humaines et financières. Un exemple d’organisations à but non lucratif est celui des Comités Nationaux Olympiques, ces organisations à but non lucratif ont des liens avec leur climat national et culturel, mais aussi avec des organismes régionaux et internationaux, ce qui, du point de vue de la recherche, représente le spécimen parfait à examiner. Les liens avec des organisations internationales telles que le Comité International Olympique, les fédérations sportives internationales ainsi que les organismes régionaux mais similaires imposent un cadre de manœuvre uniforme qui compense les particularités du climat culturel local, ce qui contribue grandement à la généralisation des conclusions résultant de l’examen des Comités Nationaux Olympiques.
C’est pour cette raison que nous entreprenons le projet de proposer un modèle de relations publiques digital qui s’adresse principalement au Comité Olympique Algérien mais qui est également applicable à d’autres organisations sportives algériennes similaires à but non lucratif. Ce faisant, notre étude est profondément enracinée dans la littérature la plus notable des relations publiques. C’est-à-dire, le cadre de construction de relations dialogiques proposé par Taylor & Kent (1998), qui s’appuie eux-mêmes sur les textes des pionniers des relation publique telle que la communication symétrique bidirectionnelle de Grunig (1984) et la philosophie de la communication interpersonnelle de Buber (1948).
Deux contributions principales découlent de cette thèse, la première étant une proposition de modèle de relations publiques applicable à l’industrie du sport algérienne, notamment au Comité Olympique Algérien ; la seconde contribution étant Twittools, un module qui permet aux organisations d’analyser les données abondantes disponibles sur les médias sociaux afin d’informer la prise de décision au sein des organisations.
... Based on these periods, James Grunig and Todd Hunt (1984) generated a synthetic-analytic model of the public relations development and left a far-reaching impact on the development of PR theory. Although it was the generalization of the already established public relations periods, this model became a dominant paradigm in the scientific sphere of this area (Lamme, Russell, 2009;Tomić, 2016). They integrated the modern development of public relations into four historical models, also the current public relations models: ...
Public relations, an important element of the media society, is a management function which helps establish and nurture the links of mutual communication, understanding, acceptance and cooperation between the organization and the surrounding public. The development of the public relations profession is commonly seen as a progressive evolution from unsophisticated and unethical early practice to the planned, strategic, ethical campaigns of the modern age. However, when discussing the practice of public relations in the XXI century, there are certain doubts, or rather, ethical conflicts. Being the key moral principle and the fundamental philosophical concept, truth should be the goal of every relationship and communication. However, in the public relations practice, truth is occasionally suppressed due to its partial placement. The process of communication itself functions to a significant extent through the mass media, and the violation of ethics in that respect is the trade in media space, which is a difficult form of violation of the philosophy of morality. The main purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of ethics and its development in public relations. This paper analyzes the ethics of public relations as a self-regulation platform for this profession. The application of ethical theories based on utilitarian and deontological approaches has also been discussed. In addition, codes of ethics applied in the PR profession are presented, as well as examples of unethical actions in the public relations profession.
... The fourth decision was historiographical. The editors recognized the need to avoid the distortions of American-centrism which are the legacy of 20thcentury American PR theorists and practitioners (Lamme & Russell, 2010). ...
... The findings also reinforce that the public must be first priority of the institution's activities. Public is not only affected by crisis or affected by the institution's decisions but also a group who becomes more aware and active (Lamme & Russell, 2010). ...
The research aims to evaluate apologia strategy based on ethical perspective of public relations. The research applies standards of ethics from The Indonesian Public Relations Association and Apologia Theory. Some research proves that the ability of an organization to deal with a crisis depends on the types of allegations during a crisis. The research tests whether the strategies of Government Public Relations (GPR) of Malang Regency also appropriate with these standard when the organization faces an allegation of corruption. Conducting content analysis on 47 editions of online news, the research reveals that the GPR has adopted ethical standard when delivery information in quote news as a channel of crisis communication. All the ethical standards applied are concerning to public interest, telling true information, address the economic, physical and psychological concerns of the public.Keywords: Apologia, Communication, Crisis, Ethics, Government Public Relations, Indonesia
... Although there is nothing inherently wrong with the use of persuasion, the public relations profession has received more criticism than other communication professions for using it. There is a general misconception that public relations is an amoral practice that perpetuates the interests of those in power with no or limited consideration of the implications of its actions for minorities, other voices, and society at large (Lamme and Russell 2010;Coombs and Holladay 2014). Some of the derogative names assigned to public relations include spin, propaganda, demagogy, and pseudo-event (L'Etang and Pieczka 1996). ...
This chapter introduces the reader to the field of public relations by offering an overview of its core function and purpose. It is argued that public relations is a profession and discipline in the field of communication science that is situated at the crossroads of other social influence disciplines. Then, the chapter presents and discusses three major points of contention in the discipline: the function of public relations, the name, and its object. Next, the chapter proposes partly solving these contentions by moving away from the dichotomic view of public relations as either a managerial function or a socio-cultural practice, and instead embrace a more fluid understanding of what public relations does based on the idea of organizing. The last part of the chapter introduces the structure of the handbook and its four distinctive parts.
... FFS reflects a complex and non-linear approach to public relations (Holtzhausen, 2012;Lamme & Russell, 2010) that is grounded in eight key principles: (1) organizational effort to transform uncertainty into order (to impose order over a complicated topic/issue); (2) corporate responsibility (highlights the role that organizations play in civil discourse); (3) power resource management (use of influence responsibility); (4) community as conflicting and conjoined interests and expectations (highlights the reality that different constituents in societal discourse have multiple and complex interests that converge and diverge from one another); (5) relationship as symmetry (reflects the fit between societal actors); (6) organizational communication (positioning organizations as responsible rhetors in civic discourse); (7) responsible advocacy (reliance of facts and evidence that is nonpartisan); and (8) narrative and rhetoric leading to enlightened choice (communication that informs expectations, preferences, and enactment) (Heath, 2006). ...
Resilience is an ongoing sensemaking process that relies on communicative interactions – including those that occur between stakeholders and organizations – in order to understand and respond to a given adversity. Resilience communication is enacted through discursive processes that align with the tenets of fully functioning society theory (FFS). In order to integrate these two theoretical frameworks, we completed a qualitative content analysis of AARP’s #DisruptAging campaign. In doing so, we found that the campaign provided information about age/aging in a way that countered commonly held stereotypes about older adults at multiple-levels (e.g., individual, organizational, societal). The processes of resilience were reflected in the organizational discourse, as was a new strategy – acceptance/appreciation. These findings illuminate the societal role of organizational discourse by showing how inclusive organizational-public communication can disrupt meta-narratives and enrich the marketplace of ideas, and thus contribute to the building of a fully functioning society through (re)constructing the meanings of resilience on individual, organizational, and societal levels.
... Previously, public relations as known today was more of a press-agentry nature and direct publicity. In the end, Bernays introduced the concept of new propaganda, which is balanced manipulation by paying attention to public approval and based on research and promoting ethical aspects through twoway interpretation (Culbertson et al., 1993;Grunig & Hunt, 1984;Lamme & Russell, 2010). ...
This study aims to describe the public and practitioner's perceptions of the public relations or Humas profession. Public relations plays a role in maintaining the credibility of the organization which is built from public perceptions. Apart from public relations, this profession is also called humas. However, based on Propechy's Self-Fulfilling Theory, it is possible to have different meanings by the public and practitioners related to these two terms. This study uses a constructivist approach (qualitative) and interview methods to collect data. The number of informants was 200 people in Malang City. The focus of this research is to find perceptions about what public relations or humas is, its functions, its relation to gender, and educational background. This research produces four propositions, namely public and practitioner perceptions of public relations and humas tends to be positive, public relations and humas are considered the same profession, men and women are perceived to be practitioners in this profession, and practitioners should come from the discipline of communication science and public relations. This research contributes to challenge the previous view that public relations is seen as an attempt to manipulate communication messages.
... 2. The trend toward engagement and participation Botan and Taylor (2004) offered a concise chronology of how public relations research and theory developed to the early 2000s, and discussed how public relations theory and research evolved from a focus on public relations as a functional communication activity (i.e., viewing publics and communication as means to achieve organizational "ends" or goals) to a focus on public relations as a co-creational communication activity (i.e., viewing publics and organizations as co-creators of meaning and viewing communication as the process by which shared meaning may occur). Although the history and maturity of public relations as an academic discipline and profession is contested (Curtin, 2012;Lamme & Miller, 2009;L'Etang, 2008;Russell & Lamme, 2016), the evolution of public relations theory and practice is often demonstrated through a four-model typology, including press agentry/publicity, public information, two-way asymmetric, and two-way symmetric models of public relations (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). The press agentry/publicity model focuses primarily on one-way message dissemination distributed through mass media, in which information "may be exaggerated, distorted, or even incomplete in order to 'hype' a cause, product, or service" (Wilcox et al., 2015, p. 57). ...
There are parallels, intersections, and contrasts between how theory and practice in the public relations and science communication literatures have evolved. Given the need for systematic evidence-based theory to inform communication practice in both contexts, and the need for critical inquiry into the values and power structures that define and reinforce theory and practice in these domains, this manuscript: (1) highlights three areas—the trend toward engagement and participation, issues management in science, and practitioner roles and training—to demonstrate unique and complementary areas of scholarly interest in public relations and science communication, and (2) argues for focused programmatic inquiry in science public relations. Perspectives are offered for how a science public relations research program might advance, including examples of scholarship from public relations, science communication, political communication, and environmental communication.
... To resolve the paradox of the public interest, the first step is to accept its existence and embrace the negative side of the paradox. Persuasion, influence, advocacy, and promotion have long been the de rigueur of public relations (Lamm & Russell, 2010). Practitioners, scholars, and the profession have long served their private interests by emphasizing the public interest. ...
... The term 'public relations' was already in use by press during the eighteenth century and by the 1830s it started to take on the same context as today by referring to building reputations and relationships (Myers, 2014). Public relations has existed in the sense of deliberate communicative work to influence public sentiment in noncorporate sectors "across time" (Lamme & Russell, 2010;Russell & Lamme, 2016, p. 741). In fact, the nominal start date and framing of the field was selected by public relations historian Scott Cutlip who chose to focus on the function of public relations as represented by agencies in the United States (L'Etang, 2008). ...
Hype takes the form of visions and stories, articulated through optimistic or pessimistic expectations. Visions of desirable futures to work towards, or undesirable futures to work against, help to motivate support for research and gather necessary resources, including funding and political capital. From research proposal through to commercialisation, science hype occurs at all stages of the research process. It is produced by all manner of science and technology actors as they imagine and invent technoscientific futures. To investigate the role of science hype in this thesis, I construct a conceptual framework that adopts research on sociotechnical imaginaries, anticipatory governance, and notions of convening publics. I use this framework to argue that hype is a communicative device that can spark unexpected engagement with science and technology futures. I test this framework using three cases studies in which hype is used to advance support for science and technology. In these case studies, hype helps shape the future of scientific research and technology development within the contexts of: human exploration of Mars; quantum-enabled technologies; and grand challenge-driven mandates for research. Hype, in a sense, prototypes those futures by establishing the viability and potential of the topic at hand. Within these case studies, hype is adopted to advance rhetoric concerned with competition, global leadership, and societal benefits. The events documented in these case studies affirm the ideal of science and technology ensuring progress and advancement. However, within the last case study, a different narrative emerges. This narrative suggests a new role for hype; one which draws on anticipatory governance. It opens the way for discussion on how hype might be repurposed in aid of science and technology that is created with, rather than for, society. In this scenario, the use of hype invites response, agreeable and otherwise, to potential shared futures.
... Methodologically, the article demonstrates how an historical case study can extend theory in public relations, while emphasizing the importance of avoiding presentism, or judging the past by the standards of the present. I appreciated the author's reminder of the warning articulated by Lamme and Russell (2010), that public relations scholars avoid a linear approach that treats the history of our discipline as "progressive evolution" (p. 281), in which past practices are viewed as being less sophisticated and less ethical, compared to today's public relations activities. ...
... This variation in approach may not align with developing recommendations of evaluation for holistic and formative approaches that include a qualitative, as well as quantitative focus. Practitioners may be motivated in their work by organisation-centric concerns about profit, recruitment, advocacy, and agitation (Lamme & Russell, 2010). ...
The aim of this research is to examine New Zealand public relations practitioners’ perception and application of evaluation in their practice. Evaluation is a highly topical issue amongst practitioners as a result of the increasing pressure for public relations to prove its value. International research finds that practitioners and clients tend to judge the success of public relations activity primarily by measuring the amount of media coverage in preference to evaluating psychological or behavioural change. However best practice models and recommendations from professional bodies for assessing the value of public relations have moved from a functional, outputs focused emphasis to an increased awareness of the complexity of the attitudinal and behavioural outcomes of communication. The aim of this research is to develop a deeper understanding of practitioners’ personal experience of evaluation. Using a responsive interviewing method, nine senior New Zealand practitioners were asked about how they approach evaluation in their practice, and what value it brings to their practice. Analysis of their responses showed some key findings: an appreciation of the complex nature of evaluation; an acknowledgment of professional and practice conflicts around evaluation; that evaluation is tool for gaining influence; that the practitioner–client relationship is a central driver of evaluation decisions because the clients have control of the resources; that evaluation is a way of developing the professional status of public relations and keeping the specialist, strategic role of public relations secure, and that digitisation is rapidly changing the tools and expectations of evaluation. Despite practitioner awareness of formal professional recommendations related to the practice of evaluation, this research found that informal evaluation processes and measurement of advertising value equivalents (AVEs) continue to be used and valued. The research also showed that New Zealand public relations practitioners’ practice of evaluation is aligned with that of their overseas colleagues. The research finds that the recommendations from the professional bodies may be more useful if they take greater account of practitioners’ daily experience of evaluation, particularly advising on the importance of conversations about the value of evaluation with clients, and that the professional recommendations would be more useful if they showed greater flexibility based on the variability of the unique organisational and social context.
... Public relations intersects with advocacy and activism in several different ways (Edgett, 2002). In their review of public relations scholarship, Lamme and Russell (2010) found "that the public relations function emerged when a person or organization sought to secure profit, recruitment, legitimacy, or to participate in the marketplace of ideas through agitation and advocacy" (p. 335). ...
Public relations research has gradually incorporated the study of advocacy organizations. However, little research has focused on social movements in particular. Through a content analysis of all public tweets sent by Black Lives Matter (BLM) over a four-year period, this study examined the message strategies used on Twitter by the social movement as a means to share information, build community, and promote action. Consistent with research on other types of organizations, informational messages proved to be the most common. The study also analyzed the influence that these strategies had on audience engagement in terms of replies and retweets. Findings suggest that community building messages garner the most retweets but no significant differences were found in terms of replies.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical narrative tracing precedents of Greek Public Relations (PR) practice as far back as the organizing of mega events in mid-nineteenth century culminating in the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. The analysis documents that PR activities are interwoven with Greek governments’ initiatives aimed at tourism promotion. The paper is based on archival material and secondary sources. Access was granted to the special collections of the National Library of Greece and the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation. Moreover, the study interrogates the three landmark events that ushered in the emergence of professional public relations in Greece in the early postwar period and supplements with important information the conventional accounts. The analysis established a PR-Tourism and National image promotion nexus that runs continuously throughout the period under examination, from the emergence of PR activities in mid-nineteenth century up until the early 1950s. The findings are based on the available written records. This historical review does not purport to be exhaustive and comprehensive. Future research could identify more PR-like activities worthy of mention. The study provides a springboard for investigating the precedents of PR practice in the pre-professionalization era. This investigation calls for an interdisciplinary perspective. This paper is the first one to trace precedents of professional PR practice to the second half the nineteenth century and the interwar period in Greece. It shows the interconnection of PR-like activities with tourism and underscores the prominent position of state agencies in those activities.
Public relations histories have frequently credited Ivy Lee as providing the first press release. This research uses primary and secondary historical sources to demonstrate that the American branch of the international peace movement was using press releases decades before Lee’s birth. Starting at least as early as 1819, the movement disseminated press releases to newspapers. This program of sending out press releases increased in size until it was reaching as many as 1,000 separate newspapers in the 1840s. At that time, a young advocate named Elihu Burritt took over the operation. Using a newspaper loophole in postage laws, Burritt was able to regularly disseminate messages to as many as 1,500 separate newspapers, averaging over 200 article placements per message and reaching hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers. This research discusses implications for public relations history.
This study argues that public relations scholarship on activism needs to better contextualize the ascendancy of non-dialogic, raw assertions in today’s public sphere. Analyzing 10 years of corporate communication by Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, we show how his corporate activist rhetoric suggests a growing disregard for dialogic communication, which is typically articulated within American public relations scholarship as a vital component in, for example, Grunig’s Excellence Theory and Heath’s rhetorical perspectives. This analysis of Fink’s communication further suggests the need for American public relations scholarship to move beyond a false binary between external and internal approaches to activism, which is further complicated by Fink’s seeming lack of interest in dialogic communication. Relatedly, we note that the mainstream conception of public relations as a consensus-oriented, good faith exchange seems at odds with the emerging reality of a societal disposition for mere assertions. We end with discussing theoretical implications regarding public relations’ ability to engage with stakeholder groups.
In this study, we write regarding creativity and innovation in public relations, of which it is evident that we need as a necessary means in supporting managerial judgments. For us, creativity in public relations can be a new way to achieve a goal easier, more efficient and faster. It is evident that every client acknowledges creativity, but in frequent situations, it does not convert into evident cases or messages for a mass audience and then is not visible. We also discuss in our study the profile of a ingenious public relations professional, who must be: engaged, instructed, ambitious for performance, having logical knowledge, having malleable and decisive judgment, being an idealist. In this analysis we will make an investigation to show that ingenuity can appear in one of the subsequent positions at the corporate administration zone: either in planning (positioning, outlining) or implementation (technique, presentation information, knowledge).
Corporate accountability remains a significant construct in normative business management theory, yet it remains ambiguous in practice. This research operationalizes a three-factor perceived corporate accountability scale from the consumers’ perspective based on the extant literature then validates this scale among three consumer samples. Perceived corporate accountability consists of three factors: proactive expectancy, reactive expectancy, and accountability enforcement. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
Kurumların hizmetlerine muhatap olan kitleler ile daha etkileşimli ve yüksek memnuniyete dayalı bir ilişkinin sürdürülmesi etkili iletişim ve halkla ilişkiler çalışmaları ile daha mümkün hale gelmektedir. Yeni bin yılın şartlarında sosyal devlet ilkesi gereği yurttaş memnuniyetini ve refahını ön planda tutan kamu kurum ve kuruluşları açısından da halkla ilişkiler önemli bir araç haline gelmektedir. Yurttaşlarla ilişkiler açısından bu denli olan halkla ilişkilerin aynı zamanda kurumsal gelişim açısından da önemli olduğunun altını çizmek gerekmektedir. Çünkü alanında uzman halkla ilişkiler uygulayıcıları aynı zamanda kurum ve kuruluşlara yenilik getirerek daha etkili bir süreç yönetimi için çeşitli fırsatlar aramaktadır. Ağır ve bürokratik yapılanmalarından kurtulan kamu kurumları farklı halkla ilişkiler uygulamaları sayesinde daha şeffaf ve karar mekanizmalarında daha az hata olacak şekilde bir yönetim anlayışı da geliştirmektedir. Kamu kurumlarında da özel sektörde olduğu gibi profesyonel bir yapılanmaya ihtiyacı olan halkla ilişkiler birimlerinin kurgulanması kamu hizmeti açısından gerekli bir düzenlemedir. Bu çalışma kapsamında Sivas ilinde bulunan kamu kurumlarının işleyiş ve çalışmaları analiz edilmektedir. Toplam 23 adet kamu kurumunun içerisinden 14 kurumun halkla ilişkiler birimlerinin temsilcileri ile yapılan görüşmeler sonucunda elde edilen veriler analiz edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak; kamu kurum ve kuruluşlarında çalışan uzman personele göre, kurumda uzman sayısının yetersizliği, yöneticiler ve çalışanlar arasında çatışma ve yetersiz halkla ilişkiler bütçesi kurum içi halkla ilişkileri olumsuz etkileyen mikro faktörler arasında değerlendirilmektedir
makes the case that, over the past generation, public relations has taken what the editors see as a "humanistic turn." It is a turn in six dimensions: first, away from the limitations that had narrowed the enterprise of PR to nothing more than management communications or organizational communication; second, beyond the twentieth-century paradigm that explained PR and the history of PR that had "evolved" to become a "normatively" balanced and "symmetrical" institution, when the evidence of the massive lack of balance in and fairness between the powerful and the powerless entities, genders, and individual has been nothing less than overwhelming; third, the humanistic turn continues the prolific Routledge Publishers series of New Directions in Public Relations in widening the aperture of public relations across the board-methodologically, culturally, and globally, enabling contributions from a wide range of thinkers; fourth to rethink public relations the way anthropology encounters the world and the self as an everyday language; fifth, to extract public relations from it traditionally self-contained disciplinary status within the academy, and allow it to breath freely in conversation with other disciplines of influence on the world stage-history, philosophy, literature, and the social sciences; and sixth, the continual project moving away from the American-centric and Western ways of speaking about public relations, and-with the rise of the East (and most dramatically, China), to open the thinking of our scholars and practitioners, too, about the foundations, histories, values and practices of PR to China herself. A substantial portion of the editing and authorship was the work of Chinese scholars. Public relations is nothing new under the sun, and no more a product of America than of the single and collective cultures of the world.
O objetivo deste estudo é analisar a comunicação organizacional de uma Instituição Federal de Ensino Superior (IFES) em relação ao acompanhamento das atividades desenvolvidas, com base na mensuração e avaliação de seus canais, produtos, processos e ações. A fundamentação teórica é baseada nos seguintes campos: comunicação organizacional; comunicação pública; governança corporativa;
avaliação e mensuração em comunicação. Trata-se de uma pesquisa descritiva, de natureza aplicada, com abordagem qualitativa. O método de investigação empregado é o estudo de caso.
Sivil Toplum Kuruluşları (STK’lar), demokratik toplumların belkemiğidir. Farklı alanlarda, bağımsız olarak sivil toplumun faydası için çalışan bu kuruluşlar Halkla İlişkiler yönetim ve uygulamaları açısından da önemli merkezlerdir. Ancak Halkla İlişkilerin toplumsal dönüşüme katkı sağlayabilmesi için kurum merkezli bir kavramsallaştırmanın dışına çıkılmalıdır. Alan yazında eleştirel ve kültürel yaklaşımlar ekseninde; postmodernizm, aktivizm gibi konularla bağlantılı, yeni bir Halkla İlişkiler kavrayışı ortaya çıkmaktadır. Halkla İlişkilerin bu tanımının işlevsel hale gelmesi, alandaki öğrencilerin eğitimlerinde sivil toplum konusunda bilinçlenmelerinin desteklenmesiyle mümkündür. Bu bağlamda çalışmada Halkla İlişkiler lisans eğitiminde mesleğin “kamu yararı” boyutuna dair öğrencide nasıl bir anlayış geliştirildiğinin bölüm-STK iş birliklerine dayanarak sorgulanması ve bu yönde öneriler getirilmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Çalışmada Türkiye’deki Devlet ve Vakıf üniversitelerinde Halkla İlişkiler eğitimi verilen lisans programları incelenmiştir. STK’larla olası iş birliklerinin varlığı ve niteliği yapılandırılmış görüşme yöntemi ile sorgulanmış ve yüzde 43 oranında katılım sağlanmıştır. Araştırmada sonuç olarak ülkemizdeki Halkla İlişkiler bölümlerinin STK iş birliklerinin ulusal düzeyde, kısa süreli ve sürdürülebilirlikten uzak olduğu, farklı sınıf seviyelerindeki dersler kapsamında konuya yer verildiği ve en çok sağlık alanında çalışmaların yapıldığı belirlenmiştir.
This book, Public Relations in Practice: For the Leader with an Eye on Success, provides the Public Relations enthusiast a fresher’s approach to dealing with the ever-increasing demands for Public Relations learning, teaching and practice. It deploys specialised approach in dealing with issues that challenge the PR practitioner. The book, apart from dealing with commonplace Public Relations functions, also treats PR ecology, lobbying, and understanding the incursion, engagements and challenges of social media in Public Relations activities. The book re-echoes the principles of leveraging on goodwill, engaging stakeholders, and sustaining an ambience for existentialism. The treatment of the issues is a product of practising and teaching Public Relations courses across several sectors and institutions which has brought depth, specificity, experience and freshness to the table. It is engaging, and helps the user to have an eye for Public Relations successes.
Purpose
The aim of this article is to explain why there is a higher degree of trust in some countries compared to others – and which are the main historical factors that explain these differences. The main focus is on how governments relate to and communicate with its citizens in the times of crises.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on comparative historical sociology with a modernity perspective with a special focus on Norway and Scandinavia. The authors do a parallel demonstration of history to confirm and expand the theories that could explain the high level of trust in these countries. The authors also bring in the Spanish experience in order to testify how governmental reactions affected the different levels of trust.
Findings
Scandinavian governments allowed open communication between different social classes on difficult and important issues, in contrast to Spain in the same period. These two factors therefore expand the understanding of the development of trust: (1) The establishment of the nation state as the organising concept and all-encompassing container of the other institutions (democracy, parliamentarism, trade unions, etc.); (2) The open hand strategy in dealing with deviant opinions, based on democratic compromises and a policing of consent ideology.
Originality/value
The article combines the understanding of the first crisis of modernity and the development of trust and contain a comparative analysis of the development of trust in four different countries. The investigation thus clarifies the correlation between specific historical factors and the levels of trust.
This case study will show how U.S. Treasury Department (Treasury) and U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) officials used public relations strategies and techniques during World War II to ensure public acceptance of the installation of a personal income tax on most Americans, not just the wealthy. To prevent this change from appearing as coercion, U.S. government officials used sacrifice as an overriding message to help persuade Americans to join the taxpayer ranks. Patriotic Americans, the government told the public, would choose to do their part in the war effort by buying victory with their tax dollars. And, it was not just Uncle Sam saying this but popular entertainment figures ranging from singer Danny Kaye to animated character Donald Duck as well.
The purpose of this article is to explore the emergence of a strategic communication management of dissent (the so called dissent public relations) and to set its beginnings in the context of ancient Greek comedy represented by Aristophanes. Indeed, Old Comedy was the first great example of mass communication in which political satire was used to dissent and protest against political and social circumstances in fifth-century BC Athens. This situation was determined by the Peloponnesian War and its political, economic and social consequences. From this perspective, this article also constitutes an investigation into the intellectual history of public relations, of which Aristophanes can be considered one of its first practitioners.
During the Great Depression, U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran Jr. initiated a public health education campaign that told Americans venereal diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea needed to be “The next great plague to go.” The next phase of the campaign included his request to the U.S. Congress for public funds for training medical personnel and additional facilities to service those who had contracted VD. This article discusses how Parran used public relations techniques to generate awareness of the dangers of VD, ameliorate the social stigma associated with those diseases, and receive more funding for VD control. This case study of how Parran used media relations, controlled media output, and legislative lobbying provides a means to understand how public relations was used to achieve organizational goals in the 1930s, specifically by a government agency and its leader.
This research reported and expanded on a 6-year citation study of published scholarly research in public relations that occurred between 2010 and 2015. This analysis built on the work of Pasadeos and his collaborators, who examined the literature’s most-cited works from the 2000s and 1990s, respectively, and studied the field’s research network. Moreover, this study expanded the scope of coverage by adding three international journals. Overall, this study found that public relations scholarship experienced quantitative and qualitative leaps during the last decade, and the areas of excellence theory, relationship management, and crisis communication were heavily researched across the journals examined, whereas stakeholder and corporate communication are major study areas in the international journals.
This article examines the relationship between Norwegian PR history and the development of modernity. The theoretical starting point is based on historical sociology and especially theories of modernity as formulated by Anthony Giddens and Jürgen Habermas. The study concerns the period from 1800 to 1913, where Norway may be defined as a modern capitalist society. The study shows that there is a mutual interaction between PR history and the development of modernity in Norway: in the same way that PR is a product of modernity, PR activities are also important for the development of modernity. Basic concepts in this development are rationalism (science and technology), nationalism, parliament, law/justice, democratisation, freedom of speech, public spheres, individualism, elitism, discipline/control, civil society, capitalism, industrialism, political parties, and mass participation in politics.
A historical case study of how United States Public Health Service (USPHS) officials used public relations in an active attempt to construct meanings within cultural contexts both illuminates and extends the cultural-economic model (CEM) of public relations, which is based on the circuit of culture. The case shows how the CEM would benefit from exploring why practitioners act as they do, as understanding a producer’s motivation can provide even more understanding of the attempts to create a desired meaning.
Publicity is both the process and result of efforts to create public exposure, awareness, or attention for an organization, product, service, personality, or cause. It is a communication tool or instrument most commonly associated with public relations. From a strategic communication perspective, publicity is purposeful and intentional and can be proactively pursued as part of an organized program or campaign. Publicity can be disseminated through traditional or online media, as well as interpersonal communication, and offers both advantages and disadvantages. Although traditionally considered to be “free” exposure, paid formats have emerged in recent years—one of many related ethical and regulatory concerns.
Communication tactics are actions taken to implement a strategy. Tactics can be specified in advance as part of a prescriptive or deliberate strategy outlined in a written plan but often are identified and improvised during the implementation of a communication effort and thus can reflect emergent operational strategies. Tactics are typically grounded in the function in which they are employed and chosen based on the communicator's personal expertise and experience, observance of communication activities by others, historical precedence, convenience, requests or inquiries by others, directions or recommendations by clients, and/or imperatives imposed by external circumstances. Various types of research, analysis, counseling, message planning, message content, message design, message timing, channel selection, oversight and control, and assessment tactics are employed in the development, planning, implementation, and evaluation of a strategic communication effort.
Although definitions vary, public relations is a form of strategic communication that empowers entities of all sorts to seek recognition and support from society, from other organizations and groups, and from individuals important to their success. As a professional practice, public relations is a staff function in many organizations that counsels and assists line units and management to communicate with and maintain relationships with key audiences. By default, public relations also often serves as the primary organizational liaison with community groups, opinion leaders, and media for which other units are not directly responsible. As an academic discipline, public relations scholarship examines how entities create awareness and understanding, foster favorable opinion and acceptance, build relationships, interact with others, and respond to crises and disputes. Researchers pursue a wide range of approaches to studying and teaching public relations, and draw upon managerial/functional, behavioral/relationship, rhetorical, constructionist/sociocultural, comparative/transcultural, and critical theories.
Communication played a central role in the development of the early Christian Church. This paper will examine public relations practices in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, examining the accuracy of describing his communication activities as a form of public relations. Furthermore, we will examine claims by public historians about Paul's missionary work as a "public relations campaign." This paper will argue that although the modern practice of public relations navigates an increasingly complex environment, there are manifestations of what can be considered early forms of public relations in Paul's campaign to spread the gospel.
This file contains the references for the second edition of "Makt, medier och samhälle. En introduktion till politisk kommunikation" (andra upplagan) (Studentlitteratur 2014)
This article examines the connotative evolution of the term "publicity. "An historical analysis of articles imtten in magat^ines, journals, and nempapers from 1890 to 1930 illustrates bow corporations and government co-opted ideas of the progressive movement into self servingpructices. Progressives vieu^edpublicity as a moral reform that would open politics and business to public scrutiny and help prevent corruption. Over time, publicity evolved into a communication strategy for corporations seekingpublic approval This study found that the change from a "broad searchlight" of publicity to a "narrowflashlight" of positive information in the hands of public relations experts allowed business and government to shape public opinion rather than be influenced by it. D uring the progressive era, a mix of businessmen, social reformers, and educators sought to restore moral and civic purit)' by reforming business, society, and government, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Hofstadter snid progressives wanted baek the economic independence and political freedom destroyed by great corporations and corrupt political machines and their leaders, but they also recognized that these organizations were there to stay and could benefit society.' They resolved to make business and politics more accountable to the people by using publicity to expose abuses. Prominent New York City banker Henry Clews, writing in 1906, typified the progressives' attitude toward publicity: We arc now on ilic liigh road to the correction of a multitude of abuses and the country is to be congratulated upon this salutary movc-tnent for improvement and reform in our business methods. Our greai remedy is PUBLICITY', and the enforcement of the law, , , , So let us have more light—the light of
Senator J. William Fulbright remains best known for the international exchange program that he started, but for thirteen years of his congressional career, he also was a crusader against the Pentagon's “propaganda machine.” This article documents and analyses his challenge to the Defense Department's domestic use of “mental munitions” and “opinion ops” from 1961 to 1974, contextualizing events within a broader history of congressional opposition to executive propaganda. It provides evidence that he lost his immediate political, intellectual, and his philosophical battle against the Pentagon's public relations apparatus. Nevertheless he may have contributed to the rise of scholarly criticism of government's coequal participation in the marketplace of ideas as well as to criticism that assumptions associated with the marketplace of ideas are faulty.
The Anti-Saloon League of America was a Midwestern, church-based, social reform group founded in 1895, whose drive for national prohibition played a major role in the ratification and subsequent enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment. The purpose of this article is to expand the current model of public relations history by examining the ideas and methods that the League established in its first fifteen years to generate public sentiment for a dry, saloonless nation. Many of these concepts not only echo what are considered today to be basic principles of public relations, but they were conceived and implemented at the turn of the century by two Ohio men who did not define themselves in terms of public relations and publicity practitioners but in their roles as ministers in fulfilling what they considered to be their religious duty of eliminating liquor in the U.S. The article concludes that while there is still much to learn about public relations from those already labeled as “pioneers, “such as Edward Bernays or John Hill there is even more to mine from those people or organizations who sought to influence public opinion and generate change in the pursuit of a cause or an idea.
On the account of system character of communication, that leads to active co-operation of elements of communication management.
In 1885, a Toronto-based agricultural implements maker, the Massey Manufacturing Co., inaugurated the Trip Hammer, which is widely believed to be the first true employee publication in North America. The magazine lasted one year and then the company's management and the publication's editors jointly agreed to end it bemuse they felt there was an “absence of evidence” that it was meeting its goals and a lack of “outward marks of appreciation” for the “considerable labour expended” Thus, it was viewed as a failure. This article sketches the company and its founding family, and describes the publication's contents. It argues the monthly s birth can be linked to personal and societal factors, but its content starkly reflected the employer's moral and social values. Finally, the article examines why the company felt the publication was a failure despite substantial evidence that it was beneficial for the workers.
This volume presents a historical and objective overview of the field of public relations in the past century. It discusses some of the landmark cases in public relations, critiques the philosophies of innovators such as Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explores how corporate public relations has affected economic and political trends. The author concludes by offering long-term alternatives for the future of public relations valuable to both practitioners and corporate executives. © 1987 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Commerce in Color explores the juncture of consumer culture and race by examining advertising, literary texts, mass culture, and public events in the United States from 1893 to 1933. James C. Davis takes up a remarkable range of subjects-including the crucial role publishers Boni and Liveright played in the marketing of Harlem Renaissance literature, Henry James's critique of materialism in The American Scene, and the commodification of racialized popular culture in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man-as he argues that racial thinking was central to the emergence of U.S. consumerism and, conversely, that an emerging consumer culture was a key element in the development of racial thinking and the consolidation of racial identity in America. By urging a reassessment of the familiar rubrics of the "culture of consumption" and the "culture of segregation," Davis poses new and provocative questions about American culture and social history. Both an influential literary study and an absorbing historical read, Commerce in Color proves that-in America-advertising, publicity, and the development of the modern economy cannot be understood apart from the question of race. "A welcome addition to existing scholarship, Davis's study of the intersection of racial thinking and the emergence of consumer culture makes connections very few scholars have considered." -James Smethurst, University of Massachusetts. Illustration: "A Case of Desertion" by the Cream of Wheat Company, 1909. Courtesy of the Picture Collection of the New York Public Library. A volume in the series Class: Culture.
A German immigrant who worked in journalism in Pittsburgh at the height of the Gilded Age played an important, yet largely undocumented, role in the early history of public relations. While E. H. Heinrichs has been cited in a few histories of public relations and in a number of college textbooks, this article is the first to profile at length the acknowledged founding practitioner of corporate public relations. Heinrichs, the first person to be hired by a corporation to coordinate its communications, played a role in "the battle of the currents," the propaganda war waged between Heinrichs’s ultimately successful client, George Westinghouse, who proposed alternating current (AC), and Thomas Alva Edison, who supported direct current (DC), to determine the method by which the world would receive electricity.
This study examines the communication efforts of the Anti-Saloon League of America in the years leading up to National Prohibition. The ASLA has been studied in the context of the Progressive Era, but it has not been examined in the context of its role in public relations history even though its efforts, along with those of the suffrage movement, have been said to have contributed to the postwar boom in publicity/public relations firms.
Thus, it will be shown that the ASLA employed a multitiered approach in its own fight for a dry nation via national legislation and congressional hearings, its publishing partner, the Scientific Temperance Federation, and its own American Issue. And that it did so by weaving elements of emotion and cognition through messages arising from war-related issues such as anti-German sentiment, patriotism, and rationing. Such an approach might not be so unusual today, nor were elements of its efforts new to advocacy groups at the time, but the League demonstrated that, for better or worse, a Midwest, church-based social reform movement grounded in the Progressive Era could successfully harness persuasive strategies and tactics to fulfill its agenda for a dry nation.
This analysis of the literature on public relations history indicates that the field has been dominated by a business history approach. Most scholars have studied public relations in its corporate context, and most have utilized business history’s dominant paradigm, which calls for a general theory of PR history based on the review of a large number of case histories. But the business history frame is both flawed and inadequate for a complete understanding of public relations history. Political and social histories show that public relations was emerging and apparently would have emerged even if big business had not. In reality, these histories are intertwined. No single strand of PR history can be understood except in relation to the others, and none should be given a privileged position in public relations historiography.
In this book the author asks a big question: how did public relations develop in Britain and why? The question is answered through a broad ranging narrative which links the evolution of British public relations in the early twentieth century to key political, economic, social, and technological developments. Drawing on oral history interviews and extensive archival research the book highlights some of the sociological issues relevant to a study of public relations and foregrounds the professionalisation of the occupation in the second part of the twentieth century.
Contents: Prologue Part I: The Seedbed Years of Counseling, 1900-1919. The Nation's First Publicity Agency. The First Washington Agencies. First Parker and Lee, Then Lee, Harris, and Lee. The Hamilton Wright Organization -- The First International Agency. Pendleton Dudley Starts Fifth Agency in 1909. Part II: Public Relations Booms in the Booming Twenties, 1919-1930. Ivy Lee Returns to New York Joined by T.J. Ross. Edward L. Bernays: Pioneer, Philosopher, Centenarian. Bernays: The Counselor and His Genius and His Role in the Profession. John Price Jones Tries to Ride Two Horses. Steve Hannagan: Super Press Agent. Harry Bruno: Aviation and Public Relations Pioneer. William H. Baldwin: Counselor and Citizen. Ben Sonnenberg: Sui Generis. Clarke and Tyler: Builders of the Ku Klux Klan. John W. Hill: Builder of an Enduring Legacy. John Hill's Two Major Battles: Steel and Tobacco -- and the Person. Part III: The Depression and the Years Beyond. Carl Byoir: The Little Giant of Public Relations. Carl Byoir: Years of Success and Storm. Whitaker & Baxter: Architects of the New Politics. Earl Newsom: Counselor to Corporate Giants. Earl Newsom and the Auto Giants: Ford and GM. Earl Newsom and the Ford Foundation. Epilogue.
This article finds that, contrary to the expectation that reform publications provide a place in the "marketplace of ideas" for reformers excluded fom the mainstream press, the Wisconsin Citizen often suppressed debate among its constituents in the interest of maintaining an appearance of unity within the movement and the dominance of movement leaders.
Over the course of the twentieth century the popular perception of America's giant corporations has undergone an astonishing change. Condemned as dangerous leviathans in the century's first decades, by 1945 major corporations had become respected, even revered, institutions. Roland Marchand's lavishly illustrated and carefully researched book tells how large companies such as AT&T and U.S. Steel created their own 'souls' in order to reassure consumers and politicians that bigness posed no threat to democracy or American values. Marchand traces this important transformation in the culture of capitalism by offering a series of case studies of such corporate giants as General Motors, General Electric, Metropolitan Life Insurance, and Du Pont Chemicals. Marchand examines the rhetorical and visual imagery developed by corporate leaders to win public approval and build their own internal corporate culture. In the 'golden era' of the 1920s, companies boasted of their business statesmanship, but in the Depression years many of them turned in desperation to forms of public relations that strongly defended the capitalist system. During World War II public relations gained new prominence within corporate management as major companies linked themselves with Main-Street, small-town America. By the war's end, the corporation's image as a 'good neighbor' had largely replaced that of the 'soulless giant'. American big business had succeeded in wrapping increasingly complex economic relationships in the comforting aura of familiarity. Marchand, author of the widely acclaimed Advertising the American Dream (1985), provides an elegant and convincing account of the origins and effects of the corporate imagery so ubiquitous in our world today.
This is a book review of Scott Cutlip's 1995 book *Public Relations History.*
This research study, on how public relations definitions have been affected by environmental factors and change during the past 75 years, was made possible in part by a grant of funds from the Foundation for Public Relations Research and Education. Sixty–five public relations leaders in the nation participated in the study, writing their comments and suggestions on the first version of the definition and its three subsequent revisions.
In this article, Scott M. Cutlip outlines the strategies adopted by Sam Adams and other colonial rebels to unite and guide public opinion in the 13 colonies. These revolutionaries, Cutlip says, were among the first to demonstrate the influence of an organized, articulate minority on an unorganized, scattered citizenry. Their efforts crystallized the American Revolution by exploiting the colonies' political and physical distance from the Crown, appealing to their unhappiness with George III's representatives.
The strident voices that molded the spirit of revolution 200 years ago found ample ammunition for their cause in The Boston Massacre, in which five colonists were killed in Boston by soldiers of George III. Since that time, historians and scholars have debated whether or not this was a pivotal event in uniting revolutionary sentiment in the colonies, or whether it was simply a propaganda device used by radicals to inflame apathetic residents.
At his death on the eve of the 20th century, D.L. Moody was widely recognized as one of the most beloved and important of men in 19th-century America. A Chicago shoe salesman with a fourth grade education, Moody rose from obscurity to become God’s man for the Gilded Age. He was the Billy Graham of his day--indeed it could be said that Moody invented the system of evangelism that Graham inherited and perfected. Bruce J. Evensen focuses on the pivotal years during which Moody established his reputation on both sides of the Atlantic through a series of highly popular and publicized campaigns. In four short years Moody forged the bond between revivalism and the mass media that persists to this day. Beginning in Britain in 1873 and extending across America’s urban landscape, first in Brooklyn and then in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Boston, Moody used the power of prayer and publicity to stage citywide crusades that became civic spectacles. Modern newspapers, in the grip of economic depression, needed a story to stimulate circulation and found it in Moody’s momentous mission. The evangelist and the press used one another in creating a sense of civic excitement that manufactured the largest crowds in municipal history. Critics claimed this machinery of revival was man-made. Moody’s view was that he’d rather advertise than preach to empty pews. He brought a businessman’s common sense to revival work and became, much against his will, a celebrity evangelist. The press in city after city made him the star of the show and helped transform his religious stage into a communal entertainment of unprecedented proportions. In chronicling Moody’s use of the press and their use of him, Evensen sheds new light on a crucial chapter in the history of evangelicalism and demonstrates how popular religion helped form our modern media culture.
Public relations scholars know very little about the women who participated in formal public relations before the 1970s, not even about such women as Jane Stewart, who served as vice president and then president of Group Attitudes Corporation, an independent consulting firm that became a subsidiary of Hill and Knowlton of New York in 1956. Because she was virtually alone among women at the top consulting firms, Stewart was forced to perform a delicate balancing act.Jane Stewart prospered in the man's world of a Manhattan agency by accepting the conservative values of the field and the era. But she also developed a collaborative management style and maintained a female, if not feminist, perspective that at times gave her clients a different outlook on public relations problems. This article describes Stewart's career in the context of women's participation in formal public relations.The author is an assistant professor in the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
An analysis of the aircraft industry's public relations campaign suggests that individuals' thoughts and feelings about airplanes and atomic weapons, domestic politics, and international events had greater influence on public opinion and political action than the PR program. However, the industry's public relations program did bring together many groups interested in air power. By linking these groups and capitalizing on the domestic and international situation, the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton of New York helped to create a climate in which air power was an acceptable solution to national defense and budgetary problems.