Increasingly, Americans are turning away from the traditional press--especially newspapers--for the news of the day. In fact, by May 2009 a Pew survey revealed that 63 percent of Americans said they would not miss their paper if it ceased publishing. Other surveys have revealed that since the late 1990s, Americans have significant concerns about the mainstream news media's credibility, with no less than 56 percent voicing reservations about the press's accuracy. At the same time, the mainstream news has continued to show a proclivity for using information proffered by public relations sources; in fact, some studies point to newsrooms that use such propaganda materials for up to 75-80 percent of their stories. As traditional newsrooms continue to either downsize (or, in some cases, disappear) and propaganda materials proliferate, the American public will continue to encounter difficulties obtaining from journalism the accurate and relevant information it needs to make informed decisions within our democracy. Current scholarship about journalism's increasing problems with relevancy often focuses on explorations of the advent of new media technologies and/or journalism's dysfunctional business models. Although those studies are important, they tend toward a presentism that ignores dilemmas that derive from the enduring ways that the press gathers and constructs news. This book argues that the problem of press relevancy can be traced to historical groundings that continue to inform newsroom practices. Specifically, it makes the distinctive claim that modern journalism's own professionalism has made the press prone to using propaganda materials, thus contributing to increasing news media irrelevance. Accordingly, this work provides an unparalleled interlocking interrogation of two areas: first, how the professionalizing press of the post-WWI era gradually progressed from resistance to acclimation as regards domestic propaganda and, second, how that acclimation can be understood as part of a historically grounded, self-rationalizing workroom acculturation known as habitus. Inspired by the works of Pierre Bourdieu, James Carey, and Michael Schudson, this work finds that journalism's current problems with pertinence lies within an unreflexive relationship with those who would offer the helping hand of propaganda materials. Today's news media exhibits a double-mindedness: many of the same professional routines it uses to apparently safeguard its credibility also rationalize the use of propaganda as news. This work maintains that news professionals and media scholars need to better recognize how this ingrained, yet dissonant approach to constructing news accounts has damaged the viability of journalism. From such an understanding, the press can better focus on news that is credible, pertinent, and reflective of the wider range of voices in American society. Press Professionalization and Propaganda is an important book for all journalism, public relations, and media studies collections and scholars in those areas. Professionals in journalism and public relations will also find this book compelling.

This edited collection focuses on theoretical and applied research-based observations concerning how experts, advocates, and institutions make climate change information accessible to different audiences. Communicating Climate Change concentrates on three key elements of climate change communication - access, relevance, and understandability - to provide an overview of how these aspects allow multiple groups of stakeholders to act on climate-related information to build resilience. Featuring contributions from a wide range of scholars from across different disciplines, this book explores a multitude of different scenarios and communication methods, including social media; public opinion surveys; participatory mapping; and video. Overall, climate change communication is addressed from three different perspectives: communicating with the public; communicating for stakeholder engagement; and organizational, institutional, risk, and disaster communication. With each chapter focusing on implications and applications for practice, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of climate change and environmental communication, as well as practitioners interested in understanding how to better engage stakeholders through climate change-related communication.

The Global Foundations of Public Relations: Humanism, China and the West explores the growing humanistic turn in public relations processes and proposes that this has compelling parallels in the roots of Chinese philosophies. As the leader of growth and power across the Pacific Rim, public relations in China is not developing in isolation from the West, but via mutual accommodations and culturally complex interactions. By collecting cases and reflections on PR practices from both Chinese and Western scholars, the chapters propose that Chinese philosophies are playing a role in the development of modern Chinese PR practices, and - focusing less on the obvious differences and contracts - seek to highlight their spiritual, philosophical and political confluences. The conclusions drawn enhance and advance our understanding of public relations globally. This innovative work is of interest to educators and researchers in the fields of public relations, strategic communications, and public diplomacy.

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.

This edited collection focuses on theoretical and applied research-based observations concerning how experts, advocates, and institutions make climate change information accessible to different audiences. Communicating Climate Change concentrates on three key elements of climate change communication - access, relevance, and understandability - to provide an overview of how these aspects allow multiple groups of stakeholders to act on climate-related information to build resilience. Featuring contributions from a wide range of scholars from across different disciplines, this book explores a multitude of different scenarios and communication methods, including social media; public opinion surveys; participatory mapping; and video. Overall, climate change communication is addressed from three different perspectives: communicating with the public; communicating for stakeholder engagement; and organizational, institutional, risk, and disaster communication. With each chapter focusing on implications and applications for practice, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of climate change and environmental communication, as well as practitioners interested in understanding how to better engage stakeholders through climate change-related communication.

Where does journalism fit in the media landscape of blogs, tweets, Facebook postings, YouTube videos, and literally billions of Web pages?

Public Journalism 2.0 examines the ways that civic or public journalism is evolving, especially as audience-created content?sometimes referred to as citizen journalism or participatory journalism?becomes increasingly prominent in contemporary media. As the contributors to this edited volume demonstrate, the mere use of digital technologies is not the fundamental challenge of a new citizen-engaged journalism; rather, a depper understanding of how civic/public journalism can inform citizen-propelled initiatives is required.

Through a mix of original research, essays, interviews, and case studies, this collection establishes how public journalism principles and practices offer journalists, scholars, and citizens insights into how digital technology and other contemporary practices can increase civic engagement and improve public life. Each chapter concludes with pedagogical features including:

* Theoretical Implications highlighting the main theoretical lessons from each chapter,

* Practical Implications applying the chapter's theoretical findings to the practice of citizen-engaged jouranlis,

*Reflection Questions prompting the reader to consider how to extend the theory and application of the chapter.

blogging and other participatory journalism practices enabled by digital technology are not always in line with the original vision of public journalism, which strives to report news in such a way as to promote civic engagement by its audience. Public Journalism 2.0 seeks to reinvent public journalism for the 21st century and to offer visions of how digital technology can be enlisted to promote civic involvement in the news.

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.

Where does journalism fit in the media landscape of blogs, tweets, Facebook postings, YouTube videos, and literally billions of Web pages?

Public Journalism 2.0 examines the ways that civic or public journalism is evolving, especially as audience-created content-sometimes referred to as citizen journalism or participatory journalism-becomes increasingly prominent in contemporary media. As the contributors to this edited volume demonstrate, the mere use of digital technologies is not the fundamental challenge of a new citizen-engaged journalism; rather, a depper understanding of how civic/public journalism can inform citizen-propelled initiatives is required.

Through a mix of original research, essays, interviews, and case studies, this collection establishes how public journalism principles and practices offer journalists, scholars, and citizens insights into how digital technology and other contemporary practices can increase civic engagement and improve public life. Each chapter concludes with pedagogical features including:

* Theoretical Implications highlighting the main theoretical lessons from each chapter,

* Practical Implications applying the chapter's theoretical findings to the practice of citizen-engaged jouranlis,

*Reflection Questions prompting the reader to consider how to extend the theory and application of the chapter.

blogging and other participatory journalism practices enabled by digital technology are not always in line with the original vision of public journalism, which strives to report news in such a way as to promote civic engagement by its audience. Public Journalism 2.0 seeks to reinvent public journalism for the 21st century and to offer visions of how digital technology can be enlisted to promote civic involvement in the news.