This new text for students and practitioners in public relations has been built on the acclaimed "Critical Perspectives in Public Relations, "also edited by Jacquie L'Etang and Magda Pieczka, which is no longer in print. Many of the liveliest minds on the public relations scene have contributed fresh ideas and diverse perspectives: their locations on the margins, either geographically or intellectually, or both, allowed them to present a variety of compelling critiques. Contributors from Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Scotland join those from New Zealand and Australia in providing historical and political perspectives. Topics such as propaganda, religion, publics, expertise, transparency, and discourse are tackled in new and imaginative ways.
The book challenges conventions but also provides essential empirical detail and careful argument. Practical relevance is also present through interdisciplinary discussion of public relations problems in sport, health, science, tourism, and documentary film. This important volume will stimulate debate about the boundaries, definitions, functions, and effects of public relations.

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

Timely, authoritative and provocative, this major volume meets the emerging need for an introduction to critical public relations, to look at the diverse perspectives in the field, and to construct a tentative mapping of possible ways forward. While critical theory has a long and fluctuating history, critical public relations is much more recent. This book takes stock of how, and where, critical public relations has emerged via three main foci: theoretical traditions; critique and action; along with methodological and future implications.

As mainstream public relations has become established and critical public relations is reaching a critical mass in the discipline, this book seeks to capture both the coherence and the plural nature of this fast-growing area. Compiled by a high-profile and widely respected team of academics and bringing together the key scholars in the field, this comprehensive international collection will be a major contribution to forming and directing how critical theory increasingly informs public relations and communication.

It is an essential reference for educators teaching advanced undergraduate and post-graduate courses, scholars and students around the world in the field of public relations and critical theory. Also of interest to scholars in advertising, communication, consumer studies, cultural studies, marketing, media studies, and sociology.

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.

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.

This new text for students and practitioners in public relations has been built on the acclaimed Critical Perspectives in Public Relations, also edited by Jacquie L'Etang and Magda Pieczka, which is no longer in print. Many of the liveliest minds on the public relations scene have contributed fresh ideas and diverse perspectives: their locations on the margins, either geographically or intellectually, or both, allowed them to present a variety of compelling critiques. Contributors from Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Scotland join those from New Zealand and Australia in providing historical and political perspectives. Topics such as propaganda, religion, publics, expertise, transparency, and discourse are tackled in new and imaginative ways. The book challenges conventions but also provides essential empirical detail and careful argument. Practical relevance is also present through interdisciplinary discussion of public relations problems in sport, health, science, tourism, and documentary film. This important volume will stimulate debate about the boundaries, definitions, functions, and effects of public relations.

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.

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.