Judy Motion

Kate Fitch

Popular Culture and Social Change: The Hidden Work of Public Relations argues the complicated and contradictory relationship between public relations, popular culture and social change is a neglected theoretical project. Its diverse chapters identify ways in which public relations influences the production of popular culture and how alternative, often community-driven conceptualisations of public relations work can be harnessed for social change and in pursuit of social justice. This book opens up critical scholarship on public relations in that it moves beyond corporate understandings and perspectives to explore alternative and eclectic communicative cultures, in part to consider a more optimistic conceptualisation of public relations as a resource for progressive social change. Fitch and Motion began with an interest in identifying the ways in which public relations both draws on and influences the production of popular culture by creating, promoting and amplifying particular narratives and images. The chapters in this book consider how public relations creates popular cultures that are deeply compromised and commercialised, but at the same time can be harnessed to advocate for social change in supporting, reproducing, challenging or resisting the status quo. Drawing on critical and sociocultural perspectives, this book is an important resource for researchers, educators and students exploring public relations theory, strategic communication and promotional culture. It investigates the entanglement of public relations, popular culture and social change in different social, cultural and political contexts – from fashion and fortune telling to race activism and aesthetic labour – in order to better understand the (often subterranean) societal influence of public relations activity.

The Hidden Work of Public Relations

Popular Culture and Social Change

Robert L. Heath

Shirley Leitch

Social media is having a profound, but not yet fully understood impact on public relations. In the 24/7 world of perpetually connected publics, will public relations function as a dark art that spins (or tweets) self-interested variations of the truth for credulous audiences? Or does the full glare of the internet and the increasing expectations of powerful publics motivate it to more honestly engage to serve the public interest? The purpose of this book is to examine the role of PR by exploring the myriad ways that social media is reshaping its conceptualization, strategies, and tactics. In particular, it explores the dichotomies of fake and authentic, powerless and powerful, meaningless and meaningful. It exposes transgressions committed by practitioners—the paucity of digital literacy, the lack of understanding of the norms of social media, naivety about corporate identity risks, and the overarching emphasis on spin over authentic engagement. But it also shows the power that closely networked social media users have to insert information and opinion into discussions and force "false PR friends" to be less so. This timely, challenging, and fascinating book will be of interest to all students, researchers, and practitioners in Public Relations, Media, and Communication Studies. Winner of the 2016 NCA PRIDE Award for best book

Judy Motion

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