This book takes a people-centred approach to the ever-fluid and rapidly-transforming professional world of public relations (PR) in the age of digital platforms. As everyday PR work becomes increasingly shaped by the platform economy, this is transforming how the PR profession talks about itself, its issues and concerns. Drawing on different textual genres and discursive strategies, the author examines the shifting boundaries between PR and adjacent fields such as advertising, marketing and journalism – and illuminates varied lifeworlds of PR professionals from different backgrounds, races and genders. Written for academics, practitioners and those interested in the world of public relations, the book will also be enjoyed by young professionals working in this interesting and fast-changing occupation.
Author(s): Clea Bourne
Series: Communicating in Professions and Organizations
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 243
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Extracts
1 Introduction: Public Relations in the Digital Age
Platformising the Public Relations Profession
Disarticulating PR Skills
Stubbornness of Legacy Discourses
Public Relations as Professional Discourse
Different Cultures and Working Lives
Feminisation
PR in Societal Discourses
PR as Attractive, Creative Career
PR’s Critical Moment
“It Is the People Who Dance…”
PR’s Professional Discourses: Theory and Method
Author’s Warrant
How the Book Is Organised
References
2 Public Relations’ Professional Boundary-Work
Introduction
PR’s Discursive Boundaries
PR Profession as Boundary-Work
Expansionary Discourses
Protectionist Discourses
Hybridising Discourses
Analysing PR’s Field-Level Discourses
Participants: Status, Authority, Asymmetries
Professional Genres: Conditions, Deployment, Intertextualities
Working with Field-Level Textual Data
Genres Generated by Professions
Genres Generated About Professions
Genres Generated Adjacent to Professions
Discourse Limitations
Conclusion
References
3 Be Digital
PR’s Digital ‘Technophobia’
Hybridising Roles and Digital Capital
Recruitment Ads as Discursive Texts
Expansionary Language of Content Production
Hybridising: Data-Driven Roles
Protecting Traditional PR Skills
Content Production—Platforms’ Knowledge Apparatus
Conclusion: Small World Relationships vs Big Data Personas
References
4 Be Creative
Who Owns Creativity?
Client-Driven Creative Processes
Defining PR Creativity
Technocapitalism and Commodified Creativity
Platform Tools and Beta Creativity
Edelman Corporate Insights: Positioning ‘Earned Creative’ as PR Specialism
Protecting PR as a Stand-Alone Discipline
Expanding into Advertising’s Creative Territory
Hybridising PR and Data
Conclusion: Blurring Creative Boundaries
References
5 Be Included
Introduction: Diversity Avalanche
Diversity and Racial Capitalism
Protecting Professional Habitus of Whiteness
Diversity: Driving Global Expansion
Creative Hybridisation Through Diversity
CIPR Webinar and Race in PR Report
Diversity Dividend: PR’s Unwanted Morality Tale
Black Bodies, White Spaces: When Black Professionals Are ‘Disappeared’
White Ignorance: Communicators Refuse to ‘Boundary Span’
Enforced Silences: Don’t Talk About Racism
Conclusion: Digital Platforms and Racial Capitalism
References
6 Be Social
PR in an Era of Hypervisibility
PR in Financial Markets
Monstrous Discourses: When PR Becomes the News
Monsters as Boundary Phenomena
Corporate Communicators and Journalists: Professional Imperatives
Monstrous Discourses: Goldman Sachs’ PR
Goldman Sachs in the News
Journalism vs PR Discourses
Financial Journalists Protect Their Expert ‘Borders’ from Alt Media
Communication Chiefs Defend PR’s Professional Borders
Goldman’s PR Chief Mounts Defence by Proxy
Conclusion: Hypervisibility, Sociality and Professional Monsters
References
7 Be Posthuman
Introduction
Digital Humans, Digital Employees
Understanding AI
AI in Everyday PR
Professionalism, AI and the Posthuman PR Practitioner
Cheerleading ‘Digital Employees’
‘Digital Employees’ Expand into the Service Economy
Hybridised PR Under Martech Control?
PR-AI Client Relations: The Everyman that’s Always on
What if the Client Were an Algorithm?
Conclusion: Whither the PR Strategist?
References
8 Conclusion: Be Platformised
PR and the Digital: Field-Level Discourses
The PR Profession: Boundary-Work with Advertising, Marketing, Journalism
Closing the Production-Consumption Gap: New Platformised Professions
The PR Professional: Individual Boundary Struggles
Reconfiguring PR Knowledge in the Digital Age
Upstream: Big Data Ownership, Management and Strategy
Midstream: Evolving Roles and Influence
Downstream: Battle for Content Production
Platforms: Disarticulating Professional Work
PR Futures
Client vs Platform Imperatives
PR Problems, Solutions and Agency
PR: Representing the Digital Commons?
References
Index
