Bernays – PR Conversations

December 13, 2012June 28, 2020 PR Sense

Dissent PR – from suffragettes to slut walks

Responding to the use of PR to challenge inequalities in society, Bournemouth University, has run a series of seminars looking at ‘dissent PR’ and ‘protest PR’. My own contribution was to take a look at the role of women as activists and agitators over the past century. Here I share some musings from that work for your comments. In studying the history of public relations, female experiences have largely been missing, with the accounts of...

September 8, 2011June 28, 2020 Classic PR Conversations PR Sphere

In praise of publicity – a woman's history

I’ve yet to come across Constance Hope in any public relations textbook – perhaps not surprising as women are largely missing from the history. Indeed, apart from Doris Fleischman, I am unaware of any female voices writing about early experiences of the practice in the US; and Fleischman’s contribution inevitably is linked to her husband Edward Bernays. So exactly who was Constance Hope and why should we care about her story? Well she authored a...