Conducting historical interviews in a transparent age

An important link between academia and practice is research. A notable difference is the emphasis within such research on methodological matters. This is a critical aspect of scholarship, but is commonly lacking in practice, particularly within public relations where crowd-sourcing exercises and publicity-oriented surveys may be viewed unproblematically. This criticism can even be applied to some research undertaken by professional bodies. Methodology is of vital important in academic research studies, including those with a historical...

Getting serious about PR crisis case studies

Whenever an organisation experiences a ‘crisis’ (or more commonly an incident of lesser magnitude), it is invariably jumped upon as a PR disaster by the online PR pundits who cannot resist the opportunity to criticise how the situation was handled. The view is almost always: “I wouldn’t have done it like that”, accompanied by a list of rules which, in the opinion of the supposed PR expert, should have been followed. Rarely is any research...