Posted on PR Motion

Presenting the shadows of public relations

Public relations is frequently presented in a dim light; “entering the dark side” is how journalists refer to working in/with PR. And a theme of presentation, representation and re-presentation of some shadowy corners was evident at the 5th annual International History of Public Relations Conference (#IHRPC) held at Bournemouth University A dominant trend in the papers I heard seemed to be the representation of activism as public relations, alongside presentations examining social movements through a...

Posted on PR Sense

Dissent and protest – new directions for public relations

It has never been easier for people to protest or express dissent. But there’s actually a long tradition of public action, supported by organised campaigns. Rather than positioning such activities as dissent or protest public relations within the “field’s fuzzy and continually gerrymandered boundaries” (to cite Cropp and Pincus 2001), they have generally been viewed as threats or challenges to those working within or for organisations, and counter to the dominant viewpoint that public relations...

Posted on PR Nexus

Public Relations before, during, after acquisitions and mergers. Fascinating lessons from Poznan, Poland!

Ok… it took me more than 20 hours by van to return to Italy, while an Icelandic dust closed all of Europe’s airports… courtesy of two young polish drivers (found via the Internet the evening before by one of my benefactors Monika Bogdal from Poznan’s University of Economics… the power of social media…)… yet I was thrilled, honoured and inspired to have been granted the privilege by Prof. Ryszard Ławniczak to participate to the EconPr...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Have More Walls Come Tumbling Down?

 Co-authored with Mike Klein In the later part of the year that ends today, much attention has been paid to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But another wall seems to have been definitively torn down this year with much less brouhaha: the distinctions between social, political, commercial and employee communication. The Public Relations model of defensive “representation” is thus beginning to give way to the political campaign model of proactive...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

A year end invitation to discuss the global public relations attack against Google

I have no personal gripe with Google If anything, as an intense yet only partial user of its many and increasing services, I am a satisfied consumer of Google. This however does not necessarily imply that I am an ally. You have surely realized over these recent weeks and months that Google is under an intense public relations attack globally driven by an explicit and implicit coalition of mainstream media and book publishers , of...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Public Relations, Capitalism and Democracy – Public Relations and Development: two provoKations from my excellent students

I have just concluded my course on global relations and intercultural communication at NYU in New York. The intense interaction with 10 highly committed graduate students –two Russian, three American, one Brazilian, one Colombian, one British, one Singaporean– allowed me the opportunity to review some of my less resilient stereotypes and learn much more from them than each of them individually from me. That is the beauty of communication -even in the non symmetric environment...