Showing papers by "Lee Edwards published in 2019"

Power, Diversity and Public Relations

Abstract: Power, Diversity and Public Relations addresses the lack of diversity in PR by revealing the ways in which power operates within the occupation to construct archetypal practitioner identities, occupational belonging and exclusion. It explores the ways in which the field is normatively constructed through discourse, and examines how the experiences of practitioners whose ethnicity and class differ from the ‘typical’ PR background, shape alternative understandings of the occupation and their place within it.

Communicating under the regimes of divergent ideas: how public agencies in Sweden manage tensions between transparency and consistency

Abstract: In this article we draw on Scandinavian institutionalism to argue that ideas act as imperatives for organizations’ communication, whereby differences between ideas can generate tensions that organi...

Theories in Public Relations: Reflections and Future Directions:

Abstract: This special issue emerged from an ICA pre-conference on Theories in Public Relations, designed to explore the landscape of public relations theory in the current moment. The field of public relations has grown both academically and professionally over the last forty years, and it is now a specialised communication discipline where the most widespread understanding of public relations is primarily a strategic organizational function that nurtures positive relationships with publics and stakeholders for organizations of all kinds: private, public, non-profit, activist, and advocacy. For the first two decades of the field’s existence, theories that focused on the organizational roles of public relations – whether as an internal function that helps organizations to function more effectively, or a function that assists organizations to fulfil their social obligations shaped the vast majority of research in the field. They include Excellence theory and systems theory, but also relationship management, communitarian, rhetorical and dialogic approaches. Each body of work has led to important insights about organizations as instrumental communicators, relationship builders, rhetorical actors, and civil society agents. Over the last two decades, public relations scholarship has extended into other arenas, drawing on perspectives from new scholarly fields (e.g. digital media and network theory, political economy, cultural studies, institutional theory), but also extending its purchase on critical theory that was already in play (e.g. feminism, critical race theory, sociology of media, organizational communication). At the same time, critical analyses of PR that were previously located in the margins of the field have gained greater visibility (L’Etang, McKie, Snow, & Xifra, 2016). As a result, the theoretical landscape of public relations has expanded beyond its organizational origins and now incorporates a much richer range of starting points for multi-faceted analyses of public relations. The field is very much interdisciplinary and many studies are rooted in diverse communication, sociological, cultural, managerial, and organizational knowledge, adapted to public relations-focused inquiries. Despite increasing theoretical depth, however, recognition of the quality and significance of public relations’ theoretical contributions beyond the disciplinary domain remains limited. This may be because a universal understanding of the theoretical pillars on which the field is grounded is far from achieved. Arguably, to enjoy greater recognition and academic legitimacy, the theoretical contributions of public relations as a field in its own right must be able to both stand alone and contribute to fields beyond disciplinary boundaries. 881227 PRI0010.1177/2046147X19881227 editorial2019

Copyright: a systemic marketplace icon

Abstract: This article argues that copyright is a systemic marketplace icon because of the breadth of its effects on market operations. Copyright determines how intellectual property rights for creative work are allocated between the different actors involved in production and consumption, and must balance the civic priority of public access to creative work with the market-driven principle of rewarding private interests for their effort. This duality tends to polarise opinion about its implementation by rights holders, because very different ideological assumptions underpin civic and market objectives. Copyright discourses reveal how these ideological struggles play out among interested parties, who use the concept of copyright to make arguments about how markets should be structured, how creative work should be exchanged, and how consumers should behave. In the process, copyright is constructed, explained, branded and promoted as an object to which market actors must orient themselves if they wish to cond...