Just discovered my book on public relations and professional ethics is now in paperback. Always wanted it to be more accessible – do hope some of you will buy or borrow it .
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Paperback writer
Posted in Book, Ethics, PR and society, Uncategorized, tagged Writing on August 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Intense Indonesia
Posted in Uncategorized on April 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Ran a research workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia last week with colleagues from the University Atma Yogyakarta as part of a British Council project led by Prof Anne Gregory. The team are researching community engagement on renewable energy in rural communities. Fascinating work that has real importance for developing countries and energy policy. It has also raised issues of cultural bias in research instruments, as villagers have been reluctant to sign ethics forms or speak up in focus groups because individual opinion is not part of collective decision making.
Luckily the UAJY team is creative and resourceful and have developed ethical, culturally sensitive approaches that will yield rich results.
My job was to focus on structuring the final report. Again, realise that a formal report is a culturally specific product – feels rather imperialist to force material into the traditional Exec Summary/Intro/Method/ Findings/Recommendations/Conclusions boxes. Then find myself describing this as a means of telling the story of the research and it makes sense. Reports are just another form of conversation after all.
We worked hard but had a really splendid few days of exchange and discovery – finding the common sense under the forms and formats, learning about each other’s ways of working. And Javanese food in particular – so many feasts of unfamiliar delight. My favourite was Javanese breakfast (a banquet of meat, rice and coconut) accompanied by gamelan concert (see pix). There were brief temple outings, but the heat floored me by mid morning so we retreated to a/c shopping.
The rest will have to wait till next time.
ICA PR Pre-conference update
Posted in Uncategorized on February 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »
What does PR look like in different countries? Do we agree on its contribution to organisations and society? How does a capability approach address issues of cultural, media, specialist educational access and other differences that competency frameworks fail to acknowledge? How will this work be of practical value to practitioners, professional bodies and educators?
This pre-conference, hosted by Professor Anne Gregory and the University of Huddersfield Research team, will share mid-term findings from a global research project supported by the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management and partner universities in six continents.
The first stage of this two-year project is the identification of core capabilities using the Delphi method with practitioners, academics and employers. Results of this research will be presented by:
- Professor Jesper Falkheimer, Lund University, Sweden
- Professor Gregor Halff, Singapore Management University, Chair of the Global Alliance
- Professor Ronel Rensburg, University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Professor Gabriel Sadi, Interamerican Open University, Argentina
- Dr Johanna Fawkes, University of Huddersfield, UK
The panel will be chaired by Professor Anne Gregory, Huddersfield.
This will be followed by a wider discussion of the challenges facing scholars and practitioners trying to build a global approach to public relations and communication management. Industry speakers have been invited to lead this debate.
Academics and practitioners are invited to register to attend this event
- $25 registration fee through the ICA site http://www.icahdq.org/event/SanDiegoConference
- If you would like to present a paper, please submit extended abstracts (500 words) on these themes by March 27. A special edition of the Journal of Communication Management will be dedicated to selected papers presented at this pre-conference.
Contact: Dr. Johanna Fawkes, j.fawkes@hud.ac.uk
More details of the project here: Global Capability Framework, PR & Comms
ICA Pre-conference CFP
Posted in Capabilities, Conferences, Huddersfield, Research, Uncategorized on November 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »
The call for papers for the ICA Pre-conference on Global Capabilities for Public Relations and Communications Management is available here: pc-building
The half day session will hear presentations from Huddersfield and our research partners and invites extended abstracts from others in this field, as well as welcoming interested attendees. Hope to see you in San Diego in May.
PhD bursaries in CSR/health comms at Leeds Beckett
Posted in Research, Uncategorized, tagged Public relations, Research on May 12, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Worth checking out this opportunity for PR and communication researchers – please circulate:
On the move
Posted in Charles Sturt University, Global Alliance, Huddersfield, Research, Uncategorized, tagged Australia, Public relations, Research on February 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Delighted to announce that I have accepted the post of Principal Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, where I will be leading the project to develop a new capabilities framework for use by public relations practitioners, professional bodies and academics around the world. This part of my post is supported by the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management (GA) and I’m thrilled to be working again with the redoubtable Anne Gregory , Professor of Corporate Communications at Huddersfield.
I will also be pursuing my own research projects, papers and books proposals.
I leave Charles Sturt University on February 25, to allow time for packing and starting the complex process of moving residences and possessions around the planet, before taking up the new position on March 21.
It’s been a wonderful four and a half years in Australia, working with a creative and engaging group of communication educators, who have become good friends. I’ve also learned how to manage doctoral supervision in an online programme and seen two students collect their doctorates – with more to follow. Thanks to a CSU Research Fellowship I was able to complete my book on PR professionalism and ethics, an achievement which I will be building on in the new role.
It really is rather marvellous to be offered a job that brings together so many strands of previous work – including research into PR education for the CIPR – and creates a space in which it may be possible (particularly with Anne in the picture) to make a real difference.
So, homeward bound.
New publications
Posted in Book, Ethics, PR and society, Research, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged communication ethics, Goffman, Jung, Jungian ethics, Public relations, publications, Research on January 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I have two (!) papers in the latest edition of Public Relations Review (one has been online since 2014 but now gets full publication) and two online chapters to share.
Fawkes, J. (2015a) A Jungian Conscience: self-awareness for PR practice, Public Relations Review, Vol 41, pp 726–733. Doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2015.06.005
Fawkes, J. (2015b) Performance and Persona: Goffman and Jung’s approaches to professional identity applied to public relations. Public Relations Review, Vol 41, pp 675–680. Doi: 0.1016/j.pubrev.2014.02.011
My chapter on PR ethics for practitioners, in the pioneering #FuturePRoof book is available here (the rest of the book is also well worth reading):
Finally, delighted that my chapter has been included in the free selection from the excellent Routledge New Directions in Public Relations Research series
PR Research Directions booklet
Posted in Book, Ethics, PR and society, Research, Uncategorized, tagged communication ethics, Public relations, publications, Research on January 6, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Delighted one of the chapters from my book is included in the 85-page booklet showcasing work from Routledge’s New Directions in Public Relations Research series, edited by the redoubtable Kevin Moloney.
Full text here: PR booklet
Leipzig (II)
Posted in Book, Conferences, PR and society, Research, Uncategorized, tagged book, Conferences, Jungian ethics, Leipzig on December 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Reflecting on two days’ discussion of PR/Strat Comms as a research field, I observe a profound tension between
a) scholars who wish to constrain the research objects to something manageable, measurable and scientific which will help define the field for reserchers and enhance understanding of practice – theories which are observable in the material world. The strength of this desire is the search for core concepts/models through rigorous scientific method; the weakness is that it tries to put vagaries of human communication into boxes too small to contain them; and
b) scholars who embrace multi perspective/interdisciplinary approaches and consider pursuit of Truth as futile or phantastical – they have a more playful sense of research which undermines the foundational claims commonly made in PR/SC research. Their strength is the richness of ideas and imagination they bring to traditionally rather applied research; the weakness is that as perspectives multiply, the field itself could easily scatter beyond recognition or identification.
I belong to group b – with its roots in critical thinking and engagement with postmodern theory – but am aware that this has dangers.
My book proposal illustrates this: I presented ideas for a volume that combines social theory, PR theory, cultural studies, psychologies of persuasion, Jungian concepts and current PR practice. There is a central argument that weaves these strands together which, phew, was comprehensible to those present who gave the ideas a very warm welcome. So the weakness could be that the macro-level discussion of PR’s impact on society becomes too abstract; the strength lies in my experience of practice and ability to ground wilder theories in the everyday.
I greatly appreciated the opportunity to test these ideas and their relevance to the question of where PR research is going – it may have taken a lot of airmiles and a massive drop in Centigrade to get there, but I reckon one hour’s discussion has saved me 6 months’ solitary head banging. So, thanks to Howard Nothhaft and Sara von Platen from Lund University and Jens Seifert from U of Vienna for organising this event.
Leipzig symposium (I)
Posted in Book, Conferences, PR and society, Research, Uncategorized, tagged Conferences, Public relations on December 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Privileged to have been invited to participate in this small research symposium concerning the future research directions of PR/strategic communication. The emphasis on sharing developing ideas & emerging thoughts not just presenting finished work was irresistible. I am bringing half-formed ideas for my next book to this gathering and look forward to their feedback later this morning.
We are a small, select group, mainly from German and Scandinavian universities – and an unusually youthful gathering. It is exciting to see a new generation of researchers coming through with a completely different academic and practice background from my generation. They may not have the grounding in practice common to my lot but they bring a new agenda informed by contemporary research in sociology, applied science and philosophy.
So, yesterday’s highpoint was a passionate conversation between those who embrace a post structural world of unknowable uncertainties and those who want to know that the plane will fly. I observed that these are not entirely incompatible in that science agrees that time cannot be linear but I still need to be at the airport tonight. The bridge is our reliance on stories to manage the complexities of the quantum universe. Which brings us back to PR/strat comms.
Much of the discussion centred on – what stories do we tell in our conceptualisation of the field, in our teaching, in our selection of methods?? Are we just telling ourselves comforting lies or can we embrace something more robust. Is progress as illusory as linear time?
I was v taken by Peter Winkler’s (U of Vienna) presentation of competing paradigms in social thought and PR, highlighting the tropes and fallacies of each before identifying new combinations which might frame emerging researching directions – we plan to return to this at the end of the symposium this pm.
Johanna Fawkes Research 