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Two delightful reviews for my latest book: really gratifying after years of hard work.

“Depth Public Relations is an ambitious and highly original book. Johanna Fawkes shares insights from a career as a public relations academic, practitioner, and teacher. It presents the challenges and opportunities facing contemporary public relations practice from a critical research perspective. It’s unusually readable for an academic book that will appeal to anyone working in public relations. Fawkes is herself an excellent public relations practitioner.”

Stephen Waddington, Managing Partner, Wadds Inc., Visiting Professor, Newcastle University, PhD Student, Leeds Business School

“It is not easy for a book to hit the nail on the head. And even more so if it is a text about a discipline and a profession about which many people think that everything has already been said. This occurs with the book by Johanna Fawkes, whose great merit is having offered an approach to public relations that combines references to the transforming processes of professional practice with others to theoretical frameworks little explored until now, such as the one to ideas from Jung. Fawkes deals with issues that seem very evident to the reader, but, at the same time, the reader wonders why nobody had said it until now. The outcome is an exciting theoretical and practical update of the public relations body of knowledge based on its main feature: interdisciplinarity. Indeed, this book shows how necessary interdisciplinarity and a 360 degrees’ approach is necessary for critical public relations scholars.”

Jordi Xifra, Full Professor, Catedrático de Universidad, Department of Communication, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

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My new book Depth Public Relations: After the Masquerade will be published by Routledge this December. It takes a cool look at PR’s contribution to the dominant culture, focussing on the climate crisis. Instead of (as well as) despair, it offers the possibility for depth responses, drawing on approaches from psychology philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. Full blurb and contents here: https://www.routledge.com/Depth-Public-Relations-After-the-Masquerade/Fawkes/p/book/9780815358732

Lovely comments from Prof. Rob Brown:

“In her ambitiously comprehensive, deeply researched, gracefully written, socio-cultural scholarly tour-de-force, Professor Fawkes expands the aperture of public relations, while offering a compelling critique of the concept and the practice. What comes into focus is much that has been obscured by PR’s traditional managerial perspective. Her achievement is to give us a long and deep look at ways of conceptualizing PR beyond the limitations of the older model without throwing out the communication-management baby with the socio-cultural bathwater. Fawkes’s insights are likely to resonate with PR and other disciplinary scholars, teachers and students as well as thoughtful practitioners of the persuasive industries. As a critical scholar, Fawkes has not neglected a certain ‘inwardness’ in PR, which identifies, in a minor key, the field’s increasingly intentional, aspirational and redemptive humanism.”

Robert E. Brown (PhD), Emeritus Professor of Media and Communication, Salem State University and Affiliated Faculty, Communication Studies, Emerson College.

There’s a discount on the Routledge page or DM me for further info.

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jonathan_wise_reclaiming_agency_rachel_manns_nov_2019_27-min.jpg

(from https://www.reclaimingagency.com/meet-us)

Jonathan Wise is an adman calling his industry to account for its contribution to climate collapse.

In his late 30s, at the height of a career as a senior planning strategist, Jonathan’s MA course in Sustainability made him think again about the assumptions of endless growth and resource depletion that underpin advertising success.

“I felt I’d been stupid – not the smartest guy in the room, after all. I’d been duped and my identity was challenged,” Jonathan said when I interviewed him last week for my forthcoming book. The experience triggered deep self-questioning about what it means to be a good person, and a good man in particular.

Retreats in nature and time with a Maori community led him to leave his job and create the Comms Lab and Reclaiming Agency, which offers space for advertising people at all levels to reflect on practice and consider whether there are better ways of doing business.

At a recent Radical Resilience webinar organised by St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, Wise gave the example of car ads which now feature groups of people sharing cars, a move away from the man and his machine trope. Still selling cars, though.

More radical is the manifesto at the heart of the Change the Brief demands which emerged from a day Wise and others organised last July where ad execs gathered to reflect on the industry’s role in the climate emergency and consider what steps they might take to challenge ‘business as usual’. It is an impressive set of principles (including don’t do work that increases carbon footprint), and the details of the process which gave rise to them are worth reading in full (here: ad industry acts

My question is: what is PR doing that begins to match this?

The CIPR has set up a committee that has been stalled by the virus; the PRCA has linked up with the Advertising Association to develop joint campaigns (thanks Rachel Picken for info) (PRCA).

How can PR leadership ensure that actions on climate change are more than skin deep, go further than adding ‘sustainable’ to slogans and brand images? Catherine Arrow‘s piece sets out some of the challenges, now and in the likely future.

Like advertisers, PR people have the skills, creativity and intellect to change the story. B Corporations might be one route. I suspect deep adaptation is required, as suggested at the Radical Resilience event. I hope the work I’m doing on deep communication principles will help. I doubt it will be in time.

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Very nice interview by Richard Bailey for the excellent 50over50 series.

Full text in link below.

JF interview

PRPlaceJF

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Since I ‘retired’ last year I seem to have been rather busy.  The good news is that, free from REF constraints, I can write what interests me not my employer! Here are links and references to recent publications (in reverse date order). Note: access to the P R Review article is free till August 13 through this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1ZHOB1Ik9WUCdg

Journal article:

PRR

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.05.002

Abstract:

A Global Capability Framework: Reframing public relations for a changing world.This paper describes a two-year research project the purpose of which was to produce the first globally applicable Capability Framework for the practitioner, employer and academic communities in public relations and communicationmanagement. Working with partners across seven continents and supported by the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, a new approach to building capability was developed via to a four-stage research process, which resulted in nine country and one Global Capability Frameworks. The Global Capability Framework consists of 11 statements which taken as a whole, describe the scope and role of the profession.This paper explores the genesis of the project, a literature review, which also introduces the Capability Approach from the human development field, the research process which involved four different data collection methods, and the content of the resulting Global Capability Framework. The paper concludes with initial responses from the three communities for which the Framework is designed: practitioners, academics and employers. The paper combines theoretical innovation with a valuable practical contribution.

 

Book Chapter

Johanna Fawkes (2018). 15. Harm in Public Relations. In Patrick Lee Plaisance (Editor), Communication and Media Ethics (pp. 273–294). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110466034-015

Book DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110466034

Online ISBN: 9783110466034

 

Journal article

Fawkes, J. (2018 ). The evolution of public relations research – an overview.

Communication & Society, 31(4),159-171

doi: 10.15581/003.31.4.159

(PDF) The evolution of public relations research -an overview. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329908323_The_evolution_of_public_relations_research_-an_overview [accessed Jul 11 2019].

Abstract:

The field of public relations is often misunderstood, due to its hybridity, complexity and competing perspectives within the field of scholarship. This essay, which is based on extensive engagement with literature conducted over decades of teaching and researching the subject, outlines the main schools of thought within the field. These are summarised as a) Excellence; b) Advocacy; c) Dialogue; and  d) Critical and Cultural approaches. Each perspective reflects variations in understanding of the role of public relations in theory and practice, ranging from an idealised conceptualisation of the practitioner to a demonised view of the practice. It refers throughout to different attitudes to ethics found within these schools, as approaches to ethics provide insight into understandings of the role of public relations within society. The piece concludes with reflections on the growing engagement with promotional culture and emerging research directions.

 

Also: forthcoming chapters (in print)

Public Relations and Professional Identity, in Valenti, C. Handbook of Public Relations, De Gruyter

Public relations and the performance of everything, in R. E. Brown, The Global Foundations of Public Relations: Humanism, China and the West. Routledge

The contribution of public relations to promotional culture – taking the long view, in  Somerville, I., Ihlen, O. and Edwards, L. (eds) Public Relations, Society and the Generative Power of History,  Routledge

Public Relations’ Professionalism and Ethics, Chapter 13, in Tench, R. and Waddington, S. (Eds) Exploring Public Relations (5th Ed), Pearson Education

 

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Story released today by University of Huddersfield regarding our research into global capability framework./

Hud news story

Adds to wide range of supporting statements from leading practitioners and professional associations. One called it a game changer for the profession, another said the framework offers the best 2 page summary of the communication function.  Wonderful to be involved in a major project that will make a difference.

 

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The result of two years’ hard work with eight partner Universities in six continents was published yesterday at the World Public Relations Forum in Oslo. Here is the Global Alliance news release:

GA release

The full report setting out the background, design and full results is here, as are the frameworks for each participating country:

Report and country frameworks

 

Here’s a pic from the launch, via Annette Tjomsland

and Prof Anne Gregory in action, via Catherine Arrow

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Some recent reflections from Pamplona

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I’m starting a new blog to track the creation of my next book on appearance, deception, fast and slow communication. It’s provisionally titled Public Relations and Depth Communication: Behind the Mask (for the Routledge New Directions in Public Relations and Communications Research series). Will have thoughts, reviews, links. Followers, suggestions & contributions cordially invited here: Mask bookmask

  • with thanks to Padraig Macnamara for beautiful logo

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Worth checking out this opportunity for PR and communication researchers – please circulate:

Leeds Beckett University has a sponsored PhD vacancy available. This is funding for a corporate responsibility and communications based PhD bursary. http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/research-studentships-and-fees-only-bursaries/ Each studentship will have a bursary of £14,296 per annum (pro-rata into 12 monthly payments) plus UK/EU Fees paid for a period of three years. The University has recently won a major contract worth £18 million over five years, to deliver a new and highly innovative Integrated Healthy Lifestyles Service in the UK. This PhD is part of this programme. Applications close on the 5th June 2016, for an October 2016 start. Specifically this call is for PhD proposals exploring the role of State and Commerce in the healthy eating debate(s): Businesses recognize their role and responsibility in the healthy eating debate. They, like state actors, spend much time, effort and resource attempting to respond to the issue and to get their message across. Frequently this fails, is confused or is perceived as distrustful and self-interested marketing of the corporate brand by consumers, government, the media and NGO groups. This research will explore the role of the state at both a national and local level on the debate as well as the important but often misdirected and misunderstood attempts by business to respond appropriately to government as well as consumer and pressure group demands and expectations for a ‘responsible’ approach. The research may explore the efforts of business to respond to this agenda to build a framework of understanding from a local level and potentially in partnership with actors on the ground. Processes of communication will be analysed and evaluated to support and build deeper and more meaningful engagement with stakeholders at all levels. For further details please contact Professor Ralph Tench tel:+44(0)113 81 27539, email: r.tench@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

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