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Call for Papers: Defence, Diplomacy & Development – (Re)Shaping Societies: Global Tasks for Public Relations in the 21st Century

01/25/2016 by simoncollister Leave a Comment

Defence, Diplomacy & Development – (Re)Shaping Societies: Global Tasks for Public Relations in the 21st Century

Monday 4th July, 2016

London College of Communication, University of the Arts London

The aim of this conference is to bring together strategic communicators working in civil society and academics to explore and discuss the role of public relations theory and practice in shaping emerging and existing societies. In recent years some public relations scholars have adopted a sociological perspective on strategic communication. This view sees the discipline as actively constructing and structuring the world in alignment with a number of structural forces – often corporate, governmental or state-based.

Such theories draw on a socially constructed epistemology (Heide, 2009; Ihlen and van Ruler, 2009) through which strategic communications practice “produce[s] a common social reality” (Heide, 2009: 43). Applications of these sociological analyses have tended to operate either at a theoretical level (Ihlen et al, 2009) or from a distinct critical perspective, employing concepts such as discourse theory or adopting readings of public relations as a cultural intermediary (Hodges, 2006).

The aim of this conference is to move beyond studies of what could be considered meso-level activities, such as marketing or corporate communication campaigns (Ihlen and van Ruler, 2009: 3) to focus scholarly attention on, arguably, macro-level communications activity and the ways it is responsible for shaping the values and norms of societies.

In particular we are interested in understanding how the increasingly professionalised and globalised discipline of public relations (Freitag and Stokes, 2009; Gannon and Pillai, 2013) shapes emerging societies in post-conflict or transitional environments. To advance such interests we have devised three thematic strands for the conference:

Defence – how are the military and intelligence agencies using communication strategically to prepare for, manage and embed specific state-focused or governmental aims? For example, how are ‘information ops’ deployed to destabilise hostile regimes; how is public relations used to communicate with civilians in conflict or post-conflict zones; how can strategic communications be used for coalition-building among local stakeholders (politicians, tribal elders, aid agencies, etc)?
Diplomacy – what communication strategies adopted by governments or inter-governmental organisations, such as the UN or NATO, are used to achieve opinion or behaviour change? This could include studies of inter-governmental lobbying for policy or regime change; the role of social media in engaging civilians as part of ‘public diplomacy’ campaigns; how can strategic communication – both interpersonal and external – be used in negotiation situations, e.g. terrorism, back-channel diplomacy, peace negotiations, etc?
Development – how is public relations used by stakeholders in supporting social development? This could include direct public-facing activity by NGOs and aid agencies, such as in-region public health awareness campaigns, the use of public relations in lobbying for aid budgets and aid programmes. Also, what role does PR play in higher ideas around progress, social integration, peace and social justice.

Although these themes lend themselves to the ‘global tasks’ facing public relations, we are also interested in receiving submissions about public relations’ role in shaping established societal frameworks – providing they cover some of the main issues raised above.

We welcome submissions that adopt a critical as well as functional account of public relations in the above contexts. The overarching aim of the conference is to encourage collaboration and partnership between practitioners and academics to develop new thinking across the field. We encourage challenging and thought-provoking proposals from individuals, groups or organisations.

Special Issue of Journal of Communication Management

The best papers will be selected to go for review by the Journal of Communication Management who will publish a Special Issue in support of the Conference.

If you would like to submit a paper for presentation at the conference, please email abstracts (400-600 words) to prglobaltasks [at] gmail [dot] com.

New Chapter: Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations

09/08/2015 by simoncollister Leave a Comment

I’m happy to say that my chapter, ‘Algorithmic PR: Materiality, Technology and Power in a Post-Hegemonic World’ has been published in the newly launched Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations.

The book was officially released last month at the recent Public Relations: Critical Perspectives, Edgework and Creative Futures conference held at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

It’s a mammoth text – standing at 446 pages – but having browsed a copy there is not much that isn’t innovative, instructive or inspiring about the content. Here’s the official blurb:

Critical theory has a long history, but a relatively recent intersection with public relations. This ground-breaking collection engages with commonalities and differences in the traditions, whilst encouraging plural perspectives in the contemporary public relations field.

Compiled by a high-profile and widely respected team of academics and bringing together other key scholars from this field and beyond, this unique international collection marks a major stage in the evolution of critical public relations. It will increasingly influence how critical theory informs public relations and communication.

The collection takes stock of the emergence of critical public relations alongside diverse theoretical traditions, critiques and actions, methodologies and future implications. This makes it an essential reference for public relations researchers, educators and students around a world that is becoming more critical in the face of growing inequality and environmental challenges. The volume is also of interest to scholars in advertising, branding, communication, consumer studies, cultural studies, marketing, media studies, political communication and sociology.

More info from Routledge here.

New chapter out on text-mining and digital research

06/19/2015 by simoncollister Leave a Comment

A chapter I co-authored on text-mining has (finally!) been published in the Sage publication, Innovations in Digital Research Methods.

Co-authored with Lawrence Ampofo, Ben O’Loughlin and Andrew Chadwick our chapter covers researching social media, discussing key techniques for textual analysis and exploring some of the opportunities, limitations and ethical considerations.

The full blurb from the introduction chapter is here:

Text Mining and Social Media: When Quantitative Meets Qualitative and Software Meets People
Text mining has developed dramatically in recent years in its power to analyse and extract information from very large bodies of unstructured text. Its applications are motivated by a growing awareness that researchers need more powerful tools in order to benefit from rapidly increasing amounts of textual data being generated through the proliferation and unprecedented levels of take up of Web 2.0 technologies. Chief among these are blogs and social media (‘micro-blogs’), the latter exemplified by the rise of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

In this chapter, Ampofo, Collister, O’Loughlin and Chadwick explore how text mining using natural language processing (NLP) techniques can provide qualitative social researchers with powerful analytical tools for extracting information from this unstructured data, including harvesting data and analysing it in real time. They survey the range of research tools for text mining, broadly defined, available both in the academic and commercial spheres. People’s use of social media is seen by many researchers as providing an ideal source of data through which to monitor rapidly changing situations, hence, it has come to particular prominence during civil unrest (e.g., the so-called ‘Arab Spring’) and natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Sandy). Beyond these inherently unpredictable phenomena, one of the most popular emerging applications of social media analysis lies in the tracking of public opinion through the application of NLP-based techniques such as sentiment analysis. These techniques have the capacity to generate results in real time, which offers intriguing possibilities for both commercial and academic research.

To illustrate the potential and challenges of using text mining techniques in social research, Ampofo, Collister, O’Loughlin and Chadwick present overviews of two projects. The first is a study of social media during the televised debates between political party leaders in the 2010 UK general election campaign. The second is also drawn from this election campaign and focuses on the reporting of accusations of bullying against then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the British media. The application of NLP-based text analysis tools to social data is still, in many respects, in its infancy. With this thought in mind, the authors conclude by outlining the ontological challenges (echoing the reservations that Elliot and Purdam set out in Chapter 3) and the technical challenges of mining text in social research settings. They note, in the case of social media, increasingly restrictive access policies, and they also consider the ethical implications of text mining used as a social research tool.

You can download the introduction over at the Sage website and download a full pre-publication version of the chapter from Royal Holloway’s New Political Communications Unit.

And of course, you can buy a copy of the whole book from Amazon.

Challenges for PR in the 21st Century

02/04/2015 by simoncollister Leave a Comment

I was asked to speak at the recent MIPAA PR Masterclass event about convergence and continuity in the PR industry.

I spoke about how the rise of ubiquitous digital media and, importantly, the computational layer that sits underneath all digital media is creating challenges for PR as a discipline and at a practical level.

I argued that algorithms play an increasingly significant part in determining what information we get to see, how we analyse and make sense of it as well as how our carefully crafted messages are mediated, manipulated and received.

I also discussed how the increasingly default nature for digital narratives is that of a fragmented datastream, rather than a coherent narrative (see Lev Manovich’s post).

And then for reassurance I suggested ways in which current practitioners could address and ensure a sense of continuity in terms of what they do on a day-to-day basis.

Some of the ideas and themes I took from a forthcoming chapter I have in the Routledge Handbook of Critical PR.

BBC Comment: Social Media Trends 2014

12/12/2014 by simoncollister Leave a Comment

Another quick link post featuring a series of comments I made for BBC News this week regarding the release of Google and Facebook’s top trends 2014.

You can read my incisive commentary over at the article.