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Explores relationships between the popular perception of public relations; the Grunigian paradigm, its distortion by UK teachers and a way forward to a more soundly‐based teaching about the communications of organizations. The first part is about public perceptions of public relations in the UK and how these influence attitudes on the campus. The second part is about shifting the emphasis of teaching away from a communication science perspective and towards a political studies one. Concludes that this shift could lead to a better connection with modern thinking about persuasive information flows in modern, liberal, industrialized societies.

A brief survey of the public relations industry is followed by an account of the specific applications of public relations to university libraries. The process begins with identification of the library′s aims and objectives and of its main client bodies. Discusses the full range of public relations skills, including interpersonal skills, service quality and library promotion by all means. Stresses the importance of public relations to a university library.

Hypothesises that the public relations industry and those connected with it suffer from low reputation; that this perception is widespread and may create a distorted reality. Surveys a self‐selected and representative sample to evaluate the hypothesis. Considers semantic differences in terminology. Argues for empirical location, reform and more interdisciplinary research. Suggests that an Office for the Regulation of the Public Relations industry (OFFPR) might improve reputation of the industry and the people who work in it, including teachers and students.

“Reputation management” is widely used as a rationale for public relations, although the public relations practice has problems with its own reputation. Public relations is presented in textbooks as a mature management discipline, yet the term “public relations” is rejected by many practitioners and academics. “Reputation management” may have been introduced to counter negative associations and to gain status for the practice. The purpose of this paper is to use critical theory to question the ideas and assumptions underlying “reputation management” and to examine contradictions within the term.

The paper reviews what this theory has to say about public relations and its claim to be a mature management discipline. It examines how public relations practitioners explain their role to internal and external publics.

An initial literature review suggests that the contradictions within “reputation management” mirror contradictions within public relations practice.

The paper encourages debate in the public relations field.

Public relations activities as they relate to the roles of the circulation librarian in an academic library are discussed. The position of the circulation librarian as the public relations officer of his or her library in fulfilling the objectives of the institution and the library are also discussed. Services must be acceptable and the only way to make them acceptable is through public relations activities. The quality of the circulation librarian is highlighted for good public relations results. The services of the circulation librarian who uses public relations tools to function are also discussed as well as the ways the impact can be felt. This discussion highlights the similarity of the activities of the circulation librarian and the public relations officer of any establishment, and how they affect their organisation in positive ways.

Describes changes and developments taking place in public relations in the UK. Such description is predicated on change in the external environment facing business organizations, increased expenditure on staffing and public relations activities, and teaching developments in this innovative management field. But the main causatory factors are fuzzy market boundaries, changing publics, and short‐lived competitive advantages. A hypothetical company example is used to illustrate how public relations might be used to build relations with key target audiences.

Personal influence is one of the most powerful strategies to influence publics’ behaviours. Yet, there is scant attention on how personal influence is leveraged for different public relations purposes in different cultural contexts. This study empirically investigates the presence and use of personal influence among Italian public relations professionals.

A survey was conducted through a self-administrated, web-based questionnaire and was developed from earlier studies investigating personal influence in public relations literature. Survey participants included public relations professionals across public, non-profit and private sectors.

The findings empirically show the presence and regular use of personal influence by professionals from all sectors to cultivate interpersonal relationships. Personal influence is considered a personal resource and used to leverage own influencing power. The findings also document four major manifestations of personal influence, which were named: relational closeness strategy, engagement strategy, expertise strategy and added value strategy.

This study enhances our understanding of personal influence in a specific cultural context and offers strategic insights for international professionals seeking to leverage influence in the socio-political environment of Italy. It also offers elements to improve public relations education and training.

The study offers some preliminary understandings of how Italian professionals leverage their personal influence in their daily public relations activities contributing with empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in public relations.

Fake news stories have become a central element of crises that corporate public relations practitioners have confronted. Whether such stories are rumors, outright lies or deliberate attempts to discredit corporations, they have the same impact and require specific strategies for public relations practitioners to effectively respond. The purpose of this study is to uncover strategies to manage crises that arise from fake news and if and how these strategies differ for other corporate crises.

In this multi-method study of 21 in-depth interviews and a 8-person focus group with senior-level corporate public relations practitioners, authors explored decision-making strategies for responding to fake news crises. Transcripts of interviews and the focus group were thematically analyzed.

Results reveal insights regarding how public relations practitioners determine if and when to respond to fake news crises in corporations; what response strategies public relations practitioners have the autonomy to employ for fake news crises in corporations, and how public relations practitioners control media narratives during fake news crises in corporations.

The findings guide public relations practitioners to craft an autonomous decision-making process and effective online listening strategies—establishing a watchful waiting approach—and determine if the fake news issue is a passing moment or movement swirling into a crisis.

Few studies have examined the perspectives of crisis communication experts about minimizing and managing fake news crises. The study identifies opportunities for future research focused on crises originating from fake news and disinformation.

This chapter adds to emerging research exploring the construct of joy by drawing attention to the value of more loving stakeholder relationships. Relationship management research has focussed attention on the antecedents, outcomes and quality of an organization's relationships with various publics and stakeholders and has examined strategies that can nurture these relationships. However, not much of this research has addressed intimacy and passion in these relationships.

Accordingly, this chapter draws on the theory of brand love developed in relationship marketing research and the theory of love from psychological research to build a theoretical framework of organization–stakeholder love (OSL) that can be applied to organizational relationships with publics and stakeholders. An OSL framework switches emphasis from how organizations can attract stakeholder affection (e.g., love) towards organizations to how organizations can and should love their stakeholders. The proposition put forward in this chapter is that OSL can and should become a driving force behind organizations' interactions with stakeholders, thus contributing to ethical public relations practices.

OSL is important because it has the potential to contribute to addressing public relations' image problems (e.g., relating to terms such as spin and corporate greenwashing); it offers a new love orientation that guides organizations towards a focus on the primacy of stakeholder needs and values, which in turn may shape the way organizations initiate and manage relationships with stakeholders. This chapter concludes with practical ways to implement OSL and a research agenda suggesting ways OSL may open up new research opportunities in public relations.

The practice of public relations (PR) is shaped by the ‘life world’ of the professionals; moreover, both the experiences of the professionals and societal changes shape the profession in a particular area (Hodges, 2006). Women have always played an important part in the development of PR as a profession and academic field in Turkey. Since PR Association of Turkey was established in 1972, five out of eight presidents have been women, and most of the members are also female. Female PR practitioners represent 70% of the total workforce of PR sector in Turkey, and most of the communication agencies are led by female entrepreneurs.

However, research on women' positions and their multiple roles in PR in Turkey are limited.

This chapter uses a qualitative study with 27 in-depth one-on-one interviews conducted in order to analyse female PR practitioners' experiences related to (1) the start of their careers, (2) their career experiences, (3) their evaluation of the profession, and lastly (4) their career goals. The interviewees included agency owners, managers, deputy general managers and group directors.

The research aimed to discover the female PR professional experience in respect of the difficulties they face in their practice and everyday life, advantages and/or disadvantages of being a female PR professional in Turkey and the ways women balanced their career and family duties.