Salem State University Communications Department

Faculty Publication News: New Book by Robert E. Brown

Post by: Robert E. Brown

Today my book—The Public Relations of Everything– will be published by Routledge.

The book – the product of two years research and writing – is being called “radical” by its initial reviewers because it repositions public relations as a humanity. “Everything” is the newest entry in a special series of senior scholarly books on public relations under the Routledge label.

Traditionally, public relations field has been classified as an applied social science. To quote the publisher’s blurb on amazon.com website:

“In the age of digitization and social media, everyone with a smart phone, Twitter and Facebook accounts, and the will and skill to use them, is in the media. The PR of everything – the ubiquitousness of public relations – takes a perspective that is less concerned with ideas of communication and information than with experience and drama, a way of looking at public relations inside out, upside down and from a micro rather than a macro level. Based on a combination of the research of PR practice and critical-thinking analysis of theory, and founded in the author’s extensive corporate experience, this book will be invaluable reading for scholars and practitioners alike in Public Relations, Communications and Social Media.”

Early reviews of the book’s pre-publication proofs read like this:

‘This is a wise book that breaks with the dominant paradigms and rethinks public relations in interdisciplinary, philosophical, and humanistic terms, bringing a new definition to a field that has long been seeking to define itself. Brown is a thinker who has thought long and hard about the field and has enriched this book with his wide reading and long professional experience.’

- Ray Hiebert, Editor, Public Relations Review, USA

'In PRe, Rob Brown reconceptualises public relations as a humanity, shifting the field from the quantitatively distinct to the distinctly human: ambiguous, historical, interdisciplinary, and vocal. An accomplished scholar, he mines his own extensive experiences in public relations, along with works from academics, practitioners, pioneers, and poets, to present a fascinating, timely, and thought-provoking work.’

- Margot Opdycke Lamme, Associate Professor, University of Alabama, USA.

'Robert Brown deftly flips long-held conventions about public relations as management of organizational communication. From history, theory and ethics to crisis communication, Brown argues that the study of public relations should expand to include “everyday experience of individuals” as much as sociology, anthropology, politics and more. Written with dexterity, this compelling book will get readers thinking about public relations in new and refreshing ways.’

- Amiso M. George, Associate professor of Strategic Communication, Texas Christian University, USA

'This book is the essence of convergence in Public Relations: the convergence of means, the convergence of perspectives and the convergence of disciplines that merge into one in this field. With this book, Robert Brown, will become a classic not only for the content but also for the ability of making poetry from the academic literature.’

- Enric Ordeix, Professor, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Catalonia-Spain

So … Is PR ethical? (Read Chapter 9). Is PR comical? (Read Chapter 1). Is PR political? (Read Chapter 7). Is PR dramatic? (Read Chapter 4: “Actors.”) Is PR modern? (Read Chapter 5).

Priced by the publisher as a B2B – with a paperback copy planned, the hard cover version will be shipped to libraries, PR agencies and departments and consumers as soon as the publisher can package the copies with a Bon Voyage!

Professor Brown, who celebrates his twentieth year at Salem State University, is faculty adviser to the Salem State chapter of PRSSA (www.prssa.org), one of the university’s most active and award-winning clubs. Professor Brown’s writing has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Reader’s Digest, the Salem News, the Honolulu Advertiser, Bon Appetit, as well as in peer-reviewed scholarly journals of communication and English literature. His previous book, Alcover: Elegies, a collection of poetry translations co-authored with Salem State colleague Kristine Doll, a professor of foreign languages, was selected as the university’s publication of the year in 2004.

Follow Professor Brown @gatheringlight

• 17 November 2014
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