Depth Public Relations: After the Masquerade

Contemporary global culture, rooted in neoliberalism and free market forces, increasingly emphasises appearance over substance. People and organisations are judged by image and reputation while social media encourages and enables us to develop our own public persona.

This book explores the rise of promotional communication with a particular focus on public relations (PR) and its role. Organisations, from local charities to multinational corporations, employ professional PR staff to manage promotional communication, and even public institutions must position themselves in the marketplace to secure funding and approval. To what extent has PR contributed to this culture of display, this masquerade of emptiness?

This book argues that the climate crisis demands not more performance but a new approach, one of ’depth public relations’. This concerpt builds on ideas not only from public relations, but also psychology, sociology and philosophy, as well as introducing the voices of climate activists and others seeking a deeper relationship with the human and non- human worlds.

The proposed principles of depth public relations offer suggestions for theory and practice, with profound implications for PR and related fields, and will interest all scholars of the changing communication environment.

Johanna Fawkes, PhD, is currently Visiting Fellow at Leeds Beckett University, UK. She was Principal Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield (2016-18), leading an international research team to produce the Global Capability Framework for Public Relations and Communications Management.

Since 1990, Johanna has developed public relations degrees at all levels at universities in the UK and Australia, following a career in public sector communication. She has delivered international keynote speeches and published widely on public relations’ identity, performance and ethics. Her book, Public Relations Ethics and Professionalism; The Shadow of Excellence, introducing a Jungian approach to ethics, was published by Routledge in 2015 (paperback 2017).. Johanna now lives in Andalucia, Spain.