Social Media and Public Relations

As we began this project, we knew that we would have to overcome two
obstacles, at least. One was the study of a topic that was in its formative stages.
Given that social media are continuing to develop, as are the patterns of users,
we would be writing on a topic for which little historical perspective was available. We knew that it would be challenging to know what was going on and
how people and public relations practitioners were using and responding to
social media trends. Scholars, practitioners, social media developers, and skilled
users were deeply engaged in making something happen. In the midst of all of
that uncertainty, we were confronted with the notion that social media were
(or were constrained from) being used for sociopolitical activism, terrorism,
and marketing. As we immersed ourselves in social media, we joined various
communities and sought to understand not only public relations practices but
also gain insights into user perspectives. Social media became a distraction, a
fascination, and at times, a procrastination technique. As critical scholars, our
attention was drawn to the cultural clash between the promotional cultures of
public relations and participatory cultures of social media; the shift in power/
knowledge relations; and the ways in which sociality played out in various
social media. At the heart of our inquiry was a concern for democratic principles and equity practices. It seemed to us that social media was driving a
cultural transformation in which identities were formed and performed as users
engaged in collaborative relationships, exchanged information and meanings,
and shared their everyday lives more publicly. We have sought to document,
theorize and critique these cultural changes and the ways in which public relations seeks to influence such processes.
The second problem was time and geography. What seemed to be a
workable timetable failed for many reasons, and distance led to the difficulties of coordinated work. On this last point, we decided that each of us
would be the lead author on various chapters, but no one would have the
task of making style and presentation totally consistent. Each of the authors
had special interests, read each other’s chapters, and made comments. Most
importantly, rather than severely differing over matters we tended to help
one another make points clearer and more forcefully. We shared articles,
cases, and encouragement.