Comparative book review

Citation

Willis, P. (2010), "Comparative book review", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 14 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcom.2010.30714cae.001

Comparative book review

Article Type: Comparative book review From: Journal of Communication Management, Volume 14, Issue 3

New Media and Public Relations (1st ed.)Edited by Sandra C. DuhéPeter Lang PublishingNew York, NY2007472 pp.ISBN 9780820488011 (paperback)£28.00Public Relations and the Social Web: How to Use Social Media and Web 2.0 in Communications (1st ed.)Rob BrownKogan PageLondon2009182 pp.ISBN 9780749455071 (hardback)£19.99

Keywords: Public relations, Communication technologies, Internet, Ethics, Communication management, Marketing communications

Public relations scholars and practitioners must interpret the impact of new technology on the organisational and human facets of communication but the rapid and incessant march of innovation on the internet has hit the discipline like a tsunami. While some flourish, confident and certain in their analysis and understanding of the virtual world, others are grappling with the nuts and bolts of the technology, not to mention the bigger issues linked to the implications for contemporary theory and future research. The need for fresh thinking and insight – particularly in the form of new theoretical waypoints – is crucial.

Sandra Duhé is to be congratulated for setting out to meet such lofty objectives in a text that is targeted at advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as practitioners. The book covers the full gamut of new media and discusses the internet in its broadest sense containing 31 stand alone chapters from 52 contributors. Part 1 of the book focuses on the impact of new media from a theoretical point of view, while Part 2, which contains the bulk of the chapters, examines how new media are being used in public relations practice and, in particular, how online communication promotes engagement with a variety of stakeholders. These chapters are organised under unifying themes: relationship and reputation management; power, resistance and social change; niche applications (such as communication with children, communicating environmental causes and marketing online for small to medium sized enterprises); as well as crisis communication. However, there seem to be two, possibly conflicting, aims for the book. Duhé states that her, “authors revisit established models in light of new technologies and offer new lenses through which public relations can be studied. These exploratory ideas provide promising areas for further research and refinement.” However, Paine’s introduction claims that the text, “blows away many of the established theories of public relations and puts them back together in a way that is relevant and applicable in the new environment.” My view is that Duhé’s vision of the book as a theoretical work-in-progress is more appropriate than Paine’s claim of a paradigm shift.

In Part 1 the authors do not deconstruct and replace current academic approaches in the light of new media, and leaving aside the rather over-enthusiastic introduction, none of them make such a claim for their own work. Rather, Bey-Ling Sha builds on Grunig’s four traditional models of practice in the light of the emergence of new media channels; Cozier and Witmer deliver a structuralist perspective on the modern communication environment by highlighting how the internet has created an infinite number of opportunities for individuals to engage in discursive practices; Duhé conceptualises the world-wide-web as a conduit for transparency and complexity; and, in the final chapter of Part 1, Waymer argues that the amplification of minority voices by new media requires the traditional spiral of silence hypothesis to be reconceptualised, although he notes that such an inquiry is beyond the scope of the chapter he has written for the book. As Duhé notes, the authors’ contributions seek to reconsider established approaches through the lens of new media. As a result, there is plenty here for students and educators to consider, debate and develop, particularly when juxtaposed against prevailing paradigms. Indeed, the theories linked to complexity and structuration bring in welcome perspectives from beyond the discipline in an attempt to explain and conceptualise the new media environment.

Part 2 discusses how new media are being used in contemporary practice and covers an eclectic array of topics and issues. Engaging and contextualised discussions around the themes of social capital (Hazleton, Harrison-Rexrode and Kennan) and stakeholder power (Coombs and Holladay) sit alongside practical chapters that cover the design factors to consider when developing web sites for relationship management (Vorvoreanu). Given such a broad canvas, greater analysis and synthesis of existing and emerging themes from the editor would have been useful. Aside from very short introductions at the beginning of each section, no attempt is made to draw together the key points generated by the diverse research that has been carried out. Indeed, the book lacks a concluding chapter from the editor (or index). As Duhé is an engaging commentator, and having delivered such a hefty tome to the publisher, it would have been interesting to hear her reflections: a considered and balanced overview on social media’s long-term implications for theory and practice would have been welcome.

It would also have been useful if some of the claims made by Duhé and others about new media’s pro-democracy credentials were debated in depth and other more sceptical perspectives introduced. While new forms of communication can encourage dialogue, engagement and co-creation analysis too often focuses on the technology’s idealised capabilities rather than the realities of use. Furthermore, non-technological factors also have more of a role to play in campaigns than they are given credit for by the contributors. In the Disney case study discussed by Fledner and Meisenbach the fact that Roy Disney (Walt Disney’s nephew) and Stanley Gold (a former Walt Disney Company Board Director) were publicly behind the launch of the SaveDisney.com web site is not assessed as a factor behind the success of the online campaign. Rather than the greatest contributor to the success of the campaign being the creators’ use of technology to enable dialogue with stakeholders, as the authors claim, it could be argued that it was the existing profile and personal histories of the protagonists themselves that generated interest and profile. Separating out the factors that really make a campaign work – whether based on technology or human interest – is essential if we are to make sense of the virtual world.

While most of the case studies and perspectives featured in the book are from the USA there are also welcome discussions of developments in other countries and regions, including India, Germany, Brazil and the Arab world. The latter chapter, for example, provides an interesting overview of internet penetration in the region and how this has been influenced by prevailing cultural, political, economic and social factors. Finally, the nature of the beast under review means that the book is already showing signs of age and serves to reinforce the point made by many of the contributors about the speed of change online. Readers in 2010 will be struck by the book’s disproportionate focus on web sites as a mode of online communication and the limited discussion of social media. A text and its content is inevitably a product of its time and the inherent challenges posed by publishing lead times, particularly for a project of this nature, is reinforced when it is considered that Twitter was launched only a year before the book in 2006 and YouTube 12 months previously. Does the existing medium enhance the content or would an online execution have been more effective?

So, for those looking for a route map through the new media landscape, together with a checklist of “how to do new media”, this is not the book, as the online environment has evolved significantly since the book’s conception and subsequent publication. The book’s merits instead lay in the questions that are posed about the theoretical implications of new media for public relations and as an anthology that charts the diverse use of new media in practice, albeit up to the middle of the last decade.

In contrast, Rob Brown has produced a clear and concise work that can best be characterised as a “how to” manual, although the same health warning about its own shelf life will come to apply. While it is not made clear who the book is aimed at, it would seem to have an obvious appeal to undergraduates and those entering practice. While this is a generation that has come of age with the technology under scrutiny, Brown’s contribution is to provide advice about the advantages and pitfalls of using Web 2.0 communication in a public relations context. For example, the dangers of targeting bloggers; the implications of social as opposed to “traditional” online search methods; evaluation and measurement; as well as the importance of ethics. In the latter chapter it would have been interesting to hear Brown’s views on what needs to be done about online ethics in the future, rather than illustrating a couple of examples of bad practice and presenting an overview of existing ethical codes: as a battle hardened practitioner I’m sure he has some interesting and provocative things to say on the subject and it would have been good to have seen this section expanded. That said, in other areas of the book he is able to draw on his experience to call on many personal and industry examples to illustrate and enliven the text. The majority of the case studies are drawn almost exclusively from the UK and USA. However, the ones selected are fresh and relevant and on that basis his inclusion of Dell – like other authors before him – can be forgiven!

Although lacking any theoretical or strategic insight, I also suspect the book will also be of interest to senior practitioners and academics who may require a straight-forward, informative – but covert – tour of the virtual undergrowth. The book is a very good introduction to the many facets of social media and includes practical advice on blogs, wikis, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), social networking and search engine optimisation. It should remain a useful text to dip in and out of once it is read.

While Brown does bring a welcome practical, hands-on approach to the literature he does refer to public relations as a strategic marketing discipline and devotes the book to a narrow commercial perspective. An exploration of how social media is being used to promote engagement in – and across – communities would have been welcome and would have served to highlight the genuinely social aspect of this new technology. Indeed, if enlightened decision making is the highest calling of public relations it would be fascinating to discuss the role of new communication technology in this process.

Paul WillisCentre for Public Relations Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK