Public Relations and Participatory Culture

While public relations practitioners have long focused on the relationship between organizations and their stakeholders, there has never been a time when that relationship was so dominated by public participation. The new model of multiple messages originating from multiple publics at varying levels of engagement is widely acknowledged, but not widely explored in scholarly texts.The established model of one-way communication and message control no longer exists. Social media and an increasingly participatory culture means that fans are taking a more active role in the production and co-creation of messages, communication, and meaning. These fans have significant power in the relationship dynamic between the message, the communicator, and the larger audience, yet they have not been defined using current theory and discourse. Our existing conceptions fail to identify these active and engaged publics, let alone understand virtual communities who are highly motivated to communicate with organizations and brands. This innovative and original research collection attempts to address this deficit by exploring these interactive, engaged publics, and open up the complexities of establishing and maintaining relationships in fan-created communities.

'As the line between content producers and consumers increasingly blurs, this book takes an important step forward in bringing theory to bear on the way we proceed as communicators. The editors of this volume have brought together a varied and intrinsically interesting set of essays on topics that illuminate this new frontier, helping light the way forward while staying grounded in the wisdom of the past.' - Jessalynn Strauss, Assistant Professor, Elon University, USA'This is an important and very timely collection. It expertly and engagingly fuses together the fields of public relations and fan studies, resulting in, not only a much-needed interjection into current scholarship, but also, an impressive and compelling read.' - Lucy Bennett, Research Assistant, Cardiff University, UK'Today, public relations professionals and their publics are engaged in a dance of ideas that shapes and re-imagines interaction with organizations, services, products, and causes. Hutchins and Tindall's book focuses attention on the steps of this dance and shows us how the participatory space surrounding PR is fertile ground for authentic community engagement.' - Jennifer Jacobs Henderson, Chair and Professor of Communication, Trinity University, USA'The field of public relations benefits in a number of ways from the insights within the new book Public Relations and Participatory Culture. Not only do the authors embrace fan studies literature, a field that has much to contribute to PR theory development, they also examine the interaction between these engaged publics and the growing importance of online communication and online communities. I strongly recommend you read this!' - Sarah H. VanSlette, Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA"As one of the first attempts at placing these fans into communication theory, the editors – including previous Communication Director author Natalie T.J. Tindall (issue 04/2014) do an impressive job in compiling a diverse set of case studies to portray an overlooked phenomenon. Gamification, the Ice Bucket Challenge and Battlestar Galactica are just some of the cases featured in the book. Crucially, as with any good text seeking to inject new ideas into academic theory, the foundation chapters at the beginning of the book provide a firm outline of the dynamics of quickly-evolving participatory culture....If you are interested in any aspect of communications then you are sure to benefit from a greater understanding of the virtual communities that are impacting how we receive messages in our society." - Communication Reader

Natalie T. J. Tindall is Associate Professor, Georgia State University, USAAmber L. Hutchins is the Robert D. Fowler Endowed Chair in Communication, Kennesaw State University, USA.