Women's Work in Public Relations

by Elizabeth Bridgen (Editor), Sarah Williams (Editor)

Overview

The experience of women’s everyday lives in public relations roles across the world is under-recorded and under-explored. While the body of knowledge which explores public relations and corporate communications is growing, research that seeks to understand the working lives of women in promotional cultures is still limited. This collection prioritises women’s experiences and histories to understand more about public relations practices and the daily lives of women who carry out this work.

Demonstrating the breadth and range of feminist writing on women’s work, chapters step away from management-based accounts of public relations towards a space where marginalised voices and the lived experiences of women at all stages in their career are foregrounded. Discussing working lives in Brazil, Spain, Bosnia, Turkey, the UK and beyond, authors consider in rich detail female roles, experiences and paradoxes.

Reconceptualising human experience through a holistic feminist approach, Women’s Work in Public Relations takes us behind the scenes to connect with women navigating the problems and contradictions of everyday working life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781804555392
Publisher:	Emerald Publishing Limited
Publication date:	03/25/2024
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Bridgen is Principal Lecturer in Public Relations at Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Sarah Williams is Head of School of Business and Law, Buckinghamshire New University, UK.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction: Because We never See it doesn’t mean It Never Happens; Elizabeth Bridgen and Sarah Williams
SECTION 1: Marginalised Identities
Chapter 2. PR Power in the 1990s: Sex, Sexuality, and Sexism – a UK Perspective; Heather Yaxley and Sarah Bowman
Box 1. Practitioner Story: The Shift from Unsupportive Sisterhood to Enlightened Empowerment – a Personal Perspective of Three Decades of Practice; Diane Green
Chapter 3. Unequal Opportunity: Experience and Expectation of 21st Century Maternity Provision in the Communications Workplace; Susan Kinnear and Tess Lhermitte-Russell
Chapter 4. “Just Like Any Other”: Public Relations Careers in the Adult Industries; Elizabeth Bridgen
SECTION 2: Global Perspectives
Chapter 5. Female Public Relations Academics in Spain; Isabel Ruiz-Mora, Ileana Zeler, and Andrea Oliveira
Box 2. Practitioner Story: Women in PR: Frontline Peacekeeping in Post-Conflict Bosnia; Sheena Thomson
Chapter 6. The Experiences of Women Professionals in Turkey: What is It like to Work for a Communication Agency?; Begüm Ekmekçigil and Olesya Gorbunova Öner
Box 3. Practitioner story: Stop Drinking the Dirty Water; Jade Bilowol
Chapter 7. “Always Being on”: Exploring the Experience of Burnout Among Female Professionals in the Australian Public Relations Industry; Jade Bilowol, Jenny A Robinson, Deborah Wise, and Marianne Sison
Chapter 8. Female PR Professors in Brazil: A Contemporary Liberal Feminist-Centred Study; Fabiana Gondim Mariutti, and Cleuza Gertrudes Gimenes Cesca
Box 4. Practitioner Story: A Brazilian Woman Tale: Letter to Remind You to Have your Voice in Time and Space; Fabiana Gondim Mariutti
Chapter 9. Flex Appeal: Flexible Working, Women Public Relations Leaders, and My Own Experience as a Non-Parent Woman Leader in Public Relations; Aimee Postle
SECTION 3: Developing Theoretical Frameworks to Make Sense of the Ordinary
Chapter 10. Performing Professionalism: A Story in Three Acts; Sarah Williams
Box 5. Practitioner Story: How to have a 40-Year Career in PR as a Woman; Bron Eames
Chapter 11. A Multi-Generational Telling of Women’s Work in Public Relations; Heather Yaxley
Chapter 12. Women’s-Only Networking in PR: Discourse Analysis of the Entanglement of Barriers and Benefits; Keren Darmon
Chapter 13. Using Ethnography to Explore Women’s Work in Public Relations; Sarah Williams