Gender and Public Relations: Critical Perspectives on Voice, Image and Identity

Although there is a small body of feminist scholarship that problematizes gender in public relations, gender is a relatively undefined area of thinking in the field and there have been few serious studies of gender and public relations. Positioned within the critical public relations stream, this book examines many previously unexplored areas through the prism of 'gender and public relations' such as: social status within media organizations and their work cultures; the negotiation of identity, diversity and social practice; ethics; education and their implications for gendered relations in the workplace. This edited collection calls attention to the absence of gender in much public relations knowledge and teaching so that future researchers will be compelled to interrogate how gender is accomplished and transformed, and thus, how power is exercised and inequality (re)produced or challenged in public relations. The book will expand thinking about power relations and privilege for both women and men and how these are affected by the interplay of social, cultural and institutional practices.