Deconstructing Public Relations: Public Relations Criticism

Utilizing case studies from public relations, advertising, and marketing to illustrate deconstruction and analysis of public relations campaigns, this volume provides a critical look at public relations practice. The author applies the cultural studies approach and explains how it can be used as a critical theory for public relations practice. He concentrates on looking at the material text of a campaign; therefore, the text will become the focus of deconstructing.This book seeks to reflect the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida who proposes that one should deconstruct a text as a way of examining the ideas proposed in the text. Thus, the work of deconstruction can become a critical reflection on public relations work. The book questions the purpose of a particular public relations project -- whether employee communications, government lobbying, community relations, crisis communication, or product promotion. Looking at the point of view in the campaign, it examines the data or evidence for that point of view, as well as the assumptions of that view. To ask questions of public relations material is to deconstruct it. Therefore, a critique of certain fundamental preconceptions of the public relations view will be implied in the chapters of this volume.

Thomas J. Mickey is Professor of Communication Studies at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.