scholarly journals Raining on SeaWorld’s Parade: PETA’s Direct Action and Public Interest Communication

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Ashli Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Persuasive Messages ◽  
Stakeholder Perception ◽  
Action Strategies ◽  
Animal Rights Activism

PETA is well known for creative animal rights activism, with studies exploring how its text-based advocacy creates change regarding societal treatment of animals. What is less explored is how PETA uses on the ground direct action strategies as public interest communications (PIC). For PIC scholars, these strategies are relevant, as direct action provides communicators with experiential ways to persuade stakeholders of new perspectives to push for social change. Building on previous studies in public relations activism and PIC, this essay argues that PETA’s direct-action strategies complement its text-based advocacy by shaping stakeholder perception through encounters with material realities, specifically by using embodied forms of persuasion. Answering how public interest communicators create effective persuasive messages on the ground is crucial in understanding contemporary social change. 

The public interest: A new way of thinking for public relations?

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Media Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The 1950S

Despite some sporadic attention since the 1950s, the concept of the public interest has failed to attract the consideration of public relations scholars in the same way it has other disciplines. This article examines this seeming anomaly while also presenting an overview of how scholars from politics, media, law, anthropology and planning have engaged with and often embraced the public interest, including through key public interest theories or intersections with the work of other theorists, such as Habermas. The article also explains why the public interest historically polarised scholars and suggests how this may account for its marginalisation within public relations. It draws on themes developed in a new book – Public Relations and the Public Interest – in challenging public relations to more fully engage in this space. The article concludes that public relations may benefit from a deeper understanding of the complexity of the public interest and the ways in which it is viewed and adopted in other fields in order to more robustly connect with democratic processes and social change agendas.

scholarly journals On social change, agency, and public interest: what can science communication learn from public relations?

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (02) ◽  
pp. Y01
Author(s):  
Tara Roberson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Change Agency ◽  
Alternate History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This essay explores the relationship of science communication and public relations and contends that science communication has something to learn from public relations research. I provide an alternate history of public relations, drawn from the history of social movements (activism). I outline two areas from public relations theory: first, notions of human agency and equity in communication and, second, public interest in public communication. In doing so, I highlight how research from critical public relations could contribute to science communication efforts to enable participation with science and technology from wider, more diverse publics.

Cohabitants, Choice, and the Public Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Leckey
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Regulatory System ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
System P ◽  
The Face

Through the narrow entry of property disputes between former cohabitants, this chapter aims to clarify thinking on issues crucial to philosophical examination of family law. It refracts big questions—such as what cohabitants should owe one another and the balance between choice and protection—through a legal lens of attention to institutional matters such as the roles of judges and legislatures. Canadian cases on unjust enrichment and English cases quantifying beneficial interests in a jointly owned home are examples. The chapter highlights limits on judicial law reform in the face of social change, both in substance and in the capacity to acknowledge the state's interest in intimate relationships. The chapter relativizes the focus on choice prominent in academic and policy discussions of cohabitation and highlights the character of family law, entwined with the general private law of property and obligations, as a regulatory system.

Calm the farm or incite a riot? Animal activists and the news media: A public relations case study in agenda-setting and framing

2021 ◽  
pp. 2046147X2110551
Author(s):  
Deborah K Williams ◽  
Catherine J Archer ◽  
Lauren O’Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Front Page ◽  
Primary Producers ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Study Approach

The ideological differences between animal activists and primary producers are long-standing, existing long before the advent of social media with its widespread communicative capabilities. Primary producers have continued to rely on traditional media channels to promote their products. In contrast, animal activists have increasingly adopted livestreaming on social media platforms and ‘direct action’ protest tactics to garner widespread public and media attention while promoting vegetarianism/veganism, highlighting issues in animal agriculture and disrupting the notion of the ‘happy farm animal’. This paper uses a case study approach to discuss the events that unfolded when direct action animal activists came into conflict with Western Australian farmers and businesses in 2019. The conflict resulted in increased news reporting, front-page coverage from mainstream press, arrests and parliamentary law changes. This case study explores how the activists’ strategic communication activities, which included livestreaming their direct actions and other social media tactics, were portrayed by one major Australian media outlet and the farmers’ interest groups’ reactions to them.

Circles of Community, Strategies of Inclusion

For the Wild ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Pike
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Community Strategies ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Animal Rights Activism

Chapter Six analyzes the efforts of activists to create community by bringing together people with different agendas and backgrounds and the resultant tensions and conflicts that come about in the process. I look closely at activists’ work to connect environmental and animal rights activism with concerns about social justice, especially with regard to people of color. Activist gatherings are imagined as free and open spaces of inclusivity and equality and yet they set up their own patterns of conformity and expectation. This chapter looks closely at how putting the “Earth first” comes in conflict with “anti-oppression” work and vice-versa, as activists try hard, drawing on empathy and compassion, to decolonize their communities and dismantle patriarchy and transphobia within their movements.

Paradigms of Public Relations in an Age of Digitalization

2021 ◽  
pp. 262-277
Author(s):  
Badreya Al-Jenaibi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
The State ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Public Acceptance ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Public And Private

This study explores the uses of social media in public relations (PR) departments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It seeks to lay the basis for understanding the place of social media in the UAE and to contribute to the analysis of the issue of social change in the PR offices. The chapter assesses the state of PR in the UAE in relation to global media and highlights needs in this area for both public and private enterprises. Presenting interview data taken from a cross section of 40 organizations throughout the UAE, it addresses perceptions of benefits, challenges, public acceptance, and future strategies of social media in relation to global SM as whole. It finds that barriers to the use and acceptance of SM in PR have mostly been lifted.

PR for the Public Interest

2021 ◽  
pp. 96-126
Author(s):  
Melissa Aronczyk ◽  
Maria I. Espinoza
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Environmental Groups ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
Green Business

Chapter 4, PR for the “Public Interest,” reviews the endeavors which allowed industrial interests to promote their anti-environmental agenda as rational and reasonable. It also allowed them to advocate against the passage of further legislation. By advancing a rhetoric of “compromising for the common good,” PR actors helped diffuse the appearance of adversity in a 1970s and 1980s context of public concern over environmental damage, and cemented public relations as a legitimate profession with specialized skills of negotiation and dispute resolution. Throughout the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, as intensified battles over environmental futures were waged between environmental groups and business associations, PR actors found ways to create and manage influence in political contexts. PR consultants developed single-issue coalitions, public-private partnerships, green business networks, and other multiple-member groups, along with multi-pronged media strategies, to advance the idea of plurality.

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