My second recommendation is Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street, Kara Alaimo (September 2016). To contextualise PR practice within different countries and cultures, Kara Alaimo’s Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street addresses vital cultural differences practitioners have to consider in their approaches to planning and the management of public relations programmes globally. Packed with prominent case studies from Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and Sub-Saharan Africa, this book demonstrates how to adapt and implement PR strategies across the private, NGO, and government sectors to deliver highly impactful projects within intercultural context.
This book is the outcome of research by Lloyd and Toogood in the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. It provides an overview of the history of PR and the contemporary PR industry, focusing on its changing practice in the digital age. However, the book is primarily based on the interviews of experts and does not engage with much existing literature. It should be read in conjunction with other key authors’ works on PR.
Business of Influence, Philip Sheldrake (April, 2011). Philip Sheldrake sets out an innovative model of organisational communication as a result of the internet and online networks based on six primary influence flows in his book The Business of Influence. Sheldrake’s influence model plots six flows of communication between an organisation and its various publics. It overlays neatly onto Grunig’s Excellence model.
The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger (November, 1999). We continue to be surprised by the changes that the Internet is having on the business of public relations and organisational communication. We had plenty of warning. The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger foretold everything we know today. It is organised as a set of 95 theses organised and put forward as a manifesto, or call to action, for organisations operating in Internet-connected markets.
Anne Marie Lacey
Award-winning practitioner and CIPR Young Communicator of the Year Anne Marie name dropped our own visiting professor Stephen Waddington with her choices. Both of Stephen’s books with Steve Earl – Brand Anarchy and Brand Vandals – offer an insight into the impact social media has had on PR and marketing communications. She also agrees Wadds on Sheldrake’s book – I always refer to his ‘Six Flows of Influence’ when teaching.