*CFP* "PR, SOCIETY AND THE GENERATIVE POWER OF HISTORY", SPECIAL ISSUE, PUBLIC RELATIONS REVIEW

The starting point for the special section is the original meaning of history, which has its roots in the Greek word ἱστορία, translated by the Romans as historia meaning ‘an inquiry’ or ‘knowledge acquired by investigation’. We use this as a springboard for engaging with interdisciplinary, critical and complex issues in the present and future, that public relations scholarship needs to address. In this sense, history has a place in contemporary experience and historical excursions are necessary whenever the present is being investigated. As James Baldwin notes:

‘[T]he great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations’ 

(James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket, 1965).

The papers in the special section of Public Relations Review will open up questions of how histories are put to use by people in different ways in order to explore how the past is constructed from the present; how the present is always historical, and how both past and present power imagined futures. 

Contributions will address the question of power and resistance explored from the perspective of promotional communication (management), traced across different phenomena (e.g. organizations, institutions, networks, societies) and fields of activity (e.g. sport, education, business, activism, government, arts). 

 

We invite submissions adopting a critical and interdisciplinary approach to topics which include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Profession 
• Inequality, discrimination and social exclusion 
• Influence and social change 
• Theory/Historiography 
• Culture 
• Race/ethnicity 
• National identity 
• International communication 
• Public diplomacy 
• Corporate social responsibility 
• Rhetoric

Abstract submissions

Submissions should be 5000 word full papers, prepared in accordance with the style of Public Relations Review.

For questions about the special section, please email one of the guest editors:

• Lee Edwards, l.edwards2@lse.ac.uk
• Øyvind Ihlen, oyvind.ihlen@media.uio.no
• Ian Somerville, ijas1@leicester.ac.uk

 Deadline: October 31, 2020