This dissertation presents a case study of the New York City based Press Relations Working Group ... more This dissertation presents a case study of the New York City based Press Relations Working Group (Press WG) of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), the 2011 social movement that advocated for economic justice in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The inquiry explores the group's practices of public relations in order to understand how they and other stakeholders co-constructed meanings concerning social justice at the time. The semi-structured interviews with former group members, public relations practitioners in their own right, as well as select work product (e.g. press releases) and internal documents are analyzed through the circuit of culture (Du Gay, et al., 2013). A theory stemming from Cultural Studies, the circuit of culture framework affords sharper understandings of power relations and processes of making meaning-of which public relations is a part. The case study data reveal at least six findings related to four themes concerning governance, professional and amateur practices, social media usage, and diversity of representation. Through these lenses, the interpretive analysis advances three arguments: 1. Although social movement activists and scholars have claimed that OWS was horizontal or flat in its governance structure and decision making processes, in iii practice the picture was complicated by multiple, often hierarchical forms of decision making and governance; 2. Despite widespread evidence of social media use throughout the movement, the Press WG was largely dependent on traditional tactics of public relations; 3. Public relations as practiced in the group empowered some, but oppressed others. These arguments not only clarify the role(s) of public relations practice in the case study, but also advance critical-cultural understandings of public relations theory.
This article extends Coombs and Holladay’s (2018) social issues management model to provide new p... more This article extends Coombs and Holladay’s (2018) social issues management model to provide new perspectives on activism and public relations. It also fills a gap in the literature on internal activism by analyzing the case of The Ogilvy Group and their employees, many of whom pushed for the agency to resign its work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Through a textual analysis of a leaked transcript documenting a meeting between Ogilvy management and internal activist employees, the communicative tasks of definition, legitimation, and awareness (Coombs & Holladay, 2018) are explored in a way that complicates identity and power. As public relations practitioners are increasingly called upon to either advocate for or against social issues, this study provides an interesting contrast, showing one interpretation of what happens when there is dissension in the ranks.
ABSTRACT The Carnegie Commission on Educational Television published a 1967 report with recommend... more ABSTRACT The Carnegie Commission on Educational Television published a 1967 report with recommendations that became the foundation for American Public Television policy. Commission researchers visited ninety-two existing educational television stations and seven systems of public television abroad to inform the document. The Commissioners attempted to create an entertaining and educational alternative to commercial broadcasting in the United States in a moment of legislative opportunity during President Johnson’s Great Society program. This essay explores the process of creating that system, simultaneously reliant on and distant from comparative media research. This tension may stem from a kind of American exceptionalism that has arguably haunted public television since its inception. Through textual analyses of archival material, as well as the Carnegie Commission report on educational television, the article traces lost lessons from public television systems abroad, as well as ambivalent rhetoric concerning diversity.
The discourse of the digital divide continues to shift from questions of physical access to quest... more The discourse of the digital divide continues to shift from questions of physical access to questions of empowerment and equality. Implicit in this shift is the need to make sense of technology use within marginalized communities, prompting the central question of this study: What happens to marginalized individuals after they gain digital access, and importantly, training? To explore this question, I observed and assisted a group of 18 mostly transnational, Latina individuals during a five-month long computer class in Newark, New Jersey. The study positions computers as a kind of "boundary object" existing as a material thing embedded within associated systems, local meanings, and practices as interpreted by the researcher. The voices and experiences of the classroom participants are examined through cross-disciplinary theoretical frameworks drawn primarily from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and a specific transnational study. Thus, the article makes a contribution to the field of Communication by bringing these theoretical concepts into conversation with pedagogical ethnography and Internet Communication Technologies (ICT). I'm living here a long time. I've taking five or six classes here: English classes, preparing for citizen test, and now the computer. Obligation is for me. Me hace falta. [.. .] Education is everything.-Gina 1 CONTACT Camille Reyes
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) department offers immigrants wishing to nat... more The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) department offers immigrants wishing to naturalize, or become citizens, a package of study aids for the citizenship test, including a video. This essay argues that the video is much more than a study aid; it furthers the myth of American freedom, a myth that effectively erases the struggles of marginalized groups. Situated within critical cultural studies and semiotics, the essay describes the content of the video and interprets the myth. The deployment of diversity is considered, along with implications for immigrants who intersect with some of the marginalized or absent groups.
Adding to the growing literature considering public relations practitioners as activists, this qu... more Adding to the growing literature considering public relations practitioners as activists, this qualitative, interpretative research article explores the controversial idea of acting as spokesperson for a so-called leaderless social movement, Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Through interviews with members of the erstwhile OWS Press Relations Working Group in New York, this article explores their negotiated dual roles as both activists and practitioners. Using critical cultural theory with its emphasis on power, context, and history, the group’s media relations tactics are discussed with an emphasis on the role of spokesperson, revealing contested meanings about public relations work. The framework of the circuit of culture explains the constraints experienced by many of these activist practitioners as they navigated ideals of their movement that were often in conflict with their public relations practices. The study finds uneasy relationships with power in relation to internal and external...
Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research that included an engaged participant component, this ... more Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research that included an engaged participant component, this article seeks to build a critical theory of technology adoption in urban communities. While the high cost of broadband Internet is undeniably an obstacle to adoption, we argue that solving the problem of cost is a necessary but not sufficient solution to the digital divide. To this end, the article contends that a community's relationship to communication technology-and their ability to see it as a political and cultural tool that can be utilized not just instrumentally, but more broadly as a way to fight poverty, inequality, and other forms of oppression-is a substantial factor leading to what we call emancipatory adoption.
This dissertation presents a case study of the New York City based Press Relations Working Group ... more This dissertation presents a case study of the New York City based Press Relations Working Group (Press WG) of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), the 2011 social movement that advocated for economic justice in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The inquiry explores the group's practices of public relations in order to understand how they and other stakeholders co-constructed meanings concerning social justice at the time. The semi-structured interviews with former group members, public relations practitioners in their own right, as well as select work product (e.g. press releases) and internal documents are analyzed through the circuit of culture (Du Gay, et al., 2013). A theory stemming from Cultural Studies, the circuit of culture framework affords sharper understandings of power relations and processes of making meaning-of which public relations is a part. The case study data reveal at least six findings related to four themes concerning governance, professional and amateur practices, social media usage, and diversity of representation. Through these lenses, the interpretive analysis advances three arguments: 1. Although social movement activists and scholars have claimed that OWS was horizontal or flat in its governance structure and decision making processes, in iii practice the picture was complicated by multiple, often hierarchical forms of decision making and governance; 2. Despite widespread evidence of social media use throughout the movement, the Press WG was largely dependent on traditional tactics of public relations; 3. Public relations as practiced in the group empowered some, but oppressed others. These arguments not only clarify the role(s) of public relations practice in the case study, but also advance critical-cultural understandings of public relations theory.
This article extends Coombs and Holladay’s (2018) social issues management model to provide new p... more This article extends Coombs and Holladay’s (2018) social issues management model to provide new perspectives on activism and public relations. It also fills a gap in the literature on internal activism by analyzing the case of The Ogilvy Group and their employees, many of whom pushed for the agency to resign its work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Through a textual analysis of a leaked transcript documenting a meeting between Ogilvy management and internal activist employees, the communicative tasks of definition, legitimation, and awareness (Coombs & Holladay, 2018) are explored in a way that complicates identity and power. As public relations practitioners are increasingly called upon to either advocate for or against social issues, this study provides an interesting contrast, showing one interpretation of what happens when there is dissension in the ranks.
ABSTRACT The Carnegie Commission on Educational Television published a 1967 report with recommend... more ABSTRACT The Carnegie Commission on Educational Television published a 1967 report with recommendations that became the foundation for American Public Television policy. Commission researchers visited ninety-two existing educational television stations and seven systems of public television abroad to inform the document. The Commissioners attempted to create an entertaining and educational alternative to commercial broadcasting in the United States in a moment of legislative opportunity during President Johnson’s Great Society program. This essay explores the process of creating that system, simultaneously reliant on and distant from comparative media research. This tension may stem from a kind of American exceptionalism that has arguably haunted public television since its inception. Through textual analyses of archival material, as well as the Carnegie Commission report on educational television, the article traces lost lessons from public television systems abroad, as well as ambivalent rhetoric concerning diversity.
The discourse of the digital divide continues to shift from questions of physical access to quest... more The discourse of the digital divide continues to shift from questions of physical access to questions of empowerment and equality. Implicit in this shift is the need to make sense of technology use within marginalized communities, prompting the central question of this study: What happens to marginalized individuals after they gain digital access, and importantly, training? To explore this question, I observed and assisted a group of 18 mostly transnational, Latina individuals during a five-month long computer class in Newark, New Jersey. The study positions computers as a kind of "boundary object" existing as a material thing embedded within associated systems, local meanings, and practices as interpreted by the researcher. The voices and experiences of the classroom participants are examined through cross-disciplinary theoretical frameworks drawn primarily from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and a specific transnational study. Thus, the article makes a contribution to the field of Communication by bringing these theoretical concepts into conversation with pedagogical ethnography and Internet Communication Technologies (ICT). I'm living here a long time. I've taking five or six classes here: English classes, preparing for citizen test, and now the computer. Obligation is for me. Me hace falta. [.. .] Education is everything.-Gina 1 CONTACT Camille Reyes
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) department offers immigrants wishing to nat... more The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) department offers immigrants wishing to naturalize, or become citizens, a package of study aids for the citizenship test, including a video. This essay argues that the video is much more than a study aid; it furthers the myth of American freedom, a myth that effectively erases the struggles of marginalized groups. Situated within critical cultural studies and semiotics, the essay describes the content of the video and interprets the myth. The deployment of diversity is considered, along with implications for immigrants who intersect with some of the marginalized or absent groups.
Adding to the growing literature considering public relations practitioners as activists, this qu... more Adding to the growing literature considering public relations practitioners as activists, this qualitative, interpretative research article explores the controversial idea of acting as spokesperson for a so-called leaderless social movement, Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Through interviews with members of the erstwhile OWS Press Relations Working Group in New York, this article explores their negotiated dual roles as both activists and practitioners. Using critical cultural theory with its emphasis on power, context, and history, the group’s media relations tactics are discussed with an emphasis on the role of spokesperson, revealing contested meanings about public relations work. The framework of the circuit of culture explains the constraints experienced by many of these activist practitioners as they navigated ideals of their movement that were often in conflict with their public relations practices. The study finds uneasy relationships with power in relation to internal and external...
Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research that included an engaged participant component, this ... more Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research that included an engaged participant component, this article seeks to build a critical theory of technology adoption in urban communities. While the high cost of broadband Internet is undeniably an obstacle to adoption, we argue that solving the problem of cost is a necessary but not sufficient solution to the digital divide. To this end, the article contends that a community's relationship to communication technology-and their ability to see it as a political and cultural tool that can be utilized not just instrumentally, but more broadly as a way to fight poverty, inequality, and other forms of oppression-is a substantial factor leading to what we call emancipatory adoption.
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