Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity

3 The digital public relations turn

Understanding how digital media is changing public relations practice

This chapter puts forward an argument for a ‘digital turn’ in public relations, as part of a new understanding of how public relations historiography and practice is progressing. Echoing other turns in PR history, such as the postmodern turn (Benecke and Oksiutycz 2015, Holtzhausen 2002, Mickey 1997), the chapter reflects on academic study of how digital media has changed PR, including consideration of the active consumer and the impact of digital activism. The dialogical nature of digital communications appears to have raised social consciousness among consumers, thereby elevating their role within the process of critique and evaluation ...