PR Studies

Book review of the year

On the last day of 2008, here's my pick of the most interesting and provocative books about - or of relevance to - public relations published this year (first posted at PROpenMic).

1. Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky. Well-written, thought-provoking and optimistic account of human ingenuity and community-mindedness. (My full review).

2. Crowd Surfing, Martin Thomas and David Brain. Two PR consultants describe how to survive in a world that seems out of control. Important and prescient (and consistent with some of Clay Shirky's themes); this book was written just as the world was about to tip into a recession. (My full review).

3. Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. There's definitely a theme emerging in my selection; Groundswell deserves its place because it's less optimistic, more realistic and better-researched than other books about social media. (My full review).

4. PR: A Persuasive Industry? Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy. In some ways it's an odd book: more of a guidebook than a textbook; though written by two British PR lecturers, it's anti-academic in approach and written in US-English. But it's written for students and practitioners, and even where I disagreed with it I found it thought-provoking. (My full review).

5. Flat Earth News, Nick Davies. A British journalist's account of the declining power of national newspapers and the unstoppable rise of public relations. It's a bleak assessment on both counts, but too important a book to ignore. (My full review).

UPDATE: I'm aware of three more books coming out in 2009 on a similar theme (surprisingly, two are from the same publisher): 

• Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR; 
• Rob Brown: Public Relations and the Social Web: How to Use Social Media and Web 2.0 in Communications;
• David Phillips and Philip Young: Online Public Relations: A Practical Guide to Developing an Online Strategy in the World of Social Media.

Comments

Book review of the year

On the last day of 2008, here's my pick of the most interesting and provocative books about - or of relevance to - public relations published this year (first posted at PROpenMic).

1. Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky. Well-written, thought-provoking and optimistic account of human ingenuity and community-mindedness. (My full review).

2. Crowd Surfing, Martin Thomas and David Brain. Two PR consultants describe how to survive in a world that seems out of control. Important and prescient (and consistent with some of Clay Shirky's themes); this book was written just as the world was about to tip into a recession. (My full review).

3. Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. There's definitely a theme emerging in my selection; Groundswell deserves its place because it's less optimistic, more realistic and better-researched than other books about social media. (My full review).

4. PR: A Persuasive Industry? Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy. In some ways it's an odd book: more of a guidebook than a textbook; though written by two British PR lecturers, it's anti-academic in approach and written in US-English. But it's written for students and practitioners, and even where I disagreed with it I found it thought-provoking. (My full review).

5. Flat Earth News, Nick Davies. A British journalist's account of the declining power of national newspapers and the unstoppable rise of public relations. It's a bleak assessment on both counts, but too important a book to ignore. (My full review).

UPDATE: I'm aware of three more books coming out in 2009 on a similar theme (surprisingly, two are from the same publisher): 

• Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR; 
• Rob Brown: Public Relations and the Social Web: How to Use Social Media and Web 2.0 in Communications;
• David Phillips and Philip Young: Online Public Relations: A Practical Guide to Developing an Online Strategy in the World of Social Media.