PRO PR, the leading public relations conference in south eastern Europe, has been postponed to 9-12 September, always at Terme Olimia Podčetrtek in Slovenia. The event has again been endorsed by IPRA.
The conference includes 22 presentations and four workshops spread over three conference days. The motto of the conference is: Rejuvenate public relations, rejuvenate yourself.
For suggestions on how to rejuvenate and tickets, please visit
Two Doctoral Research Fellowships (SKO 1017) in Media Studies are available at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo from August 2020. Application deadline: April 1, 2020.
Both PhD-positions will be integrated in the Department’s ongoing research activities. As a PhD candidate, you will be part of a research community where several researchers work within the same field and/or topic. Your application should include a project description, and it is desirable that your PhD project relate to at least one (or several) of these current research projects, research initiatives and activities at the Department:
For details on the position, the requirements and how to apply:
Call for Papers for a special number of the journal Facta Universitatis
#METOO MOVEMENT: PAST, PRESENT AND WHAT NEXT?
Guest editor: Dr Martina Topić, Leeds Beckett University
Deadline for paper submissions: September 1
Following 6th International Conference on Women’s Studies (Leeds, January 2020), a special issue is being prepared. EUPRERA members and colleagues are invited to submit papers for the call.
#metoo movement has gained prominence in 2017 with Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse case, which triggered many celebrities to accept the hashtag and tweet about their experiences of sexual harassment. Ultimately, this spread to the general public and many women started to openly tweet and talk about harassment and abuse they endured during their lifetimes. The movement soon achieved international recognition and became a truly global movement of women talking about harassment and fighting the prejudice from the post-feminist argument of all battles being won.
However, the term was originally created by a Black woman Tarana Burke in 2006 who started to tweet using ‘me too’ words to warn about harassment and abuse. Thus, #metoo hashtag movement has both raised an important issue and created awareness of harassment women face in their everyday life whilst, at the same time, creating a bitter feeling because it feels as if the movement has been hijacked from Black women whose equality plight is intersectional and fundamentally tied to their race and not just gender.
While the importance of movement and its positive impact is unquestionable, the question is how do we continue from now on and how do we make sure that all voices get heard? How do we teach about #metoo movement? However, these questions are relevant to the West. In other parts of the world, #metoo had a different context and was experienced differently, which again raises an issue, what next?
Therefore, this special issue tackles some of the problems outlined above. The proposed structure of the special issue is divided into two sections:
An introductory article will outline a timeline of the movement, its impact and some issues and debates that arose, and then discuss these against articles in the special issue.
This blog post has been written by Dr Martina Topić and is based on EUPRERA project report on Women in Public Relations (EUPRERA report Vol. 1, No. 1) co-authored by Martina Topić, Maria João Cunha, Amelia Reigstad, Alenka Jelen-Sanchez, Audra Diers Lawson, Mirela Polić, Ángeles Moreno, Belen Zurbano Berenguer, Beatrice Damian-Gaillard, Paloma Sanz, Cristina Fuentes Lara, Nataša Cesarec Salopek, Eugenie Saitta, Carla Cruz, Nataša Simeunović Bajić, Hanne Vandenberghe, Leli Bibilashvili and Natia Kaladze.
In four decades of research, women continually reported inequality and an unsatisfactory position within public relations organisations, based on bias and stereotypes. Public Relations organisations should review equality policies in organisations and consider to what extent are promotions grounded in old stereotypes about women not being fit for the job to increase staff satisfaction and workforce morale and contribute towards equality of men and women.
The research presented here was conducted on the academic literature published between 1982 and 2019. Academic studies analysed have been written based on interviews and focus groups with PR practitioners, thus providing an overview of the situation for women in the PR industry in the analysed period. These studies show the true situation in the field of public relations, better than any PR conference or associations’ meeting could provide because interviewed women express their view anonymously and thus without fear of repercussions.
An analysis of research conducted on women in four decades of research shows that the discrimination of women has reached a full circle and that women’s issues in the public relations industry are marked by bias against women and unfavourable position in organisations. The issues change over the time, and thus while women experienced bias in the 1980s of not being ambitious enough and thus prone to leave work to move away with their husbands, in the period between 2010 and 2019 a new bias emerged, this time claiming women have lower organisational skills and communication skills not always fit for the role.
For example, a thematic analysis of research has shown that women, during the 1980s, reported work discrimination (consisting of the glass ceiling, pay gap, being only offered technician positions and having PR degrees but still suffering from inequality against men with degrees mostly in journalism) and bias against women (consisting of covert discriminations of promotions where new positions were being invented for men, chauvinism, stereotypes against women being more inclined to look after families and move when their husband moves for work and the rise of women in the industry was seen as feminization with fears being raised of PR as a profession being under-valued). In the 1990s, however, new issues emerged and scholars started to report the issues of power, work experiences and work satisfaction and again glass ceiling and the pay gap. This period also brought criticism of liberal feminism as unhelpful for women and their plight for equality due to its failure to address issues below the surface, e.g. not just that the pay gap exists but why it exists. In the next period, 2000-2009, reports were made about professionalism (with particular reference on women still being confined to technician positions and lacking power in organisations) whilst the last period (2010-2019) was marked with a turn towards the beginning of the debate, and scholars reported concerns of women practitioners about work discrimination (consisting of issues such as women being confined to technician positions, pay gap and glass ceiling, but also lack of diversity and masculinities in work culture, which historically benefits men rather than women) and bias against women (consisting of issues such as stereotypes about women lacking organisational and teamwork skills, stereotypes about women’s communication skills and women lacking power in the organisations).
Topić, M.; Cunha, M.J. Reigstad, A.; Jelen-Sanchez, A.; Diers Lawson, A.; Polić, M.; Moreno, A.; Zurbano Berenguer, B.; Damian-Gaillard, B.; Sanz, P.; Fuentes Lara, C.; Cesarec Salopek, N.; Saitta, E.; Cruz, C.; Simeunović Bajić, N.; Vandenberghe, H.; Bibilashvili, L.; Kaladze, N. (2019). Women in Public Relations – A Literature review (1982-2019). EUPRERA Report Vol 1., No. 1. Leeds/Brussels: Creative Media and Communications Research Ltd. & EUPRERA. ISSN 2633-2353
Martina Topić is a senior lecturer in Public Relations at Leeds Beckett University, UK. She is a former journalist and entrepreneur and her research interests include journalism practise and women’s studies (with a particular interest in the position of women in journalism, public relations, marketing and advertising).
@martina_topic
IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, announces that the Golden World Awards for Excellence in PR (GWA) 2020 is now open.
Enter online at the IPRA website at www.ipra.org where you will find a description of the rules, an entry kit, the 37 categories, and a set of Frequently Asked Questions.
2020 deadlines:
The annual IPRA Golden World Awards initiative, established in 1990, recognizes excellence in public relations practice worldwide in a variety of categories. Recipients of the award take particular pride in the recognition granted to their entry as meeting international standards of excellence in public relations. An overall IPRA Grand Prix for Excellence is presented each year to the entry judged as representing the highest standard that year, as well as a special Global Contribution Award for PR with an objective of meeting one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Each year, the Institute for PR compiles the best research of the year that public relations professionals should know. Because of the number of excellent research studies published in 2019, IPR decided to add a few more studies relevant to the profession.
From the Institute for PR, we’re also happy to share recent studies on:
Professor Peggy Simcic Brønn, a very active member of our association, retired January 1, 2020. Peggy, a native Floridian, went to BI Norwegian Business School 1990. After completing her PhD at Henley, in 2000, she was promoted to associate professor, and then to professor. Peggy served as associate dean for the undergraduate program in public relations for ten years. In 2015, she and her team hosted the annual EUPRERA conference in Oslo. Her influence in corporate communication circles in Norway cannot be overestimated. In 2013, she was awarded the prestigious prize Gullkorn, the Norwegian PR industry association, for her contribution.
Peggy will still be associated with BIs Department of Communication and Culture as emerita. She and her husband Carl spend much of the winter months in Key Marathon, Florida, and the rest of the year in suburban Oslo, near their children and their families.
EUPRERA interviews Øyvind Ihlen, Jim Macnamara and Ralph Tench asking them a short insight on ethics. These interviews are part of the First Ever Global Ethics Month, launched by the Global Alliance for PR and Communication Management.
The campaign #EthicsMatter will bring attention to the importance of ethics in communication in all areas of business, government, non-profit and education and showcase all that our members are doing to educate and empower public relations professionals.
Watch the 3-min insight on #PostTruth society, #legitimacy and #professionalism
Watch the 3-min insight on #PublicTrust, #professionalism and #manipulation
Watch the 5-min insight on why and how #EthicsMatters in EUPRERA’s #research and community
In this episode, we head to the US Bank Stadium to meet up with Rob Clark, CCO of Medtronic, to discuss the rising costs of healthcare, diversity and inclusion, the future of work and more.
Join Rob and IPR President & CEO Tina McCorkindale as they take an exclusive tour of The Minnesota Vikings stadium and learn more about the “purple people eaters.”
Don’t forget >>> Early-bird registration for IPR Bridge conference 2020 (Washington DC, March 26-27) ends on January 31!
EUPRERA Master Thesis Award: a unique opportunity to have an excellent thesis rewarded and to present it at the EUPRERA annual congress in Pamplona next autumn – all travel costs covered!
The award, run by EUPRERA since 1995, honours and rewards Masters theses (MSc, MA and MPhil) in any language that make a significant professional/ practical or academic contribution to the field of Public Relations in Europe.
The award is a celebration of the PR academia and of the role performed by European Higher Education Institutions in the evolution of knowledge of this field.
All theses in any language that research problems within the PR academic field and that contribute to the consolidation and/or evolution of the public relations body of knowledge will be eligible for entry.
All eligible theses should have been assessed and classified by the university of origin up to 13 months before the date of submission of the abstract to the jury and never have been a candidate to this same award.
The theses, at the time of application, must be accompanied either by a statement from the supervisor of the applicant, jury or other body of the university of origin, indicating the date of completion and/or assessment.
The award may comprise two categories: Practical Impact Award (theses following an applied research approach) and Theoretical Impact Award (theses following a basic experimental research approach and theoretical work).
Great if you could spread the word in your department and talk to promising MA candidates directly to encourage them to submit their important work. Download the poster for your department!
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