6037 España, Jordi Xifra, Barcelona Meeting Com #1: International PR 2011 Conference, Competing Identities: PR in the 2010s

The first wave of applications for the Barcelona Meeting Com #1: International PR 2011 Conference, Competing Identities: PR in the 2010s on 28—29th June, is in. The organizers are delighted to report that it has already attracted major speakers and a truly international set of presenters.

Plenary speakers include Professor Bob Heath and Professor Krishnamurthy Sriramesh and participants, with abstracts accepted to date, come from all over the world including Australia, Britain, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Switzerland, and the U.S as well as Catalonia and Spain.

Deadlines:
• First opportunity to submit an abstract: Sunday, October 31, 2010
• Second and final opportunity to submit an abstract: Saturday, January 15, 2011
• Acceptance notification (by email) will be no later than Monday, January 31, 2011
• Early bird payment: Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
• Submission of selected papers: Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Details for attending and for paying registration (costs included) are now available on the website.

http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/meetingcom2011/index_eng.html

BARCELONA MEETING COM#1: INTERNATIONAL PR 2011 CONFERENCE, COMPETING IDENTITIES: PR IN THE 2010s

The end of the first decade of the 21st century has been marked by significant shifts in the power, practice, and theory of public relations. Alongside the continuing global expansion of connectivity, ecological degradation, and social media, more recent events – such as the global economic downturn and changing public attitudes to business – are creating different operating conditions. Academically, the rise of different voices in journals, books, and research has been paralleled by the declining power of the ruling paradigm of late 20th century public relations. The old centre has not held and a diversity of opinion that is less insular, and more socially concerned, continues to emerge. These newer voices differ on perceptions of present, past, and future – not only are there disagreements on what public relations is now, but on what public relations has been, and on what public relations might be. In examining public relations and identity construction in these more visibly competitive, and uncertain, times, this conference looks beyond business competition to competition between nations and cities, between practitioners in different professions, and between different academic disciplines.

Accordingly, the conference invites a wide range of contributions: that reflect, and that reflect on, the spectrum of possibilities of these conditions; that address current issues and trends; and that speculate on future pathways. Proposals addressing – and even challenging – the overall theme are warmly invited. Please feel free to contact the organisers directly if you wish to discuss the relevance of any proposal. We offer the following questions not as a definitive list, but as prompts for a spread of responses:

• What role does, or might, PR play in city, region, and national identity construction?
• How is the rise of activist, critical, and radical PR changing the field?
• As PR strives for academic recognition, how can it become more competitive (e.g., in journal rankings, research grants, discipline assessment exercises)?
• What can PR do to survive and thrive as some core business (e.g., CSR, event management, reputation) faces encroachment from marketing and other fields?
• What is the existing, or desired, role of PR practitioners in different competitive arenas (e.g., organisational leadership, social media development)?
• Should PR link strategically with other knowledge clusters (e.g., anthropology, pragmatics, semantics, neuroscience) rather than develop its own body of knowledge?
• What is the state of play with regard to the relevance of PR in such areas as arts promotion, cultural and public diplomacy, social marketing, sport, and tourism?
• How might new research in the history of PR impact on the field as it goes forward?

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David McKie
Waikato Management School
The University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton (New Zealand)
(64) 78384197
Email: dmckie@mngt.waikato.ac.nz

Ferran Lauleza
Open University of Catalonia
Rambla del Poblenou, 156
08018 Barcelona (Spain)
(34)933263600
Email: flalueza@uoc.edu

Jordi Xifra
Department of Communication
Pompeu Fabra University
Roc Boronat, 138
08018 Barcelona (Spain)
(34)935421484
Email: jordi.xifra@upf.edu