Maybe 'reflection' is putting a bit strongly, but here are a few comments/links to things I found interesting at the Euprera Leeds Congress (@euprera2011)....
It was good to have a few tweeters (the tag was #euprera2011), including @miriamzwaan, @aleksikoski, and @GraceAkagwu - follow them!
Creating and Destroying Relationships on Facebook slideshare presentation by @jahapaula
Investor Relations 2.0 slideshare presentation by Kristin Koehler
(Although I don't think the title works in English), German site Communication Controlling looks a useful resource - certainly there was much to think about in the presentation by Duhring and Linke (@AnneLinke).
Today Stefan Fink (@stephanfink) kindly sent me a link to his Social Governance 2011 report.
I will be interested in reading Jeanette Gusko's full paper on The Image of German Corporations on Wikipedia - reputation as crystalised by Wikipedia is an under explored topic.
I tended to listen to the social media presentations, but also particularly enjoyed Adela Rogojinaru on The Fall of Narcissist Societies and the Rise of PR (corporate storytelling as self-celebration, Grunigian Excellence as showing off!), Liz Yeoman's insights into Gendered Experience of Client Relations in UK PR and Johanna Fawkes on PR and Hermeneutic Ethics.
Jo was actually talking about something slightly different but I found myself grappling with why so-called ethical PR promotes positive third party endorsement but is rather coy about encouraging third party criticism. OK, smearing is wrong (if smear implies a false allegation or association) but surely pointing to the weaknesses of a competitor position is a legitimate characteristic of reasoned debate?
Yeoman's drew on Arlie Russell Hochschild's work on emotional labour to explore some of the implications of the perception of PR as a "feminised" profession (including an amusing but true comment about CIPR website advice "going the extra mile for to prove you understand their business" that Liz noted was pretty much love, honour and obey...).
Andrea Catellani was good on Pro-Nucelar European Discourses: Socio-Semiotic Observations. I was intrigued by his references to "flux texts" will try and read something by JM Floch - French and complicated so I doubt I will understand it, but it sounds like it could give useful insights into social media narratives.
All in all a splendid couple of days. Now I need to start thinking about the Spring Symposium February 17-18, 2012) at the MHMK University for Media Communication in Berlin, organised by EuroBlog stalwart Holger Sievart.
That aptly sums up many interesting presentations we could listen to in Leeds.
The link to our Social Media Governance Studies (2010/2011) offers quite a lot of empirical data concerning the discussion we had about controlling and/or managing social media communication. Also, it had served as a major inspiration for the paper L. Dühring and I presented at the conference.
Posted by: Anne Linke | September 12, 2011 at 11:26 AM
Thanks for this quick review - I wasn't aware of Hochschild's work on emotional labour and Jo's reflection of it in relation to PR. Interesting addition to my (ever growing) PhD reading list!!
Posted by: Heather Yaxley | September 12, 2011 at 02:02 PM
Good review! Thanks for mentioning me. It has been a pleasure twittering about his congress. See you soon!
ps: do unofficial awards come with an official document, so that I can show off with my twitter award ???
Posted by: Miriam Zwaan | September 12, 2011 at 08:44 PM