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Community activism provides a useful lens for reexamining core concepts of public relations theory and history: community, temporality, and feminist values. This project foregrounds the work of two transformative community activists and prolific authors, Grace Lee Boggs and bell hooks—women whose decades-long efforts balanced urgency and sustained commitment to issues, as well as the people in the neighborhoods and physical communities they were a part of. While temporal concerns have found a place in crisis communication scholarship (e.g., Bean & Madden, 2019; Bean et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2017), they have yet to be presented as a central part of theories of activism in public relations. Adding their voices and perspectives to the broader story of public relations history helps to (1) center non-corporate histories as public relations, (2) showcase stories and strategies of women of color as effective advocates and transformative community leaders, and (3) present temporally informed theoretical development in activist public relations, including the creation of a new framework: ongoing community activism. • This project adds diversity and nuance to narratives about public relations history through centering the stories of two women activists (Grace Lee Boggs and bell hooks). • The findings augment theory through revised understandings of community building and ongoing activism that emphasize physical place and feminist values. • Community activism reflects temporal extremes: Immediate responses to imminent threats and decades-long sustained campaigns. • A framework of ongoing community activism for public relations is developed, emphasizing community building and feminist leadership values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an alternative approach to the scholarship of activist public relations, based on the ideas of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu; notably his understanding of activism in society. Although Bourdieu is one of the most quoted sociologists in the world ( Santoro, 2011 ; Truong & Weill, 2012 ), his work has only received limited attention in public relations, and has been entirely ignored within the context of activist communication. This is despite his focus on power, relationships and the role of activists in modern democracies, all of which are central themes in public relations practice and research. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the discipline’s prevailing, dominant, industry serving, functionalist paradigm positions public relations’ role in society as to perpetuate social inequalities. However, drawing on his ideas leads us to question if public relations skills could be equally utilized to challenge existing power imbalances in society, either in support or on behalf of those groups and individuals whose voices have been drowned out by traditional public relations efforts. The author argues that Bourdieu was not only an accomplished scholar, but also an activist in his own right. It is this combination of personal experience with academic ideas that lends weight to his scholarly work through which he urged the scholarly community to utilize their skills, knowledge and research to challenge (perceived) inequalities in society. The emergence of this type of activist academic , committed to giving voice to multiple coexisting, sometimes directly competing points of views, would arguably further justify and strengthen the existence of public relations as a scholarly discipline in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article elaborates on the argument that the history of U.S. public relations has been distorted by the emphasis on corporate functions of public relations. The dominant corporate-centric view of U.S. public relations history often claim that public relations developed as a response to activists who attempted to interfere with business operations. That myopic, corporate-centric view has perpetuated a negative view of public relations as merely a tool of “big business”. In the past as well as the present, corporations have been learning from and co-opting activists’ innovative public relations techniques. By alternatively grounding U.S. public relations history in the works of activists, we open possibilities for re-imagining the field and legitimizing activists’ works as a positive, central component in public relations theory and research. We end by providing resources educators can utilize to teach a more balanced view of public relations history in the U.S. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]