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This paper examines the United States popular press’ representation of publicity and information bureaux from 1891 to 1918. Specifically this study discusses these bureaux’ relationship with the press, use by governments, role in political campaigns, and function within non-profit organizations. Publicity and information bureaux are an important part of public relations history and identity because they represent the departmentalization of PR within organizations. Implications for PR historiography are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of U.S. press coverage of propaganda indicates that the term propaganda had a largely negative connotation in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Propaganda’s association with religious, political, and grassroots organizations is identified and discussed. This analysis concludes that Edward Bernays’s assertion that propaganda was a neutral term for PR practice prior to 1918 is inaccurate. Implications for PR historiography are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores social media as a new genre within the history of the twenty-first century. An overview of genre's role within democratizing history is discussed. The authors argue the social media serves a new form of rhetorical action genre within the twenty-first century. The authors conclude that the genre of social media presents a new (post) modern genre within twenty-first century historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explores the influence and dominance of Alfred Chandler Jr.’s theory of corporate development within public relations [PR] history. Chandler's work on late 19th Century corporate development is influential in PR historiography. PR oftentimes places its genesis in the late 19th Century corporate sphere to distance itself from press agentry. Examining critiques of Chandler's work on corporate development, this study argues that rooting PR in a corporate context does not provide legitimacy to PR practice and skews PR history to favor a corporate narrative. Implications for both history and normative PR theory development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores and critiques the use of social media as a primary source in the writing of twenty-first-century history. Since the introduction of so-called social media in the early 2000s, social scientists, journalists, and users have hailed this media form as a revolutionary departure from the ‘old media’ that dominated the twentieth century. Part of the narrative of ‘new media’ is it provides greater amounts of user agency, removes structural impediments for social dialog, and promotes an egalitarian exchange within the global sphere. This article suggests that this account is a product of the narrative structure of classical liberalism, through which social media as an object of knowledge and effectivity is produced. It concludes that the use of social media as a primary source for social histories of popular protest will require substantive theoretical scrutiny by scholars writing about these processes of the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]