When I was a student, O'Sullivan's (1994) Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies was my deskside companion. Want to get your head round the concept of transitivity and know what to read next to find out more? Easy, just turn to page 319.
Franklin, Hogan, Langley, Mosdell and Pill's recently-published Key Concepts in Public Relations attempts to do the same in the field of PR by providing students with an overview of 150 central concepts in PR. Since PR as an academic subject is a relatively new discipline in the UK, we're still lacking a broad range of academic PR texts specifically written for students. As a result, any new addition which helps student navigate the subject both from a critical and practice-based perspective is welcome.
Reviews of any kind of dictionary/book of terms can easily become a list of what the reviewer feels was was left out, or one which questions the perceived curiosities included. Immediately falling into this trap, the first thing I did was to try to find the terms which students find the most problematic, or are easily misunderstood. Doing this, I stumbled upon Bottom Line and was instantly cheered that the book was trying to help students with some basic financial terms (when I worked in practice I was always stunned how few graduates understood the difference between profit and turnover). I then looked for some other similar terms. Annual General Meeting is in, but Report and Accounts/Annual Report is not. Actually it is - it is mentioned in passing but as there is no index (sorry, but this is a major omission in such a text) it is easy to miss. The lack of an index meant that for a while I was holding my head in my hands, wondering how 'internal communications' could have been missed out ... until I came across it under the heading of Public Relations (Internal).
The book's five authors all lecture in journalism studies or public relations at Cardiff University and as such the book's UK/western bias may be seen as inevitable but to say that "globally the PR industry is characterised by the prominence of a few large companies" (p. 8) is debatable. True, the statement stands if you measure dominance by fee income, but such a measure overlooks the local growth of public relations, and its different modes of practice across the world. Apart from an entry for Globalisation, and two paragraphs on Western Model (Dominance of), consideration of public relations outside the UK/USA is lacking.
Inevitably, five authors bring (at least) five different perspectives and countless enthusiasms to the project and it would be fascinating the know how they arrived at just 150 terms. Many of the entries are useful, incontestable and valuable and it's always good to have some of the basic PR terms which tend to be rather skipped over in textbooks (such as Account Management, News Agency, Photo Opportunity, etc. ) explained. As lecturers, it's easy for us to be so familiar with such terms we forget that they are alien to students and require explanation. It's also pleasing to see concepts such as Excellence Theory and Dumbing Down summarised in a few paragraphs, giving students a gentle and understandable introduction to a new (to them) idea.
However, as always with such projects, sometimes the authors' passions can dominate, and some of the more specialised entries could benefit from some editing. The shoal of Google-related entries (Googledance, GoogleEarth Google Games) could be reduced to one, with perhaps the short Social Media entry benefiting from the cull.
Interestingly, as I was searching for a link to this book, I came across a book with the same title, also published this year, but written by Sandra Cain and with '300-400 entries.' I await my copy with interest!
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