Today's Public Relations

Today's Public Relations: An Introduction is a comprehensive text that features all aspects of public relations with specific sensitivity to the message strategies that challenge practitioners to be successful, yet ethical. In this book, authors Robert L. Heath and W. Timothy Coombs redefine the teaching of public relations by discussing its connection to mass communication while linking it to its rhetorical heritage. The text features coverage of ethics, research, strategy, planning, evaluation, media selection, promotion and publicity, crisis communication, risk communication, and collaborative decision making as ways to create, maintain, and repair relationships between organizations and the persons who can affect their success.

Today's Public Relations: An Introduction works to redefine the teaching of public relations by discussing its connection to mass communication, and linking it to its rhetorical heritage.  The text features coverage of ethics, research, strategy, planning, evaluation, media selection, promotion/publicity, crisis communication, risk communication, and collaborative decision making as ways to create, maintain, and repair relationships between organizations and the persons who can affect their success. The book also examines the challenges of creating a solid foundation in the field of public relations while working to become a professional in a global society.

Key Features:

• Chapter-opening vignettes illustrate key points to be covered in the chapter.
• Web Watcher boxes highlight the importance of the Internet in PR today and encourage students to use the Web's resources.
• Ethical Quandary boxes lead readers to think through difficult situations in order to better prepare them for the challenges of public relations.
• Professional Reflections, written by practitioners, give a real-world perspective on the topics covered.
• End-of-chapter questions and summary questions, exercises, and recommended reading lists help readers to better comprehend the chapter material and delve more deeply into the topic at hand.

Intended Audience:   Undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations in journalism and business departments

W. Timothy Coombs holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Issues Management and Public Affairs and is an Associate Professor in the Communication Studies Department at Eastern Illinois University. Dr. Coombs has been involved in the teaching and practice of public relations for over 20 years. His primary research area is crisis research with a focus on the development and testing of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). His crisis research was awarded the 2002 Jackson, Jackson, and Wagner Behavioral Research Prize from the Public Relations Society of America. His book, On Going Crisis Communication, won the PRIDE Award for Best Book in 2000. He has also won a PRIDE Award for Best Article in 2002. He has published articles in Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal of Business Communication, Journal of Public Affairs, Public Relations Review, and Communication Studies. He has given public relations-related presentations to a variety of professional and academic groups throughout the United States. Dr. Coombs has also lectured on public relations-related topics in Australia, Austria, Egypt, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Robert L. Heath (Ph.D., University of Illinois), is Professor of Communication at the University of Houston, Director of the Institute for the Study of Issues Management, and Advisory Director of Research for Bates Churchill Southwest. His Handbook of Public Relations won the 2001 PRIDE Award for best publication. With co-editor Elizabeth Toth, he won the PRIDE Award in 1992 for Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations. He won the Pathfinder Award in 1992 and the Jackson, Jackson, andWagner Award in 1998. His other books are Management of Corporate Communication: From Interpersonal Contacts to External Affairs (1994); Human Communication Theories and Research: Concepts, Contexts, and Challenges (1992, with Jennings Bryant); Strategic Issues Management (1988); Realism and Relativism: A Perspective on Kenneth Burke 1986); Issues Management: Corporate Public Policymaking in an Information Society (1986, with Richard Alan Nelson); and Strategic Issues Management (1997), which also won a PRIDE Award.