Abstract
As the definition of public relations has expanded and research into public relations’ history has exploded, it is no surprise that someone would collect chapters on U.S. public relations’ “greatest hits.” This book offers stories on how public relations strategies and tactics, if not professional public relations practitioners, have greatly boosted various social movements, regardless of whether the key players were aware they were doing “public relations.”
That historical social movements use public relations methods is not a new observation. Starting with Scott Cutlip, many media historians and public relations scholars have written briefly or extensively to push back the history of public relations centuries before the appearance of Edward Bernays and Ivy Ledbetter Lee. Likewise, many scholars have broadened the definition of public relations and observed its myriad manifestations.
What is new with the Capozzi and Spector book is its accessibility: Readers will find no references to theory; chapters contain in-text citations, but references appear at the book’s end; the writing is easy to understand, and every chapter ends with a brief “Takeaway” section that reminds the reader of each chapter’s main points. Takeaways do not offer historical lessons for the present and future, but they try to optimistically inspire public relations practitioners to continue fighting for social movements, regardless of whether past social movements involved such professionals.
As the saying goes, the book has something for everyone. Chapters, in order, cover a campaign to free Rosa Lee Ingram, a Black Georgian, sent to prison after a one-day trial by an all-White, all-male jury; public backlash against consumerism and corporations becoming more community oriented; the “Harlem Renaissance Movement (1920-1929)”; openly gay college football player Michael Sam and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) movement; two chapters on the “war on tobacco”; “how reggae built understanding for Rastafarianism”; efforts for a Jewish state; feminism; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the labor safety movement; “The Fight Against Income Inequality: From Huey Long to Occupy Wall Street”; fights against depression (and addiction, self-harm, anxiety, and suicide); and the anti-alcohol “temperance” movement. Chapters are not in chronological (or any other discernible) order.
Chapters vary in length, depth of focus, and clarity, and although only Spector and Capozzi get credit on the book’s cover and chapters carry no bylines, all chapters were drafted by others: the temperance chapter draft by George Damalas, depression chapter draft by Beth Chonoles, King chapter by Sara Dyer, and so on. Capozzi and Spector, who teach in the master’s program in public relations at Baruch College, explain that case studies were provided by their students, “along with chapters contributed by leading academics,” edited and expanded by themselves. But exactly who did what is unclear.
Unfortunately, the book also is marred by poor editing. The Jewish state chapter says, “U.S. President Woodrow Wilson . . . endorsed the Balfour Declaration” in 1922, but Wilson did that in 1917 and was former president in 1922. “Principals” are mentioned instead of the correct “principles.” Page 143 (in the temperance chapter) claims in present tense that U.S. Constitutional Amendments must be approved by 27 states, but the correct number is 38 and was 36 when both the 19th and 21st Amendments were ratified. Obvious punctuation errors are found throughout.
But most importantly, the book does not ask nor answer other than by assumption, the question of whether every act of social/legal/political advocacy is “public relations.” (This reviewer thinks not.) It is meant for practitioners and maybe for undergraduates. Serious scholars will consult research listed in its references.