A few months back I, probably somewhat rashly, agreed to write the public sector communications chapter in the next edition of Alison Theaker’s Public Relations Handbook publication.
Having prevaricated for a while now I’m facing up to the task with similar emotions to when I last wrote anything that was vaguely intellectually-based in my spare time – when i wrote my PR diploma dissertation.
Alison’s been kind in letting me have the text from the public sector communications chapter in the last book which she wrote. My task is to work out what should be in the chapter in 2011 and then get on and write it!
- Context – what do we define as public sector? What is PR in the public sector? What roles does it perform?
- History – how did we get to the current roles of PR in the public sector?
- Politics and PR – keeping the two apart while acknowledging the intertwined nature of both
- PR in central government – functions, strategies and delivery
- PR in devolved and local government – functions, strategies and delivery
- PR in government agencies – functions, strategies and delivery
- PR in the NHS – functions, strategies and delivery
- Proving the value of PR in the age of austerity
- Digital PR and the blurring of departmental boundaries
- Key current issues – reducing public expenditure, coalition government, transparency agenda, local government publications
- Case studies – two or three detailed examples of public sector PR in action
The target word count is around 6,000 words by the end of the year.
So what do you think? The book’s aimed at PR students mainly, so have I covered a broad enough range of areas to give a grounding in public sector communications and included enough of the current issues to keep the chapter as topical as possible.
Any feedback and thoughts on case studies would be gratefully appreciated!
