Public Relations and Participatory Culture Fandom, Social Media and Community Engagement

While public relations practitioners have long focused on the relationship between organizations and their stakeholders, there has never been a time when that relationship was so dominated by public participation. The new model of multiple messages originating from multiple publics at varying levels of engagement is widely acknowledged, but not widely explored in scholarly texts. The established model of one-way communication and message control no longer exists. Social media and an increasingly participatory culture means that fans are taking a more active role in the production and co-creation of messages, communication, and meaning. These fans have significant power in the relationship dynamic between the message, the communicator, and the larger audience, yet they have not been defined using current theory and discourse. Our existing conceptions fail to identify these active and engaged publics, let alone understand virtual communities who are highly motivated to communicate with organizations and brands. This innovative and original research collection attempts to address this deficit by exploring these interactive, engaged publics, and open up the complexities of establishing and maintaining relationships in fan-created communities.

Part I: Foundations 1. Introduction (Amber Hutchins and Natalie T. J. Tindall) 2. Social Media, Promotional Culture and Participatory Fandom (Bertha Chin) 3. Public Relations and the Attempt to Avoid Truly Relating to Our Publics (Sam Ford) Part II: Theoretical Approaches to Public Relations, Engagement and Fandom 4. Encouraging the Rise of Fan Publics: Bridging strategy to understand fan publics’ positive communicative actions (Arunima Krishna and Soojin Kim) 5. Extending the Conversation: Audience reactions to dialogic activity on Twitter (Brandi Watkins) 6. Gamification in PR (Michelle Katchuck) 7. How the Top Social Media Brands Use Influencer and Brand Advocacy Campaigns to Engage Fans (Kelli Burns) 8. Brand Communities in Social Media: Strategic approaches in corporate communication (Clarissa Schöllerand Romy Fröhlich) 9. Gearing Toward Excellence in Corporate Social Media Communications: Understanding the why and how of public engagement (Linjuan Rita Men and Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai) 10. New Media, New Media Relations: Building relationships with bloggers, citizen journalists and engaged publics (Amber Hutchins and Natalie T. J. Tindall) Part III: Brand Perspectives: Applying theories of public relations and fandom in corporate, government, and nonprofit spaces 11. General Mills: [Re]Manufacturing the gluten-free consumer community (Patricia A. Curtin and Dara Y. Curtin) 12. Boosters, Idealized Citizens and Cranks:City communicators share and moderate information in social media, but real engagement is messy and time-consuming (Jacqueline Lambiase and Laura F. Bright) 13. Brand Community Management via Google+ (Michael North, Cong Li, Fan Yang andJiangmeng Liu) 14. What’s at Stake in the Fan Sphere: Crisis communication, skittles and how the Trayvon Martin case mobilized a fan-brand community(Amanda Kehrberg and Meta Carstarphen) 15. Riding the Wave: How the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge used storytelling and user-generated content to embrace slacktivism (Jamie Ward) 16. Facilitating the "Charged Public" Through Social Media: A conversation with Disney Cruise Line’s Castaway Cay Club Members (Richard D. Waters) Part IV: Stakeholder Engagement and Communication in Traditional Fan Spaces 17. The Transmedia Practices of Battlestar Galactica: Studying the industry, stars and fans (Mélanie Bourdaa, Bertha Chin and Nicolle Lamerichs) 18. The Structuring of Fan Communities in Sport: A public relations perspective (Justin Walden) 19. Entertainment-Education and Online Fan Engagement: The power of narrative to spark health discussions/action (Heidi Hatfield Edwards) 20. When Going Silent may be More Productive: Exploring fan resistance on Twitter to the Baltimore Ravens live-tweeting the Ray Rice Press Conference (Jimmy Sandersonand Karen Freberg)

Natalie T. J. Tindall is Associate Professor, Georgia State University, USA Amber L. Hutchins is the Robert D. Fowler Endowed Chair in Communication, Kennesaw State University, USA.