About

PR Studies is my personal weblog about public relations. I’m a university lecturer teaching this subject at Leeds Metropolitan University, but the views and interests articulated here are personal, not those of my institution nor of my colleagues.

In the 1980s I wrote about business and technology for a magazine based in London and New York. In the 1990s I worked in PR management specialising in the technology sector. In the 2000s I’ve been focusing on PR education and training.

I read widely, but only pay out of my own pocket for two periodicals: The Economist and Private Eye. I am independent of political or commercial interests though I support free markets and view myself as a social liberal. I am a member of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations and a contributor to Forward blog.

Disclaimer

This is an independent, non-commercial site. I strive for accuracy (within the constraints of an instant publishing medium), and will correct any inaccuracies that I become aware of. I credit sources through quotations and hyperlinks – and request that PR Studies should in turn be credited as a source.

I link to sites that we find useful and relevant to our interest in public and media relations. Yet I do not endorse or control the content of external websites. I strive to keep links up to date, but request help in alerting me to changed addresses.

Issues or complaints should be made to: richard@prstudies.com

Comments, trackbacks and email

I make it easy to comment, challenge or contact me. But I also need to guard against off-subject or offensive postings or comments. Much of my email through this site is spam and this is deleted rather than opened; I’ve started moderating trackbacks as most are machine generated. This may mean that a genuine enquiry is hastily deleted: if so, I’d encourage you to try again.

Editorial guidelines

I welcome contributions from students and others, so these guidelines are for guest contributors:

I strive to write succinct postings, using UK English that is intelligible to an international audience. My approach is journalistic: preferring short titles, short sentences and short paragraphs. Postings extending beyond four short paragraphs should use the ‘extended post’ facility.

I use minimal formatting, with minimal capitalisation (web and internet are acceptable usages on this site). I do not italicise publications (books, newspapers, news channels), and never italicise a word that is also hyperlinked.

Short quotations of less than a full sentence should be within single inverted commas. Quotations of one or more sentences should be indented using the ‘quoted passage’ button, without the need for inverted commas. Quoted sources should always be clearly credited, either by a note in the text or through a hyperlink. When linking to weblogs, I try to use a permanent link (‘permalink’) to ensure that the link is – and remains – specific.