Women in PR History

Anastasios Theofilou is Principal Academic in Public Relations at the Faculty of Media and Communication, at Bournemouth University, UK. He holds a BA in Political Science and Public Administration, specializing in International Relations, awarded by the University of Athens, an MBA awarded by the National Technical University of Athens and the Athens University of Economics and Business, and finally a PhD awarded by the Athens University of Economics and Business.

"Despite it being a predominantly female profession, the books chronicalling the history the of public relations are populated by stories of ‘great men’. Women are almost invisible. But slowly things are changing. More women are not only being appointed at the highest levels, but finally they are escaping the shadow of great men. Their stories are both beacons of achievement and a measure of professional and social progress. This book marks an important moment for the profession. For the first time a collection of her-stories have made it to the light of day: it’s a shame, literally, that it has taken until 2020 to do so. This collection gathers together crucial and unique insights into the lives of some of those great women and the lessons that can be learned from them. It also maps the progress of emerging from the shadow over the last few years. It’s a crucial contribution to our history and every thinking practitioner and grateful academic should have it." - Professor Anne Gregory, University of Huddersfield, UK

• Introduction1 Re-examining the existence of the "velvet ghetto" and the "glass ceiling": examining the status of American women in public relations a generation later 2 Women in public relations: a thematic analysis of ECM data (2009–2019) 3 ‘Signum authenticum’ of women: herstories in Turkey’s public relations during the early years 4 Professional standards of PR in three decades through the lenses of Turkish women presidents of IPRA 5 Betty Stewart, Orientalism and Oriental Cavalcade: entertainment public relations in late 1950s Australia 6 The militant documentary films of Helena Lumbreras as dissent and protest public relations 7 A ‘herstory’ of Malaysian public relations: Paddy Schubert, Malaysia’s women PR pioneer 8 The Loi Krathong festival and Nang Noppamas: Applying current ‘PR’ theory to identify the first Thai female PR practitioner 9 Inez Kaiser: the perseverance of a public relations pioneer Conclusions