Edited By Dejan Verčič, Ana Tkalac Verčič, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh and Jon WhiteNational audienceThis study, adopting a qualitative approach to political communication, looks in depth at the way Twitter is used as a PR tool by five French politicians. It suggests that the microblogging service plays a specific role in allowing them to monitor public opinion and current affairs, to interact with voters, journalists, stakeholders and other politicians and to disseminate information. The way politicians use Twitter is influenced by concerns of impression management (content and style of tweets), and also various institutional, political and social/symbolic limits, which contribute to reveal tensions between the field of French politics and the way it has shaped traditional political communication practises on the one hand, and the technical and social characteristics associated with Twitter on the other. While these characteristics may be factors encouraging politicians to adopt the microblogging platform as a PR tool, they also constitute challenges in terms of PR
This chapter applies recent theoretical developments linked to the concept of culture to the field of public relations research and practice, notably through the prism of creativity as a vector of cultural change.
Design/methodology/approachThe chapter is theoretical in nature, and draws on relevant scientific literature in the field of public relations research, but also the social sciences more generally, and illustrates the issues being discussed with reference to relevant public relations campaigns.
FindingsWhile the field of public relations has moved beyond simplistic models of cultural values and characteristics, it is argued that more complex visions of culture have been neglected. Specifically, drawing on structuration theory, culture can be seen as a "system-generating mechanism" relying on creativity to uphold and renew cultural references and norms. In this perspective, public relations is both producing/reproducing culture and being produced by culture. It follows that the concept should be apprehended not as an ontological category, but as a social construct, as the source of heuristic and discursive categorisations.
Social implicationsA call is issued for public relations to also question the ideological underpinnings of the production of symbols in which practitioners partake on a daily basis.
Originality/valueWhile the chapter fits into an emerging body of work discussing the cultural dimension of public relations, the link with creativity and the use of structuration theory to conceptualise this link contribute to its originality.
International audienceIn this chapter the political implications of social media and their affordances for political discourse are examined. The focus is on candidates’ Twitter usage during the 2014 EU elections in France and in Germany. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of tweets collected during a period of four weeks have been carried out on the basis of the functional operator model of Twitter. The model serves as a framework for assessing users’ tweeting styles, which can range between personal-interactive and topical-informative. The comparison of French and German top candidates’ tweeting styles, which mainly appear to be „personal-interactive“, however questions the candidates’ alleged efforts to enter into dialogue with their voters
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