Social Media, Organizational Identity and Public Relations ― The Challenge of Authenticity

Public relations has been swift to grasp social media, yet its impact on public relations practice remains relatively unexplored. This book focusses on a way of understanding organizational identity construction in a virtual context, developing scholarship on the importance of a virtual presence in PR management, and further, to make sense of these identities as authentic, legitimate or plausible.

Through a diverse group of empirical case studies, this book explores the global perspective on organizational identities which transcend global boundaries via the internet including Volkswagen’s emissions scandal and Monsanto and organized social media protests. It also explores crowdfunding – an emerging form of capitalist development constructed through sensemaking in social media. By looking at the emergence of organization in today’s social media environment, it identifies how the interactive is created on a digitally mediated platform, sharing knowledge and engaging individuals in organizational identity construction.

Viewing the social construction of organizational identities through this lens, this innovative book locates how identities are plausible, authentic and legitimate - or not – through their ongoing communication via social media. It will be of great interest to academics teaching and researching in public relations, organisational communication and social media.

Amy Thurlow is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada where she teaches public relations and organizational communication. Her recent publications appear in Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management , The Scandinavian Journal of Management, Journal of Change Management, and the Canadian Journal of Communication. Currently, she is a co-investigator on a 5-year, multi-institutional SSHRC funded project focused on Reassembling Canadian Management Knowledge with a special interest in dispersion, equity, identity and history. She is a member of the National Education Council of the Canadian Public Relations Society and the international Commission on Public Relations Education.