Kate Fitch
I'm joining Monash University in late 2017 to lecture in communication and media studies. I previously chaired the public relations program at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, where I taught for nearly 17 years. I received an Australian Learning and Teaching Citation Council for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2011 for the development of the public relations curriculum and its focus on work-integrated learning. I research communication and media studies, with a focus on public relations. My recent research has explored gender, history and popular culture in relation to public relations. I am on the editorial boards of Public Relations Review and Public Relations Inquiry and am a member of the Mindframe Public Relations Expert Working Group at the Hunter Institute of Mental Health.
Address: Follow me on Twitter: @fitch_kate
Address: Follow me on Twitter: @fitch_kate
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Papers by Kate Fitch
public relations. This study explores public
relations in the Australian fashion industry
using ethnographic research and semistructured
interviews with six fashion public
relations practitioners. The findings suggest
fashion public relations does not easily fit
into mainstream understandings of public
relations. Rather, fashion public relations is
assigned a low status due to its close
association with marketing, promotion and
publicity and popular representations of the
fashion sector as glamorous and superficial.
Despite this, participants perceived their
work to be professional, where the dominant
activities of media relations, celebrity
endorsement, and relationship management
form part of a carefully devised strategic plan
to meet organisational and client objectives.
The findings offer an alternative perspective
on public relations by considering
practitioner experiences in a niche industry
field. The study provides new understandings
of public relations and calls for a
reconceptualisation of the field beyond the
narrow remit of mainstream public relations
definitions and professional associations.
value personal attributes such as openness and adaptability, the findings suggests that practitioners require intercultural competence, as procedural knowledge i.e. of specific cultures and as conceptual knowledge i.e. a reflexive and dynamic understanding of culture. More research is needed to understand the relationship between culture and public relations, and industry expectations regarding intercultural competence in an era of globalization."
Mental illness and suicide are complex issues which have significant social and economic implications. This study investigates the perceptions of public relations students towards ethics, following their exposure to resources developed to educate students about the ethical challenges involved in communicating mental health issues. The findings suggest students recognise ambiguity around ‘professional’ ethics in relation to these issues; the need for personal responsibility in ethical public relations practice; that ethical development is incremental; and that they learn most effectively through major assignments. The study includes recommendations for the teaching of ethics in relation to complex issues such as mental health.
This research investigates the perceptions of new media held by senior Singaporean and Malaysian public relations practitioners at that time. The aim of this research is to investigate the attitudes of senior public relations practitioners to understand better the impact of new media on the industry. It draws on interviews conducted with ten experienced practitioners in mid-2006 and offers an historical review of their attitudes to new media at a significant point in the evolution and use of new media. The results reveal that senior public relations practitioners struggled with the rapid development and increasing interactivity of new media. While some forms of new media were embraced for the opportunities they offer in terms of lower costs, speed, research and monitoring, and easily integrated into existing practices, the prospect of more interactive social media platforms and the increasing use of technology caused considerable anxiety in some practitioners. There was a general recognition that public relations would change significantly in response to technological developments and several practitioners saw this in terms of loss. The implications are that senior public relations practitioners were struggling to understand new media, and its potential for public relations, in 2006. These findings are significant in terms of understanding how public relations is adapting to a rapidly changing communication environment.
Social media offers additional communication channels and the capacity to influence stakeholders outside of more traditional media structures. The research suggests that practitioners, in seeking to promote clients’ interests through the monitoring of online activity and the increasing engagement of social media users, are struggling to develop appropriate practices in an environment where traditional public relations techniques and concepts do not apply.
This research finds that the constant negotiation of conventions and rules, and the determination of what comprises appropriate social media activity and behaviour, results in a blurring of boundaries between public relations and marketing. Significantly, the discourse of friendship, which is increasingly fundamental to social media, conceals the promotional and commercial nature of public relations activity. Relying on online friends and influential bloggers to disseminate information, and producing content and activity designed to engage users, suggests that relationships or ‘friendships’ are not understood in the conventional sense of reciprocity.
The implications for public relations are that working with social media exposes the difficulty of developing strategic campaigns aimed at managing communication between stakeholders where concepts such as friends, and the online personas of influential
bloggers, are increasingly credible and alternative sources of information. This analysis suggests public relations is struggling to negotiate the ethical parameters of social media practice and the limitations of traditional understandings of public relations in a social media context.