Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity

9 Public relations industry perceptions

The impact of digital media on reputation management practices

This chapter provides an overview of a thematic analysis of 15 interviews with senior public relations and marketing industry personnel regarding their ideas about brand authenticity and public relations. The result of the interviews are divergent, but reveal recurrent views about the nature of authenticity as it relates to brands, as well as some consistency of opinion about how to manage and protect brand authenticity in the long term. In particular, the aim was to question practitioners about the impact of new digital media on brand construction and management practices, and to see if the characteristics of digital media use have changed ...