Public relations for social change

Abstract

In recent years, a strand of scholarship began researching protests as part of PR. Indeed, throughout the years, activists all over the world have used various strategies and tactics, including dissent and protest PR also understood as two related forms of persuasive communication. Dissent PR is dissemination of ideas and policies through PR techniques in order to bring about change in different areas of public life. Protest PR aims to persuade in order to implement those ideas into regulation or other forms of executive actions and public policy. There are cases when some movements or organizations can do both. Just like the British suffragette movement in the early 1900s, contemporary Eastern European feminist movements FEMEN and Pussy Riot are using strategies and techniques of both dissent and protest PR in their actions. This chapter reveals what those techniques are and argues that feminist movements in Eastern Europe have sought to overturn a mainstream PR approach of shock to attract attention in order to make a change in the society and leave a lasting impression to stay in the spotlight.