Public Relations and Nation Building Influencing Israel [Hardcover]

All public relations emerges from particular environments, but the specific conditions of Israel offer an exceptional study of the accelerators and inhibitors of professional development in the history of a nation.

Documenting and analyzing the contribution of one profession to building one specific nation, this book tells the previously-untold story of Israeli public relations practitioners. It illustrates their often-unseen, often-unacknowledged and often-strategic shaping of the events, narratives and symbols of Israel over time and their promotion of Israel to the world. It links the professions genesis  including the role of the Diaspora and early Zionist activists  to todays private and public sector professionals by identifying their roots in Israels cultural, economic, media, political, and social systems. It reveals how professional communicators and leaders nurtured and valued collectivism, high consensus, solidarity, and unity over democracy and free speech. It investigates such key underpinning concepts as Hasbara and criticizes non-democratic and sometimes unethical propaganda practices. It highlights unprecedented fundraising and lobbying campaigns that forged Israeli identity internally and internationally.

In situating Israeli ideas on democracy in the context of contemporary public relations theory, Public Relations and Nation Buildingseeks to point ways forward for that theory, for Israel and for the public relations of many other nations.

1. Explaining the Nation: Israel, Hasbara and Public Relations  2. Public Relations, History and Nation Building  3. Shaping Communication: Diaspora Life and the Jewish Public Sphere  4. Determining Identity: Zionist Leaders as Forerunners  5. Shaping Factors: The Political and Media Environment  6. Early Zionist Institutions and Communication Practitioners  7. Emissaries, Fundraising and Nation Blcc