The 36 abstracts have been chosen by an international panel of reviewers from a record number of papers. For 2012, there is the usual wide range of topics with a special emphasis coming from authors researching the historic role of public relations in film, entertainment and casinos.

Authors come from 20 countries, with the biggest national group hailing from the US. For the first time, there are papers from Brazil, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates.

‘Early bird’ registration for the conference is open until April 30 at £225 per delegate, a saving of £50 on the full delegate rate. Already registrations are well up on 12 months ago. The conference is being held at Bournemouth University in England on July 11-12, 2012.

Prof Bentele is a full professor for Public Relations at the University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. Since 1994 he has held the chair for public relations at the University, a first for any German-speaking country. Between 1989 and 1994 he was associate professor for Communication Science and Journalism at the University of Bamberg.

In 1982 he wrote his dissertation about an evolutionary theory of signs. In 1989 he wrote a second dissertation (for the German habilitation) analysing problems of journalistic objectivity and media credibility.

In 1996 he initiated the first German conference on the national history of public relations and, in the following year, published his first specific PR historical article. Other articles followed. The history of public relations in Germany is one of Prof Bentele’s primary fields of research, especially research about PR (Öffentlichkeitsarbeit) in the GDR. He has been an advisor for many Master theses on PR historical questions and still advises on doctoral theses about PR in the GDR. For more than a decade he has taught a Masters-level PR history courses. Since some years he has been preparing a website on the history of PR in Germany, which will be launched this year.

He has served as a guest professor in Zurich and Lugano (Switzerland), Jyvaskyla (Finland), Riga (Latvia), Sofia (Bulgaria) and Klagenfurt (Austria), and a visiting research scholar at Ohio University and San Diego State University in the US.

Between 1995 and 1998 Prof Bentele served as the president of the German Association for Communication and Media Studies. In 2004, he was president of EUPRERA, the European organisation for PR Education and PR Research.

Prof Bentele is author and co-author of 18 books, has edited and co-edited 22 more books, and written more than 280 scientific articles in the fields of public relations, communication theory, journalism and semiotics. In 2004 he was the German Public Relations Association (DPRG) “PR Personality 2004” and in 2007 he was honoured as the German “professor of the year” out of more than 700 nominees. In 2010 he was elected as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Leipzig.

Starting in Houston with historian Dr Frank E. Vandiver of Rice University and followed in Boston the following year with another historian, Pulitzer Prize winner Dr Allan Nevins, they go right up to the latest 2011 edition presented by Richard Edelman, President & CEO of the Edelman public relations firm.

Almost all the 50 Distinguished Lectures over the last half-century are available, a valuable and rich collection of insights and commentaries on public relations.

The listing of films, TV, radio and novels on PR has been updated with the addition of the PRDepiction web-based resource to power it.

Both can be found under the resources tab on the website.

While the US (18) and UK (8) have the largest national groups of submissions, the conference is increasingly international in its reach. Researchers in 28 countries have put in abstracts, almost double the 2011 range. This year, for the first time, abstracts have come from Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Georgia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, New Zealand, Palestine, Turkey, Taiwan and UAE.

It’s excellent news and a boost for future research. In all, the conference has received more than 170 abstracts for three conferences and demonstrates that this really is a developing field.

The conference will be held at Bournemouth University on July 11-12 next year. Join us and make history!

Registration for  the Conference, to be held again at Bournemouth University, has opened. Details can be found under the Registration tab or at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2517357484.

Join us on July 11-12 and make history!

Potential speakers have proposed papers and presentations on public relations archives and collections in the UK and US. So we are making a call for papers, presentations and information about archives and collections.

Are you aware of an archive mainly concerned with public relations? It might be about an organisation, a major personality, a collections of books and paper or in audio or visual form – film, television, audio, posters, exhibitions. It could be a stand-alone collection or part of a national archive, for example, the Library of Congress papers in the U.S.

If you would like to submit a paper or presentation, please do so by Monday, December 12. Alternatively, please send details of archives and collections to prhistory@bournemouth.ac.uk by Monday, June 4, 2012.

These will be included the conference papers and discussed at the archives special session at the conference, and later posted on its website, under the Resources section.

The IPRA archive was acquired by Bournemouth University in early 2011. It contains papers, newsletters, books and photographs from 1953 to the early 2000s. A preliminary cataloguing of the archive has been undertaken by Prof Tom Watson of The Media School. Brief summaries have been made of the Executive Minutes and Agendas, Conferences and Meetings correspondence, and Congresses correspondence. Also other elements of the archive are listed.

Include in the archive’s photographic collection are photos of Edward L. Bernays, Doris Fleischman (1) and post-war pioneers of public relations.

The full Call for Papers is accessed through this link: IHPRC 2012 – CALL FOR PAPERS

The first key date is Monday December 12 for abstracts. Successful authors will be notified in the week of January 23-27.

Referencing style is Harvard. Please use the BU Guide to Citation in the Harvard Style  http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/citing_references/docs/Citing_Refs.pdf