The public relations profession positions itself as expert in building trust throughout global markets, particularly after crisis strikes. Successive crises have tainted financial markets in recent years. Calls to restore trust in finance have been particularly pressing, given trust's crucial role as lubricant in global financial engines. Nonetheless, years after the global financial crisis, trust in financial markets remains both tenuous and controversial. This book explores PR in financial markets, posing a fundamental question about PR professionals as would-be 'trust strategists'. If PR promotes its expertise in building and restoring trust, how can it ignore its potential role in losing trust in the first place?

Drawing on examples from state finance, international lending agencies, trade bodies, financial institutions and consumer groups in mature and emerging financial centres, this book explores the wide-ranging role of PR in financial markets, including:

• State finance and debt capital markets
• Investor relations, M&A and IPOs
• Corporate communications for financial institutions
• Product promotion and consumer finance
• Financial trade associations and lobbying
• Consumerism and financial activism.

Far reaching and challenging, this innovative book will be essential reading for researchers, advanced students and professionals in PR, communication and finance.

About the Author

Clea Bourne is a Lecturer in Public Relations, Advertising & Marketing, at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her research on communication in financial markets has appeared in Culture and Organisation, Public Relations Inquiry, Journal of Public Relations Research and New Media and Society, and in edited collections.

Reviews

"From its dedication 'to those who know life on the financial periphery,' through its immense ambition to shine light into the myriad, often dark, intersections between finance and PR, to its conceptual clarity, Clea Bourne's book is a game changer. Leapfrogging everything previously written in this field, she fuses an egalitarian agenda, insider insight, and an impressive cross-disciplinary range to do justice to the most important neglected area in PR today. Trust, Power and Public Relations in Financial Markets is the killer app and the field will never be the same again. Ignore it at your peril.", - David McKie, Professor in Strategic Communication and Leadership, Waikato Management School

"Bourne's study combines the inside knowledge of a professional with the outside objectivity of a critical social scholar. The outcome is a truly insightful and critical evaluation of financial PR in the post-crash era. Written clearly and authoritatively throughout, this work makes a vital contribution, not just to PR research but also to our wider understanding of the global financial system. This is how public relations scholarship should be.", - Professor Aeron Davis, author of Public Relations Democracy and Promotional Cultures

"Finance is the business of trust. But how is financial trust produced, maintained, commodified in practice? Bourne unpacks the profitable Public Relations 'trust industry' in finance, and confronts it with some tough questions. In doing so, she pushes forward the literatures by understanding trust as a mechanism of power. Organising trust in finance, she shows, is as much about establishing procedures of transparency as it is about orchestrating silence and invisibility. Bourne's perspective cuts across literatures on marketing, finance and politics; and is highly recommended to researchers from all these backgrounds.", - Prof. Marieke de Goede, University of Amsterdam, author of Virtue, Fortune and Faith

Book Information
ISBN 9780367340728
Author Clea Bourne
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 258g