Written by two practitioners with deep professional experience, this book introduces readers to public interest communications, which takes an evidence-based approach to using strategic communications to drive positive social change.
Each chapter includes accessible, applicable insights, exercises and real-world examples undergirded by theories and research from a range of academic disciplines: social and cognitive science, communications, systems thinking and human-centered design. The authors provide step-by-step frameworks for practicing public interest communications and illustrate each framework with multiple perspectives through practitioner interviews. Through a focus on fairness and ethics, the book helps readers acquire the mindset of a public interest communicator.
This book is an ideal resource for students in strategic communications, health and environmental communications, public relations, journalism, social entrepreneurship, political science and advertising, and in public interest communication courses specifically, who wish to promote lasting change on issues that advance the greater good.
Accompanying online materials include worksheets and links to further resources such as videos and podcasts. Please visit www.routledge.com/9781032531915.
Ann Searight Christiano is the founder and director of the Center for Public Interest Communications and a clinical professor in the Department of Public Relations at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, USA. The Center works with organizations around the world to bring a public interest communications approach to complex communications challenges. Searight Christiano developed the first-ever curriculum in public interest communications and completed a 10-year term as the inaugural Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications in 2020. Before coming to the University of Florida in 2010, Searight was a senior communications officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, directing communications for programs that address social factors like housing, education and mental health that drive health and wellbeing.
Angela Bradbery is the Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications in the Department of Public Relations at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, USA. Before joining the university in 2020, she was communications director at Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest advocacy organization where she developed and implemented communications strategies at the national, state and local levels and led coalition communications efforts. Bradbery also co-founded Smokefree DC, a volunteer-run advocacy organization that achieved the passage of smokefree workplace legislation in Washington, D.C., in 2006. Prior to that, she was a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, the Sun Sentinel and the Chicago Tribune. She earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism from UF in 1986.
