Includes index.

Inextricably linked to neoliberal market economies, public relations’ influence in our promotional culture is profound. Many aspects of the professional role are under-researched and poorly understood, including the impact on workers who construct displays of feeling to elicit a desired emotional response, to earn trust and manage clients. The emotionally demanding nature of this aspirational work, and how this is symptomatic of "always-on" culture, is mainly overlooked.

They are drawing on interviews with practitioners and agency directors, together with the author’s insights from observations in the field. This book fills a significant gap in knowledge by presenting a critical-interpretive exploration of everyday relational work of account handlers in PR agencies and underscoring the relationship-driven, highly contingent nature of this work. The author shows that emotional labour is a defining feature of professionalism, even as public relations is reconfigured in the digital age. In doing so, the book draws on a wide range of related contemporary social and cultural theories, as well as critical public relations and feminist public relations literature.