Genres and Processes in the PR Industry

Abstract

This article examines the processes involved in the production and pitching of press releases and considers the demands that these make on PR practitioners, particularly newcomers to the industry. The study tracks the course of events as a PR company undertook a promotional brief, using as its central source of data a daily journal written by an intern who was closely involved in the process. Three pivotal cycles of activity, each constructed by means of a cluster of satellite genres and activities, contributed to the overall process: brainstorming, writing the press release itself, and media-pitching. The findings show the ways in which the goals of the PR organization under study were achieved by means of a complex, dynamic, collaboratively constructed, and intertextually linked genre system. It is suggested that becoming a successful PR practitioner involves learning how to manage an interconnected process that is constantly evolving, and how to rework and repackage information for different audiences.