Public relations and social morality as national identity: a cultural-economic examination of the US Government’s fight against venereal disease in the 1920s
Abstract
A historical case study of how United States Public Health Service (USPHS) officials used public relations in an active attempt to construct meanings within cultural contexts both illuminates and extends the cultural-economic model (CEM) of public relations, which is based on the circuit of culture. The case shows how the CEM would benefit from exploring why practitioners act as they do, as understanding a producer’s motivation can provide even more understanding of the attempts to create a desired meaning.